*****To Bleed These Tears*****
Part 1- Tourniquet
A/N: Since I'm almost always listening to Evanescence, it's no wonder I come up with so many Angst fics to go with their songs. I've only done a few so far, and they're all pretty much AU to eachother.
*
Warning: If you don't like angst, turn back now.
*
*
* ***Tourniquet*** *
*
*
*I tried to kill the pain*
*But only brought more*
On the placidity of the night air, not a sound was heard through the dojo. Only the gasp of unnaturally rhythmed breath from behind the shoji wall made a shiver through the very stillness. Away from where the others slept, the energy of pain resonated where Kenshin was doubled over on the floor.
The way he sobbed might have seemed to be a cry, but with no mercy from himself, no tears could be forced by any amount of strength he summoned.
Dear Kami, if he could only cry. Let the tears carry out his sorrow; at least find some way to manifest his grief. But none flowed; none.
He couldn't find comfort in kata, though he tried, night after sleepless night, to forget while he artfully handled his sword. He couldn't find it in sleep, as nightmares haunted him for all he was worth. He couldn't find it in women, for the long past death of his wife was a very source of his grief, and he knew, although he loved Kaoru-Dono, he would never let himself touch her. Solace was nowhere.
'Undeserving,'
'Inhuman,'
'Hell-bound Hitokiri.'
So many thoughts ran through his mind. So many words he used to scold himself. His own unworthy self. He knew his life was good for nothing. He was only a burden to this world.
No tears. Why wouldn't the tears come? Why couldn't he drown the silence at least? If Hell was inevitable, why could he at least not cry?
'Baka, make the tears flow!' his mind was screaming. The silence drove him blind, as he fumbled desperately for his sword.
He could let the pain go unchallenged no longer.
The end of the blade ran along his skin, making the blood spill through. If he could not cry, this would do.
*I lay dying*
*And I'm pouring*
*Crimson regret*
*And betrayal*
The sword lifted away and made another slice on his opposite arm.
How ironic.
The sakabatou, the sword he used to protect life, the sword-that-does- not-kill; finally getting what it desired. To taste blood.
How ironic.
That the blood it tasted was none other than that of the man who wielded it.
The very nature of a sword is to kill. Each one has it's own blood lust. It's own spirit that desired to be stained with crimson. Even those wielded in best of intentions want-... need... to kill.
Prayer.
Suddenly the thought came to his mind like a flash of lighting. He needed to pray. He was going to die by his own hand.
'I know this is wrong.' The thought raced past his mind, 'But maybe I'm too far gone to be redeemed. Why not end it here? Why not finish it?'
*I'm dying,*
*Praying,*
*Bleeding,*
*And screaming.*
*Am I too lost to be saved?*
*Am I too lost?*
The veins pulsed in his arms as the blood flowed freely and spilled onto the dojo floor. The rurouni's violet eyes glazed as he drifted away, feeling faintly fuzzy.
In an almost twisted interest, he watched the dark pool gather on the floor, swirling and slowing. He was liberated in this sick euphoria, letting the life drip from his finger tips.
The skin on his face crawled and tingled, the color draining from it. Every muscle in his body was cold, his skin contracted, tensed, frozen.
Slipping into near ecstasy, one obscure thought flashed before him.
"How will Kaoru-Dono clean this floor?"
The pupils of his eyes shrank in fear.
"Kaoru-Dono!" He cried, placing his hand over the wound, trying to stop the blood. "How could I have done this to her? How could I be so selfish? Damn you, Himura! Always making these decisions. All you ever do is hurt her!"
Jarred back into full consiousness, he pulled the sleeve of his gi tightly around his arm to stop the flow.
"Please, Kami, no! I changed my mind! I don't want to die!"
*My God, my tourniquet*
*Return to me salvation*
*My God, my tourniquet*
*Return to me salvation*
Finally the tears shook free as he lashed his head back, in anguish, his long stray hair the same hue as the pool on the floor of Kaoru's dojo. The crystaline liquid sparkled down his face and into the ridges of his scar: A perfect X.
*Do you remember me?*
*Lost for so long?*
Kaoru drowsily sat up in her futon, knowing something wasn't right. Clad in only her sleeping yukata and tabi, she padded onto the dirt, bracing her goosebumped flesh with a thin shawl.
"Kenshin?" She asked intuitively to the night. She noticed that he often came out when he couldn't sleep, practicing kata to settle his mind. She would sometimes crawl into the shadows and watch him, admiring in wonder all his beauty and pain. Wishing she could learn his secrets, share his grief.
So long she would watch him, that she once fell asleep, awakening in the morning, to find herself back in her own futon, not a trace of Kenshin anywhere.
"Where are you, Kenshin?" She whispered to the darkness.
There was a sob.
A sound.
She knew it was him. Flinging open the shoji, the image pummeled her to the ground. Kenshin lay on the floor, pitifully bleeding and crying.
"Kenshin! Kami-Sama, no! Kenshin!" She ran and kneeled by his side, reaching out to him. She gripped his limp wrist, but he didn't respond.
"No. Don't be gone, Kenshin! Don't leave me!"
*Will you be on the other side?*
*Or will you forget me?*
Kaoru tenderly picked up Kenshin and turned him over. She bit the edge of her shawl and used her hand to tear it, tieing one strip on his shoulder first, then binding the wound.
"Kaoru-Dono?" Kenshin's agonized voice forced.
"Shhh," She crooned, stroking back the limp hair from his face, dampened with tears and sweat. Finishing the second bandage, she propped him against the wall to look in his eyes.
In that moment, so many questions, apologies and declarations, made their way through the two. Silence was pressing them to say something: anything.
"Kenshin, I-" Kaoru's voice tripped in her throat, her mouth froze, her blood thickened. She could only manage one utterance, gazing from Kenshin's bloody sword and back to his grieving eyes,
"Why?"
His breath caught as though on spikes. He wasn't prepared to answer.
'Why?'
*I'm dying,*
*Praying,*
*Bleeding,*
*And screaming*
*Am I too lost to be saved?
*Am I too lost?*
The raven haired girl only repeated her question, when she saw he was averting his gaze to avoid an answer.
"Kenshin, Why?"
She cupped his chin in her hand and looked at him helplessly.
"I- had to." Was all the former hitokiri could say.
Her fingers slid down his arm to the blood soaked bandages on his wrist. Her heart pounded, as she tried to figure this out.
All she ever wanted to do since the day she met Kenshin, was try to look behind the mask he constructed. She wanted to be closer to him; to know his secrets, to feel his pain. To share every last miserable emotion to every small pleasure he enjoyed, so he wouldn't feel so alone.
But this, this she couldn't understand. She longed to know what drove him so far without her even knowing.
'Am I so easily fooled by his act? How am I so stupid that he can slip this emotion past me?' Kaoru's thoughts drove her to frustrated tears.
She gritted her teeth as she reached for Kenshin's sword. He reached his hand out to stop her, his mind screaming with confusion.
"Kaoru-Dono, wha-"
"I want to feel your pain," She said, staring firmly at him and making a defiant slit in her wrist. She flinched as the blade split her skin, but kept her face straight, determined to get through to Kenshin or die.
*My God, My Tourniquet*
*Return to me salvation*
*My God, My Tourniquet*
*Return to me Salvation*
"Kaoru? Come on, Busu, where are you?" Yahiko was now the third one awake, and he had heard Kaoru leave her room. Following the footsteps in the dirt, he heard muffled sounds from inside where Kaoru cried.
Looking through the open door, he saw only Kaoru bleeding with Kenshin's stained sword beside her, and didn't hesitate to make conclusions. What he thought he saw, pained him so deeply. How could Kenshin do such a thing? The same man he admired and looked up to?
"What the hell did you do to her?" He screamed in a rage of fury and dissapointment, advancing towards them. He raised his fists in anger, running across the floor, until he slid to a halt besides them. He saw Kenshin with tears in his eyes, and bleeding worse than Kaoru.
All the boy could do was pause unblinking at the two bleeding on the floor together. Kenshin had always been a role model for him, and though he would never admit it, he respected and loved Kaoru, for all she was. Even though he fought with her most every oppourtunity he got, and called her 'Busu' instead of her name, or 'Instructor', he couldnt deny that she was a strong wonderful person, who in spite of his stubborness and temper had taken him in.
Now he didn't know what to make of it. The two greatest figures in his life. Fallen. Reduced to their most weakened state. He didn't want to see it, but couldn't bring himself to stop.
"I- I'll get some water," He turned on his heel and ran to the well. He brought back with him a bucket of water and a towel.
Kenshin and Kaoru still hadn't moved from their shocked positions.
"Yahiko-" Kaoru muttered as he began to soak the towel for them.
"Ara?" He looked up at her face smiling lightly.
"Arigatou."
They both looked at eachother in silence for a moment, until Yahiko put the cloth down and stood up.
"I'm going to go get Megumi." He dashed back out of the door and down the dirt path to make it to the clinic.
"Kaoru-Dono?" Kenshin said, feeling dizzy, as his eyelids became heavy.
"Kenshin?"
"I'm going to die." Without a waver in his voice the words spilled out.
*My wounds cry for the grave*
*My soul cries for deliverance*
"No, Kenshin, you're not." She whispered, wiping his face with the damp cloth, and then his wounds.
"Gomen nasai," Kenshin said, a moan of pain halfway through his apology, while Kaoru touched the slit on his arm with the towel.
"No time for remorse now. You still need to live." Kaoru quieted him.
"I have no purpose to live for," He said, distantly, "I'm only a burden."
"Baka!" Kaoru said with a violent incantation, but still through clenched teeth, "How can you still not see how much you mean to everyone?"
"It would be selfish of me to stay."
"The only selfish thing would be to let yourself die on me. I still need you. We all still need you."
Kenshin's eyes glistened with tears, laying there in Kaoru's arms.
Her own wound split again bringing forth new fresh blood, but she didn't care now. The sting in her body was only a background feeling. Inconsequential.
"Anata," Kaoru whispered to him. Surprised at how she addressed him, he gazed at her with full attention, "I forgive you, Kenshin. I'll be here whenever you want to die, and hold on to you. Just don't leave me now."
The last of his strength dropping, Kenshin settled his neck and buried his face in the cloth of her yukata, feeling like a child beside his mother.
'It would be beautiful to end like this', he thought. But he simply couldn't. And though he could not speak, the words in his mind were clearer than they had ever been.
'Aishteru, Kaoru-Dono. De gozaru."
*Will I be denied?*
*Christ...*
*Tourniquet...*
*My suicide*
*
*
*
A/N afternote: Ok, so how was that? Was it terribly evil of me? Just please review, and tell me how you enjoyed or disliked the story. I can handle most any kind of review, and embrace criticism, so feel free.
Love, Toby-Chan.
A/N: Since I'm almost always listening to Evanescence, it's no wonder I come up with so many Angst fics to go with their songs. I've only done a few so far, and they're all pretty much AU to eachother.
*
Warning: If you don't like angst, turn back now.
*
*
* ***Tourniquet*** *
*
*
*I tried to kill the pain*
*But only brought more*
On the placidity of the night air, not a sound was heard through the dojo. Only the gasp of unnaturally rhythmed breath from behind the shoji wall made a shiver through the very stillness. Away from where the others slept, the energy of pain resonated where Kenshin was doubled over on the floor.
The way he sobbed might have seemed to be a cry, but with no mercy from himself, no tears could be forced by any amount of strength he summoned.
Dear Kami, if he could only cry. Let the tears carry out his sorrow; at least find some way to manifest his grief. But none flowed; none.
He couldn't find comfort in kata, though he tried, night after sleepless night, to forget while he artfully handled his sword. He couldn't find it in sleep, as nightmares haunted him for all he was worth. He couldn't find it in women, for the long past death of his wife was a very source of his grief, and he knew, although he loved Kaoru-Dono, he would never let himself touch her. Solace was nowhere.
'Undeserving,'
'Inhuman,'
'Hell-bound Hitokiri.'
So many thoughts ran through his mind. So many words he used to scold himself. His own unworthy self. He knew his life was good for nothing. He was only a burden to this world.
No tears. Why wouldn't the tears come? Why couldn't he drown the silence at least? If Hell was inevitable, why could he at least not cry?
'Baka, make the tears flow!' his mind was screaming. The silence drove him blind, as he fumbled desperately for his sword.
He could let the pain go unchallenged no longer.
The end of the blade ran along his skin, making the blood spill through. If he could not cry, this would do.
*I lay dying*
*And I'm pouring*
*Crimson regret*
*And betrayal*
The sword lifted away and made another slice on his opposite arm.
How ironic.
The sakabatou, the sword he used to protect life, the sword-that-does- not-kill; finally getting what it desired. To taste blood.
How ironic.
That the blood it tasted was none other than that of the man who wielded it.
The very nature of a sword is to kill. Each one has it's own blood lust. It's own spirit that desired to be stained with crimson. Even those wielded in best of intentions want-... need... to kill.
Prayer.
Suddenly the thought came to his mind like a flash of lighting. He needed to pray. He was going to die by his own hand.
'I know this is wrong.' The thought raced past his mind, 'But maybe I'm too far gone to be redeemed. Why not end it here? Why not finish it?'
*I'm dying,*
*Praying,*
*Bleeding,*
*And screaming.*
*Am I too lost to be saved?*
*Am I too lost?*
The veins pulsed in his arms as the blood flowed freely and spilled onto the dojo floor. The rurouni's violet eyes glazed as he drifted away, feeling faintly fuzzy.
In an almost twisted interest, he watched the dark pool gather on the floor, swirling and slowing. He was liberated in this sick euphoria, letting the life drip from his finger tips.
The skin on his face crawled and tingled, the color draining from it. Every muscle in his body was cold, his skin contracted, tensed, frozen.
Slipping into near ecstasy, one obscure thought flashed before him.
"How will Kaoru-Dono clean this floor?"
The pupils of his eyes shrank in fear.
"Kaoru-Dono!" He cried, placing his hand over the wound, trying to stop the blood. "How could I have done this to her? How could I be so selfish? Damn you, Himura! Always making these decisions. All you ever do is hurt her!"
Jarred back into full consiousness, he pulled the sleeve of his gi tightly around his arm to stop the flow.
"Please, Kami, no! I changed my mind! I don't want to die!"
*My God, my tourniquet*
*Return to me salvation*
*My God, my tourniquet*
*Return to me salvation*
Finally the tears shook free as he lashed his head back, in anguish, his long stray hair the same hue as the pool on the floor of Kaoru's dojo. The crystaline liquid sparkled down his face and into the ridges of his scar: A perfect X.
*Do you remember me?*
*Lost for so long?*
Kaoru drowsily sat up in her futon, knowing something wasn't right. Clad in only her sleeping yukata and tabi, she padded onto the dirt, bracing her goosebumped flesh with a thin shawl.
"Kenshin?" She asked intuitively to the night. She noticed that he often came out when he couldn't sleep, practicing kata to settle his mind. She would sometimes crawl into the shadows and watch him, admiring in wonder all his beauty and pain. Wishing she could learn his secrets, share his grief.
So long she would watch him, that she once fell asleep, awakening in the morning, to find herself back in her own futon, not a trace of Kenshin anywhere.
"Where are you, Kenshin?" She whispered to the darkness.
There was a sob.
A sound.
She knew it was him. Flinging open the shoji, the image pummeled her to the ground. Kenshin lay on the floor, pitifully bleeding and crying.
"Kenshin! Kami-Sama, no! Kenshin!" She ran and kneeled by his side, reaching out to him. She gripped his limp wrist, but he didn't respond.
"No. Don't be gone, Kenshin! Don't leave me!"
*Will you be on the other side?*
*Or will you forget me?*
Kaoru tenderly picked up Kenshin and turned him over. She bit the edge of her shawl and used her hand to tear it, tieing one strip on his shoulder first, then binding the wound.
"Kaoru-Dono?" Kenshin's agonized voice forced.
"Shhh," She crooned, stroking back the limp hair from his face, dampened with tears and sweat. Finishing the second bandage, she propped him against the wall to look in his eyes.
In that moment, so many questions, apologies and declarations, made their way through the two. Silence was pressing them to say something: anything.
"Kenshin, I-" Kaoru's voice tripped in her throat, her mouth froze, her blood thickened. She could only manage one utterance, gazing from Kenshin's bloody sword and back to his grieving eyes,
"Why?"
His breath caught as though on spikes. He wasn't prepared to answer.
'Why?'
*I'm dying,*
*Praying,*
*Bleeding,*
*And screaming*
*Am I too lost to be saved?
*Am I too lost?*
The raven haired girl only repeated her question, when she saw he was averting his gaze to avoid an answer.
"Kenshin, Why?"
She cupped his chin in her hand and looked at him helplessly.
"I- had to." Was all the former hitokiri could say.
Her fingers slid down his arm to the blood soaked bandages on his wrist. Her heart pounded, as she tried to figure this out.
All she ever wanted to do since the day she met Kenshin, was try to look behind the mask he constructed. She wanted to be closer to him; to know his secrets, to feel his pain. To share every last miserable emotion to every small pleasure he enjoyed, so he wouldn't feel so alone.
But this, this she couldn't understand. She longed to know what drove him so far without her even knowing.
'Am I so easily fooled by his act? How am I so stupid that he can slip this emotion past me?' Kaoru's thoughts drove her to frustrated tears.
She gritted her teeth as she reached for Kenshin's sword. He reached his hand out to stop her, his mind screaming with confusion.
"Kaoru-Dono, wha-"
"I want to feel your pain," She said, staring firmly at him and making a defiant slit in her wrist. She flinched as the blade split her skin, but kept her face straight, determined to get through to Kenshin or die.
*My God, My Tourniquet*
*Return to me salvation*
*My God, My Tourniquet*
*Return to me Salvation*
"Kaoru? Come on, Busu, where are you?" Yahiko was now the third one awake, and he had heard Kaoru leave her room. Following the footsteps in the dirt, he heard muffled sounds from inside where Kaoru cried.
Looking through the open door, he saw only Kaoru bleeding with Kenshin's stained sword beside her, and didn't hesitate to make conclusions. What he thought he saw, pained him so deeply. How could Kenshin do such a thing? The same man he admired and looked up to?
"What the hell did you do to her?" He screamed in a rage of fury and dissapointment, advancing towards them. He raised his fists in anger, running across the floor, until he slid to a halt besides them. He saw Kenshin with tears in his eyes, and bleeding worse than Kaoru.
All the boy could do was pause unblinking at the two bleeding on the floor together. Kenshin had always been a role model for him, and though he would never admit it, he respected and loved Kaoru, for all she was. Even though he fought with her most every oppourtunity he got, and called her 'Busu' instead of her name, or 'Instructor', he couldnt deny that she was a strong wonderful person, who in spite of his stubborness and temper had taken him in.
Now he didn't know what to make of it. The two greatest figures in his life. Fallen. Reduced to their most weakened state. He didn't want to see it, but couldn't bring himself to stop.
"I- I'll get some water," He turned on his heel and ran to the well. He brought back with him a bucket of water and a towel.
Kenshin and Kaoru still hadn't moved from their shocked positions.
"Yahiko-" Kaoru muttered as he began to soak the towel for them.
"Ara?" He looked up at her face smiling lightly.
"Arigatou."
They both looked at eachother in silence for a moment, until Yahiko put the cloth down and stood up.
"I'm going to go get Megumi." He dashed back out of the door and down the dirt path to make it to the clinic.
"Kaoru-Dono?" Kenshin said, feeling dizzy, as his eyelids became heavy.
"Kenshin?"
"I'm going to die." Without a waver in his voice the words spilled out.
*My wounds cry for the grave*
*My soul cries for deliverance*
"No, Kenshin, you're not." She whispered, wiping his face with the damp cloth, and then his wounds.
"Gomen nasai," Kenshin said, a moan of pain halfway through his apology, while Kaoru touched the slit on his arm with the towel.
"No time for remorse now. You still need to live." Kaoru quieted him.
"I have no purpose to live for," He said, distantly, "I'm only a burden."
"Baka!" Kaoru said with a violent incantation, but still through clenched teeth, "How can you still not see how much you mean to everyone?"
"It would be selfish of me to stay."
"The only selfish thing would be to let yourself die on me. I still need you. We all still need you."
Kenshin's eyes glistened with tears, laying there in Kaoru's arms.
Her own wound split again bringing forth new fresh blood, but she didn't care now. The sting in her body was only a background feeling. Inconsequential.
"Anata," Kaoru whispered to him. Surprised at how she addressed him, he gazed at her with full attention, "I forgive you, Kenshin. I'll be here whenever you want to die, and hold on to you. Just don't leave me now."
The last of his strength dropping, Kenshin settled his neck and buried his face in the cloth of her yukata, feeling like a child beside his mother.
'It would be beautiful to end like this', he thought. But he simply couldn't. And though he could not speak, the words in his mind were clearer than they had ever been.
'Aishteru, Kaoru-Dono. De gozaru."
*Will I be denied?*
*Christ...*
*Tourniquet...*
*My suicide*
*
*
*
A/N afternote: Ok, so how was that? Was it terribly evil of me? Just please review, and tell me how you enjoyed or disliked the story. I can handle most any kind of review, and embrace criticism, so feel free.
Love, Toby-Chan.