Author's Note: Please, I beg of you! Forgive me! I'm so sorry that I took so long to update. This chapter was killing me; I had no time to even complete a damn paragraph without someone interrupting me. Forgive this poor dimwit of a writer, wahhh!
Well, moving on…I wanna give thanks to my readers and my reviewers, cuz u guys keep me on my feet when it comes to this story :gives a round of applause: I promise romance between these two kiddies in one of the next 2 chapters! I swear it! I even got a damn memo on my fridge that tells me wut to do cuz I forget lol. But I hope y'all like this chapter, review for God's sakes, my fingers hurt its 10:45 at nite, im tired, im hungry and im sleepy ( and so my mind n fingers n my comp would be grateful if u reviewed…well enough blabbering about, the show must go on, so read!
Disclaimer: For God Sake's no I don't own RK, I love to but I can't afford it!
Chapter 8: Ending and Starting
Seeing everything in slow motion, he practically flew down the streets of Tokyo, easily dodging and gliding through the vast crowds that populated the city.
Shukuchi looked easy but it would never be; not even for him. With just one small, insignificant mistake, he could lose his life.
A small rock in the middle of nowhere, unseen by his sharp eagle eyes could make him trip, stumble and send his body flying at warp speed against anything that could kill him.
Even slamming against rice paper door after rice paper door after losing control of Shukuchi could cause his body colossal damage.
Luckily, Shukuchi was manageable, not easy, but not hard to control.
He had no battle scars; the ones that his former family had given him surprisingly left, but from sword fights…he had none. No one was able to cut him with his speed, much less catch him.
But everything in life is double edged, so though he was virtually untouchable, he was always chased by death.
Two winters ago, he subconsciously thought, running at the speed of light, he had almost died, after slipping off ice and sliding so fast onto an oak tree, slamming his chest against it with such force he broke a surplus amount of bones.
But that wouldn't happen now, he guessed. He had learned to rein his Shukuchi, making him unstoppable, untouchable, and inhuman.
It seemed like seconds to Soujiro as he instantly closed the gap between him and the gates of the Kamiya Dojo. He appeared back in sight right in front of the gates and kicked them open, then zoomed into the territory.
He sensed out the doctor's ki and went straight for her, arriving at the kitchen inside the residence where she sat drinking tea.
"Miss Megumi, she needs help." He hastily spoke, getting her attention.
Megumi stood up, retreating into her physician mode, and walked up to Soujiro who cradled the limp body in his arms. She felt Ayame's head and saw the perspiration on it, realizing the problem. "She has a fever. A Very high fever, do you know who she is?" Megumi commented getting Soujiro to shake his head in difference.
"Sou, is there something wrong? You zoomed in here like an animal." Kaoru popped into the room, sweaty from the exercise she was currently doing.
"Kaoru, get this child into a vacant room fast. She's very sick." Megumi continued confusing Kaoru but the young trainer did as she was told.
The others arrived and followed Kaoru who led them into a room down the hall. Kaoru quickly unrolled the futon at the corner and let Soujiro place the girl on it.
"What happened to her?" Yahiko pondered as the others did.
Megumi dropped to her knees and began her administrations, checking for pulse, other signs of illness and open wounds, which she found many.
"Miss Megumi, will she be alright?" Kenshin asked in his rurouni voice, truly feeling sorry for the poor girl who everyone noticed was covered in bruises from head to toe.
Megumi turned to him and answered with a solid voice, "With these bruises and her high fever, I really don't know." She then turned back to the girl and unpredictably ripped the front of her tattered up kimono with her bare hands, showing her chest that was sprayed with scabs and some small bruises.
Everyone except Megumi turned their heads away, taken aback at her tactics.
"Miss Megumi! What are you doing to her!" Kaoru scowled, uncomfortable with the situation.
"Areh..." Soujiro spoke below his breath as he kept his eyes on Kenshin's fiery hair, feeling really uncomfortable. Sanosuke whined about not being able to see some "pre-action", trying to ease the tension in the room.
"Get out everyone please. I don't think you would like to see this. Gods…." Megumi lowly said, hiding the shock she had from seeing the condition of the girl, it was as bad as Kenshin when he had battled Makoto Shishio.
They nodded and left, praying the girl would be all right.
"Wait! Someone go to the clinic and get my things!" Megumi cried out as they went outside.
"I'll go." Kenshin without thought said, but Soujiro stopped him, "I'm the fastest, I'll go."
Kenshin agreed and watched as everyone else did as Soujiro rapidly tap his foot and in the blink of an eye, vanish in thin air with a sound, his footsteps unheard.
"Hurry!" Megumi yelled, carrying the words to Soujiro's ears whom even though was out the gates, could pick them up and nod as he flew down the street enclosed by blurs of colors.
He hoped, he really hoped, that the girl would survive the fever. He had seen enough death, as it was, whether slaughtering or sickness, he was exhausted with all the demise he went through.
He reflected back on her, pinpointing her eyes. They were a gorgeous color… that metallic green sprinkled in gold specks and the light green rim around those eyes. They weren't like normal shaped eyes; they were almost from another culture, Egyptian if so…big and Egyptian.
Hopefully, those eyes would get to see the light of another day. Her life depended on his swiftness, he analyzed, pushing his body to the limit. They're counting on me. She's counting on me… He chanted like a mantra as he invisibly sprinted around Tokyo.
Meanwhile back at the dojo, where the doctor silently performed what she did best on Ayame.
Kaoru and Kenshin had brought a pail of water and towels then left Megumi alone as they waited outside the room. Megumi mutely did her work; trying to do her best without her much needed supplies. She draped a soaked small towel on Ayame's sun hot forehead and gently washed her wounds that began to bleed freely.
"Gods…let her live." She quietly requested, not sure if what she was doing would save the girl who was battered, bruised, and bathed in physical ruins. Megumi just hoped that Ayame had no internal bleeding, or then things would get even worse and her chances of surviving would be slim to none.
Minutes passed and came in total silence except for Ayame's labored breath and Megumi's sighs.
"What happened to you?" She thought out loud, wanting to know exactly what the girl had gone through. She had turned her onto her stomach and cringed at the sight of her back. Fresh wounds, most of them from obvious whiplashes and black and purple bruises almost toppling off each other.
Megumi was afraid of touching them, for the first time afraid of touching one of her patients. Even Kenshin's body was nothing compared to hers. His condition was worse, yes, but at least from the outside it didn't show that much. This girl's beatings were just indescribable! She may not be bleeding from inside like Sir Ken was, but her body is in worse condition than his was in battery.
She continued to tend to Ayame's wounds, somehow thinking that Soujiro wasn't fast enough.
"You'll be ok, miss." She whispered, hoping that Ayame's ears would hear it.
As if on cue, Ayame began to tremble. Tremble intensely and her sweating increased.
Megumi froze then panicked when she noticed what she was doing. The wounds were opening up and spilling out blood like a broken dam. She began to jerk her body freakishly, wincing for some strange reason. Megumi pinned her down by the arms, not knowing what else to do. Her quivering and jerking grew stronger and before she knew it, Megumi herself cried out for help.
"Kaoru!"
Kaoru darted through the door, a worried face on. Her eyes widened, stunned by the scene. The girl was unconscious and yet she was moving about like a struggling fish fighting to get back to water. Megumi turned to her, and when she met with the wine dyed eyes of the doctor, she knew what she had to do.
For the first time in their friendship, Kaoru had seen fear, true fear and fresh panic in Megumi Takani's eyes.
Kaoru slid to Megumi's side and held down Ayame's moving legs.
"Kaoru, what's wrong!" Sanosuke yelled from outside the room, being held back by Kenshin who reminded him that Megumi-dono told them to stay out and that the patient was not decent.
"Stay out, Sano!" Kaoru answered, struggling with Ayame just like Megumi was.
"Megumi what's wrong with her?" Kaoru asked getting Megumi to stammer in a response.
"S-She's having a-a- a ment-tal breakdown. E-Either it's her b-body's way of r- releasing pain o-or she's having a subconscious collapse. She's not supposed to do this! This can harm her in any p- possible w-way!" Megumi panicked, tears on the brink.
"Calm down Megumi. Calm down, you're not alone in this." Kaoru assured, knowing exactly how Megumi felt, alone and scared.
Megumi faced her friend and nodded, trying her hardest to believe in Kaoru's words. Ayame began to mumble words, sputtering them out, baffling the women.
"Help.Help.me..Pl…Please…Help...So.Some.One.Anyone.Please…."
Megumi blinked back the tears and kicked herself into full doctor mode. "We're trying miss. If you can hear us, try to wake up. Miss, try to wake up. Say it with me Kaoru."
Kaoru agreed and both of them repeated "wake up, miss" over and over again. But that didn't stop Ayame.
"Oh Gods, she's bleeding even more!" Megumi groaned and almost broke down, giving up all faith just when Soujiro turned up with her bag.
"I came as fast as I could." Soujiro caught his breath; he hadn't stopped for a moment's time to catch it.
Megumi broke into a smile and let go of Ayame's arms to snatch the bag out of Soujiro's hands and frantically search through it, to finally pull out a small canteen.
"What's wrong with her?" Soujiro asked stunned from seeing the girl squirming in a bizarre way.
"Mental collision, I'm guessing. But with this, she'll have better chances of living through it." She answered with no stammering, her valor had come back, and went straight back to Ayame.
Soujiro realizing what they were going to do headed back outside and closed the door behind him. Kenshin, Sano and Yahiko looked at him with the expression of 'what's going on in there?' on their faces.
"Miss Megumi says that she's having a mental collision but with a drink that she has, she'll have a better chance of surviving." The guys nodded and waited once again in anxiety.
Megumi and Kaoru turned Ayame back, laying on her bleeding back and held her down as Megumi opened her mouth and made Ayame chug down the drug. The girl coughed up some of it, but most of the liquid went down her throat.
Abruptly Ayame opened her eyes and sat up, gasping for air. She then closed her eyes and fell right back into oblivion. She flopped back down on the futon; her mental collision had stopped, finally.
Kaoru and Megumi let go of her and sat back, catching their breaths. They looked at the girl, not minding her bare chest, and sighed relieved, some of the worst had past.
"What did you give her?" Kaoru asked.
"Pressed herbs from Germany. A friend of mine brought it to me as a present. The herbs over there are not the same like here, they're better."
Megumi got up and went to check Ayame's fever and frowned, "Her fever is still high."
Kaoru heaved a sigh and swabbed off the sweat from her forehead. "I don't know how you do it." She commented and got up with Megumi's inquiring eyes on her.
"Do what?" The fox asked.
Kaoru smiled a bit, "Being a doctor. Almost everyday people's lives are in your hands. I don't even want to think about the guilty consciousness you guys have when you lose one. I think I'd die from all the work."
Megumi chuckled for the first time during the whole thirty-minute crisis and remarked. "You have no idea. But I have never lost a patient, neither has Dr. Genzai and I don't expect to anytime soon, so being a doctor is wonderful for me, with all the hard work to do with it."
Kaoru nodded understanding and asked Megumi if she needed any more help, but the lady doctor answered no.
Kaoru left, telling the others that some of the problem was fixed.
Megumi stayed inside that room for two complete hours, nursing for Ayame's wounds and fever, stitching the open injuries and cooling down the high fever that kept in the high 100's. Once in a while Kaoru would come in and give Megumi anything she asked for, hoping that the girl would survive.
At last around the young night, Megumi finished content with her work. The wounds were all warily and securely patched up and her fever was going down, climbing down to a normal temperature for a fever. She sat back and swiped off the sweat that dripped on her porcelain face with a towel.
She looked up at the ceiling, her mind going above the limits of the roof, and silently thanked the Gods for being on her side that day. She looked back at a sleeping Ayame and weakly smiled, she had saved another life. Megumi covered the girl's body with a thin blanket that Kaoru gave her and asked Kaoru to help her change her clothes, noting the appearance of a beggar Ayame had on.
"Miss Megumi, you did a great job." Kaoru told her as she held Ayame by the waist to let Megumi clothe her with a yukata, and then placed her back on the futon.
"Let's go eat, Miss Megumi. You must be hungry." Kaoru whispered for no reason.
Megumi nodded and grabbed her stuff, and then left.
They arrived at the dining room of the dojo and Megumi received worried faces but they were relaxed when she smiled at them. "She'll be alright."
They nodded and gave her praise for her job well done. "Thank you everyone but unfortunately I have to get going."
"What?" Yahiko shouted, hoping that their dinner would turn into a feast and then into a party.
"Miss Megumi, please eat with us. You deserve it, that you do." Kenshin applied, looking up with his violet oceans called eyes.
Megumi blushed a bit at the sight of Kenshin looking at her like that, all of his attention pointed to her.
Kenshin, so blinded when it came to love, did not notice the fact that Kaoru was steaming with jealousy. He never looks at me like that! Kaoru protested secretly, clenching her fists.
"I'm sorry Sir Ken, but I really must get going. I have work to do tomorrow morning at the clinic. Plus I need my beauty sleep," Megumi strolled up to Kenshin in a seductive way and bent over so her face was extremely close to his.
"So I can look beautiful for you."
Both Kaoru and Sanosuke fumed, rooted to their spots. Kenshin turned red at her words and 'oro-ed', getting Megumi to smirk.
She stood up straight and looked at the others. "I need someone to watch over her tonight. Who knows what can happen. I'd suggest Sou, since he was the one who brought her here and she knows his face, ne?"
Soujiro looked up from his plate of food, zoning out for a while. "I'd be happy to, Miss Megumi."
Megumi smiled at him and then turned to leave, when Kenshin stopped her with his words. "Megumi-dono, I'd sleep better tonight if Sano would walk you home. It's safer that way."
Megumi looked at Sano and rolled her eyes, "Sir Ken, I'd rather walk with a dead pig tied to my ankle then with this drunken bozo."
Sano got up like a singed cat and went to throw back something at her but Megumi interrupted, "But alright, if it makes you happy."
Sano swallowed his words and stood up, not disagreeing with Kenshin; Tokyo's twisted criminals who luckily escaped the police hung around at night, it was dangerous for women. The soon-to-be a couple got out, neither saying a word to each other.
Kaoru roughly sat down next to Kenshin who looked at her with a puzzled face, asking himself why Kaoru was suddenly in a bad mood. She ate in silence, never looking at Kenshin.
Yahiko stole Sano's food and ranked on Soujiro, whom he constantly called Tenken to annoy the young rurouni. But good mannered Soujiro disregarded the inane name and paid no mind to Yahiko as he ate.
"Stupid housewife." Yahiko sneered, his goal, always, was to bring out the Perfect Killer that was locked away in Soujiro.
How in the hell, Yahiko wondered, was the right hand man of Makoto Shishio inside of a boy who smiled like everyday was perfect and talked with a lilt that almost gave him a girlish sound!
Yahiko had no intentions on bringing out Battousai from his beloved hero and idol, Kenshin. Why torment his role model like that? But Soujiro, he was another case to Yahiko.
He sought after to see the hitokiri that everyone feared, the boy assassin who even disturbed Kenshin when his eyes would suddenly narrow in anger.
Who was Tenken no Soujiro? He had to be someone very deep and dark and deadly to be named the Perfect Killer and to be respected by Himura the Battousai. Soon he would find out, Yahiko enforced himself.
"Miss Kaoru, are you alright? You seem tense." Kenshin whispered to Kaoru, blocking out the fight that Soujiro was winning against Yahiko.
Kaoru gripped her chopsticks and smiled forcefully but did not look at Kenshin, instead at her food. "I'm peachy keen. I'm just a bit tired, that's all." She spoke with gritted teeth.
How could he not see what he was doing to her? Kenshin watched her for a moment and then went back to eating, but the thought of Kaoru's mood resided in his head.
Dinner was over with and Kenshin was left with the dishes. Kaoru went straight to bed, reminding herself that early in the morning she would bathe in the river, annoyed with Kenshin. Yahiko headed for his room, thinking of another scheme to pull out Tenken. Soujiro walked to the room where Ayame slept serenely, thanks to Megumi and sat against the wall across Ayame's futon.
Sleep was far from his mind he had an order to carry out and he planned to do it right. Sitting with a knee up and his sword on his waist, he relaxed himself, prepared for the night of no sleep.
"Good night, Sou." Kaoru spoke behind the shoji and left.
Yahiko came next and slid the door open, a mischievous smile playing on his lips. "Sleep with one eye open, Tenken. I might kill you tonight, unless you fight for your life."
Soujiro smiled at him innocently. "Yahiko, my name is not Tenken. It's Soujiro. And I would like it if you'd call me that."
Yahiko snorted and replied, "Yeah, whatever, housewife."
Soujiro sighed and then smirked at Yahiko.
"Yahiko, you want to see Tenken?"
Yahiko smiled widely and nodded happily, at last!
Soujiro closed his eyes and took a breath, catching Yahiko's attention. He opened his eyes and sighed again.
"Sorry Yahiko, Tenken doesn't want to come out. He says he doesn't like wasting time."
Yahiko rolled his eyes and slid the door shut, going away saying, "Stupid housewife! What's all the fuss they're making about him? Heavenly Sword my ass."
Soujiro chuckled and looked back at Ayame, who started to stir.
Soujiro got up and walked towards her, crouched down at her side.
Ayame, after moments of stirring a bit, fluttered her eyes open and blinked into the dim light of the room. Soujiro stayed quiet, thinking she would go back to sleep and watched her, mesmerized a bit by her eyes once again.
Ayame, feeling the presence of someone, looked to where she thought no one stood and met with Soujiro's dark blue eyes, the eyes she had met up before.
But her vision was blurred a bit and whom she saw was not Soujiro.
She smiled at him and tears whelmed up in her eyes, ignoring Soujiro's puzzled face as to why she was about to cry.
She parted her chapped and broken lips to speak; feeling like the moment would leave if she would not say anything to him at once, like if he was just a ghost.
To her, he was, but not at the moment.
She spoke one word and then went back to sleep in the blink of an eye, tears rolling down her cheeks.
Soujiro waited for her to be in deep slumber and quietly, almost virtually impossible to hear, went back to his little corner and watched over her again, this time with a question swirling in his head.
Who was he?
"Okita.." He muttered, just like she did that instant before.
Snow fell that night.
Author's Note: For those who are wondering who is Okita. You will find out later as the story evolves. But I just want to tell you just a bit! Okita, who looks a lot like Soujiro, or rather…Soujiro looks a lot like him, was one of the leaders for the Shisengumi. He worked alongside with Saitoh….that's all you're getting for now! Muahahaha!