Glossary: koishii=dear or darling, engowa=veranda, sho-ji=outside door, fusuma=inside door, otan=father, shin-yuu=friend, tadaima=I am home, Aisai=beloved wife, saiai=beloved, onegai=please, jikogu=deepest hell, zenrei=my whole soul, bakumatsu=revolution, aisoku=beloved son, ('')=thoughts
Chapter 16
Out of The Depths of Hell
She coughed and coughed until it felt as if her chest were going to cave in upon itself. The dust was so thick and heavy it felt like a blanket laying over her. She could feel boards and small pieces of old mortar laying on and around her, and she experimentally began to move her extremities checking for broken bones. When all of them were found intact, she carefully moved her neck and head. Her neck moved all right, but there was a thundering pain trying to split her skull in half.
"Oooooo..... Dear God, my head." She moaned as she struggled onto her knees. Amazingly, one torch was still burning after the massive explosion of energy that had destroyed the cell block. It was laying on the floor behind her. A trembling white hand reached out and grabbed it
dragging it to her. As she lifted it up, she sucked in a great gasping of air in shock. The entire area had been completely demolished. There was hardly a piece of the corridor wall left intact, and all 10 cells were totally devastated.
Elsbeth stood up on shaky legs with her mouth hanging open and her eyes blown open wide as silver moons. Staring in stunned disbelief, she started picking her way through the mountains of shattered mortar and twisted steel.
"Look at the power." She was lost in awe looking at the destruction Yahiko's raging ki had wrought on the prison. "Incredible... Magnificent..." She could still fell the residual pulsing of the boy's energy, and it was intoxicating. Then, somewhere during her admiration of the pure malevolence of the boy's strength, it dawned on her that the boy was gone. She whirled around and frantically searched around the debris filled area. Tons of mortar and broken wooden support braces were piled and strewn erratically about the floor, but in the center where she had been standing with the boy was a mountain of shattered mortar, dirt, and all sorts of debris from the surrounding cells. It was impenetrable. "NOOOOOO!" She screamed and picked up a rock and threw it as hard as she could at the massive mound. "NOOOOO! NOOOO! You've ruined everything you fucking brat! How could you do this to me after I have worked for so long? How dare you do this to me? " She jerked around and half ran half stumbled to the corner of what was left of the walkway, but she then stopped and turned around.
"I hope your soul rots in Hell you little maggot. I hope you burn and scream in pain for all Eternity for what you have done to me. May your body rot and decay in the ground, Himura, while your soul watches me slaughter these mewling lambs one by one until I find another child powerful enough to open the doorway." She walked back to the mound of dirt and debris and spit on it, and then her face turned dreamy, almost ethereal. "It would have been glorious too, precious Boy. We would have lit up the midnight sky, you and I, with all of this magnificent power you just pissed away for nothing." She raised her hands in the air and spoke in a commanding voice. "We would have made the Emperor's of the old Dynasties bow their heads in shame and grovel at our feet when the doorway opened and our glorious King walked though it. Oh, what a sight it would have been so see, Precious. The King of Darkness and Chaos sitting on the throne of the Emperor's." Her eyes were glowing a wild red as her passion mounted. "It would have been the beginning of a new age... The Age of Dominian."
She danced away and ran through the prison corridors on small quick feet. "I will yet open that doorway, Himura. Can you hear me all the way from Hell? If I have to murder every child in Japan to do it. I WILL OPEN THAT DOORWAY UNDER THE AUTUMN MOON, AND THERE IS NOTHING YOU CAN DO TO STOP ME THIS TIME."
*********************
Beneath the heavy layers of dirt and mortar there was a small pocket of air and space that was protected from the horrible weight above by a geometrical anomaly built from a ravaged steel door, and several large support beams. Inside this small haven of protection, setting crunched over into a tight ball of flesh and bone was the body of a man covering the smaller body of a young boy. Inside of this man's mind the primaeval instinct of survival had taken over control, and the adrenaline levels rising in his blood were rushing through his body, and increasing the strength of his muscles and the speed of his thoughts as he searched for a way to freedom. If they were going to survive, they had to get out before their safe haven collapsed on top of them, or ran out of breathable air. It seemed Time would forever be this man's mortal enemy, and he cursed inside his mind as he struggled to formulate a solution to their dilemma.
Slowly reaching out with his right hand, he began feeling for an opening in the prison of dirt and stone around him. His sensitive fingers felt along every edge, every dip, every crevice. Finding a way out that would not bring the tons of debris down on top of them was his greatest concern. He had to find a way out. He had to get Yahiko out of here because he knew the boy had been injured in some way during the massive explosion of ki energy, but he also had to get out and get back to Kaoru. They would have told her by now that both he and Yahiko had been killed by the cave in. In his souls-heart, he could feel the absolute pain of her anguish and it was killing him because he could
not comfort her with the truth that he was alive.
It felt as if her soul were dying and he was dying with her. 'Kaoru...' He whispered in his heart. 'I am coming, koishii. Wait for me... I am coming.' His hand continued to search in earnest as he looked for a way out of the tiny haven. If he could not find one, it would become their grave. Kenshin did not want to die inside the black darkness of the Shinsengumi prison, and he knew if he could just get them out of this hole and find something to burn, he could follow Soujirou's Geisha beads all the way out to the exit tunnels. "Hold on, Yahiko. Hold on, My son."
**********************
Saitoh had returned to the police station to make his own private report. He had left Tokio at the Aoiya with Misao. She had become quite attached to the young ninja girl as well as to Kaoru in the short time the three women had been together, and after the devastating news of the Battousai's death, she felt the need to stay to offer emotional support to the younger woman. Saitoh had agreed easily. The incident had effected him more than he wanted to admit, and going back to the police station was an easy way to divorce himself from the situation. At least for a little while.
Once they had gotten back to the Aoiya, Aoshi had taken Soujirou under his wing, so to speak, and was keeping him close to his side. The younger man appeared to be wandering lost and confused without any form of direction. Everyone at the Aoiya was very worried about his continuing state of sanity. They were afraid that after bonding so close to Kenshin and then losing him so soon and so tragically, might push Soujirou over the edge into madness or inconsolable despair. To find a place of love and security, a place that he alone could call his, and a man who loved and accepted him enough to become his 'Father', and then to have it torn from him so savagely would be nothing less than devistating to the young man's fragile psyche. Could it withstand such a tremendous and tragic loss? No one could be sure.
After his talk with Okina, Hiko had positioned himself outside of Kaoru's room. He sat cross-legged on the engowa staring blankly into space as memory after memory sifted through his mind. Memories of Kenshin.
Kenshin when he was eight and afraid of fishing because he did not know how to swim. Hiko had picked him up and thrown him into the stream. "That will teach you how to swim." He had called after the sputtering and chocking child. Of course he would never have let the boy drown.
He had watched him very closely until he made his way back out onto the bank. That was the first time he had felt a true Fatherly emotion for the young Kenshin, but he had not known how to show it so he just handed him the fishing pole and told him he did not have an excuse any more.
Then an image of Kenshin at about ten or eleven trying to move through the Mitsurugi kata by himself. Hiko had been surprised by the fluid and graceful motions the boy was capable of, but he had nearly fainted when Kenshin almost achieved God-like speed that day. Hiko had never said a word to him about seeing him practice, but during their training that afternoon, he added a new technique that required God-like speed to perform well. Kenshin had learned it swiftly and perfectly. It later become his favorite move the Ryu Tsui San, and he would become the best at performing it.
Image after image passed before his minds eye as he relived a lifetime lived over 20 years ago. There would be no more memories to be made now. Kenshin was gone. Kenshin was... dead.
Hiko discovered himself wondering what it would have been like to hold Kenshin and Kaoru's child in his arms, and found a lump of emotion forming in his throat. 'What is happening to me?' He asked himself.
'I have never cared about such things before. I have never even thought about them before so why do I think about them now, and why does the knowledge that they will never happen cause me so much pain?' He looked at his hands and examined the hard formed callouses made from years of
swinging his sword, and wondered if he would even know how to hold a baby. Then another more disturbing thought came to him. 'Would they have even wanted me to be a part of their child's' life? Would I have ever held their child?' Hiko swallowed hard against the lump and rested his head against the wall of Kaoru's room. The expression on his face was unreadable.
"Kenshin...." The ache in her heart and soul was a pain she knew she would never be able to bare. There would be no recovery from this loss. This terrible cavernous grief would live with her as her life's companion in Kenshins place. It would sleep by her side at night, and walk beside her in the daytime. The huge emptiness where Kenshin used to live was growing with each passing moment, and soon it would consume her entirely. Kaoru wanted to die.
"What can we do, Tokio-san?" Misao's face was reddened and stained with tears. She had broken down as well when she learned of Himura's death, but her concern for Kaoru's grief had over shadowed her own, and she knelt loyally at her friends side. She wrung her hands with nervous
anxiety not knowing what else to do. "I do not know what to do. She looks so sad, so broken. How can we help her?"
"We can be here for her, Misao. That is all." Tokio laid a cool cloth over Kaoru's brow, and gently stroked her pale cheek. "The pain she feels at this moment cannot be described. It has no name or context. It simply is, and it is either endured and beaten, or it is not."
"What do you mean, 'or not'?" Misao's puffy eyes searched the older woman's face. "Are telling me Kaoru could be like this forever or something? How can she suffer like this for the rest of her life? She cannot. She would waste and whither away, and eventually it would kill her. I know it would." Tears slid from Misao's eyes and fell into her lap. "She cannot live like this."
"Misao, sometimes people love each other so much that one cannot bare to live without the other. I can see how much Kaoru loved Himura, and I can feel the depth of her pain and loss. I do not know if she can ever recover from losing him." She wiped tears off Misao's face. "It is rare to see a love bond so strong and so deep that it reaches all the way into the soul. If we pity her, we diminish something glorious and beautiful, but neither can we rejoice in this." Misao buried her face against Tokio's neck and softly cried. "This is the worst kind of tragedy."
"Kenshin...."
The sun had slipped below the horizon and the moon had risen to cast its pure white light across the courtyard of the Aoiya as well as the rest of Kyoto. It would be completely full in its glorious presence the following night, and the grand Autumn Festival would be celebrated just as it was every year. Nothing would change, nothing ever did. Life moved forward at its usual steady pace letting events happen as they should, just as they were planed.
A shrill high -pitched scream stabbed though the night shattering the serenity of the Moon's beauty, and then was suddenly silenced as if it had never been.
Life kept moving forward. Nothing ever changed. Everything happened just as it was planned.
Hiko looked up at the Moon and decided it must be close to midnight. He heaved himself to his feet and stretched his tall broad frame which had become stiff from setting for so many hours. There was no one else stirring about so he decided it would be all right if he left his post for just a moment. He needed to stretch his legs, and a short walk was just the thing. As he stealthfully moved along the creaky veranda, another sound caught his sensitive ears freezing him where he stood. His left thumb eased his sword out of its sheath with a soft 'click' as his right hand closed around the well- worn hilt.
The gate was opening, albeit very slowly, but it was opening.
Aoshi and Soujirou suddenly appeared at his side hands at the ready to draw their blades as well.
"Someone is trying to open the gate." Hiko said very quietly as he gestured in the direction of the sho-ji.
"I heard." Aoshi replied just as quietly. "Let's wait until he is inside. We will have a better chance of over powering him within the courtyard."
"Agreed." Hiko nodded and looked at Soujirou. The young mans' face was no longer frozen in its usual smile, instead it now wore a deeply serious straight lipped expression. "Soujirou?"
"I am ready." He replied flatly. Hiko nodded to him and then met Aoshi's worried eyes. Only time would tell about the young swordman. Their attention returned to the slowly moving gate.
It was difficult to see clearly in the pale light of the Moon. The pure white light tended to play tricks with a man's vision as it cast odd shaped shadows and changed usually bright colors into drab shades of gray and black. So when the strangely shaped individual finally succeeded in opening the gate and gained access into the Aoiya, it was no wonder that the three confused men started to attack before they realized whom they were attacking.
Because of his speed, Soujirou reached the stranger first and nearly knocked him to the ground before he recognized him and what he carried over his shoulder.
"OTAN!!!" Soujirou's ecstatic joyful shout was heard all over the entire Aoiya. It was quickly followed by another. "LITTLE BROTHER!!!" And suddenly the courtyard was filled with light and people as everyone ran out of their rooms not believing what they had just heard.
"Himura-san!" "Kenshin!" He could hear his name being cried and shouted all around him as he sank to his knees in exhaustion. He was covered with dirt and there was a cut over his right shoulder, but otherwise he seemed unharmed. Leaning over, he gently laid his precious burden on the cool grass.
Yahiko was still unconscious, but he was alive and Kenshin could still feel the pulse of his spirit energy; although it was quite subdued. He was bleeding from several small cuts, and from the small slit in his throat made by Elsbeth's dagger, but he also seemed to be all right otherwise.
"He is alive." Kenshin said with great effort. "But he is utterly spent. He used his entire ki and I think some of mine to do what he did." Exhausted violet eyes rose to look at each person kneeling around him and Yahiko. Then they stopped, and held the powerful blue-grey gaze of his other son. "I believe he is in a state of some sort of hibernation or something like it. His body and mind suffered such a tremendous shock when he released all that power, this seems to be their way of coping and healing."
"Then you believe he will come back?" Soujirou's voice was low and filled with question and concern as he met and searched his adopted father's clear violet gaze.
"Yes, I do, but I also believe he will be gone for some time as well. It will take time to replenish the enormous amount of energy he expended. He could sleep for days."
"I understand." Soujirou nodded solemnly and bent down to gently lift Yahiko up in his arms. "I will take care of him, Otan." He said as he met Kenshin's eyes steadily. "He is my brother after all, and that is what brothers do for each other, isn't it? They take care of each other." Then he turned to walk away, but something made him stop. "Father..." His voice was trembling with great effort to speak.
"Yes, Soujirou." Kenshin rose slowly to his feet and faced the young man as he turned back to face him. Kenshin felt a tremendous love and pride swell within his heart as he watched a tear slip down Soujirou's intensely emotion filled face.
"I love you. I want you to know that."
Kenshin was stunned by the simply spoken words and deeply moved by the enormous amount of feeling behind them. "I love you as well, Soujirou... Aisoku."
Soujirou smiled brightly and walked away with Yahiko held gently in his strong arms. Kenshin watched him as he went until he disappeared into his room and slid the fusuma closed. Then he turned back to the others' still standing about him.
Aoshi approached him and offered him a deep bow and then hugged him close for a short moment. " I am very pleased you are not dead... brother." And a hint of a smile washed across his bland face. "You were just starting to become interesting." Kenshin smiled back and inclined his head.
Next came Saitoh, who had returned to the Aoiya to be with Tokio. Kenshin met the narrowed slits of the policeman's eyes, and bowed to him. "I owe you my gratitude, Saitoh. Without you I would never have been able to find Yahiko. I am now in debt to you for his life, and it is a debt I will gladly repay should the opportunity ever arise." He bowed again. "Thank-you,.... shi-yuu."
Saitoh's eyebrows rose in total shock, and for once he was speechless. Kenshin simply smiled and turned away. Tokio smiled tenderly at her gapping husband and kissed his cheek.
The only person left was Hiko, but as soon as it was certain that Kenshin was all right, Hiko had disappeared. Kenshin's violet eyes searched the yard earnestly, but Hiko was no where to be seen. His head dropped low in resignation.
"Why do you never let me come close to you?" Kenshin whispered as the part of his heart that belonged to Hiko broke into pieces once more. "What is it about me you hate so much that you cannot even accept my thanks for your assistance?" His tired feet carried him out of the circle of his friends, and he looked up into the night sky. "Why can you not love me? Why?"
Within the dojo walls Seijurou Hiko leaned into the wall weakly as heavy silent sobs shook his huge body, and tears of relief poured unchecked down the lean contours of his face. "Thank-you Kami-sama..." He breathed into the cool night air. "Thank-you for the life of my Aisoku." He gulped in large breaths of air trying to calm his emotions, but 20 years of loneliness and unspoken feelings of love and need would not be stopped now that the gates had been broken open. "Dear God..." He cried. "Give me the strength. Give me the strength to do what is right this time. Do not let me waste this precious second chance to love my son."
Kenshin let the cool night breeze slide through his hair washing away the pain of his Master's continued rejection of him. Life would move onward. He would move onward and he would survive this pain because he had.... Oh God!!
"Kaoru!!!" He whipped to his left and disappeared as his God-like speed carried him across the yard to the room he shared with her. In a split instant he was sliding the fusuma open and stepping inside. Tears flooded his eyes when he saw her laying on their futon curled into a ball of anguished pain and grief. Her face was pale with greyish circles beneath eyes that were reddened from hours and hours of crying. Kenshin was kneeling beside her in a moment tenderly touching her cool skin.
"So cold..." He whispered in frightened concern. "Too cold." He knew he was covered with dirt and filth, but at the moment it did not matter as he slid his arms beneath her shoulders, and lifted her up to hold her against his heart. "Kaoru..." Dirty tears dripped off his nose and chin and fell into the ebony depths of her hair. "Koishii, tadaima Aisai..." He pressed kisses against her forehead and over her cold cheeks. "Open your eyes, koishii. Please open your eyes. Tadaima. I
am home." A sob caught in his throat and he buried his face in her neck. "Onegai... onegai..." Please.
It was dark where she was at, and she wanted to stay there. Inside the darkness there was no pain, there was no grief, there was nothing. Just the darkness. But something was pulling on her, tugging at her. Something was trying to coax her out. Kaoru resisted until the sound of the voice at last penetrated into the darkness and she heard....
"Ken-shen....?" She stirred slightly against him, and he raised his dirty, tear stained face to look down into her deathly pale one. A trembling hand brushed away a few stray strands of black hair that were
caught on her long lashes, and then cupped her cheek.
"Kaoru," the voice was soft and filled with entreaty. "Come back, saiai. Please do not leave me here without you." Kenshin brushed soft kisses over her delicate eyelids, along her cheeks, on her nose, and then lightly across her cold lips. "Kaoru... Kaoru... tadaima, sweetheart. I am home. I am alive, Aisai... open your eyes and see me, Kaoru. I am alive." He pressed his lips against hers again. "I am home, and I am alive. Please come back to me."
"Ken...." She stirred against him again, and her eyelids fluttered several times as they struggled to open. Kenshin continued dusting soft gentle kisses all over her face and whispering to her he was alive, and begging her to come back to him. And though his arms were tired and aching with fatigue caused from the hours it had taken him to dig his way out and pull himself and Yahiko to freedom, he refused to let go of her.
"Kenshin..." The voice was hoarse but steady and firm. He pulled back from her and found himself looking into her beautiful dark blue eyes. They stared at him as if trying to decide if he were real or if he was a ghost. Her hand rose to his face and she traced the dirty pathway of his tears down his cheek. Then the same hand lifted up farther to touch his hair, which had lost its' glorious red shine to the large amount of dirt that covered it. "You are filthy, koishii." She said at last. "I do not remember ever seeing you look like this before."
Kenshin shook his head and laughed softly as he caught her hand and brought it to his lips. He pressed gentle loving kisses against her fingers and then laid her palm against his cheek. "I am sorry, Aisai." Tear filled violet eyes danced with love and a soft smile crossed his lips. "It never crossed my mind to stop and take a bath before I came in."
Then the most beautiful smile he had ever seen curved her mouth and lit up her eyes. "I think I can forgive you this time, My Anata. Truly I can." Kenshin chocked back a sob and crushed her against him while he lost himself in the curve of her shoulder. Kaoru wrapped her arms around
his neck and shoulders and pulled him into her embrace and her soft mouth began to shower soft kisses wherever she could reach.
He pulled back and cupped her face in his hands. "I am too dirty for your lips to touch, koishii. Wait for me to clean all of this dirt off, and then you can kiss what and wherever you like." Kaoru gazed at him with clear blue eyes filled with innocence and wonder, and then she leaned into him and captured his mouth with hers. It was the first time she had ever initiated a passionate kiss between them, and Kenshin was to stunned to stop her. His mouth opened wider which parted her lips and
deepened the kiss. "Kaoru.... Let me go wash and then I will come back." He stood up and walked to the door and slid it open. He stopped and turned back to look at her. Huge blue eyes filled with anxiety were watching him with an unspoken question burning in their depths.
"I brought him home with me, koishii." The words were gently spoken and meant to soothe her. "I am certain he will be all right so do not lose heart." Kenshin smiled into Kaoru's relieved face. "Wait for me." A wicked smile crossed his handsome, if not dirty face, and then he was gone.
"He is back...." She spoke to herself almost as if she spoke to someone else. "He is alive..." She touched a hand to her heart and felt it beating with her own life. "He did not die in the cave in..." The same hand touched her lips. "He survived, Yahiko survived, and he brought him home..." Blue eyes blinked once then once more as she tried to make sense of what had just happened. "It was real... Kenshin is alive... I am not alone... He is still with me... Still with me...
still with me... still... still... still.. Kenshin." Her hands covered her face as the shock of seeing him wore off and relief descended to take its' place. Harsh but quiet sobs shook Kaoru's slender frame as she allowed the reality that Kenshin and Yahiko were both still alive to sink into her heart and soul. Kenshin was alive. Her one beloved had somehow cheated a certain death, and then come home to her just as he had promised he would.
"Thank-you Kami-sama. Thank-you." The words of her heart soared towards the heavens as she rejoiced in the knowledge that grief had not yet replaced Kenshin as her life companion.
Suddenly Kaoru was seized from behind. A large hand closed over her mouth cutting off any scream she might have made while the monstrous rope of another arm wrapped around her middle effectively pinning her arms to her sides. Quiet as a shadow the intruder pulled her out through the
hole he had made in the rice paper wall of the room.
"Lovely, lovely girl." Kaoru felt the sheen of cold sweat break out on her forehead and trickle down between her breasts. The moment she heard the cultured accented voice she knew who it was, and when the beautiful evil face came close to hers, she finally understood why Miko Ishida had called this woman The Devil's Whore.
"What is the matter, koishii?" She sneered in Kaoru's face. "Has some nasty cat got your tongue?" Low evil laughter filled the air surrounding Kaoru and her unwanted companions. "If you make so much as a squeak, I will slit your throat." A long shining blade was place closely against the frantically beating pulse in her neck. "Take your hand off her face. I would see this 'Kaoru' that Himura 'loves' enough to want to live for."
Kaoru watched in apprehension as a tiny delicate boned hand reached out and tilted her chin upward and then side to side. "He thinks you are beautiful." The smooth voice was scornful and rude. "I think you look like a little crow with your white washed skin and tar black hair." Kaoru's head was thrown out of the woman's grasp with an amazing amount of force. "Gag her and follow." She hissed to the man who held Kaoru captive. "We waste time that is ill afforded. I cannot be caught again." The odd trio disappeared into the shifting shadows of the night, but not before Elsbeth left Kenshin a message. A very clear message.
He rubbed hard at his wet hair trying to get most of the water out of it before he left the bath house. It had been many years since he had felt so glad to be clean again. Of course, it had been many years since he had been that filthy. He had also felt as if he were washing the residue of Elsbeth off of him as well. Violet eyes narrowed as he recalled the tip of the dagger pressed into Yahiko's throat. She would pay for that, that she would. Shaking his head bruskly, Kenshin pushed
all negative thoughts from his mind. All he wanted to do right now was curl up with Kaoru wrapped snugly in his arms and sleep. Kaoru... A sigh of relief escaped him as he thought of the deep state of grief he had found her in. If that had proved nothing else to him, it had proved once and for all the true depth of her love for him. He would never doubt her again. Carefully he slid the door open and stepped inside the candle lit room he shared with her. He draped his dirty clothes over a stool and turned to approach his beloved, but she was not where he had left her. Instead all he found was a single lock of her raven hair that had been intentionally placed across the center of the futon. Very
carefully and intentionally placed.
Kenshin's eyes darted around the room surveying it for intruders or any other changes, and he quickly found the large slit in the paper wall. Rushing to it, he stepped out into the night and immediately felt the unmistakable negative power shift that was Elsbeth's alone.
"Nooooooo....." He dropped to his knees with fists clenched and head bowed. "Please do not let this happen. Please, God. Please. Noooooo..." His voice broke on a sob, and then he fell into a deep silence for a long moment. When, at long last, he looked up, Kenshin let the changing amber orbs of his eyes stare intently at the rounding sphere of the nearly full Moon as if he were trying to absorb the purity of it into his soul.
"I know where you are going, kirei." It was spoken barely above a whisper. "Now we shall see who is the strongest, Heaven and Earth or Hell and Damnation." He rose to his feet in one fluid motion and continued to face the Moon. "Run and hide, kirei." He let his voice ring clear and true as he spoke. "Run and hide kirei. That is the only way you will avoid my sword because this time I do know everything." As his eyes began glowing a deep golden-yellow that cast a gleaming circle of light all around him, Kenshin sensed a strangeness gathering in the air around him. A feeling of power began to dance and tingle along his skin, and strands of his flaming red hair were floating about his head in an unseen slow breeze that was seperate from the natural wind that whispered through the nearby trees. His well shaped lips pulled back into a wolfish snarl, and when he spoke, his voice was the rumbling of a deep growl within his chest.
"Hear me now, Elsbeth de Angeles, O Thou Witch of the Dark World.
Thine head is mine, and I will bath the Alter of Thine wicked blasphemies with the blood of Thine own body. Thou shalt taste the bitter gall that is the long death of Eternal Damnation. When I cast Thy flaming soul screaming into the deepest depths of Jikogu, Thou shalt burn in the worst agonies of pain forever." He raised his face and his right fist to the sky and continued speaking in the same terrible voice. "Thy fate is sealed by Thine own bitter hatreds and jealousies, and Thy black heart with perish upon the tip of my blade. I claim Thy life as retribution for all of the innocents Thee hath sacrificed in the name of the King of Hell. THEE. ARE. MINE." A great pulse of Kenshin's spirit-ki exploded from his body and surged outward from him shaking the trees and rattling the windows of near by buildings. "The time is upon you, Witch. The Flaming Sword of The Mother is coming for you." Slowly he dropped his fist and turned to slide back into his room through the slit in the wall.
"Aaaiiieeeee!!!" Elsbeth grabbed her throat and her chest as she was gripped by a terrible pain. Her knees buckled and she fell to the ground scraping her hands. It was several moments before she was able to stand. Shock and fear registered on her fine featured face as her eyes wildly looked around as if she actually thought she might see some kind of an attacker, but there was no one. Kaoru smiled behind the hand that covered most of her face. She knew what had caused the woman so much pain. Kenshin's ki was dancing angrily in the air surrounding them like a thousand tiny Samurai warriors with flaming swords. "He knows." She thought. "And she knows he knows.... and she is afraid." Excellent.
********************
Hiko tentatively knocked on Kenshin and Kaoru's door the next morning. He had spent the rest of the night in the dojo trying to come to terms with his feelings towards Kenshin, and it had been a very long night. When the Sun had risen, he was forced to face the realization that he was no closer to an answer than he had been when he started. So, he had come to the decision that the best way to meet the problem was face to face.
"Who is out there?" Kenshin's voice was uncostomarily sharp and abrupt.
"It is me, Kenshin. May I come in?" Hiko felt strange asking that question. He was also feeling a tremendous amount of hostility and rage coming from the other side of the fusuma. Fury. Rage. Pain? Fear? 'Something is wrong. What is wrong Kenshin? This is not like you.'
"Sure. Why not. Come on in, Master. Come in and make yourself at home." 'What does it matter, what I want? You are going to come in anyway, so come in and get it over with.'
"Thank-you." Now Hiko knew for certain something was dreadfully wrong. This was not Kenshin at all. He should not be in this kind of a mood after being able to reacquire the boy as well as return to the girl. Hiko opened the door, and stepped inside cautiously not wanting to disturb the girl if she was still asleep, but what he saw in the room made him stop and stare. Kenshin was alone.
"Where is Kamiya-dono?" He looked around the room becoming more concerned when he noticed her clothing still hanging in the cabinet. "Kenshin, what is going on? Where is she?" Worry. Anxiety.
"She is not here, Master. I am sure you can see that. It is quite obvious." Sharp, angry, cold. Disrespectful. Not Kenshin.
Hiko walked farther into the room watching Kenshin carefully. He was sitting on the floor, red head bent over as he intently polished his sakobatou. At least that was what Hiko thought it was until he got closer. "That is not your sakobatou, is it?" Alarm. 'It is a long sword. A katana.'
"No, it is not." 'Do not ask me any more questions.'
"Whose sword is it, Kenshin?" 'What are you doing with a long sword?'
"At the moment, it seems to be mine." 'Back off. This does not concern you.'
"I see." Hiko walked close enough to Kenshin to set down but still be a safe distance away from him. He carefully lowered his tall frame to the floor. 'What are you going to do with it? Please do not do anything rash. We can talk about whatever it is first. Talk to me.'
"I do not see where that is any of your concern, Master. My life stopped being your responsibility a very long time ago.... As if it ever was." 'I am in pain. Leave me alone. You do not care anyway. Go away.'
"Kenshin, where is Kami... Where is Kaoru?" 'Stop playing games with me, and tell me what is going on. What has happened to the girl? Why are you acting this way? Why do you have a katana? What are you going to do with it? Why are you so angry at me?'
"Elsbeth has her." 'There, are you happy? I told you. Now, get out. I do not want to talk to you.'
"What in the hell are you talking about? That bitch is dead. She has to be. She was caught in the cave-in. She is dead!" 'Oh Dear God. That witch has the girl? She has Kaoru? Oh NO!'
"I am not dead. Why should she be? I crawled out of that godforsaken black hole. What makes you think she could not have?" 'Stupid. Idiot. Now whose the Baka?'
"All right. All right. She has Kaoru. How did she get her hands on her and what does she want her for?" 'This cannot keep going on or he is going to snap. Maybe he already has. Kami....'
"She came through the wall last night while I was gone to the bath house." He gestured towards the large slit in the paper wall. "And I would imagine, considering our past and recent affiliations, that she intends to kill Kaoru. Any more questions?" Kenshin turned a furious
burning amber gaze on Hiko. "I have things to do." 'Are you blind or just stupid? Get out!'
"I can see that." 'You are going to go after her.' "Do you know where you are going?" 'Of course he does.'
"Yes." 'Stay away. I do not need or want your help. I do not need YOU!'
"Care to tell me where you are off to." 'Please tell me. I know you do not want to, but do it anyway.'
"No. Not really, but since you are just the sneaky kind of asshole that would follow me regardless of my wishes, I may as well tell you." Inside himself Hiko flinched at the viciousness in Kenshin's voice as he spoke to him. All attempts at respectful communication had vanished, and it appeared that all of Kenshin's pent up anger and frustration had finally raised it's ugly head. "You see, Dear Elsbeth inadvertently offered me some very colorful information before she departed the prison. Of course, she thought Yahiko and I were buried underneath a ton of dirt and stone when she did it." An ugly chuckle rumbled out of his chest, as he ran his thumb along the edge of the swords blade testing its sharpness. "So I suppose she did not see the danger in letting us in on her old plans. She kept talking about the grandness of having the King of Hell walk through the doorway and set on the throne of the Emperor's of Old." 'Figure it out youself, oh intelligent One.'
"The Imperial Palace?" Hiko's brow furrowed. "But it's been closed to the public for years, and there are guards placed around at all times. How would she get in there without being seen?" 'Look at him. I am talking to the Battousai, not Kenshin. Has he gone off the edge?'
"She is not trying to get in without being seen. Remember Gonzai? Every member of the village was murdered. She has the resources for everything she needs. Ever detail has been taken care of. The guards are already dead." 'Not so fast any more are you, Old Man. How does it feel to play catch-up?'
"I see, and you intend to go in there after her by yourself? Is that it? Kenshin the mighty Battousai goes off on another valiant crusade to save Japan." Hiko was not prepared for what happened next and so he was caught completely off guard.
In the space of less than a heart-beat, Kenshin was off the floor and standing over his old Master with the edge a very sharp katana pressed at a deadly angle beneath his chin. Hiko could not help but admit he was shocked by the speed at which Kenshin had moved, but he was more stunned by the fact that he had turned on him in anger at all.
"I am not on any fucking crusade, Master." The voice Hiko heard coming from Kenshin was strange. It was neither angry nor threatening. He could not place the tone. "I am on a journey that only I can take because only I am involved. True it does involve the future of Japan, but at this moment I do not give a damn about Japan." He drew a ragged breath. "This spiteful bitch has taken that which is closest to my heart, and she has taken it for one reason and one reason only."
The blade pressed a fraction closer and Hiko could feel the razor edge against his skin. "She took it because she knows I will come for it. She knows I will find a way to come, and she is using my Beloved as bait to draw me out."
"Bait?" The word was chocked out around the lump in Hiko's throat.
"Yes, bait. She does not really want Kaoru at all; although she will undoubtedly kill her anyway." The blade dropped from Hiko's throat, and Kenshin walked away. "She wants me." 'Damn her to everlasting Hell.'
"Why does she want you? I don't understand."
"To replace Yahiko in the ritual. She needs my ki to open the doorway, and taking Kaoru was the one way she knew she could draw me out. You see," The sword flashed through the air like liquid lightning and then was easily sheathed with an audible 'click'. "She knows I know about the Imperial Palace."
"How can she know that?"
"Because she knows Yahiko is alive, and that I was the one who saved him from the cave-in."
"She cannot know that. She would have had to either go back and see that you had escaped, or else someone saw you come back to the Aoiya."
"It could be either one, but it is most likely the later. Elsbeth is vindictive to a fault. She probably had someone watching the Aoiya with the intentions of murdering everyone here simply because they were associated with me." Kenshin moved to the slit in the paper wall and began to finger it absently. "Once word reached her that Yahiko and I were still alive, she would have realized that I heard every word she said, and I knew every detail of her plan. She is waiting for me and I have to go. I have to try." Kenshin drew a ragged breath and gripped the hilt of the katana hanging on his belt. "I have the gift and strength of four different ki's within me now. Four different elements that are each specifically connected to the Earth, and I believe I know how to use them to my advantage just like I used my Fire-ki to beat the Horde."
"I am inclined to believe you on that subject, but I do not see where this is only your concern and does not involve any of us." 'Why must you do everything alone? Why can you not ask for help? Not even from your closest friends?'
"Kaoru is my Aisai. She is my responsibility, mine to protect, mine to save. She is my... Zenrei and the reason I want to live." Kenshins voice fell to a thin whisper. "Without her, I have
no life. I have no choice. I must go." 'Kaoru. My Aisai. I am coming.'
Hiko stood up and cautiously approached Kenshin. "There are always choices, my son. Every day we are faced with a thousand-thousand choices and it is up to each of us which ones we choose to make." He slowly reached out from behind and softy laid his hand on Kenshin's shoulder.
"You believe you are alone, Kenshin, because you have always felt alone, and that..." There was a long hollow pause. "That is my fault."
Kenshin stiffened beneath Hiko's hand, but said nothing. "All your life, I have watched you grow and evolve into one of the finest swordsmen I have ever seen. Even when you were an angry 14 year-old brat spouting Revolutionary drivel in my face, you were extraordinary. I always believed you were meant for great things, but I never dreamed the things you would do." He removed his hand and walked away from Kenshin.
"When you left for the Bakumatsu, I thought the pain of your betrayal of everything I had taught you would kill me, but when you became Hitokiri Battousai, I knew I would never again know such pain as that." Hiko's voice broke, and Kenshin spun around in shock and stared at the large man's back. "With every life you took, you broke my heart a little bit more, and when the day came that I could not bare it anymore, I started trying to drown my pain inside a jug of sake, and I began drinking more and more and more. It seemed life was easier to look at from the wrong side of a sake' jug." A huge sigh lifted his broad
shoulders and his hand reached out to grip one of the support beams. "I hated you. I cursed you. I begged God to strike you dead. I begged for anything as long as I never had to look into your face again."
The great broad shoulders that had always looked so insurmountable to Kenshin began to shake, and he heard Hiko draw in a ragged breath. "How could I face my life when I knew that my beautiful shining boy had become something that was almost worse than the Devil himself? How could I bare to walk through the streets of Kyoto or any village and listen to people curse the name of the Battousai as a shadow demon that sucked the blood of the living, and realize they spoke about my beautiful boy? How could I endure the pain of knowing that my boy was the most feared man in the whole of Japan? My beautiful boy caused more fear with the mere mention of his name than any man could by even drawing his sword. It was a nightmare I could not escape, so I buried every emotion and feeling I had ever felt for you deep inside of myself in a place where they would never again see the light of day."
Hiko's long black hair nearly brushed the floor as he dropped his head in despair. "I never thought I would see you again either. I prayed I never would, but suddenly one day there you were looking lost and broken with your beautiful face scarred and haunted by the past. But your eyes... those amazing extraordinary eyes were still full of the same piercing determination they had always been from the first moment I had ever seen you." Slowly Hiko turned to face a shocked and trembling Kenshin, who could do nothing but watch a face that had never been anything more than stern or mocking to him, melt into one of profound sadness and sorrow. "What could I do except help you? Despite my righteous anger towards you, in the end, I could refuse you nothing." Utterly unable to believe what he was hearing or seeing, Kenshin felt as if his feet were frozen to the floor. He watched as the tears fell unchecked down his Master's lean face and dropped to the floor in tiny puddles. This was not supposed to happen. This was never supposed to happen. What was happening? Kenshin's mind was whirling in confusion as a miriad of emotions and questions collided recklessly within his skull. The large emotionally distraught man standing in front of him was a stranger he did not know, and he could find no hand-hold of stability within his turbulent psyche.
"Even when this whole nightmare started...." Hiko paused and shook his head looking at the ceiling while he tried to gain some control over himself. "Do you know how I knew you were in trouble, Kenshin? Do you know how I knew you needed me?" He paused and drew a deep breath before continueing. "Your ki came screaming to me like a panicked child one night because it had been driven out of a terrifying nightmare by a kind of fear it felt it could not escape alone. So frantic was it's need to be comforted and protected that the physical pain it caused nearly knocked me unconscious. Imagine my total astonishment and confusion when I realized what had happened? I was shock beyond my own rational belief when I realized it was you clinging to me in fear, and that is was you who had come to me searching for protection. You came squalling out of the bitter night looking for a Father to comfort and protect you from something so terrible you could not bare to face it on your own, and you came looking for ME, Kenshin. It was at that moment I knew I had to find you, and that is how Kaoru, Muojin-san, and myself ended up here in Kyoto looking for you."
Hiko closed his eyes and tried to wipe the wetness on his face away with the heels of his palms. "Kaoru asked me several questions on the Ship that I refused to answer at the time because I felt they were useless and foolish, but I think she knew me better than I knew myself." He let his emerald eyes meet and lock with Kenshin's frantic and confused violet gaze. "She asked me if I was ashamed of you, or if I was ashamed to admit I loved you, or if it were both. And then she asked me if I thought loving you would make me look weak in the eyes of other people, or in my own." An unsteady ironic laugh fell from his lips. "She was quite a bit more insightful that I cared for her to be, but she was right. She was right about all of it, and deep in my heart I knew it but I refused to admit it. Not to her, and certainly not to myself. Then she said something to me that finally rang painfully true to me yesterday." As he locked eyes with Kenshin, Hiko took a very slow and measured step towards him.
"She told me that one day I would no longer be able to deny my feelings for you, and I would regret never having told you how I felt. She asked me if I was going to be one of those pitiful souls who knelt in grief over my loved one's grave wishing I had said all of the things that should have been said when I had the chance, only I had squandered the opportunities given me because of my stubborn pride and anger?" He took one more tentative step closer to the trembling red-haired Samurai that he had raised and mentored from a child of seven.
"Yesterday inside the prison, as I stood beside that huge pile of dirt and mortar, THAT was the only thing I could think of. You were beneath that mountain of debris, and no matter what I did, no matter how hard I denied the truth, I would never be able to reach you, and I could not save you. Your body was crushed and broken underneath the all those tons of dirt and debris, and you were never going to come out. There was never going to be another chance in my life to see your face, look into your eyes, or hear your voice because you were gone. I had finally lost you for good, just like she warned me I might. My beautiful shining boy, my Aisoku, was gone and he would never be coming home again, and there was not one damned thing I could do about it. He was was gone from me forever... he was truly dead." The strong stern voice cracked and broke on a suppressed surged of emotional pain, and Kenshin was beginning to feel as if all the oxygen were being sucked out of the room. He could not breath, and his vison was swimming with unshed tears of disbelief, anger, pain, and hope.
"I had missed every opportunity God have ever given me to reach my hand out to you and tell you everything I should have told you when you were eight, when you were ten, when you were 14, but I never did it because I did not know how, and I finally understood one single horrible truth." The magnificent Samurai, who had once been Seijorou Hiko, 13th Master of the Hiten Mitsurugi Ryu, bowed his head in humble shame before the trembling red-haired Warrior, whom he had given his own name to when he adopted him as his son, and spoke in a voice that was both reverent and contrite. "Be careful what you ask for, because it may be given to you. I had wished and prayed for you to be dead so many times over the years that I could not remember them all, and suddenly it was true. You were dead. I do not ever want to know the pain of that grief within my heart again." Then he slowly and carefully stretched his hand out to Kenshin in humble entreaty. "I do not want to waste another chance... My son." His voice dropped to a mere whisper within the otherwise silent room. "Who knows how much time we have left? I guess only God knows, but I do not want to lose or waste any more of it. I have learned a painful lesson in these few short days that time is one of the most precious gifts we are given in this life, and it should not be used foolishly." As he raised his head and once more captured the tortured amber gaze, Hiko slowly raised his other hand and opened his arms wide to the violently trembling red-haired man before him. "Come home to me, Kenshin. I have missed you, My beautiful boy. I have missed you so very much, My beautiful shining son. It is time you came home, Aisoku. That it is."
With a chocked sob, Kenshin fell into the waiting arms of Seijurou Hiko and felt them close around him as tight as the arms of Heaven.
"My beautiful shining son." Hiko's voice was hardly more than a raspy whisper against Kenshin's flaming hair. "My son... Kenshin... I love you, my Aisoku. I have always loved you, and I will continue to love you until death closes my eyes." Kenshin was sobbing uncontrollably within the protective circle of his Father's strong arms, and his own arms were wrapped fiercely around the big man as he buried his face against the broad chest. "You are not alone, Kenshin. You will never be alone again. I will stand by your side always, and I will watch your back through whatever battles you may have to fight. Together we will face the horrors of this world, and we will prevail. I will go forward with you today, and we will do what has to be done, and we will bring your beloved home. I swear this to you, or I will die trying to do so."
*************
"You realize you will never succeed in this don't you?"
"You think I cannot make my wishes come true, Ugly Little Crow?"
"No, I do not. Not this wish."
THWWAAACK!
"Do not ever talk to me like that again or I will hit you hard enough to knock your teeth out and scatter them on the floor. You mean nothing to me, do you understand. NOTHING. You are simply a means to an end."
"He will never let you use him like that. He would never allow his spirit to be used for something so evil."
"You really are quite stupid, aren't you? He does not have a choice in the matter. This is not a democracy, and we are not taking a vote or a poll on whether he gets to do this or not. He is, and that is that."
"Over confidence can be a fatal character flaw. I should think you would want to be more cautious."
"I am warning you, little Crow. Watch your tongue or I will cut it out of your stupid head. I have every right to be confident. After all, I have the child, don't I?"
"That is true I suppose, but she will not get you very far will she? She is terribly small."
SMMAACCK! THHWWACCK!
"I told you to mind your sassy mouth, stupid Bitch. What do you know about this? What does an ugly little Crow like you know about anything? I will tell you what you know. You know absolutely nothing. Nothing. Did you hear me, you hideous white-faced Maggot? You know
absolutely nothing about anything."
"You are probably right. I do not know much of anything except kenjutsu. I bet you know a lot of things though. I bet you were educated at a university in a big city and know everything about anything, don't you? You probably have the knowledge of the Universe at your fingertips considering all of the affiliations you are connected with... isn't that right?"
"Of course, I do. Did you know I am going to be a Queen? When the King of Hell comes through the doorway to take the Emperor's throne, he is going to make me his Queen. Do you not think I will be a beautiful Queen, little Crow? Will I not be the most glorious Queen the world has
every seen?"
"Most Certainly. You are so beautiful now. I can only imagine what you are going to look like in your most divine form sitting at your King's side. You will surely be Magnificence itself to behold."
"SHUT-UP! I know what you are doing. Oh you think you are so clever don't you little Crow? Well, you are not. I see what you are trying to do, but I am not so easily manipulated as the idiots you are used to dealing with. Do not try to do it again."
"All right, so you are more intelligent than I am. What does that prove?"
"It proves I am better than you are. It proves He made a poor choice when he picked you for his lover. When we were together there was nothing I would not give him, nothing I was not willing to do for him, and only I could satisfy his raging passions in bed. Can you do that, ugly little Crow? Or can you even arouse his desires with your colorless skin and dead black hair? Does he lose control when he takes you in his arms? Does he breath your name in the voice of hunger? Look at yourself. You are hardly even a woman, much less a woman any man would wish to find warming the blankets of his bed. What can you possibly offer Him, ugly little Crow? What do you have that holds any sort of value that would keep a man like him bound to you?"
"Something you could never give him."
SMMAACCK!
"I GAVE HIM EVERYTHING!"
"You never gave him true love."
"That is a lie! I loved him more than I have ever loved anyone, and he loved me. He would have died for me... and I gave him... I gave..." Her voice trailed away into silence as she stared into the honesty of large round blue eyes.
"What did you give him? You never gave him your heart or yourself. You never gave him real love... the kind of love that lasts forever. You left him, remember. You never loved him enough to be waiting for him to come home to you for the rest of his life. You never loved him enough to promise him a peaceful haven within your arms and your heart where he could find the comfort he needed for his wounded and lonely soul, and you never loved him enough to be willing to give up your whole life to follow him wherever he went just so you could be with him." Kaoru's clear blue eyes bore unwaveringly into Elsbeth's stunned grey-green. "I do, and he knows I do."
"I hate you."
"I know. It does not matter."
"Why? Does it not frighten you that I hate you so much? I could make your death very painful if I wanted to. Does that not frighten you, ugly little Crow?"
"No. It does not frighten me."
Why not?"
"Because I do not care."
"You should care, little Crow. You really should."
"I suppose it should, but it does not. One way or another I will die tonight. Whether it is by your hand or by my own it really does not matter. I will still die." Elsbeth's eyes darted to Kaoru's serene face in surprised fury.
"What are you saying to me? What do you think you know, you stupid girl?"
"You are using me as bait to bring Kenshin here so you can use his ki to open your precious doorway. You believe he will be distracted by his concern for me and make a mistake trying to save me which will allow you to capture him,but I know Kenshin, and although I do not believe that
could happen, I am not willing to take the chance. I will take my own life before I let you use me against him."
"You would not dare. You do not have the courage to take your own life. I will not allow it!"
"You have no say in the matter, My Lady. If I am already dead when Kenshin arrives, he can focus his full attention on you, and he will most asuredly kill you as well then your plan will fail." Kaoru smiled. "So you see Lady Katsura, in the end, you will still fail no matter how carefully you have planned everything. You will still fail."
"EEEiiiiiaaaa!!!" TTTHHHHWWWWUUMMP!!!
Kaoru's head fell forward limply as a screaming Elsbeth struck it with a wooden block. "You cannot stop me if you are unconscious, stupid little Crow. Because if you are unconscious, you will not be able to take your own life." She laughed wickedly and her angelic features shifted
beneath the flesh. "Now we will see who succeeds and who fails." Elsbeth watched in pleasure as a thin trickling line of blood traced a pathway down Kaoru's left temple, over her cheek, and then dripped off her chin landing to make a dark red circle against the pale lavender yukata she wore.
She deftly caught a drop on the tip of a slender finger in mid air as it slipped from the pale skin. Grey-green eyes danced with exquisite pleasure as she slid the finger into her mouth.
"Mmmmm. Yummy." She purred. "I may have to save a little bit of you for later, my tasty little Crow." Then she left Kaoru hanging unconscious and standing bound hand and foot to a tall wooden stake that had been partially buried in the ground. A heavy iron door closed in on Kaoru leaving her in total darkness. It was not long until the dark of night would come. Not very long at all.
Chapter 16
Out of The Depths of Hell
She coughed and coughed until it felt as if her chest were going to cave in upon itself. The dust was so thick and heavy it felt like a blanket laying over her. She could feel boards and small pieces of old mortar laying on and around her, and she experimentally began to move her extremities checking for broken bones. When all of them were found intact, she carefully moved her neck and head. Her neck moved all right, but there was a thundering pain trying to split her skull in half.
"Oooooo..... Dear God, my head." She moaned as she struggled onto her knees. Amazingly, one torch was still burning after the massive explosion of energy that had destroyed the cell block. It was laying on the floor behind her. A trembling white hand reached out and grabbed it
dragging it to her. As she lifted it up, she sucked in a great gasping of air in shock. The entire area had been completely demolished. There was hardly a piece of the corridor wall left intact, and all 10 cells were totally devastated.
Elsbeth stood up on shaky legs with her mouth hanging open and her eyes blown open wide as silver moons. Staring in stunned disbelief, she started picking her way through the mountains of shattered mortar and twisted steel.
"Look at the power." She was lost in awe looking at the destruction Yahiko's raging ki had wrought on the prison. "Incredible... Magnificent..." She could still fell the residual pulsing of the boy's energy, and it was intoxicating. Then, somewhere during her admiration of the pure malevolence of the boy's strength, it dawned on her that the boy was gone. She whirled around and frantically searched around the debris filled area. Tons of mortar and broken wooden support braces were piled and strewn erratically about the floor, but in the center where she had been standing with the boy was a mountain of shattered mortar, dirt, and all sorts of debris from the surrounding cells. It was impenetrable. "NOOOOOO!" She screamed and picked up a rock and threw it as hard as she could at the massive mound. "NOOOOO! NOOOO! You've ruined everything you fucking brat! How could you do this to me after I have worked for so long? How dare you do this to me? " She jerked around and half ran half stumbled to the corner of what was left of the walkway, but she then stopped and turned around.
"I hope your soul rots in Hell you little maggot. I hope you burn and scream in pain for all Eternity for what you have done to me. May your body rot and decay in the ground, Himura, while your soul watches me slaughter these mewling lambs one by one until I find another child powerful enough to open the doorway." She walked back to the mound of dirt and debris and spit on it, and then her face turned dreamy, almost ethereal. "It would have been glorious too, precious Boy. We would have lit up the midnight sky, you and I, with all of this magnificent power you just pissed away for nothing." She raised her hands in the air and spoke in a commanding voice. "We would have made the Emperor's of the old Dynasties bow their heads in shame and grovel at our feet when the doorway opened and our glorious King walked though it. Oh, what a sight it would have been so see, Precious. The King of Darkness and Chaos sitting on the throne of the Emperor's." Her eyes were glowing a wild red as her passion mounted. "It would have been the beginning of a new age... The Age of Dominian."
She danced away and ran through the prison corridors on small quick feet. "I will yet open that doorway, Himura. Can you hear me all the way from Hell? If I have to murder every child in Japan to do it. I WILL OPEN THAT DOORWAY UNDER THE AUTUMN MOON, AND THERE IS NOTHING YOU CAN DO TO STOP ME THIS TIME."
*********************
Beneath the heavy layers of dirt and mortar there was a small pocket of air and space that was protected from the horrible weight above by a geometrical anomaly built from a ravaged steel door, and several large support beams. Inside this small haven of protection, setting crunched over into a tight ball of flesh and bone was the body of a man covering the smaller body of a young boy. Inside of this man's mind the primaeval instinct of survival had taken over control, and the adrenaline levels rising in his blood were rushing through his body, and increasing the strength of his muscles and the speed of his thoughts as he searched for a way to freedom. If they were going to survive, they had to get out before their safe haven collapsed on top of them, or ran out of breathable air. It seemed Time would forever be this man's mortal enemy, and he cursed inside his mind as he struggled to formulate a solution to their dilemma.
Slowly reaching out with his right hand, he began feeling for an opening in the prison of dirt and stone around him. His sensitive fingers felt along every edge, every dip, every crevice. Finding a way out that would not bring the tons of debris down on top of them was his greatest concern. He had to find a way out. He had to get Yahiko out of here because he knew the boy had been injured in some way during the massive explosion of ki energy, but he also had to get out and get back to Kaoru. They would have told her by now that both he and Yahiko had been killed by the cave in. In his souls-heart, he could feel the absolute pain of her anguish and it was killing him because he could
not comfort her with the truth that he was alive.
It felt as if her soul were dying and he was dying with her. 'Kaoru...' He whispered in his heart. 'I am coming, koishii. Wait for me... I am coming.' His hand continued to search in earnest as he looked for a way out of the tiny haven. If he could not find one, it would become their grave. Kenshin did not want to die inside the black darkness of the Shinsengumi prison, and he knew if he could just get them out of this hole and find something to burn, he could follow Soujirou's Geisha beads all the way out to the exit tunnels. "Hold on, Yahiko. Hold on, My son."
**********************
Saitoh had returned to the police station to make his own private report. He had left Tokio at the Aoiya with Misao. She had become quite attached to the young ninja girl as well as to Kaoru in the short time the three women had been together, and after the devastating news of the Battousai's death, she felt the need to stay to offer emotional support to the younger woman. Saitoh had agreed easily. The incident had effected him more than he wanted to admit, and going back to the police station was an easy way to divorce himself from the situation. At least for a little while.
Once they had gotten back to the Aoiya, Aoshi had taken Soujirou under his wing, so to speak, and was keeping him close to his side. The younger man appeared to be wandering lost and confused without any form of direction. Everyone at the Aoiya was very worried about his continuing state of sanity. They were afraid that after bonding so close to Kenshin and then losing him so soon and so tragically, might push Soujirou over the edge into madness or inconsolable despair. To find a place of love and security, a place that he alone could call his, and a man who loved and accepted him enough to become his 'Father', and then to have it torn from him so savagely would be nothing less than devistating to the young man's fragile psyche. Could it withstand such a tremendous and tragic loss? No one could be sure.
After his talk with Okina, Hiko had positioned himself outside of Kaoru's room. He sat cross-legged on the engowa staring blankly into space as memory after memory sifted through his mind. Memories of Kenshin.
Kenshin when he was eight and afraid of fishing because he did not know how to swim. Hiko had picked him up and thrown him into the stream. "That will teach you how to swim." He had called after the sputtering and chocking child. Of course he would never have let the boy drown.
He had watched him very closely until he made his way back out onto the bank. That was the first time he had felt a true Fatherly emotion for the young Kenshin, but he had not known how to show it so he just handed him the fishing pole and told him he did not have an excuse any more.
Then an image of Kenshin at about ten or eleven trying to move through the Mitsurugi kata by himself. Hiko had been surprised by the fluid and graceful motions the boy was capable of, but he had nearly fainted when Kenshin almost achieved God-like speed that day. Hiko had never said a word to him about seeing him practice, but during their training that afternoon, he added a new technique that required God-like speed to perform well. Kenshin had learned it swiftly and perfectly. It later become his favorite move the Ryu Tsui San, and he would become the best at performing it.
Image after image passed before his minds eye as he relived a lifetime lived over 20 years ago. There would be no more memories to be made now. Kenshin was gone. Kenshin was... dead.
Hiko discovered himself wondering what it would have been like to hold Kenshin and Kaoru's child in his arms, and found a lump of emotion forming in his throat. 'What is happening to me?' He asked himself.
'I have never cared about such things before. I have never even thought about them before so why do I think about them now, and why does the knowledge that they will never happen cause me so much pain?' He looked at his hands and examined the hard formed callouses made from years of
swinging his sword, and wondered if he would even know how to hold a baby. Then another more disturbing thought came to him. 'Would they have even wanted me to be a part of their child's' life? Would I have ever held their child?' Hiko swallowed hard against the lump and rested his head against the wall of Kaoru's room. The expression on his face was unreadable.
"Kenshin...." The ache in her heart and soul was a pain she knew she would never be able to bare. There would be no recovery from this loss. This terrible cavernous grief would live with her as her life's companion in Kenshins place. It would sleep by her side at night, and walk beside her in the daytime. The huge emptiness where Kenshin used to live was growing with each passing moment, and soon it would consume her entirely. Kaoru wanted to die.
"What can we do, Tokio-san?" Misao's face was reddened and stained with tears. She had broken down as well when she learned of Himura's death, but her concern for Kaoru's grief had over shadowed her own, and she knelt loyally at her friends side. She wrung her hands with nervous
anxiety not knowing what else to do. "I do not know what to do. She looks so sad, so broken. How can we help her?"
"We can be here for her, Misao. That is all." Tokio laid a cool cloth over Kaoru's brow, and gently stroked her pale cheek. "The pain she feels at this moment cannot be described. It has no name or context. It simply is, and it is either endured and beaten, or it is not."
"What do you mean, 'or not'?" Misao's puffy eyes searched the older woman's face. "Are telling me Kaoru could be like this forever or something? How can she suffer like this for the rest of her life? She cannot. She would waste and whither away, and eventually it would kill her. I know it would." Tears slid from Misao's eyes and fell into her lap. "She cannot live like this."
"Misao, sometimes people love each other so much that one cannot bare to live without the other. I can see how much Kaoru loved Himura, and I can feel the depth of her pain and loss. I do not know if she can ever recover from losing him." She wiped tears off Misao's face. "It is rare to see a love bond so strong and so deep that it reaches all the way into the soul. If we pity her, we diminish something glorious and beautiful, but neither can we rejoice in this." Misao buried her face against Tokio's neck and softly cried. "This is the worst kind of tragedy."
"Kenshin...."
The sun had slipped below the horizon and the moon had risen to cast its pure white light across the courtyard of the Aoiya as well as the rest of Kyoto. It would be completely full in its glorious presence the following night, and the grand Autumn Festival would be celebrated just as it was every year. Nothing would change, nothing ever did. Life moved forward at its usual steady pace letting events happen as they should, just as they were planed.
A shrill high -pitched scream stabbed though the night shattering the serenity of the Moon's beauty, and then was suddenly silenced as if it had never been.
Life kept moving forward. Nothing ever changed. Everything happened just as it was planned.
Hiko looked up at the Moon and decided it must be close to midnight. He heaved himself to his feet and stretched his tall broad frame which had become stiff from setting for so many hours. There was no one else stirring about so he decided it would be all right if he left his post for just a moment. He needed to stretch his legs, and a short walk was just the thing. As he stealthfully moved along the creaky veranda, another sound caught his sensitive ears freezing him where he stood. His left thumb eased his sword out of its sheath with a soft 'click' as his right hand closed around the well- worn hilt.
The gate was opening, albeit very slowly, but it was opening.
Aoshi and Soujirou suddenly appeared at his side hands at the ready to draw their blades as well.
"Someone is trying to open the gate." Hiko said very quietly as he gestured in the direction of the sho-ji.
"I heard." Aoshi replied just as quietly. "Let's wait until he is inside. We will have a better chance of over powering him within the courtyard."
"Agreed." Hiko nodded and looked at Soujirou. The young mans' face was no longer frozen in its usual smile, instead it now wore a deeply serious straight lipped expression. "Soujirou?"
"I am ready." He replied flatly. Hiko nodded to him and then met Aoshi's worried eyes. Only time would tell about the young swordman. Their attention returned to the slowly moving gate.
It was difficult to see clearly in the pale light of the Moon. The pure white light tended to play tricks with a man's vision as it cast odd shaped shadows and changed usually bright colors into drab shades of gray and black. So when the strangely shaped individual finally succeeded in opening the gate and gained access into the Aoiya, it was no wonder that the three confused men started to attack before they realized whom they were attacking.
Because of his speed, Soujirou reached the stranger first and nearly knocked him to the ground before he recognized him and what he carried over his shoulder.
"OTAN!!!" Soujirou's ecstatic joyful shout was heard all over the entire Aoiya. It was quickly followed by another. "LITTLE BROTHER!!!" And suddenly the courtyard was filled with light and people as everyone ran out of their rooms not believing what they had just heard.
"Himura-san!" "Kenshin!" He could hear his name being cried and shouted all around him as he sank to his knees in exhaustion. He was covered with dirt and there was a cut over his right shoulder, but otherwise he seemed unharmed. Leaning over, he gently laid his precious burden on the cool grass.
Yahiko was still unconscious, but he was alive and Kenshin could still feel the pulse of his spirit energy; although it was quite subdued. He was bleeding from several small cuts, and from the small slit in his throat made by Elsbeth's dagger, but he also seemed to be all right otherwise.
"He is alive." Kenshin said with great effort. "But he is utterly spent. He used his entire ki and I think some of mine to do what he did." Exhausted violet eyes rose to look at each person kneeling around him and Yahiko. Then they stopped, and held the powerful blue-grey gaze of his other son. "I believe he is in a state of some sort of hibernation or something like it. His body and mind suffered such a tremendous shock when he released all that power, this seems to be their way of coping and healing."
"Then you believe he will come back?" Soujirou's voice was low and filled with question and concern as he met and searched his adopted father's clear violet gaze.
"Yes, I do, but I also believe he will be gone for some time as well. It will take time to replenish the enormous amount of energy he expended. He could sleep for days."
"I understand." Soujirou nodded solemnly and bent down to gently lift Yahiko up in his arms. "I will take care of him, Otan." He said as he met Kenshin's eyes steadily. "He is my brother after all, and that is what brothers do for each other, isn't it? They take care of each other." Then he turned to walk away, but something made him stop. "Father..." His voice was trembling with great effort to speak.
"Yes, Soujirou." Kenshin rose slowly to his feet and faced the young man as he turned back to face him. Kenshin felt a tremendous love and pride swell within his heart as he watched a tear slip down Soujirou's intensely emotion filled face.
"I love you. I want you to know that."
Kenshin was stunned by the simply spoken words and deeply moved by the enormous amount of feeling behind them. "I love you as well, Soujirou... Aisoku."
Soujirou smiled brightly and walked away with Yahiko held gently in his strong arms. Kenshin watched him as he went until he disappeared into his room and slid the fusuma closed. Then he turned back to the others' still standing about him.
Aoshi approached him and offered him a deep bow and then hugged him close for a short moment. " I am very pleased you are not dead... brother." And a hint of a smile washed across his bland face. "You were just starting to become interesting." Kenshin smiled back and inclined his head.
Next came Saitoh, who had returned to the Aoiya to be with Tokio. Kenshin met the narrowed slits of the policeman's eyes, and bowed to him. "I owe you my gratitude, Saitoh. Without you I would never have been able to find Yahiko. I am now in debt to you for his life, and it is a debt I will gladly repay should the opportunity ever arise." He bowed again. "Thank-you,.... shi-yuu."
Saitoh's eyebrows rose in total shock, and for once he was speechless. Kenshin simply smiled and turned away. Tokio smiled tenderly at her gapping husband and kissed his cheek.
The only person left was Hiko, but as soon as it was certain that Kenshin was all right, Hiko had disappeared. Kenshin's violet eyes searched the yard earnestly, but Hiko was no where to be seen. His head dropped low in resignation.
"Why do you never let me come close to you?" Kenshin whispered as the part of his heart that belonged to Hiko broke into pieces once more. "What is it about me you hate so much that you cannot even accept my thanks for your assistance?" His tired feet carried him out of the circle of his friends, and he looked up into the night sky. "Why can you not love me? Why?"
Within the dojo walls Seijurou Hiko leaned into the wall weakly as heavy silent sobs shook his huge body, and tears of relief poured unchecked down the lean contours of his face. "Thank-you Kami-sama..." He breathed into the cool night air. "Thank-you for the life of my Aisoku." He gulped in large breaths of air trying to calm his emotions, but 20 years of loneliness and unspoken feelings of love and need would not be stopped now that the gates had been broken open. "Dear God..." He cried. "Give me the strength. Give me the strength to do what is right this time. Do not let me waste this precious second chance to love my son."
Kenshin let the cool night breeze slide through his hair washing away the pain of his Master's continued rejection of him. Life would move onward. He would move onward and he would survive this pain because he had.... Oh God!!
"Kaoru!!!" He whipped to his left and disappeared as his God-like speed carried him across the yard to the room he shared with her. In a split instant he was sliding the fusuma open and stepping inside. Tears flooded his eyes when he saw her laying on their futon curled into a ball of anguished pain and grief. Her face was pale with greyish circles beneath eyes that were reddened from hours and hours of crying. Kenshin was kneeling beside her in a moment tenderly touching her cool skin.
"So cold..." He whispered in frightened concern. "Too cold." He knew he was covered with dirt and filth, but at the moment it did not matter as he slid his arms beneath her shoulders, and lifted her up to hold her against his heart. "Kaoru..." Dirty tears dripped off his nose and chin and fell into the ebony depths of her hair. "Koishii, tadaima Aisai..." He pressed kisses against her forehead and over her cold cheeks. "Open your eyes, koishii. Please open your eyes. Tadaima. I
am home." A sob caught in his throat and he buried his face in her neck. "Onegai... onegai..." Please.
It was dark where she was at, and she wanted to stay there. Inside the darkness there was no pain, there was no grief, there was nothing. Just the darkness. But something was pulling on her, tugging at her. Something was trying to coax her out. Kaoru resisted until the sound of the voice at last penetrated into the darkness and she heard....
"Ken-shen....?" She stirred slightly against him, and he raised his dirty, tear stained face to look down into her deathly pale one. A trembling hand brushed away a few stray strands of black hair that were
caught on her long lashes, and then cupped her cheek.
"Kaoru," the voice was soft and filled with entreaty. "Come back, saiai. Please do not leave me here without you." Kenshin brushed soft kisses over her delicate eyelids, along her cheeks, on her nose, and then lightly across her cold lips. "Kaoru... Kaoru... tadaima, sweetheart. I am home. I am alive, Aisai... open your eyes and see me, Kaoru. I am alive." He pressed his lips against hers again. "I am home, and I am alive. Please come back to me."
"Ken...." She stirred against him again, and her eyelids fluttered several times as they struggled to open. Kenshin continued dusting soft gentle kisses all over her face and whispering to her he was alive, and begging her to come back to him. And though his arms were tired and aching with fatigue caused from the hours it had taken him to dig his way out and pull himself and Yahiko to freedom, he refused to let go of her.
"Kenshin..." The voice was hoarse but steady and firm. He pulled back from her and found himself looking into her beautiful dark blue eyes. They stared at him as if trying to decide if he were real or if he was a ghost. Her hand rose to his face and she traced the dirty pathway of his tears down his cheek. Then the same hand lifted up farther to touch his hair, which had lost its' glorious red shine to the large amount of dirt that covered it. "You are filthy, koishii." She said at last. "I do not remember ever seeing you look like this before."
Kenshin shook his head and laughed softly as he caught her hand and brought it to his lips. He pressed gentle loving kisses against her fingers and then laid her palm against his cheek. "I am sorry, Aisai." Tear filled violet eyes danced with love and a soft smile crossed his lips. "It never crossed my mind to stop and take a bath before I came in."
Then the most beautiful smile he had ever seen curved her mouth and lit up her eyes. "I think I can forgive you this time, My Anata. Truly I can." Kenshin chocked back a sob and crushed her against him while he lost himself in the curve of her shoulder. Kaoru wrapped her arms around
his neck and shoulders and pulled him into her embrace and her soft mouth began to shower soft kisses wherever she could reach.
He pulled back and cupped her face in his hands. "I am too dirty for your lips to touch, koishii. Wait for me to clean all of this dirt off, and then you can kiss what and wherever you like." Kaoru gazed at him with clear blue eyes filled with innocence and wonder, and then she leaned into him and captured his mouth with hers. It was the first time she had ever initiated a passionate kiss between them, and Kenshin was to stunned to stop her. His mouth opened wider which parted her lips and
deepened the kiss. "Kaoru.... Let me go wash and then I will come back." He stood up and walked to the door and slid it open. He stopped and turned back to look at her. Huge blue eyes filled with anxiety were watching him with an unspoken question burning in their depths.
"I brought him home with me, koishii." The words were gently spoken and meant to soothe her. "I am certain he will be all right so do not lose heart." Kenshin smiled into Kaoru's relieved face. "Wait for me." A wicked smile crossed his handsome, if not dirty face, and then he was gone.
"He is back...." She spoke to herself almost as if she spoke to someone else. "He is alive..." She touched a hand to her heart and felt it beating with her own life. "He did not die in the cave in..." The same hand touched her lips. "He survived, Yahiko survived, and he brought him home..." Blue eyes blinked once then once more as she tried to make sense of what had just happened. "It was real... Kenshin is alive... I am not alone... He is still with me... Still with me...
still with me... still... still... still.. Kenshin." Her hands covered her face as the shock of seeing him wore off and relief descended to take its' place. Harsh but quiet sobs shook Kaoru's slender frame as she allowed the reality that Kenshin and Yahiko were both still alive to sink into her heart and soul. Kenshin was alive. Her one beloved had somehow cheated a certain death, and then come home to her just as he had promised he would.
"Thank-you Kami-sama. Thank-you." The words of her heart soared towards the heavens as she rejoiced in the knowledge that grief had not yet replaced Kenshin as her life companion.
Suddenly Kaoru was seized from behind. A large hand closed over her mouth cutting off any scream she might have made while the monstrous rope of another arm wrapped around her middle effectively pinning her arms to her sides. Quiet as a shadow the intruder pulled her out through the
hole he had made in the rice paper wall of the room.
"Lovely, lovely girl." Kaoru felt the sheen of cold sweat break out on her forehead and trickle down between her breasts. The moment she heard the cultured accented voice she knew who it was, and when the beautiful evil face came close to hers, she finally understood why Miko Ishida had called this woman The Devil's Whore.
"What is the matter, koishii?" She sneered in Kaoru's face. "Has some nasty cat got your tongue?" Low evil laughter filled the air surrounding Kaoru and her unwanted companions. "If you make so much as a squeak, I will slit your throat." A long shining blade was place closely against the frantically beating pulse in her neck. "Take your hand off her face. I would see this 'Kaoru' that Himura 'loves' enough to want to live for."
Kaoru watched in apprehension as a tiny delicate boned hand reached out and tilted her chin upward and then side to side. "He thinks you are beautiful." The smooth voice was scornful and rude. "I think you look like a little crow with your white washed skin and tar black hair." Kaoru's head was thrown out of the woman's grasp with an amazing amount of force. "Gag her and follow." She hissed to the man who held Kaoru captive. "We waste time that is ill afforded. I cannot be caught again." The odd trio disappeared into the shifting shadows of the night, but not before Elsbeth left Kenshin a message. A very clear message.
He rubbed hard at his wet hair trying to get most of the water out of it before he left the bath house. It had been many years since he had felt so glad to be clean again. Of course, it had been many years since he had been that filthy. He had also felt as if he were washing the residue of Elsbeth off of him as well. Violet eyes narrowed as he recalled the tip of the dagger pressed into Yahiko's throat. She would pay for that, that she would. Shaking his head bruskly, Kenshin pushed
all negative thoughts from his mind. All he wanted to do right now was curl up with Kaoru wrapped snugly in his arms and sleep. Kaoru... A sigh of relief escaped him as he thought of the deep state of grief he had found her in. If that had proved nothing else to him, it had proved once and for all the true depth of her love for him. He would never doubt her again. Carefully he slid the door open and stepped inside the candle lit room he shared with her. He draped his dirty clothes over a stool and turned to approach his beloved, but she was not where he had left her. Instead all he found was a single lock of her raven hair that had been intentionally placed across the center of the futon. Very
carefully and intentionally placed.
Kenshin's eyes darted around the room surveying it for intruders or any other changes, and he quickly found the large slit in the paper wall. Rushing to it, he stepped out into the night and immediately felt the unmistakable negative power shift that was Elsbeth's alone.
"Nooooooo....." He dropped to his knees with fists clenched and head bowed. "Please do not let this happen. Please, God. Please. Noooooo..." His voice broke on a sob, and then he fell into a deep silence for a long moment. When, at long last, he looked up, Kenshin let the changing amber orbs of his eyes stare intently at the rounding sphere of the nearly full Moon as if he were trying to absorb the purity of it into his soul.
"I know where you are going, kirei." It was spoken barely above a whisper. "Now we shall see who is the strongest, Heaven and Earth or Hell and Damnation." He rose to his feet in one fluid motion and continued to face the Moon. "Run and hide, kirei." He let his voice ring clear and true as he spoke. "Run and hide kirei. That is the only way you will avoid my sword because this time I do know everything." As his eyes began glowing a deep golden-yellow that cast a gleaming circle of light all around him, Kenshin sensed a strangeness gathering in the air around him. A feeling of power began to dance and tingle along his skin, and strands of his flaming red hair were floating about his head in an unseen slow breeze that was seperate from the natural wind that whispered through the nearby trees. His well shaped lips pulled back into a wolfish snarl, and when he spoke, his voice was the rumbling of a deep growl within his chest.
"Hear me now, Elsbeth de Angeles, O Thou Witch of the Dark World.
Thine head is mine, and I will bath the Alter of Thine wicked blasphemies with the blood of Thine own body. Thou shalt taste the bitter gall that is the long death of Eternal Damnation. When I cast Thy flaming soul screaming into the deepest depths of Jikogu, Thou shalt burn in the worst agonies of pain forever." He raised his face and his right fist to the sky and continued speaking in the same terrible voice. "Thy fate is sealed by Thine own bitter hatreds and jealousies, and Thy black heart with perish upon the tip of my blade. I claim Thy life as retribution for all of the innocents Thee hath sacrificed in the name of the King of Hell. THEE. ARE. MINE." A great pulse of Kenshin's spirit-ki exploded from his body and surged outward from him shaking the trees and rattling the windows of near by buildings. "The time is upon you, Witch. The Flaming Sword of The Mother is coming for you." Slowly he dropped his fist and turned to slide back into his room through the slit in the wall.
"Aaaiiieeeee!!!" Elsbeth grabbed her throat and her chest as she was gripped by a terrible pain. Her knees buckled and she fell to the ground scraping her hands. It was several moments before she was able to stand. Shock and fear registered on her fine featured face as her eyes wildly looked around as if she actually thought she might see some kind of an attacker, but there was no one. Kaoru smiled behind the hand that covered most of her face. She knew what had caused the woman so much pain. Kenshin's ki was dancing angrily in the air surrounding them like a thousand tiny Samurai warriors with flaming swords. "He knows." She thought. "And she knows he knows.... and she is afraid." Excellent.
********************
Hiko tentatively knocked on Kenshin and Kaoru's door the next morning. He had spent the rest of the night in the dojo trying to come to terms with his feelings towards Kenshin, and it had been a very long night. When the Sun had risen, he was forced to face the realization that he was no closer to an answer than he had been when he started. So, he had come to the decision that the best way to meet the problem was face to face.
"Who is out there?" Kenshin's voice was uncostomarily sharp and abrupt.
"It is me, Kenshin. May I come in?" Hiko felt strange asking that question. He was also feeling a tremendous amount of hostility and rage coming from the other side of the fusuma. Fury. Rage. Pain? Fear? 'Something is wrong. What is wrong Kenshin? This is not like you.'
"Sure. Why not. Come on in, Master. Come in and make yourself at home." 'What does it matter, what I want? You are going to come in anyway, so come in and get it over with.'
"Thank-you." Now Hiko knew for certain something was dreadfully wrong. This was not Kenshin at all. He should not be in this kind of a mood after being able to reacquire the boy as well as return to the girl. Hiko opened the door, and stepped inside cautiously not wanting to disturb the girl if she was still asleep, but what he saw in the room made him stop and stare. Kenshin was alone.
"Where is Kamiya-dono?" He looked around the room becoming more concerned when he noticed her clothing still hanging in the cabinet. "Kenshin, what is going on? Where is she?" Worry. Anxiety.
"She is not here, Master. I am sure you can see that. It is quite obvious." Sharp, angry, cold. Disrespectful. Not Kenshin.
Hiko walked farther into the room watching Kenshin carefully. He was sitting on the floor, red head bent over as he intently polished his sakobatou. At least that was what Hiko thought it was until he got closer. "That is not your sakobatou, is it?" Alarm. 'It is a long sword. A katana.'
"No, it is not." 'Do not ask me any more questions.'
"Whose sword is it, Kenshin?" 'What are you doing with a long sword?'
"At the moment, it seems to be mine." 'Back off. This does not concern you.'
"I see." Hiko walked close enough to Kenshin to set down but still be a safe distance away from him. He carefully lowered his tall frame to the floor. 'What are you going to do with it? Please do not do anything rash. We can talk about whatever it is first. Talk to me.'
"I do not see where that is any of your concern, Master. My life stopped being your responsibility a very long time ago.... As if it ever was." 'I am in pain. Leave me alone. You do not care anyway. Go away.'
"Kenshin, where is Kami... Where is Kaoru?" 'Stop playing games with me, and tell me what is going on. What has happened to the girl? Why are you acting this way? Why do you have a katana? What are you going to do with it? Why are you so angry at me?'
"Elsbeth has her." 'There, are you happy? I told you. Now, get out. I do not want to talk to you.'
"What in the hell are you talking about? That bitch is dead. She has to be. She was caught in the cave-in. She is dead!" 'Oh Dear God. That witch has the girl? She has Kaoru? Oh NO!'
"I am not dead. Why should she be? I crawled out of that godforsaken black hole. What makes you think she could not have?" 'Stupid. Idiot. Now whose the Baka?'
"All right. All right. She has Kaoru. How did she get her hands on her and what does she want her for?" 'This cannot keep going on or he is going to snap. Maybe he already has. Kami....'
"She came through the wall last night while I was gone to the bath house." He gestured towards the large slit in the paper wall. "And I would imagine, considering our past and recent affiliations, that she intends to kill Kaoru. Any more questions?" Kenshin turned a furious
burning amber gaze on Hiko. "I have things to do." 'Are you blind or just stupid? Get out!'
"I can see that." 'You are going to go after her.' "Do you know where you are going?" 'Of course he does.'
"Yes." 'Stay away. I do not need or want your help. I do not need YOU!'
"Care to tell me where you are off to." 'Please tell me. I know you do not want to, but do it anyway.'
"No. Not really, but since you are just the sneaky kind of asshole that would follow me regardless of my wishes, I may as well tell you." Inside himself Hiko flinched at the viciousness in Kenshin's voice as he spoke to him. All attempts at respectful communication had vanished, and it appeared that all of Kenshin's pent up anger and frustration had finally raised it's ugly head. "You see, Dear Elsbeth inadvertently offered me some very colorful information before she departed the prison. Of course, she thought Yahiko and I were buried underneath a ton of dirt and stone when she did it." An ugly chuckle rumbled out of his chest, as he ran his thumb along the edge of the swords blade testing its sharpness. "So I suppose she did not see the danger in letting us in on her old plans. She kept talking about the grandness of having the King of Hell walk through the doorway and set on the throne of the Emperor's of Old." 'Figure it out youself, oh intelligent One.'
"The Imperial Palace?" Hiko's brow furrowed. "But it's been closed to the public for years, and there are guards placed around at all times. How would she get in there without being seen?" 'Look at him. I am talking to the Battousai, not Kenshin. Has he gone off the edge?'
"She is not trying to get in without being seen. Remember Gonzai? Every member of the village was murdered. She has the resources for everything she needs. Ever detail has been taken care of. The guards are already dead." 'Not so fast any more are you, Old Man. How does it feel to play catch-up?'
"I see, and you intend to go in there after her by yourself? Is that it? Kenshin the mighty Battousai goes off on another valiant crusade to save Japan." Hiko was not prepared for what happened next and so he was caught completely off guard.
In the space of less than a heart-beat, Kenshin was off the floor and standing over his old Master with the edge a very sharp katana pressed at a deadly angle beneath his chin. Hiko could not help but admit he was shocked by the speed at which Kenshin had moved, but he was more stunned by the fact that he had turned on him in anger at all.
"I am not on any fucking crusade, Master." The voice Hiko heard coming from Kenshin was strange. It was neither angry nor threatening. He could not place the tone. "I am on a journey that only I can take because only I am involved. True it does involve the future of Japan, but at this moment I do not give a damn about Japan." He drew a ragged breath. "This spiteful bitch has taken that which is closest to my heart, and she has taken it for one reason and one reason only."
The blade pressed a fraction closer and Hiko could feel the razor edge against his skin. "She took it because she knows I will come for it. She knows I will find a way to come, and she is using my Beloved as bait to draw me out."
"Bait?" The word was chocked out around the lump in Hiko's throat.
"Yes, bait. She does not really want Kaoru at all; although she will undoubtedly kill her anyway." The blade dropped from Hiko's throat, and Kenshin walked away. "She wants me." 'Damn her to everlasting Hell.'
"Why does she want you? I don't understand."
"To replace Yahiko in the ritual. She needs my ki to open the doorway, and taking Kaoru was the one way she knew she could draw me out. You see," The sword flashed through the air like liquid lightning and then was easily sheathed with an audible 'click'. "She knows I know about the Imperial Palace."
"How can she know that?"
"Because she knows Yahiko is alive, and that I was the one who saved him from the cave-in."
"She cannot know that. She would have had to either go back and see that you had escaped, or else someone saw you come back to the Aoiya."
"It could be either one, but it is most likely the later. Elsbeth is vindictive to a fault. She probably had someone watching the Aoiya with the intentions of murdering everyone here simply because they were associated with me." Kenshin moved to the slit in the paper wall and began to finger it absently. "Once word reached her that Yahiko and I were still alive, she would have realized that I heard every word she said, and I knew every detail of her plan. She is waiting for me and I have to go. I have to try." Kenshin drew a ragged breath and gripped the hilt of the katana hanging on his belt. "I have the gift and strength of four different ki's within me now. Four different elements that are each specifically connected to the Earth, and I believe I know how to use them to my advantage just like I used my Fire-ki to beat the Horde."
"I am inclined to believe you on that subject, but I do not see where this is only your concern and does not involve any of us." 'Why must you do everything alone? Why can you not ask for help? Not even from your closest friends?'
"Kaoru is my Aisai. She is my responsibility, mine to protect, mine to save. She is my... Zenrei and the reason I want to live." Kenshins voice fell to a thin whisper. "Without her, I have
no life. I have no choice. I must go." 'Kaoru. My Aisai. I am coming.'
Hiko stood up and cautiously approached Kenshin. "There are always choices, my son. Every day we are faced with a thousand-thousand choices and it is up to each of us which ones we choose to make." He slowly reached out from behind and softy laid his hand on Kenshin's shoulder.
"You believe you are alone, Kenshin, because you have always felt alone, and that..." There was a long hollow pause. "That is my fault."
Kenshin stiffened beneath Hiko's hand, but said nothing. "All your life, I have watched you grow and evolve into one of the finest swordsmen I have ever seen. Even when you were an angry 14 year-old brat spouting Revolutionary drivel in my face, you were extraordinary. I always believed you were meant for great things, but I never dreamed the things you would do." He removed his hand and walked away from Kenshin.
"When you left for the Bakumatsu, I thought the pain of your betrayal of everything I had taught you would kill me, but when you became Hitokiri Battousai, I knew I would never again know such pain as that." Hiko's voice broke, and Kenshin spun around in shock and stared at the large man's back. "With every life you took, you broke my heart a little bit more, and when the day came that I could not bare it anymore, I started trying to drown my pain inside a jug of sake, and I began drinking more and more and more. It seemed life was easier to look at from the wrong side of a sake' jug." A huge sigh lifted his broad
shoulders and his hand reached out to grip one of the support beams. "I hated you. I cursed you. I begged God to strike you dead. I begged for anything as long as I never had to look into your face again."
The great broad shoulders that had always looked so insurmountable to Kenshin began to shake, and he heard Hiko draw in a ragged breath. "How could I face my life when I knew that my beautiful shining boy had become something that was almost worse than the Devil himself? How could I bare to walk through the streets of Kyoto or any village and listen to people curse the name of the Battousai as a shadow demon that sucked the blood of the living, and realize they spoke about my beautiful boy? How could I endure the pain of knowing that my boy was the most feared man in the whole of Japan? My beautiful boy caused more fear with the mere mention of his name than any man could by even drawing his sword. It was a nightmare I could not escape, so I buried every emotion and feeling I had ever felt for you deep inside of myself in a place where they would never again see the light of day."
Hiko's long black hair nearly brushed the floor as he dropped his head in despair. "I never thought I would see you again either. I prayed I never would, but suddenly one day there you were looking lost and broken with your beautiful face scarred and haunted by the past. But your eyes... those amazing extraordinary eyes were still full of the same piercing determination they had always been from the first moment I had ever seen you." Slowly Hiko turned to face a shocked and trembling Kenshin, who could do nothing but watch a face that had never been anything more than stern or mocking to him, melt into one of profound sadness and sorrow. "What could I do except help you? Despite my righteous anger towards you, in the end, I could refuse you nothing." Utterly unable to believe what he was hearing or seeing, Kenshin felt as if his feet were frozen to the floor. He watched as the tears fell unchecked down his Master's lean face and dropped to the floor in tiny puddles. This was not supposed to happen. This was never supposed to happen. What was happening? Kenshin's mind was whirling in confusion as a miriad of emotions and questions collided recklessly within his skull. The large emotionally distraught man standing in front of him was a stranger he did not know, and he could find no hand-hold of stability within his turbulent psyche.
"Even when this whole nightmare started...." Hiko paused and shook his head looking at the ceiling while he tried to gain some control over himself. "Do you know how I knew you were in trouble, Kenshin? Do you know how I knew you needed me?" He paused and drew a deep breath before continueing. "Your ki came screaming to me like a panicked child one night because it had been driven out of a terrifying nightmare by a kind of fear it felt it could not escape alone. So frantic was it's need to be comforted and protected that the physical pain it caused nearly knocked me unconscious. Imagine my total astonishment and confusion when I realized what had happened? I was shock beyond my own rational belief when I realized it was you clinging to me in fear, and that is was you who had come to me searching for protection. You came squalling out of the bitter night looking for a Father to comfort and protect you from something so terrible you could not bare to face it on your own, and you came looking for ME, Kenshin. It was at that moment I knew I had to find you, and that is how Kaoru, Muojin-san, and myself ended up here in Kyoto looking for you."
Hiko closed his eyes and tried to wipe the wetness on his face away with the heels of his palms. "Kaoru asked me several questions on the Ship that I refused to answer at the time because I felt they were useless and foolish, but I think she knew me better than I knew myself." He let his emerald eyes meet and lock with Kenshin's frantic and confused violet gaze. "She asked me if I was ashamed of you, or if I was ashamed to admit I loved you, or if it were both. And then she asked me if I thought loving you would make me look weak in the eyes of other people, or in my own." An unsteady ironic laugh fell from his lips. "She was quite a bit more insightful that I cared for her to be, but she was right. She was right about all of it, and deep in my heart I knew it but I refused to admit it. Not to her, and certainly not to myself. Then she said something to me that finally rang painfully true to me yesterday." As he locked eyes with Kenshin, Hiko took a very slow and measured step towards him.
"She told me that one day I would no longer be able to deny my feelings for you, and I would regret never having told you how I felt. She asked me if I was going to be one of those pitiful souls who knelt in grief over my loved one's grave wishing I had said all of the things that should have been said when I had the chance, only I had squandered the opportunities given me because of my stubborn pride and anger?" He took one more tentative step closer to the trembling red-haired Samurai that he had raised and mentored from a child of seven.
"Yesterday inside the prison, as I stood beside that huge pile of dirt and mortar, THAT was the only thing I could think of. You were beneath that mountain of debris, and no matter what I did, no matter how hard I denied the truth, I would never be able to reach you, and I could not save you. Your body was crushed and broken underneath the all those tons of dirt and debris, and you were never going to come out. There was never going to be another chance in my life to see your face, look into your eyes, or hear your voice because you were gone. I had finally lost you for good, just like she warned me I might. My beautiful shining boy, my Aisoku, was gone and he would never be coming home again, and there was not one damned thing I could do about it. He was was gone from me forever... he was truly dead." The strong stern voice cracked and broke on a suppressed surged of emotional pain, and Kenshin was beginning to feel as if all the oxygen were being sucked out of the room. He could not breath, and his vison was swimming with unshed tears of disbelief, anger, pain, and hope.
"I had missed every opportunity God have ever given me to reach my hand out to you and tell you everything I should have told you when you were eight, when you were ten, when you were 14, but I never did it because I did not know how, and I finally understood one single horrible truth." The magnificent Samurai, who had once been Seijorou Hiko, 13th Master of the Hiten Mitsurugi Ryu, bowed his head in humble shame before the trembling red-haired Warrior, whom he had given his own name to when he adopted him as his son, and spoke in a voice that was both reverent and contrite. "Be careful what you ask for, because it may be given to you. I had wished and prayed for you to be dead so many times over the years that I could not remember them all, and suddenly it was true. You were dead. I do not ever want to know the pain of that grief within my heart again." Then he slowly and carefully stretched his hand out to Kenshin in humble entreaty. "I do not want to waste another chance... My son." His voice dropped to a mere whisper within the otherwise silent room. "Who knows how much time we have left? I guess only God knows, but I do not want to lose or waste any more of it. I have learned a painful lesson in these few short days that time is one of the most precious gifts we are given in this life, and it should not be used foolishly." As he raised his head and once more captured the tortured amber gaze, Hiko slowly raised his other hand and opened his arms wide to the violently trembling red-haired man before him. "Come home to me, Kenshin. I have missed you, My beautiful boy. I have missed you so very much, My beautiful shining son. It is time you came home, Aisoku. That it is."
With a chocked sob, Kenshin fell into the waiting arms of Seijurou Hiko and felt them close around him as tight as the arms of Heaven.
"My beautiful shining son." Hiko's voice was hardly more than a raspy whisper against Kenshin's flaming hair. "My son... Kenshin... I love you, my Aisoku. I have always loved you, and I will continue to love you until death closes my eyes." Kenshin was sobbing uncontrollably within the protective circle of his Father's strong arms, and his own arms were wrapped fiercely around the big man as he buried his face against the broad chest. "You are not alone, Kenshin. You will never be alone again. I will stand by your side always, and I will watch your back through whatever battles you may have to fight. Together we will face the horrors of this world, and we will prevail. I will go forward with you today, and we will do what has to be done, and we will bring your beloved home. I swear this to you, or I will die trying to do so."
*************
"You realize you will never succeed in this don't you?"
"You think I cannot make my wishes come true, Ugly Little Crow?"
"No, I do not. Not this wish."
THWWAAACK!
"Do not ever talk to me like that again or I will hit you hard enough to knock your teeth out and scatter them on the floor. You mean nothing to me, do you understand. NOTHING. You are simply a means to an end."
"He will never let you use him like that. He would never allow his spirit to be used for something so evil."
"You really are quite stupid, aren't you? He does not have a choice in the matter. This is not a democracy, and we are not taking a vote or a poll on whether he gets to do this or not. He is, and that is that."
"Over confidence can be a fatal character flaw. I should think you would want to be more cautious."
"I am warning you, little Crow. Watch your tongue or I will cut it out of your stupid head. I have every right to be confident. After all, I have the child, don't I?"
"That is true I suppose, but she will not get you very far will she? She is terribly small."
SMMAACCK! THHWWACCK!
"I told you to mind your sassy mouth, stupid Bitch. What do you know about this? What does an ugly little Crow like you know about anything? I will tell you what you know. You know absolutely nothing. Nothing. Did you hear me, you hideous white-faced Maggot? You know
absolutely nothing about anything."
"You are probably right. I do not know much of anything except kenjutsu. I bet you know a lot of things though. I bet you were educated at a university in a big city and know everything about anything, don't you? You probably have the knowledge of the Universe at your fingertips considering all of the affiliations you are connected with... isn't that right?"
"Of course, I do. Did you know I am going to be a Queen? When the King of Hell comes through the doorway to take the Emperor's throne, he is going to make me his Queen. Do you not think I will be a beautiful Queen, little Crow? Will I not be the most glorious Queen the world has
every seen?"
"Most Certainly. You are so beautiful now. I can only imagine what you are going to look like in your most divine form sitting at your King's side. You will surely be Magnificence itself to behold."
"SHUT-UP! I know what you are doing. Oh you think you are so clever don't you little Crow? Well, you are not. I see what you are trying to do, but I am not so easily manipulated as the idiots you are used to dealing with. Do not try to do it again."
"All right, so you are more intelligent than I am. What does that prove?"
"It proves I am better than you are. It proves He made a poor choice when he picked you for his lover. When we were together there was nothing I would not give him, nothing I was not willing to do for him, and only I could satisfy his raging passions in bed. Can you do that, ugly little Crow? Or can you even arouse his desires with your colorless skin and dead black hair? Does he lose control when he takes you in his arms? Does he breath your name in the voice of hunger? Look at yourself. You are hardly even a woman, much less a woman any man would wish to find warming the blankets of his bed. What can you possibly offer Him, ugly little Crow? What do you have that holds any sort of value that would keep a man like him bound to you?"
"Something you could never give him."
SMMAACCK!
"I GAVE HIM EVERYTHING!"
"You never gave him true love."
"That is a lie! I loved him more than I have ever loved anyone, and he loved me. He would have died for me... and I gave him... I gave..." Her voice trailed away into silence as she stared into the honesty of large round blue eyes.
"What did you give him? You never gave him your heart or yourself. You never gave him real love... the kind of love that lasts forever. You left him, remember. You never loved him enough to be waiting for him to come home to you for the rest of his life. You never loved him enough to promise him a peaceful haven within your arms and your heart where he could find the comfort he needed for his wounded and lonely soul, and you never loved him enough to be willing to give up your whole life to follow him wherever he went just so you could be with him." Kaoru's clear blue eyes bore unwaveringly into Elsbeth's stunned grey-green. "I do, and he knows I do."
"I hate you."
"I know. It does not matter."
"Why? Does it not frighten you that I hate you so much? I could make your death very painful if I wanted to. Does that not frighten you, ugly little Crow?"
"No. It does not frighten me."
Why not?"
"Because I do not care."
"You should care, little Crow. You really should."
"I suppose it should, but it does not. One way or another I will die tonight. Whether it is by your hand or by my own it really does not matter. I will still die." Elsbeth's eyes darted to Kaoru's serene face in surprised fury.
"What are you saying to me? What do you think you know, you stupid girl?"
"You are using me as bait to bring Kenshin here so you can use his ki to open your precious doorway. You believe he will be distracted by his concern for me and make a mistake trying to save me which will allow you to capture him,but I know Kenshin, and although I do not believe that
could happen, I am not willing to take the chance. I will take my own life before I let you use me against him."
"You would not dare. You do not have the courage to take your own life. I will not allow it!"
"You have no say in the matter, My Lady. If I am already dead when Kenshin arrives, he can focus his full attention on you, and he will most asuredly kill you as well then your plan will fail." Kaoru smiled. "So you see Lady Katsura, in the end, you will still fail no matter how carefully you have planned everything. You will still fail."
"EEEiiiiiaaaa!!!" TTTHHHHWWWWUUMMP!!!
Kaoru's head fell forward limply as a screaming Elsbeth struck it with a wooden block. "You cannot stop me if you are unconscious, stupid little Crow. Because if you are unconscious, you will not be able to take your own life." She laughed wickedly and her angelic features shifted
beneath the flesh. "Now we will see who succeeds and who fails." Elsbeth watched in pleasure as a thin trickling line of blood traced a pathway down Kaoru's left temple, over her cheek, and then dripped off her chin landing to make a dark red circle against the pale lavender yukata she wore.
She deftly caught a drop on the tip of a slender finger in mid air as it slipped from the pale skin. Grey-green eyes danced with exquisite pleasure as she slid the finger into her mouth.
"Mmmmm. Yummy." She purred. "I may have to save a little bit of you for later, my tasty little Crow." Then she left Kaoru hanging unconscious and standing bound hand and foot to a tall wooden stake that had been partially buried in the ground. A heavy iron door closed in on Kaoru leaving her in total darkness. It was not long until the dark of night would come. Not very long at all.