Hmmm... I lied. I put in some postwar stuff... actually it's post
everything, post-jinchuu. In any case, here is my chapter that is
basically all about Enishi (yay!). This chapter might be boring for you if
you already know a lot about Enishi, but I decided to leave all the
background stuff in because Enishi can be very confusing to someone who
doesn't know this stuff... i speak from experience. If you're bored, skip
down to the 'flashback' scene.
History Behind the History, chapter 9
Yukishiro Enishi, Akitaka typed into the search engine's text box. Out of pure curiosity, he checked 'images; as a category in which to display results. Several images came up, and though they were all black and white photos, he could tell some were of a black haired child and some of a white haired man. Were there two different Yukishiro Enishis? Maybe the text results would explain it.
How odd... most of the sites to come up with information on Yukishiro had to do with Chinese history, not Japanese. Was Yukishiro Chinese? That didn't make much sense either... Battousai's wife, Chinese? During a war, a foreigner coming in and marring an important Ishin Shishi? Intriguing.
He clicked on a link to bring up an article that had several interesting tidbits of information. The Yukishiros were, in fact, Japanese, but Enishi had gone to live in China while the Revolution was still going on. He had been taken in by a Chinese family after living on the streets for quite awhile, but one night had suddenly murdered the entire family. Authorities had never found him, and he'd grown up to form a smuggling network specializing in very strange, very illegal weaponry.
The short and short of it was that he'd eventually come back to Japan, expanding his business horizons while conveniently heading for Tokyo to cash in a personal IOU, so to speak. After creating a substantial amount of havoc in the city, he had gotten to the point and challenged his enemy directly. The two had never actually fought on the agreed day, as a group of 'comrades'- Yukishiro was loath to call them underlings- he had assembled kept the challenged party busy while Yukishiro quietly kidnapped a local woman, leaving an elaborate imitation cadaver in her residence to convince locals she'd been killed.
Apparently having a soft spot for young women such as his sister had been, he did not actually kill the lady, but took her to a secluded island nearby. The girl's friends had eventually figured this out and gone to rescue her, culminating in a fight between Yukishiro and the one he had originally challenged. Yukishiro was delivered into police custody, but disappeared from the police boat before it got back to Tokyo.
He seemed also to have given up his stake in the weapon-smuggling ring around that time, as it fell to a new owner and promptly fizzled. He had disappeared with his late sister's diary in his possession, and it was widely believed that he had returned to Shanghai, China, as he was never seen in Japan again. He had been only briefly glimpsed at his old residence, however, and his house had stood for years empty of life but filled with his possessions until it had finally fallen down. The site had been superstitiously avoided until a developer had come decades later and burned the remains, making room for what had later become an apartment complex.
Well, that put an abrupt end to things, didn't it? It seemed like this Enishi person had just dropped off the face of the Earth. He'd just have to be tracked down, then, wouldn't he?
* *
*
Yukishiro Enishi exited his house with nothing in his hands. He carried no sword, no weapons of any kind, and, in fact, had nothing with him at all except the clothes he wore. He turned around and took a last look at the place he'd planned his 'Earthly Justice'- what a joke. He should have known his sister wouldn't have wanted him to exact revenge upon the Bat- no, Kenshin: Himura Kenshin, his former brother-in-law. He had acted as if he was the ultimate victim in all this, but that, of course, was his sister: the dead person, remember? Duh. Or, more accurately, duh is what he might have thought if he lived in the twentieth century, but he didn't. In any case, he'd been foolish and quite drunk with rage.
Come to think of it, what had it gotten her the time she tried to wreak revenge on the very same man? She hadn't been able to do it. She'd gone off and fallen in love with him. Enishi could just imagine her going into her 'bossy big sister' voice and telling him not to go after her killer. 'You'll get yourself hurt,' she'd say. Besides, they had fallen in love. She had forgiven him for killing her fiancé and would forgive him for killing her if she were alive to do so, not that that sentence made sense without a good amount of sake in you before you heard it. After seeing his former brother-in-law, he knew that that man felt a lot of remorse and did not need Enishi to explain what a bad thing killing his sister was. No one ad needed or wanted him to do anything, but then look what he'd gone and done.
Enishi shook his head to clear it and walked on. This place was too... familiar. Everything he'd known for so long was tainted with the idea of his revenge, so everything familiar was also unsettling. This place was disgusting to him now, as was everything associated with the last ten years. Ten years was a long time. While he'd lived in China, he'd been quite literally obsessed with events that had happened and would happen in Japan, and now both countries were utterly distasteful to him through no fault of their own.
Perhaps he'd find a third country to inhabit and ruin, or maybe he'd continue traveling and not stay long enough in one place to taint it. Just about every place he'd ever been gave him thoughts he didn't want, so he might never visit the same place twice again. He'd become a wanderer of the world and never see this building or this city again. He'd learn new languages and forget the ones from his childhood. He'd wear strange clothes, eat strange foods, and follow strange customs.
It didn't sound like a happy life, homelessness, but it would be easier than staying here and facing all this familiarity. Anything familiar brought back horrible memories, both of things he'd seen or felt and of things he'd done- terrible things. He'd been driven by nothing but anger over his sister's death, but knowing her thoughts now melted all the anger down into only sadness. He was sad that she'd died, of course, but also of the things he'd done in her name since then. She was so pure, and he'd killed people trying to use her to justify it. That couldn't be done, and he was finding out the hard way.
He set out to travel- travel far, far away from his old home and his old life.
********************************************************************** i think this story is getting off track. maybe not, though, i think i kinda see where it's going. anyway, if there are ideas, feel free to suggest.
nishichans 1fan: yay! another enishi-fan! where did you get a poster of him? i want one... and yes, i agree he is very cool, though there is that pesky he-is-a-murderer detail...
Ginger1280: i'll consider having them meet in a dream, but no time travel. thank you for your compliments and i'm glad you enjoy the story.
Ymir-chan: sorry you're bored. this story is not meant to be action/adventure, as that is not really my style. my writing is more introspective. you're free to read or not, review or not, but if you choose to keep reading, i'll be most grateful.
Amaya: always glad to make someone feel special! glad you like the story and i'll keep it coming! oddly, ff.net seems to have emailed me your review twice. did you perchance find a way to review twice? some chapters it won't even let me review once because it says i already have. computers can be so weird. just like boys.
History Behind the History, chapter 9
Yukishiro Enishi, Akitaka typed into the search engine's text box. Out of pure curiosity, he checked 'images; as a category in which to display results. Several images came up, and though they were all black and white photos, he could tell some were of a black haired child and some of a white haired man. Were there two different Yukishiro Enishis? Maybe the text results would explain it.
How odd... most of the sites to come up with information on Yukishiro had to do with Chinese history, not Japanese. Was Yukishiro Chinese? That didn't make much sense either... Battousai's wife, Chinese? During a war, a foreigner coming in and marring an important Ishin Shishi? Intriguing.
He clicked on a link to bring up an article that had several interesting tidbits of information. The Yukishiros were, in fact, Japanese, but Enishi had gone to live in China while the Revolution was still going on. He had been taken in by a Chinese family after living on the streets for quite awhile, but one night had suddenly murdered the entire family. Authorities had never found him, and he'd grown up to form a smuggling network specializing in very strange, very illegal weaponry.
The short and short of it was that he'd eventually come back to Japan, expanding his business horizons while conveniently heading for Tokyo to cash in a personal IOU, so to speak. After creating a substantial amount of havoc in the city, he had gotten to the point and challenged his enemy directly. The two had never actually fought on the agreed day, as a group of 'comrades'- Yukishiro was loath to call them underlings- he had assembled kept the challenged party busy while Yukishiro quietly kidnapped a local woman, leaving an elaborate imitation cadaver in her residence to convince locals she'd been killed.
Apparently having a soft spot for young women such as his sister had been, he did not actually kill the lady, but took her to a secluded island nearby. The girl's friends had eventually figured this out and gone to rescue her, culminating in a fight between Yukishiro and the one he had originally challenged. Yukishiro was delivered into police custody, but disappeared from the police boat before it got back to Tokyo.
He seemed also to have given up his stake in the weapon-smuggling ring around that time, as it fell to a new owner and promptly fizzled. He had disappeared with his late sister's diary in his possession, and it was widely believed that he had returned to Shanghai, China, as he was never seen in Japan again. He had been only briefly glimpsed at his old residence, however, and his house had stood for years empty of life but filled with his possessions until it had finally fallen down. The site had been superstitiously avoided until a developer had come decades later and burned the remains, making room for what had later become an apartment complex.
Well, that put an abrupt end to things, didn't it? It seemed like this Enishi person had just dropped off the face of the Earth. He'd just have to be tracked down, then, wouldn't he?
* *
*
Yukishiro Enishi exited his house with nothing in his hands. He carried no sword, no weapons of any kind, and, in fact, had nothing with him at all except the clothes he wore. He turned around and took a last look at the place he'd planned his 'Earthly Justice'- what a joke. He should have known his sister wouldn't have wanted him to exact revenge upon the Bat- no, Kenshin: Himura Kenshin, his former brother-in-law. He had acted as if he was the ultimate victim in all this, but that, of course, was his sister: the dead person, remember? Duh. Or, more accurately, duh is what he might have thought if he lived in the twentieth century, but he didn't. In any case, he'd been foolish and quite drunk with rage.
Come to think of it, what had it gotten her the time she tried to wreak revenge on the very same man? She hadn't been able to do it. She'd gone off and fallen in love with him. Enishi could just imagine her going into her 'bossy big sister' voice and telling him not to go after her killer. 'You'll get yourself hurt,' she'd say. Besides, they had fallen in love. She had forgiven him for killing her fiancé and would forgive him for killing her if she were alive to do so, not that that sentence made sense without a good amount of sake in you before you heard it. After seeing his former brother-in-law, he knew that that man felt a lot of remorse and did not need Enishi to explain what a bad thing killing his sister was. No one ad needed or wanted him to do anything, but then look what he'd gone and done.
Enishi shook his head to clear it and walked on. This place was too... familiar. Everything he'd known for so long was tainted with the idea of his revenge, so everything familiar was also unsettling. This place was disgusting to him now, as was everything associated with the last ten years. Ten years was a long time. While he'd lived in China, he'd been quite literally obsessed with events that had happened and would happen in Japan, and now both countries were utterly distasteful to him through no fault of their own.
Perhaps he'd find a third country to inhabit and ruin, or maybe he'd continue traveling and not stay long enough in one place to taint it. Just about every place he'd ever been gave him thoughts he didn't want, so he might never visit the same place twice again. He'd become a wanderer of the world and never see this building or this city again. He'd learn new languages and forget the ones from his childhood. He'd wear strange clothes, eat strange foods, and follow strange customs.
It didn't sound like a happy life, homelessness, but it would be easier than staying here and facing all this familiarity. Anything familiar brought back horrible memories, both of things he'd seen or felt and of things he'd done- terrible things. He'd been driven by nothing but anger over his sister's death, but knowing her thoughts now melted all the anger down into only sadness. He was sad that she'd died, of course, but also of the things he'd done in her name since then. She was so pure, and he'd killed people trying to use her to justify it. That couldn't be done, and he was finding out the hard way.
He set out to travel- travel far, far away from his old home and his old life.
********************************************************************** i think this story is getting off track. maybe not, though, i think i kinda see where it's going. anyway, if there are ideas, feel free to suggest.
nishichans 1fan: yay! another enishi-fan! where did you get a poster of him? i want one... and yes, i agree he is very cool, though there is that pesky he-is-a-murderer detail...
Ginger1280: i'll consider having them meet in a dream, but no time travel. thank you for your compliments and i'm glad you enjoy the story.
Ymir-chan: sorry you're bored. this story is not meant to be action/adventure, as that is not really my style. my writing is more introspective. you're free to read or not, review or not, but if you choose to keep reading, i'll be most grateful.
Amaya: always glad to make someone feel special! glad you like the story and i'll keep it coming! oddly, ff.net seems to have emailed me your review twice. did you perchance find a way to review twice? some chapters it won't even let me review once because it says i already have. computers can be so weird. just like boys.