"I'm sorry, Aoshi-sama. Megumi-sensei is. . . " Misao swallowed and
forced herself to look up into his face. "She's dead."
Okina gave a sudden gasp from behind him. But all Aoshi could do was to stare at his young ward, as if she had stabbed him in the back.
When Aoshi continued to say nothing, Misao nervously filled in the silence. "We were near Tokyo snooping around some rather interesting places when Cho got an order to go to Aizu. He told us that we were to tag along, and so we did. But when we arrived, I found out about Takani-sensei having disappeared suddenly. We found little Megumi with the neighbors and I ended up spending a lot of time watching her while Cho and Soujiro were busy with other things. Since I was the one who knew her auntie the best . . ."
Aoshi remained impassive. Misao trailed off uncertainly, not sure whether to continue. But Okina nodded slightly. Despite how it looked, both were still listening.
"The police weren't really sure what happened. Takani-sensei in the past has been known to just leave the house on emergency calls. But with a little girl in the house, it seemed too irresponsible. And there were the things found outside the house."
When both men stiffened, she hurried on. "A broken jar, a strange residue on the ground and some footprints. . . it looked like someone had knocked out the doctor and taken her away. Some enemy perhaps."
"She has none," Okina shook his head. "If anything, any enemies she had would have come for her long ago." He looked questioningly over at Aoshi, "Isn't that so?"
Aoshi narrowed his eyes briefly, understanding the old man's intent. "Even Kanryuu Takeda is long dead. "
"That's what the police also determined." Misao was trying to ignore the strange look in Aoshi's eyes when he had mentioned that name. She knew it was a name that he wanted to forget, even though she never did hear the complete reason as to why. "So, the police thought perhaps there was something else. A deranged patient. A scorned suitor."
Okina made a face. "It sounds so vulgar."
Misao blushed slightly. "Takani-sensei was not apparently very kind to men. And it was well-known that she had returned home with a child. All sorts of rumors were going around."
"Shortly after we arrived, they found a body at the river. It was a young woman, who was terribly beaten and disfigured. Long hair. Fairly tall. Light-colored kimono that was . . ." Misao looked away, "ripped and torn."
Okina closed his eyes with a sigh. "The jealous stalker then."
Aoshi spoke suddenly. "Did you see the body?"
Misao shook her head. "The police wouldn't allow it. They were too shocked by the whole thing and the way the body was found. They were certain it was her. Some of them knew her as they were her patients. And there were no other reports of a young woman missing."
Okina looked over at Aoshi, and shook his head. "This isn't some doll, Aoshi. You know that kind of thing doesn't happen twice. "
Aoshi tensed and directed a withering look at the older man. "This is not the time to patronize, old man. My senses have not left me yet."
"Aoshi-sama," Misao's eyes widened as she saw a fleeting look of fury pass over his face. "Okina didn't mean to-"
Aoshi turned on his heel and left the room.
She moved to hurry after him, but Okina's firm hand detained her. "No. It's best to leave him. He knows -" Okina's voice saddened, "he knows you're right Misao. That's why he's so upset."
"Okina, I-- " Misao's face fell. "I had no idea that it would bother him this much. I didn't know that he and Takani-sensei were that close."
"I don't think he knew that either, Misao-chan," Okina took her hand affectionately and tried to console his younger ward. Misao cared so much for the happiness of her Aoshi-sama that it pained her to see him suffering, even in the slightest, and even if it meant that Aoshi-sama held feelings for someone else. "It's only when she got into trouble again, that it became that clear to me and perhaps to him."
"So is this why Meg-chan was sent with me?" Misao looked confused. "I thought I would take her to Tokyo, but Cho was insistent she come here."
"Aoshi is the one who found her, Misao. He's the one who can best protect her for now. He'll be good to her, you know that Misao."
"Of course, Okina. I know." She raised her eyes to his. "I know."
~~
Misao's expression of concern and worry lingered in Aoshi's mind after he left the kitchen abruptly. But the news she had brought him weighed more heavily in his heart.
He had retreated again to the temple, to offer up prayers on her behalf, but also to wrestle with the feelings inside him that he did not understand.
The day had come and gone, and he was no closer to understanding completely everything inside him. But he sat here anyways, as the shadows that came with evening slowly swallowed up the remaining light. He knew that for it was well past the normal hours of the temple, but he wasn't in the mood to care.
"Aoshi." Okina's stern voice called out to him somewhere in the darkness of the temple. "You shouldn't be here."
Aoshi continued to sit with his eyes closed in meditation, ignoring the man.
"You can't just hide from the world now, Aoshi." The slight shuffle of slippers as well as the growing volume of his voice told Aoshi that Okina was moving towards him, determined not to be put off. "Even if you think we can't understand you and what you're feeling or thinking. . . we can't just stand by and watch you deal with this alone. No one is meant to bear life's burdens alone."
Aoshi turned slightly. "Am I not allowed time to properly pay my respects on behalf of a friend."
"Aoshi!" Okina's voice grew impatient. "We are not asking you to deny your feelings. In fact, embrace them if you have finally learned how!! I am not asking you to pretend that nothing has happened, but you can't shut us or the world out."
Okina had paused behind him. His voice suddenly quieted. "Right now, there is a little girl back at the Aoiya who has been asking for you all day. Since the day you walked into her life and promised to find her aunt, you became important to her. maybe more important than any other person with a link to her aunt. You can not sit here all day and leave her waiting. She doesn't even know her aunt is dead. She needs you . now."
Aoshi blinked, recalling suddenly the face of the child whose face flickered joy upon his entrance into the kitchen earlier that day. The child who didn't even know that her one surviving family member had been ripped away from her by some sick man . who didn't know that she was already an orphan twice over in one year. That child . that child was asking for him.
His feelings of complete uselessness - the ones that had hit him when the news broke of Megumi Takani's disappearance - had to be shed.
He was needed here and now.
If anything, simply knowing that gave him the motivation to stand and follow Okina back out the temple and to the lighted rooms at the Aoiya.
~~
It was a quiet group of men that paid their respects at the freshly dug grave of Megumi Takani.
They returned to town, intent on stopping by the home of the neighbors where Meg-chan was staying.
The neighbors found them lingering in front of the gate. With a smile, the eldest - a grandmotherly type - came out of the house and invited them in.
"You're the friends from Tokyo," the woman said with an understanding look on her face. "She mentioned you occasionally and described you well. The police are done with the house and all will be put into storage for now. At least until her niece and her guardians can deal with it-"
"Her guardians?" Kenshin looked a bit concerned. "Megumi-chan was supposed to be staying here. We thought to come by and see her. We were told by the police that we couldn't take her with us, until the paperwork was complete."
"Oh dear," the woman looked slightly alarmed. "But young Misao took her the day before yesterday. I suppose this is a misunderstanding then. Or I hope so - I mean did I do something wrong?"
"No," Kenshin smiled kindly at the woman . "We know Misao-chan and are sure that the two of them are fine."
"Oh, I'm glad," the woman smiled again. "Although they were in a bit of a rush and didn't get to pack up all her things. If I could bother you to come take a few things before you go back to Tokyo then perhaps you can make sure those things get to little Megumi."
"Of course," Kenshin bowed and smiled politely, although the smile didn't quite reach his eyes.
Sanosuke paid little attention to their conversation. The woman's gentle prattle was so odd and inappropriate. At this moment, he would rather just stalk off to the station and be left with his feelings . . . but the chance to see the clinic -- the place where Megumi Takani had spent her last two weeks -- could not be passed up.
He dawdled behind while Kenshin and the neighbor made polite conversation as they walked over to the clinic and into the rooms where a number of items still sat, almost as if Megumi and her niece would walk in at any moment.
While the grandmother looked through the trunks with Yahiko and Kenshin's help, Sano stood in the doorway and simply absorbed as much as he could.
He had never seen the interior of this clinic and the home that shared its grounds . . . after all, she had set up here after she had left Tokyo. There were things here that were familiar to him like the faint scent of something warm and spicy - which likely had something to do with the herbs that she kept handy -- and others - like the books and toys - which were very foreign.
"Sano," Kenshin's voice snapped him out of his reverie. "Come here."
As Sanosuke approached, Kenshin held out a small chest. "Recognize this?"
Sanosuke eyed it and then drew back in alarm as he recognized the dents on the wooden box.
Yahiko almost smiled. "At least your head ought to remember this."
"My head does," Sanosuke's mouth twitched. "It's been hit with that damn thing far too many times. That fox-lady -"
"Takani-sensei," the elderly woman corrected Sano's rather improper address of the doctor. "She was packing things, getting ready for a trip to Kyoto. She meant to send them off as they left, but things didn't work out that way."
"We'll see to it that these things go to the proper persons," Kenshin intoned solemnly. "You've already done so much that we'd be glad to do this for Megumi."
"I'm glad," she smiled back at Kenshin and the two other men. "Even though it's for sad reasons - I'm sure she would be happy now knowing that some of the things she had wanted to take care of would be finished."
Sanosuke ignored the rest of the conversation, instead focusing on the medicine box that had found its ways into his hands. On it, a small note to Kenshin indicated that it was for the "tori-atama" whenver he next saw him. For his hands apparently, or whatever else he happened to destroy.
So even after the two had parted under estranged circumstances, she still had thought of him. She was even looking out for him.
That knowledge, somehow, only hurt him more.
Knowing that despite everything that had been unresolved between them - she was looking out for him. As she always had.
And he was supposed to have looked out for her.
But he had failed.
. . .
As the three men left the clinic for the train station, they left reluctantly. The essence of the doctor that had mysteriously walked into their lives more than five years ago still lingered there. It was hard to accept that some sick and random act of violence had really taken her away. But there was still more business to tend to back in Tokyo - the affairs of Megumi Takani needed to be settled and things to be sent to those who also grieved for the dead doctor.
They were so absorbed in their business and in the things that they took to the station that they failed to notice the slight rustle of branches far above them, in a night where there was barely a breeze.
As they disappeared around the corner and the woman had returned to her home, the street returned to its quiet state. The last dregs of light had long gone, and it was dark - dark enough to obscure almost anything or anyone that wanted to pass this way unnoticed.
The branches rustled once again and a figure moved quickly from tree to rooftop of the clinic. In the darkness, the figure made short work of entering and moving throughout the home, carefully examining what had been disturbed. Within a few minutes, the figure was back on the rooftops - running lightly across them and then leaping into another dark street a good distance away and towards the train station, to catch a late night train.
= = = = == = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
Wow. Your collective screams have been heard and appreciated. I have been "moved" to quickly update to hint at what is going on. I'm not sure about the construction of "this part" in which I again mixed Aoshi and Sano together. I apologize for the multiple shifts, but leave the reassembling for later for archival at other more specific RK forums.
Oh yeah-I've started the next part already, so hope to get another update up soon. Many questions will be answered. Not necessarily the ones you have but :p
Okina gave a sudden gasp from behind him. But all Aoshi could do was to stare at his young ward, as if she had stabbed him in the back.
When Aoshi continued to say nothing, Misao nervously filled in the silence. "We were near Tokyo snooping around some rather interesting places when Cho got an order to go to Aizu. He told us that we were to tag along, and so we did. But when we arrived, I found out about Takani-sensei having disappeared suddenly. We found little Megumi with the neighbors and I ended up spending a lot of time watching her while Cho and Soujiro were busy with other things. Since I was the one who knew her auntie the best . . ."
Aoshi remained impassive. Misao trailed off uncertainly, not sure whether to continue. But Okina nodded slightly. Despite how it looked, both were still listening.
"The police weren't really sure what happened. Takani-sensei in the past has been known to just leave the house on emergency calls. But with a little girl in the house, it seemed too irresponsible. And there were the things found outside the house."
When both men stiffened, she hurried on. "A broken jar, a strange residue on the ground and some footprints. . . it looked like someone had knocked out the doctor and taken her away. Some enemy perhaps."
"She has none," Okina shook his head. "If anything, any enemies she had would have come for her long ago." He looked questioningly over at Aoshi, "Isn't that so?"
Aoshi narrowed his eyes briefly, understanding the old man's intent. "Even Kanryuu Takeda is long dead. "
"That's what the police also determined." Misao was trying to ignore the strange look in Aoshi's eyes when he had mentioned that name. She knew it was a name that he wanted to forget, even though she never did hear the complete reason as to why. "So, the police thought perhaps there was something else. A deranged patient. A scorned suitor."
Okina made a face. "It sounds so vulgar."
Misao blushed slightly. "Takani-sensei was not apparently very kind to men. And it was well-known that she had returned home with a child. All sorts of rumors were going around."
"Shortly after we arrived, they found a body at the river. It was a young woman, who was terribly beaten and disfigured. Long hair. Fairly tall. Light-colored kimono that was . . ." Misao looked away, "ripped and torn."
Okina closed his eyes with a sigh. "The jealous stalker then."
Aoshi spoke suddenly. "Did you see the body?"
Misao shook her head. "The police wouldn't allow it. They were too shocked by the whole thing and the way the body was found. They were certain it was her. Some of them knew her as they were her patients. And there were no other reports of a young woman missing."
Okina looked over at Aoshi, and shook his head. "This isn't some doll, Aoshi. You know that kind of thing doesn't happen twice. "
Aoshi tensed and directed a withering look at the older man. "This is not the time to patronize, old man. My senses have not left me yet."
"Aoshi-sama," Misao's eyes widened as she saw a fleeting look of fury pass over his face. "Okina didn't mean to-"
Aoshi turned on his heel and left the room.
She moved to hurry after him, but Okina's firm hand detained her. "No. It's best to leave him. He knows -" Okina's voice saddened, "he knows you're right Misao. That's why he's so upset."
"Okina, I-- " Misao's face fell. "I had no idea that it would bother him this much. I didn't know that he and Takani-sensei were that close."
"I don't think he knew that either, Misao-chan," Okina took her hand affectionately and tried to console his younger ward. Misao cared so much for the happiness of her Aoshi-sama that it pained her to see him suffering, even in the slightest, and even if it meant that Aoshi-sama held feelings for someone else. "It's only when she got into trouble again, that it became that clear to me and perhaps to him."
"So is this why Meg-chan was sent with me?" Misao looked confused. "I thought I would take her to Tokyo, but Cho was insistent she come here."
"Aoshi is the one who found her, Misao. He's the one who can best protect her for now. He'll be good to her, you know that Misao."
"Of course, Okina. I know." She raised her eyes to his. "I know."
~~
Misao's expression of concern and worry lingered in Aoshi's mind after he left the kitchen abruptly. But the news she had brought him weighed more heavily in his heart.
He had retreated again to the temple, to offer up prayers on her behalf, but also to wrestle with the feelings inside him that he did not understand.
The day had come and gone, and he was no closer to understanding completely everything inside him. But he sat here anyways, as the shadows that came with evening slowly swallowed up the remaining light. He knew that for it was well past the normal hours of the temple, but he wasn't in the mood to care.
"Aoshi." Okina's stern voice called out to him somewhere in the darkness of the temple. "You shouldn't be here."
Aoshi continued to sit with his eyes closed in meditation, ignoring the man.
"You can't just hide from the world now, Aoshi." The slight shuffle of slippers as well as the growing volume of his voice told Aoshi that Okina was moving towards him, determined not to be put off. "Even if you think we can't understand you and what you're feeling or thinking. . . we can't just stand by and watch you deal with this alone. No one is meant to bear life's burdens alone."
Aoshi turned slightly. "Am I not allowed time to properly pay my respects on behalf of a friend."
"Aoshi!" Okina's voice grew impatient. "We are not asking you to deny your feelings. In fact, embrace them if you have finally learned how!! I am not asking you to pretend that nothing has happened, but you can't shut us or the world out."
Okina had paused behind him. His voice suddenly quieted. "Right now, there is a little girl back at the Aoiya who has been asking for you all day. Since the day you walked into her life and promised to find her aunt, you became important to her. maybe more important than any other person with a link to her aunt. You can not sit here all day and leave her waiting. She doesn't even know her aunt is dead. She needs you . now."
Aoshi blinked, recalling suddenly the face of the child whose face flickered joy upon his entrance into the kitchen earlier that day. The child who didn't even know that her one surviving family member had been ripped away from her by some sick man . who didn't know that she was already an orphan twice over in one year. That child . that child was asking for him.
His feelings of complete uselessness - the ones that had hit him when the news broke of Megumi Takani's disappearance - had to be shed.
He was needed here and now.
If anything, simply knowing that gave him the motivation to stand and follow Okina back out the temple and to the lighted rooms at the Aoiya.
~~
It was a quiet group of men that paid their respects at the freshly dug grave of Megumi Takani.
They returned to town, intent on stopping by the home of the neighbors where Meg-chan was staying.
The neighbors found them lingering in front of the gate. With a smile, the eldest - a grandmotherly type - came out of the house and invited them in.
"You're the friends from Tokyo," the woman said with an understanding look on her face. "She mentioned you occasionally and described you well. The police are done with the house and all will be put into storage for now. At least until her niece and her guardians can deal with it-"
"Her guardians?" Kenshin looked a bit concerned. "Megumi-chan was supposed to be staying here. We thought to come by and see her. We were told by the police that we couldn't take her with us, until the paperwork was complete."
"Oh dear," the woman looked slightly alarmed. "But young Misao took her the day before yesterday. I suppose this is a misunderstanding then. Or I hope so - I mean did I do something wrong?"
"No," Kenshin smiled kindly at the woman . "We know Misao-chan and are sure that the two of them are fine."
"Oh, I'm glad," the woman smiled again. "Although they were in a bit of a rush and didn't get to pack up all her things. If I could bother you to come take a few things before you go back to Tokyo then perhaps you can make sure those things get to little Megumi."
"Of course," Kenshin bowed and smiled politely, although the smile didn't quite reach his eyes.
Sanosuke paid little attention to their conversation. The woman's gentle prattle was so odd and inappropriate. At this moment, he would rather just stalk off to the station and be left with his feelings . . . but the chance to see the clinic -- the place where Megumi Takani had spent her last two weeks -- could not be passed up.
He dawdled behind while Kenshin and the neighbor made polite conversation as they walked over to the clinic and into the rooms where a number of items still sat, almost as if Megumi and her niece would walk in at any moment.
While the grandmother looked through the trunks with Yahiko and Kenshin's help, Sano stood in the doorway and simply absorbed as much as he could.
He had never seen the interior of this clinic and the home that shared its grounds . . . after all, she had set up here after she had left Tokyo. There were things here that were familiar to him like the faint scent of something warm and spicy - which likely had something to do with the herbs that she kept handy -- and others - like the books and toys - which were very foreign.
"Sano," Kenshin's voice snapped him out of his reverie. "Come here."
As Sanosuke approached, Kenshin held out a small chest. "Recognize this?"
Sanosuke eyed it and then drew back in alarm as he recognized the dents on the wooden box.
Yahiko almost smiled. "At least your head ought to remember this."
"My head does," Sanosuke's mouth twitched. "It's been hit with that damn thing far too many times. That fox-lady -"
"Takani-sensei," the elderly woman corrected Sano's rather improper address of the doctor. "She was packing things, getting ready for a trip to Kyoto. She meant to send them off as they left, but things didn't work out that way."
"We'll see to it that these things go to the proper persons," Kenshin intoned solemnly. "You've already done so much that we'd be glad to do this for Megumi."
"I'm glad," she smiled back at Kenshin and the two other men. "Even though it's for sad reasons - I'm sure she would be happy now knowing that some of the things she had wanted to take care of would be finished."
Sanosuke ignored the rest of the conversation, instead focusing on the medicine box that had found its ways into his hands. On it, a small note to Kenshin indicated that it was for the "tori-atama" whenver he next saw him. For his hands apparently, or whatever else he happened to destroy.
So even after the two had parted under estranged circumstances, she still had thought of him. She was even looking out for him.
That knowledge, somehow, only hurt him more.
Knowing that despite everything that had been unresolved between them - she was looking out for him. As she always had.
And he was supposed to have looked out for her.
But he had failed.
. . .
As the three men left the clinic for the train station, they left reluctantly. The essence of the doctor that had mysteriously walked into their lives more than five years ago still lingered there. It was hard to accept that some sick and random act of violence had really taken her away. But there was still more business to tend to back in Tokyo - the affairs of Megumi Takani needed to be settled and things to be sent to those who also grieved for the dead doctor.
They were so absorbed in their business and in the things that they took to the station that they failed to notice the slight rustle of branches far above them, in a night where there was barely a breeze.
As they disappeared around the corner and the woman had returned to her home, the street returned to its quiet state. The last dregs of light had long gone, and it was dark - dark enough to obscure almost anything or anyone that wanted to pass this way unnoticed.
The branches rustled once again and a figure moved quickly from tree to rooftop of the clinic. In the darkness, the figure made short work of entering and moving throughout the home, carefully examining what had been disturbed. Within a few minutes, the figure was back on the rooftops - running lightly across them and then leaping into another dark street a good distance away and towards the train station, to catch a late night train.
= = = = == = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
Wow. Your collective screams have been heard and appreciated. I have been "moved" to quickly update to hint at what is going on. I'm not sure about the construction of "this part" in which I again mixed Aoshi and Sano together. I apologize for the multiple shifts, but leave the reassembling for later for archival at other more specific RK forums.
Oh yeah-I've started the next part already, so hope to get another update up soon. Many questions will be answered. Not necessarily the ones you have but :p
