Note: I´m very, very sorry for my uploading mistake, and for sending the prelude to the German section. Fortunately, a couple of attentive reviewers spotted some slight eh…language peculiarities of this written German of mine. (Aka the Latin/French shameless contamination of ages. )
Questions brought by the reviewers:
The sailor: He´s the man Kenshin saved in the first fourty seconds of Seissou Hen before being thrown overboard himself. The variation of this AU consists in him not falling overboard and arriving home in due time.
The disease: I think I know, more or less. It´s the only disease that fits the pattern perfectly: rashes in the skin, organ degeneration (concretely, we saw clearly the brain degeneration and the lung degeneration…he was not coughing when Sano held him, he was crying in pain), and sexual, more accurately blood transmission (we saw how Kaoru got it). And syphilis was endemic at that time and place.
On the other hand, the rest of the options that have been brought do not stand: AIDS because there was no AIDS at the time, dermal tuberculosis because it does not degenerate the brain and it´s not transmitted sexually, and leprosis because of the same reasons as tuberculosis, plus the fact that it consists on the skin falling through the effect of putrefaction, while Kenshin´s body was full of the open rashes characteristic of syphilis.
Summary: Kenshin returns home from China, but a slight change of Fate accelerates his arrival.
Effusive thanks to Margit for beta, and to all who reviewed.
Disclaimer: The characters belong to Watsuki Nobuhiro.
Eclipse
Chapter One: Merciful Sea
The young woman stared into the mirror for a long while, and blushed angrily at what she saw in its reflection. In a quick movement, she passed a hand over her forehead to try ridding her skin of the pearly brilliance of the sweat, but it just wouldn't leave.
"So you are taking your day off at the most busy day of the year?" Naora's unkind voice reached her ears for the thousandth time. Also, for the thousandth time, she could not help feeling guilty.
"I'm desolated…" she muttered. With somewhat clumsy movements, she wrapped the mirror back, and looked down. "It's a very important day for Yahiko and me, and I had to ask for permission. But Sekihara-san said he was going to get someone else for a day, didn't he?"
"And I will be stuck with someone who has no idea about the business at all," Naora grumbled, wiping her hands in a piece of cloth." Not to mention that, as she won't have to be here tomorrow, she will take every cue to steal all she pleases!"
"Sorry…" Tsubame repeated. "I hope she's a good person…"
The other woman did not deign to reply, and simply left in a huff to sweep the entrance. That was Naora in a bad day, Tsubame thought with a sigh. In spite of her true feelings of guilt for leaving her alone in such a busy time, she had to admit that her own life would be much better if those bad days weren't so frequent… but she had learned the advantages of taking it cheerfully long ago. After all, she did her work very well, almost as well as her previous partner, the much-missed Sekihara Tae. That the latter had married and her father had set a new restaurant in the other side of the city for her and her husband was hardly anyone's fault.
"Tsubame!" A noise of dishes falling reached her ears from the kitchen at that moment, causing the woman to be strongly tempted by the option of scurrying off without an answer. Fortunately enough, it was Naora's voice again, not one of the cooks'.
"Yes?" she asked in a meek tone, as she finished getting everything into the bag. "May I help you?"
"Your husband and that friend of yours are waiting outside," the waitress informed smugly, pointing towards the street. Her companion jumped at those words, and lost no time to grab her things and go out.
"Goodbye, Naora-san!" she cried as she passed in front of her. "Have a nice morning!"
"Is she always so… talkative?" Kaoru inquired, following the woman's quick disappearance with puzzled eyes.
"Usually, she's an ill-tempered hag," Yahiko answered for his wife. While they got slowly into motion, and started their walk down the road towards the port, he shrugged his nose as if to corroborate his words. "Tsubame, you shouldn't be so good and polite to her. You know how she takes advantage of that."
"Sorry," the young woman apologised. "But, she's really not so bad. She was just… pissed, because I left her alone on a celebration day, with loads of people that are going to eat at the restaurant…"
For a moment, the three fell silent, looking around at the spectacle that was already being displayed in front of their eyes so early in the morning. Flags were set up at the facades of most houses and hung from ropes that crossed the streets from above since the previous day, and vendors were now building their stands at both sides of the road. The air was heavy with the smell of sweetmeats and the excited cries of children who crowded the street in a greater number than usual, eager to for the parades to start. The last ship arrived today; and it was, at last, the final confirmation of the victory. Exultation reigned everywhere, a contagious joy that spread like a warm breeze around them.
I hope it's doing Kaoru some good, Tsubame mused as she peered discreetly at Yahiko's best friend. The woman was serious, if somewhat more lively than what she had been for months now. That feisty nature of her youth, that later had evolved into a more restrained - but not less strong - joyful drive to live her life as fully as possible and help the people who surrounded her, had slowly dwindled into a more subdued courage, and now, after the last events that had shaken her life, to smile and look happy had become nothing more than an obligation to be fulfilled in front of others. The news of the victory hadn't had any effect on her other than the hope to see her husband, for, from letters she had got from Kenshin when he still had been plunged in his diplomatic endeavours in China -s he had shown one or two to Yahiko , she was aware of disturbing truths and dreary realities that the people who sang in the streets didn't know. Kenji had left her long ago, in order to train in Kyoto with Hiko and - as Tsubame supposed - to flee from the oppression of an empty house full of memories. Her husband was seriously ill and in a foreign country at war; when they had got news from the abruptly returning diplomats that he had decided, the only one among them, to stay there and help to palliate the disasters of the conflict he had been most grossly impeded to avoid, she must have suffered even more than the day he left. Of course, she had said that she was sure that he would return, and not before everybody else did, but, promises and heart intuitions aside, this was the last ship, and Kaoru should be perfectly aware that if he didn't return on this one the possibilities of not seeing him ever again would increase very much.
And there was something else still, a thing that was worrying Yahiko even more of late. As he had told Tsubame about a month ago, Kaoru had started to excuse herself from training at the dojo, and whenever she appeared there she simply sat down and gave a few instructions, refusing to take a wooden sword herself. Yahiko had teased her, saying that she was a lazy hag, that only old and venerable dojo masters did as she was doing now, and that she would lose her shape and turn into a fat and ugly woman, but those words had produced little or no effect on her. Instead of gaining weight as Yahiko had predicted, she had started losing it, and getting strangely pale. Tsubame had feared that she was eating insufficiently, and had brought her all kinds of tempting courses, but Kaoru had eaten them all without getting any better.
"I think she's just… sad," she had told Yahiko several times. "She misses Kenshin-san very much."
"When Kenshin returns she'll get back to normal again," he usually answered then, with the most adamant of convictions backing his voice. "You'll see."
That was why, deep inside, Tsubame knew that Yahiko was so anxious today. He had set all hopes of Kaoru's "return to normal" on Kenshin's arrival, and now it was Kenshin and Kaoru what he was walking to meet at the docks on this sunny morning. And she hoped, wished with all her heart, that reality suited their expectations at last.
"What a beautiful sky!" she exclaimed, looking up.
"Indeed," Kaoru answered in a soft voice. Then, as if she was speaking to herself instead of to someone else, she looked away, and lsot her eyes in the distance. "It has to mean something…"
"Kenshin will return," Yahiko assured her bluntly. "I know he will."
"Of course." The woman gave him one of her smiles, now much less faded than usual. "I know, too."
"And then, we will go celebrate it somewhere!"
"Hmmm…" Kaoru seemed in doubt about this. "I'm afraid he will return very tired. But, if what you really want is to eat, I can buy you some sweets in the next stand!"
Yahiko looked outraged at the suggestion, and both Kaoru and Tsubame laughed. The latter's glee was mainly caused by the agreeable change in the other woman, who had already smiled more on this day than in the whole last month. Maybe it was true that she knew, somehow…
"We're late," the young man muttered in a cutting tone, taken aback by their giggles. "The ship must be arriving now, and there are lots of people going in that direction. We should hurry."
Effectively, as they had walked a few hundred metres down the road, they had started to meet plenty of groups of people taking the direction towards the port, shouting things to each other and making a lot of noise. Some would be there to meet their relatives; others - the major part- just for the sake of the spectacle. They would find it hard to get to Kenshin in that entire crowd.
"Yahiko…" Kaoru quickened her pace, as the young couple did beside her. "I really can't believe… I'm seeing him again."
"It's difficult for me, too." he answered. "After So much time…"
"He must have missed you so much, Kaoru-san!" Tsubame intervened, looking fondly at her.
Kaoru nodded, her nostalgic glance telling the young woman without any need for words that this absence was acutely felt by both sides. Then, they had to fall silent again to save breath for their endeavours at being quicker than the people who surrounded them, and covered the greatest part of the distance like that, each one lost in his own thoughts. Some people were singing songs at the docks, probably sailors.
"Can you see the ship, Yahiko?" Kaoru cried as soon as they got to the entrance of the port. She was returning more and more to her previous self before their eyes, and now she even tried to jump in order to see over the group that walked before them… something she had not done in years!
"I think I… Yes! It's already there, Kaoru!" he suddenly shouted, spotting it in the distance. Tsubame pressed her friend's hand with glee and anxiousness, and, getting behind him with her, they started an odyssey of pushing, turning and apologising to reach the place. It was almost as if they had grown wings in an instant.
"Sorry! I'm very sorry…" Tsubame tried to apologise to a few enraged people that she was made to push. She had never felt so ashamed in her whole life, but Yahiko and Kaoru were pulling her with them at an astonishing speed. Next to the ship, the crowd thickened considerably, and she found herself trapped in a suffocating dead point with her husband and her friend.
"Oh, no!" she exclaimed. "What are we going to do now?"
"Yahiko…," Kaoru started, in a worried tone. Before she was even able to end her sentence, though, Tsubame could hear the hoarse voice of a man addressing them.
"Hey, you three! Over here… quick!"
Curious, the young woman tried to peer in front of her, but to no avail. There were too many obstacles, too little space to see anything. Still, at that moment Yahiko started pushing Kaoru forward again, and she felt pushed as well past the crowd and into a new free way that somehow had appeared in front of them. She did not know who had miraculously helped them, but her heart was filled with hope and gratitude.
"Kaoru-san… do you see Kenshin-san?" she asked, lifting her voice to a degree that was not usual for her at all. People's backs, necks and heads were now dancing past her in a vertiginous procession, and her breath came out ragged. "Who's guiding us?"
"A sailor," the woman answered. "He must know where he is!"
Suddenly, the men in front stopped, and Tsubame had enough time to do the same before she collided with Kaoru's back. The young woman needed little time to get the reason why: they had got past the crowd, and were at the entrance of the improvised borderline made of various objects that had been set to prevent the people from getting too close to the ship and the stairs.
"Wait for me here," the man instructed them. Now, as he ran away towards the stairs, she was able to catch a glimpse of him. He was, effectively, a sailor dressed in dirty white clothes, dark haired and rather tallish.
"I'm puzzled," Yahiko commented. "Why do you think he helped us, Kaoru?"
"Because he saw us and told him," the woman answered with absolute determination. "There's no other explanation."
"Then… do you think he went to get him?" Tsubame ventured, almost afraid of getting it wrong. "That he is here now?"
"Here…" In spite of the turmoil of voices, the young waitress could hear Kaoru's musings. She felt so touched at her tone that she would have cried here and now. "He's here…"
Both pressed each other's hands again, and turned around to look anxiously at the stairs. Each second, each minute seemed an eternity, until, finally, among sailors and crew members who went down at an intermittent rate - the soldiers had disembarked already before they had arrived , Kaoru, Yahiko and Tsubame were able to distinguish the figure of the man who had helped them before, waving them a hand. With one of his arms, he was helping another, shorter figure, who seemed to have problems going down.
"Shinta!" Kaoru yelled all of a sudden. Both Tsubame and Yahiko were frozen at the unexpected strength, depth and desperation of the cry, so unlike everything that had come from the woman's mouth in years. It seemed as if it hadn't come from her mouth or from her throat at all, but rather from her insides, that had never ceased suffering for a single moment since the day he had left her.
"Hey! Kaoru… wait! He told us to…!" Yahiko tried in vain to hold her back. All those nights of weeping in silence were now back in a rush, tearing her entrails with a fierce, painful joy. Just as if she had turned into a madwoman, she rushed inside evading the police of the docks, and started to climb the stairs in her run, pushing everyone in her way and causing most sailors to look at her in astonishment. As soon as the first policeman recovered from the surprise, he started shouting for her to come back, and ran behind her with two of his companions.
"That ugly hag, always behaving like an immature, brutal, clumsy…!"Yahiko grumbled, unable to hide the emotion in his voice. Tsubame grabbed his arm in mild fright.
"Please, don't let her get into problems," she pleaded. He shrugged his shoulders, and took her hand in a calming gesture.
"When she's with him they won't bother her anymore," he told her. "You'll see."
Their eyes wandered then towards what was happening on the stairs, and, from the distance, they saw Kaoru finally reaching the man she loved. She fell on top of him, imprisoning his failing body in a long embrace while the sailors looked, and, as the police arrived where she was, she refused to pay them attention. For a moment, a row seemed about to start there, with the sailor who had come with Kenshin arguing with the cops and the rest of the people crowding around… but then someone started to cheer, and a chorus of many jestingly took the cue. Defeated, the policemen went down, and the sailors cheered thrice more.
"Oh, Kami-sama…," Tsubame muttered, the red now reaching the tip of her ears.
Kaoru did not see the people who stood in her way, not even heard the turmoil of voices growing behind her as she advanced madly towards the smiling figure in the middle of the stairs. She was surprised at herself, unable to understand her own behaviour, but she couldn't stop either. It was as if something had suddenly snapped, broken inside her when she had seen him, after the long lethargy of almost two years full of dark nights and tears. Maybe she had been dead all that time.
"Is that your wife?" she heard, and recognised at once the voice of the man who had helped her and the others to get that towards the ship, who was now holding her husband's arm. Kaoru stopped one last time to regain her breath, and to blink and check that what she saw was reality and not another of those tantalising dreams. But it was true, this time.
Kenshin…no, Shinta was there.
"Kaoru…dono," he muttered, letting the man go and walking towards her. He was drastically weakened since the last time she had seen him, so dishevelled and… washed away that the sight broke her heart. His eyes had a dizzy expression, and his step was cautious, as if he was afraid of falling down. Kaoru judged it had been ages since the last time he had changed his bandages, which were dirty with blood and reeked of putrefaction.
Almost faded…
Her sob of happiness was entwined with a shiver.
"Shinta…," she cried as she fell on top of him, and encircled his lean and weak frame with her arms. Sobbing now freely, she buried her head on that chest she had used as a pillow countless times, without minding the blood in her face or the smell that suffocated her and made her choke.
"Don't worry, Shinta, I'm here… I'm here now," she whispered gently, in a flow of words that she wasn't able to control or think before she uttered them. With slow but sure movements, she felt his arms gathering around her own back, pulling her closer, too. "You don't have to worry anymore. I'll… take care of you. You will see…"
"Uh, er…Lady, it's risky to do that," the sailor interrupted them. "You could… well, you know what I mean…"
"No," she replied vehemently. Her hands travelled again to Kenshin's, who was trying to disengage himself from her after the warning caused him to return to reality, and made them stay into place. Once more, she thought of the nights, the countless nights, the life escaping her and the oppressing secret behind the dark walls of her house. For him.
For him alone.
"Lady, you aren't allowed to access this restricted zone!" a policeman barked from other side. Her only answer was to embrace her husband with even more strength, and shake her head again.
"No."
"Oh, come on, leave her alone!" the sailor argued." She's just met her husband!"
"But she can't get there! It's forbidden!"
"That man has spent more than a year in China doing diplomatic labour and then taking care of the wounded! And he's ill! I think he deserves to see his wife, now!"
"With all my respects for him and his work, he can see her a few metres further, behind that gate! She…"
Kaoru heard those voices far away, as if they were coming from the crowd that talked, sang and shouted in the distance. A sailor cheered merrily; a few voices answered among laughs. Suddenly, everyone who was next to them cheered at the same time, and the argument was definitely smothered under the weight of their shouts and hilarity.
The woman let Kenshin disengage himself from her grasp with gentleness, and then, for a moment, both gazed deeply into each other's eyes.
As soon as they saw the newly-reunited couple, together with the sailor, get close to the gate, Yahiko and Tsubame lost no time to walk towards them. Tsubame could easily perceive her husband's happiness while he got closer, but, when he looked closer at Kenshin, she saw the spark in his eyes dwindling a bit.
"Kenshin!" She remembered very well how, when they had met him for the first time, they had considered him the strongest swordsman in Japan. Now, of that walking legend, the only thing that remained was a feeble and sick man, pale and holding his wife's arm for support.
And that blood…
"Yahiko!" he acknowledged him, a big smile in his face. The young man got closer to where he was, and both greeted each other effusively. Then, Tsubame advanced herself with some shyness to do the same, and he looked equally glad to see her.
"So many things have happened while you were away!" Kaoru was telling him meanwhile. "See, for example, our little Tsubame-chan is pregnant!"
"Really?" The red-haired man opened his eyes in slow realisation, and nodded. "This… is good."
For a moment, it was so evident for her that the disease had made prey of his brain too that Tsubame couldn't help looking sombre. As she realised it, though, she felt ashamed and turned elsewhere, hoping that nobody had noticed.
"Two… two months," she muttered. "We… are very glad."
"And, by the way," Yahiko changed conversation quickly, as if to push away the black clouds that should not loom above them on such a joyful day." Can I ask you who are you, sir, so I may thank you for helping us?"
"Uh- Oh, yes…" The sailor gathered himself, and, coughing a bit, put up a dignified pose. "I'm second helmsman of this ship, Aoki Yujiro. That man saved my life during the trip, and I'm in debt with him. So I swore I would get him to any place he wanted once we arrived… and well, here we are."
"Saved your life? Kenshin….Shinta did?" Kaoru asked, searching for the eyes of her husband. The red haired man lowered them, and smiled.
"One night that I was on duty, there was a terrible storm, and a wave was just about to throw me overboard," the man explained, with a tone that was much less petulant now. "He grabbed my hand in the last moment, and saved my life."
"And that was…?" Yahiko asked, with a frown. Tsubame knew at once what he was thinking, and could not help but wonder about the same thing. The Kenshin who had performed that feat… could he be the one standing in front of them now?
The will of living for others is the strongest thing in this world, She suddenly remembered Yahiko telling her about Kenshin's words.
"Four days ago. After that, he got ill with a fever... and now he isn't quite in shape, as you see. Exactly like I told you, I took care of him, and as he told me he had family, I decided to find them. And I did!"
Tsubame sighed with some relief, glad to know that Kenshin's actual state was partly the fault of a fever… though almost at once her relief was evaporated. What was the difference? A man who was as sick as Kenshin-san would never ever regain any grain of health he had lost.
"I'm very thankful to you, Aoki-dono, for…" Here, Kenshin evidently hesitated, refusing to say the words "taking care of me" for everything. If there is something I can do…"
"Come to our house, please!" Kaoru's voice chimed in. "We will offer you meals and hospitality in exchange for your service."
But the man shook his head.
"I'm on duty now, too… and later I'm already engaged with my family, you know…" He began to play with his shirt with somewhat nervous movements, obviously awkward. "And, besides… I was doing that service because he saved my life, so it's all paid… right? See, I care very much for that oath…"
"What a pity…" Kaoru complained aloud. Each time that she heard her voice, Tsubame was more astonished at how she had returned to the seventeen-years-old Kaoru she once had met in only a morning. Maybe Yahiko had been completely right in his predictions, even in spite of the new grief at her husband's state… or maybe she was just acting to keep the illusion and spare them the pain of the obvious. If it was the latter, though, she was afraid that no fooling was possible under such evidences. "But I will give you the directions to find my house, and you will come one day or other to have dinner with us. Surely you can't deny me that…"
The man's uneasiness seemed now about to reach the sky.
"Well… if you insist, Himura-san…I… I already know where your house is, he told me while… well, while trying to do memory. We did that several times."
Now, Tsubame was sure that both Kaoru and Yahiko had cringed at those words. Only Kenshin stayed serene of all the people there… though with a serenity that was not completely deprived of a suspicious flavour of unawareness. She was starting to take the cue of his attitudes after the brief time they had been together: though at some moments of the conversation he looked bright, there were others when he sunk in a dark abyss of apathy.
Those months had been so devastating for him that now she was even starting to have anguishing doubts that he would ever be able to meet her child.
"Well," Yahiko was the first to recover from the general discouragement. "Why don't we go home together? You surely want to be home again, don't you, Kenshin?"
"Eh…yes." The older man nodded, pressing once more the arm of his companion of journey before letting him go definitely. At that moment, there was even more people gathered in the docks than before, though the small group of friends soon discovered that Kenshin's sight –and smell - granted them an immediate void wherever they went. People glanced sideways at him and yanked back, murmuring things, and the mothers took their children by their hands. Soon, they were in the road once more, among stands of the street vendors, the smell of the sweetmeats and the colourful arrays, which Kenshin regarded suspiciously, now and then shaking his head while Kaoru told him about every anecdote that came to her head at the moment.
"Kaoru-dono…" he asked, all of a sudden, stopping in the middle of the way. His wife and their friends followed his example at once, and turned a set of faces full of surprise towards him.
"Yes…Shinta?" she replied, both in solicitude and curiosity. "Is something the matter?"
The man looked elsewhere, losing his eyes among the multi-coloured crowd that surrounded them as if repentinely searching for something.
"Where is Kenji?" he asked, in a soft, anguished voice.
(to be continued)