Okay, I did make some miniscule alterations to my original storyline to accommodate some new ideas I got (Some where from you reviewers! Thank you!), but this is still basically the original story I thought up.
Disclaimer: I do not own Rurouni Kenshin. In a perfect world I would, but I live in the real world…and sadly I ain't got no money…so, it's utterly useless to sue me…but for good measure: I do not own Rurouni Kenshin, but Nobuhiro Watsuki and a bunch of other people do…
On with the madness…
Promises From the Past"You loved her, didn't you?" the soft query came from Kaoru's lips. But she knew it wasn't a question. It was a certainty.
And Kenshin nodded, "Yes, I did." And Kaoru thought her heart would break again, but it didn't, because Kenshin said these next words:
"She was like a mother to me."
Laughter and Promises"What a relief!" Yahiko burst out.
Four sets of eyes flew to the grinning boy.
"For a moment there, I thought that Sayuri-san is Kenshin's illegitimate daughter! But she isn't! Hahahaha," Yahiko continued, laughing like an idiot.
"You what?" came from three people and a startled "Oro?" came from the rurouni.
Then Kaoru glared at him with tanuki-menace, "Where would you get an idiotic idea like that?" But secretly she had thought the same a few moments ago, but dismissed it when it became an impossibility.
Yahiko stopped laughing, shrugged his shoulder and said thoughtfully, "I don't know…something about the way Kenshin kept talking of her…kinda like the last time, you know?" and he looked at Kaoru and Sano, to remind them of the last time.
I didn't think the brat had it in him…Imagine him being sensitive enough to have picked up Kenshin's feelings Kaoru thought.
Aloud, however, she said to Yahiko, "But an illegitimate daughter? Why would you think that Sayuri would be Kenshin's daughter?"
Yahiko shrugged his shoulders again and tried to defend his previous theory, "It could happen, you know! Stuff like that happens all the time…It's not like our Kenshin here was a monk or anything…he was married…so, you know, he must've…you know…" and made this funny thing with his face to get his point across.
Kenshin's embarrassed "Oro!" was swallowed by the much louder yelling of a 'tanuki-gone-mad' Kaoru, "I can't believe this little brat! He has such a smut brain!"
She turned to Sano and pointed at him menacingly, "It's all your fault, you know!"
Startled, Sano put his hands up and asked, "What? What did I do?"
"What did you do? What did you do? You probably put such filthy thoughts in his head! Why else would a thirteen-year old kid think of such a preposterous thing as Kenshin having an illegitimate daughter!"
"Ah fer cryin' out loud, busu, I'm thirteen not a sniveling six year old! I do happen to know some stuff about the birds and the bees…" Yahiko yelled at Kaoru's back.
Somewhere else in the room, a voice was saying, "Maa, maa, Kaoru-dono…" but was ignored by the quarreling people.
In an instant, Kaoru was in Yahiko's face, "Yeah? And where did you learn that stuff? Certainly not from me…"
Yahiko briefly glanced at Sano and in another instant, Kaoru was in Sano's face. Sano however looked past her to glare at Yahiko.
"I can't believe this little brat! You're the one who asked me about it!" Sano yelled at Yahiko.
Yahiko went red from embarrassment. Could anybody blame him for wanting to know about the facts of life? He was a growing boy, after all. Did that tori-atama have to yell it out like that? He promised not to tell! where his angry thoughts and he was about to let Sano hear them, when he saw Kaoru turning to him again.
"What?" he asked his master defiantly. Kaoru's head was all red in the face and looked ready to explode. She was about to say something but Sano got in first.
"And why would it be my fault if the brat here does not have enough common sense that Kami-sama gave to a flea to figure out how lame-brained his idea was in the first place?"
Yahiko yelled at Sano, still angry for the other thing, "It was not a lame-brained idea!"
But Sano, angry at Yahiko for getting Kaoru mad at him, yelled right back, "Oh yeah? Oh yeah? It so-o-o was lame-brained! Didn't you hear Sayuri say that her mother wasn't Kenshin's lover?"
Sensing that the two were about to get at each other's throats, Kenshin reached out and tried to soothe the two, "Maa, maa, Yahiko, Sano…"
But the two didn't pay him any attention, as Sano went ahead, "Besides, anybody reasonably intelligent…" Yahiko raised his eyebrow as if indicating that he didn't include Sano in that category, but Sano wasn't rising to his bait as he finished, "anybody reasonably intelligent would have observed that Sayuri is too old to be Kenshin's daughter!" And he gave Yahiko a looked that said "So there, brat!"
But before Yahiko could reply, Sayuri, looking archly at Sano, was asking him, "I'm what?"
Sano, not realizing that another person had joined the 'let's be annoyed at Sano' wagon, turned to Sayuri and said, "Too old. You're too old to be Kenshin's daughter."
Sayuri stood up and glared down at him, "Do I look old to you?"
She stood there with her hands on her hips and a scowl on her face that was eerily reminiscent of somebody.
Sano put his hands up in exasperation, "I did not say you looked old! I said you are too old."
"No you did not!" Sayuri argued.
"Yes I did!"
"No you did not!"
Sano looked at Kaoru for help. But she was still mad at him. No help from that party.
He turned to Yahiko, but the boy saw his chance to get back at Sano and earnestly said to Sayuri, "You're right. He did say you looked too old."
"See? See?" Sayuri said heatedly, at the same time as Sano was reaching across the table to get his hands on Yahiko's neck. He just happened to push Kaoru roughly as he did so, making Kaoru grab his neck. It was complete insanity!
Until a fierce voice snarled, "Enough!"
Four people froze in shock and then turned their heads to look at a standing Kenshin, who was glaring at them with an amber glow in his eyes.
Then Kenshin blinked and the rurouni's violet eyes were looking at the four sheepishly, "Aah…sessha apologizes for that. Sessha didn't know how to make you stop killing each other…but he did." He gave them that innocent rurouni smile.
Realizing how out of hand they must have gotten, for Kenshin to bring out the Battousai part in him, the four went back to their places and sat there in embarrassed silence.
Sayuri spoke up first, "I apologize profusely for my behavior," and bowed to the rest of the group.
Kaoru took her cue from Sayuri, "I apologize as well. I might have let my temper run too freely."
"Right, as if that didn't happen all the time," Yahiko muttered under his breath, but Kaoru apparently heard him say something because she glared at him.
Not wanting to get into another fight, where Kenshin had to go Battousai on them, he said to the group, "I guess, I'm sorry too. I kinda went overboard there."
Kaoru and Sayuri smiled at him sweetly and he blushed, but felt mighty proud of himself for making those two smile at him.
Then he looked at Sano and insolently drawled, "It's your turn…rooster-head."
Sano held himself back just in time, before he could call Yahiko a nasty name. Kaoru and Sayuri looked at him expectantly.
He sighed and said, "Alright, alright…I'm sorry too. Happy?" He looked at Kaoru and Sayuri. The two women gave him a sweet smile too.
Unable to resist, he looked at Sayuri and innocently said, "But I didn't say you looked old."
"I hear you, rooster head," Sayuri chuckled, but then began laughing outright. Then everybody else started laughing.
"We must have had looked like little children!" Kaoru said when she found enough breath to do so.
"And we think that Yahiko here is the only kid among us!" Sano got out.
When everybody felt more or less sober again, Sayuri said with an amused smile, "You know? I really didn't think that my visit here would have turned out this well."
"Really?" Kenshin asked.
"Well, yeah… I mean, I'm here to fulfill a promise for a dead woman," Sayuri said flippantly.
"What promise?" Kaoru asked cautiously.
Sayuri looked at Kenshin with an unreadable expression on her face, "One that was made a long time ago…"
Kenshin studied her, looking for answers in her face. Then his eyes widened a bit, as if he remembered something.
Hesitantly, he said to Sayuri, "She couldn't have…"
"She did…" came the soft reply.
"That was thirteen years ago…" he said unbelievingly.
"You knew my mother, she always kept her promises," came the argument from Sayuri.
"So, she sent you?" was all Kenshin could ask.
She shrugged her left shoulder, "She felt that it was time. Besides, Mother argued that you were not getting any younger…"
Yahiko, Sano and Kaoru were listening raptly to the cryptic conversation and were trying to figure out where this whole conversation was going to.
What's this thirteen year old promise about? Kaoru thought to herself, half afraid that it would be something that would change the life that they'd be living for the past three years.
Sano was trying to digest Sayuri's last statement What's Kenshin's age got to do with all of this?
At the same time Kenshin asked Sayuri, "What does my age have to do with all of this?"
Sayuri just gave a small smile, "Nothing really. Mother said it wasn't a matter of age but rather a matter of heart."
With Sayuri's last word, something in Sano's brain went 'click' and he jumped up to yell, "Holy crap, woman, I was right!"
Startled, the four turned to him. Confused, Sayuri asked, "About what?"
"About this personal business of yours with Kenshin!" he said excitedly.
"Huh?" Sayuri was still confused.
"I know who you are!" he went on.
Sayuri just gave another, "Huh?"
"You're Kenshin's fiancée!" Sano announced.
Kenshin and Sayuri looked at each other speechless. Yahiko frowned at Sano, who was standing there quite proud of his brilliant deduction.
And Kaoru was looking at her lap again because she had come to the same conclusion as Sano and she didn't want anybody to see how much it hurt. Especially Kenshin.
Stealing a glance at him, she saw him and Sayuri look at each other. And she could see that those two were suited perfectly for each other.
So maybe it's not a swan from the past that is going to take my Kenshin away, but this beautiful swan in the present were her sad thoughts.
Sayuri looked from Kenshin to Sano. Frowning, she tried to ask, "How…what…when…." But couldn't get the questions out.
But Sano was translating for her, "You mean 'How did you know?', 'What was your clue?', 'When did you find out?'"
Sayuri tried to speak, but Sano stopped her with a wave of his hand, "I can see that you're surprised that I guessed…but I'll tell you how I did it."
He put his hands behind his back, and began to pace back and forth with a fishbone in his mouth, in a manner reminiscent of a private eye who was relating the facts of the case.
"When you told Megumi and me about your 'personal' business with Kenshin, you said it was wasn't a secret but you had to talk with Kenshin first. An engagement couldn't be a secret, right?'
Tongue-in-cheek, Yahiko interrupted him, "Not when it's a secret engagement."
"Shut it brat!" Sano said to him.
But Yahiko had something else that bothered him, "When did you and Megumi meet Sayuri?"
Sano replied superiorly, "Two days ago."
"How?" Yahiko wanted to know.
Sayuri answered this time, "I sprained my ankle. I had Megumi-san take a look at it."
Yahiko looked at Sayuri with interest, "How did you sprain your ankle?"
"Oh, I slipped on some gravel. Lucky for me, Sano was there to catch my fall."
"I did not catch your fall, you were the one who ran into me!" Sano half yelled at Sayuri.
"Semantics…" came Sayuri's breezy reply.
While the three were having their discussion, Kenshin looked at Kaoru. But she was still looking at her lap. Kenshin sensed that she was trying to avoid him. And there was that feeling of hurt in her ki again. Kenshin sighed. Life had become complicated.
Sano was now saying forcefully, "But we're digressing! Don't you want to hear how I guessed all this business with Kenshin?"
Satisfied that the others where reasonably paying attention to him, he resumed his pacing, "As I was saying, before I was so rudely interrupted by a brat who should know better to shut his trap," Sano looked at Yahiko. The boy glared at him and opened his mouth to speak.
Before Yahiko would interrupt him again, Sano hastily continued, "Anyway, after our conversation in the clinic, Sayuri and I were riding in the coach to her inn. There she asked me about Jou-chan here," Sano briefly inclined his head towards Kaoru.
Hearing herself being mentioned, she looked at Sayuri, who was looking at Sano with an unreadable face. She asked about me?
"She was asking me stuff about Kaoru… like whether Kaoru was pretty, or whether she was nice or whether she liked Kenshin…you know… stuff like that. So… she must have been trying to find out if there was another woman in Kenshin's life, right?" Sano looked at the others.
But nobody was answering, so he just continued, "Okay…so then…she came here and Kenshin told us all this stuff about her mother, like how she was such a part of his past…and Sayuri here told us how she came here to fulfill her mother's promise…her mother doesn't seem to mind their age difference…" at this he stopped to look at Yahiko, "Like I said before, she is too old to be Kenshin's daughter…but not too old to be his fiancée, right? So… when all this stuff, about it not having to do with age but something with the heart, came out…well, everything fell into place with a little 'click' in the old thinker," Sano pointed to his head.
"The click was probably his brain shutting down for good," Yahiko said under his breath.
Sano, who hadn't heard him, surveyed the people in the room and quite proudly said, "Impressed?"
Nobody was saying anything. Sano waited, thinking that they probably had to digest his little bout of brilliance before they could comment.
Then Sayuri said something but Sano didn't catch it, "Speak up, woman! I didn't hear you!" Then he grinned at her, waiting for her to praise him, for he surely thought that that was it she had said.
"I said," Sayuri looked directly at him, " that You. Are. Quite. Possibly. The. Most. IDIOTIC Person I've ever had the misfortune to meet!"
Shocked at Sayuri's completely opposite reaction to what he had expected, Sano could only stare at her.
The others where staring at her too.
"I take my earlier words back! This visit is going totally worse than what I expected! First I'm Kenshin's daughter…then I'm his fiancée...what next, his sister? You people are too dramatic! How can a simple visit turn into this complete fiasco?" She looked up at the ceiling and took a calming breath.
Then she turned to Kaoru, "I didn't mean to ask Sano all these questions, but I had to know about the people in Kenshin's life to find out if he really was ready for what my mother promised him a long time ago."
Then to Sano, "I seriously think that you have somehow dislodged your brain when I ran into you the other day!"
Then to Yahiko, "I don't have anything to say to you right now, except that you're cute." Yahiko blushed.
And finally she turned to Kenshin, "You…me…we got to talk."
Then she looked at the whole group, "The only two persons who are going to talk in the next few minutes are Kenshin and I. Kaoru, although I have business with you too, you have to wait for later when I'm finished with the redhead here."
Sano was opening his mouth to speak, but Sayuri was addressing him, "Shut it, tori-atama!"
She looked at Yahiko but the boy just nodded to signal that he understood that he was to keep shut.
"Okay then," Sayuri straightened herself and faced Kenshin.
Solemnly, she began to speak, "When I was younger, my mother used to tell me stories about this great swordsman, who fought with the speed and skill of a god. I loved those stories. I sometimes pretended that I was that great swordsman and ran around the yard fighting with imaginary enemies…" She smiled at the memory.
"But my mother would also tell me stories about a boy who had lost his way and now didn't know how to get back home. I used to think what a stupid boy he was for not knowing how to get home or for getting lost in the first place. And I told my mother so."
"But my mother told me that it wasn't the boy's fault that he didn't know his way back home…she told me he no longer had a home, that very bad people had destroyed it… I asked my mother if the boy no longer had a home, where would he live, where would he eat, where would he sleep? And my mother told me that the boy was on a journey to find a new home. Then I said to my mother that a boy could not go on a journey all on his own, bad things could happen to him."
"I remember that my mother smiled at me and said 'That is why the boy had to become a man.' I didn't understand that sentence then, but I felt sorry for the boy so I asked my mother if she would let him stay at our house if he ever came this way. And my mother said, 'If this is what he wants to make his home, then we shall let him stay.'"
Sayuri paused and looked at a spot behind Kenshin.
Then she continued, "It wasn't until years after, when I learned that that great swordsman and that lost boy were the same person…and then, she began to talk about you," she looked at Kenshin, "She told me stories of you. Some were funny, some were silly, some were… sad."
While he was listening to Sayuri talk, Kenshin let himself remember Ran, and tried to imagine how she would have looked like talking to her daughter.
"About a year ago, Mother was diagnosed with something a western doctor identified as a 'tumor'," Sayuri went on, "There wasn't anything he could do and told my mother that she would only have a couple of months to live, at best five. My mother accepted the news quite calmly as she told me that she already had lived such an eventful life, that it would be unfair for her to have more experiences when others had had so little."
Kenshin smiled, "Ran-dono would have said that…it would be so like her."
Sayuri smiled back, "Yes…My mother was like that… She lived her remaining months to the fullest, saying that now that she knew that she only had a limited supply, it wouldn't be good of her to waste time… Near the end, when she became weaker, she would lie in bed and ask me to sit beside her. We would just sit there and hold each other's hand... I was holding her hand when she passed away…she went so quietly…"
Her voice wavered and Sayuri blinked, noticing that there were tears in her eyes. Even after she finally had accepted her mother's death, the old grief and sadness still made her cry occasionally. She wiped them away with her fingers.
Listening to Sayuri talk about her mother, Kaoru remembered her own pain and grief over her parent's death. She could feel tears coming to her eyes and surreptitiously wiped them away. Glancing at Sano and Yahiko, she saw that those two had very somber looks on their faces.
Kenshin also had the odd urge to shed tears, but fought against it. He didn't think that his family would be able to handle it if they saw him crying.
Her voice steady again, Sayuri continued, "Two months after my mother's death, I found her diaries in a wooden trunk. On top of them was a letter for me from her. She wrote that her diaries were for me, that maybe when I'd be lonely I could read them and feel close to her again. At first, I couldn't do it… the pain and the memories where too fresh, too raw…"
"Until about two months ago, when I finally could let myself read them. I learned a lot of things about my mother from those diaries…things she would probably never have told me…" Sayuri paused and took a deep breath.
"In the last diary, the one she wrote in just before she passed away, there was a message for me…or an errand of sorts…it was about you," she looked at Kenshin and he looked at her, "About the promise she had made to this 'lost boy who had to become a man to find his home'…she loved you like a son, you know…"
Kenshin felt overwhelming love and gratitude for the woman. The urge to cry was there again, but he fought it valiantly.
"She would have loved to know that you loved her like a mother," she continued, "but anyway…she asked me to give you something…since she promised to return it to you someday. She told me what it was but I think you would understand better when you see it."
Sayuri stood up and went to Sano and said something to him in a low voice. Sano handed her something from a bag that he had been carrying, that everyone else noticed just now for the first time. Sayuri took it and went to sit in front of Kenshin again.
Kenshin looked at the object she was holding in her hands, and saw that it was a small rectangular black lacquered box.
Sayuri handed it to him, "My mother wanted to return this to you."
Kenshin accepted it. For a few seconds he just looked at the box.
Then he opened the lid and saw what was inside.
A small smile came to his lips.
To be continued…
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Oh well, another one of those annoying cliffhangers…Do you think it's worth waiting for the next chapter? I hope you do. Actually, this story is just starting…Yeah, I can hear you go "What? I thought this was it?"… Well, it isn't… I got many more chapters to bore you with…and Saitou is going to be in some of them (Sayuri and Saitou got some unfinished business to take care of!)…Sayuri's grandfather might make an appearance…and some other regular RK characters too. And maybe I just might go on and sue somebody…Naaah…that would be way off my original story line…
Okay, thanks for reading this far and please don't forget to review…because if you review, it would make me feel better about myself…*sob*…*sob*…because I'd have written proof that somebody out there thinks I'm a somebody…unless you write in your review "Lillienne, you're a nobody!"