Beyond the Darkness Chapter 4: Brooding, brooding, and more brooding, a rurouni kenshin fanfic

Kenshin had been sitting on the porch brooding and scowling for the last hour or so. Kaoru worried. What had gone on in his conversation with Sakaki-san to make him ask permanent leave for all of them, and for Sakaki-san to agree? Her father had been great friends with him when he was alive and she had known him since she could remember. She felt slightly hurt that her father's best friend would so readily reject her and her student. She wondered about it more, and the more she wondered, the more she worried, and the more she worried the more she wanted answers. She wanted to ask Kenshin, but didn't dare, at least not within the premise of his current mood. Sighing she went out to the porch and sat down beside Kenshin with a soft thudding noise. He hadn't seemed to hear or see her and so she waved her hand across his face. He jumped back into reality.

"Oh, ah, yes Kaoru-dono?" He asked, his violet gaze meeting her deep blue one.

"You seem really down Kenshin...can I help at all?" His eyes seemed to grow clouded with an unfathomable weight and, then, he smiled.

"No, there is nothing wrong Kaoru-dono, that there is not. I was just thinking that's all." Did she dare ask? She decided she did.

"About Sakaki-san?" He seemed surprised.

"Hai, about Sakaki-san...how do you know him?"

"He was one of my father's best friends, and I cannot remember a time when I didn't know him." She answered, smiling at long forgotten memories of playing with him, and fishing. Kaoru sighed again.

"Then...why is he so very bitter...has he always been so?" Kaoru nodded.

"Very much so...he was always a very pensive man, quite like my father. I suppose that's why they got along so well." She answered. "Kenshin...what were you and Sakaki-san talking about that made him so...you know...I don't know how to put it." It was Kenshin's turn to sigh.

"We talked about Battosai. It was stupid of me to bring up the revolution, but I was trying to get him to forget about sparring with me." He told her. Kaoru put two and two together.

"He found out that you were Battosai, didn't he?" Kenshin nodded his eyes and expression speaking of profound sadness.

"What did he say?" She asked, wanting to know, wanting to help Kenshin's pain become less.

"He asked if I had ever lost a loved one to Battosai's blade..."

"And, you said?"

"Yes..." Kaoru's breath caught. He had killed one of the people dear to him? She decided she wouldn't press any farther into the matter.

"Then?" She continued. He took a few minutes to answer her.

"Then he said that he was glad Battosai was dead, and I told him that he would not yet be dead... Then he said that he hoped that he would die a painful and lonely death. I asked him if he could not forgive him...he said no. This one told him that it would be impossible for one to atone for his past sins if those who were hurt could not bring themselves to forgive, and that was how he realized that I was Battosai."

"Oh Kenshin." She whispered, tears stinging the backs of her eyes. She had asked herself the very same question many times. How could Kenshin move on if others were not willing to let him do so?

"Sometimes this one thinks that maybe it would be better if he just faded away into history and died and was never heard of again...perhaps that is how this one can try to abate suffering."

"Kenshin that isn't true." She told him, frowning in concern. She could no longer even imagine life without Kenshin, she had come to love the man before her to the extent of no longer being even remotely able to let him go. This was a kind and gentle man, who had saved the lives of many regardless of all the risks which it posed to his life and who, though he had a thankless job, wandered so that he could try to help those who were suffering. In her eyes, there could never be a better man than what Kenshin was, and what he symbolized for her and many others.

"Isn't it Kaoru-dono? So many suffer from this one's existence...is it worth having me here if it means that relationships that have lasted for years are broken to pieces within the course of less than an hour?" He asked. He stood up and she watched as he padded away into the house, his small form seeming much older than it had in a long time. She noticed that his steps seemed to drag as he went along, and that his once almost visible aura had diminished. To her now, within the warm light of sunset, he seemed to be an ordinary man, who had seen too many horrible things in his short existence, a man who was tired and worn of the world and all its misfortunes, and it made her sad. Getting up, she went into the kitchen to prepare dinner. She was sure Yahiko would be starving, and she was a bit famished herself, she knew Kenshin wouldn't be in the mood to cook.

Kenshin traveled the halls of the dojo until he reached his room. He stood outside the door, and stared at it as if he could move it with his mind if he concentrated on it just long enough. Finally he opened it, and slid it shut behind him. He felt older than he had in a very long time, and he found himself sighing for what would not be the first time that day. He was so very weary now, his soul hanging down on him like a wet towel. He placed the sakabatou down carefully beside his rolled up pallet and went over to the window. By the smell on the air it was going to rain that night, and so he closed it. He sat down beside the pallet and reached into the pocket of his blue gi, the one he avoided wearing as much as possible. It had too many ties to Battosai. He produced a small top, one that he had not used in very many years. He used it now, winding the string around the top of the top and pulling. The string came loose in a whirl, setting the top spinning in a torrent of color. He watched it, totally immersed in its movements the way it traveled across the floor in a whirlwind of movement. Then the images appeared. It was him, spinning, darting, flying, and leaping. His blade was cutting easily through the soft flesh of human bodies. Blood was falling about him like rain and a woman stood there, her eerie whiteness seemingly making her glow against the night. White plumb. Then, there she was again, and there was blood everywhere. He was attacking, blind to all and then she smelt the blood, and opening his eyes, she was falling, her violet kimono covered in scarlet. He caught her in his arms, but she was different. He hair pulled back into a high ponytail held by an indigo ribbon...it was her favorite. Her blood, falling, drifting, like cherry petals, and she was cold, her blood drained from her face and her blue eyes wide and dull.

"No." He whispered. This wasn't happening, and he panicked.

Kenshin awoke on with a start, his head throbbing. The top abandoned and still, waiting for his return on the floor. He quickly pocketed it and stood his limbs shaky. He opened the shoji screen that separated his room from the hall and walked out. He could see a light coming from the kitchen and guessed that Yahiko and Kaoru had just sat down to dinner. His stomach growled. Slowly, he made his way to the kitchen, his footsteps soft and purposeful. He slid the screen opened and entered the room. He found that only Kaoru resided within and she looked up at him almost expectantly as he entered. He offered her a smile and she smiled back, turning to a large bowl of miso soup and pouring him some. She gave it to him and he accepted, quickly beginning to eat it.

"Where is Yahiko?" He asked between mouthfuls of the stuff.

"He's already in bed, it's almost ten thirty." Had he slept that long? Kenshin shook his head in surprise.

"Was I asleep that long?" He asked. Kaoru nodded.

"I went in to get you, but you looked rather peaceful, so I left you." She told him, smiling warmly. Kenshin couldn't help but smile back, though he wished that she would have woke him, he didn't enjoy the dreams he had been having. Kenshin sighed. This had most definitely been a very wearying day.