This idea has been running in my head for a few weeks, and refused to go away. Samurai X Reflections (the English Seisou Hen) just made it worse. This will be serious, but I hope you read it all the same.
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"You look terrible, Himura," he greeted.
Kenshin sat at the chair in front of Saitou's desk, but said nothing.
"Has the raccoon been feeding you?" he prodded as he filed away stacks of papers.
"Kaoru-dono is fine, thank you for asking, Saitou," Kenshin finally answered after a long delay staring at nothing. "But, why did you want me?"
Saitou raised an eyebrow. This was not the Himura he was expecting. Tired, wan, pale-faced. And sighing once every minute. He did not understand.
The worst was over. Everything was back to normal in Tokyo. The houses and buildings destroyed by Kujiranami's rampage were now standing again. Reconstruction of the precinct was also complete. The last time he checked, the Kamiya dojo had also been repaired. No sign of the battles waged there were left. A search had been made around Tokyo Bay for the escapee Yukishiro Enishi. It had been fruitless. Everyone involved in the case had agreed it would be pointless to search any further. Everyone chose, in each his own way, to forget, and to move on.
So did Himura, it seemed. Generally, he seemed happier now than he was over the past few weeks. He smiled more often, and did not discuss the events from that time. Thus, he did not understand what the redhead would be losing sleep over. From the way the man looked, it seemed like he had not slept well for more than a week.
"Get some sleep, Himura," Saitou muttered his advice as he shuffled papers. "You look as bad as some of the opium addicts we've been catching nowadays." He looked up at him with a smirk. "You sure you're not one of them?"
Kenshin gave him one of his absent-minded "Oro?" looks, then it dawned on him. "Opium?! NO, Saitou!"
His face was so sincerely adamant, Saitou could not help but chuckle. "You take life too seriously, Battousai." He walked to where Kenshin sat, and patted him on the shoulder as he walked to the door. "It can wait for another day. Go home to the raccoon. Go rest. Before I send you as undercover agent to the opium dens!" He then left him alone in the room.
But Saitou's office was very quiet, and rather stuffy. It was quite conducive to afternoon naps, which was probably why the policemen exited for a while. Also, the chair was high, upholstered in leather at the backrest and elbow rests, as well as the seat. Before Kenshin could stop it, his head began to nod, and his eyes dropped. Soon he was asleep on the chair.
He did not want to be asleep.
For some time it was dark all around him, then he heard frantic screams from just around a corner. Yells of "Fire! Fire!" was passed from house to house. Then someone came running toward him, shouting wildly. "Miyama is dead! Miyama is dead!" Then, more shouts about a fire.
He found himself standing at one of the main streets of Kyoto.
His red hair hidden in a large straw cap, nobody recognized him, especially in the general panic. He let the people pass around him, planted where he stood. He knew how he was trained, but this overwhelmed his sensibilities.
He heard two people talking loudly as they passed. Miyama had just been assassinated, very smoothly. No one saw who did it. But when as the man fell, he dropped a candle and started a blaze in the room where he was found.
He walked, first slowly, then faster and faster, until he ran to the burning house. "No......NO!" he shouted, as he saw the burning house.
He saw the smoke mix with a yellow blaze just a few meters before him. People assembled a bucket brigade around him, while others screamed for relatives still inside, and family members cried aloud for their loss. "Who could have done this?" he heard one person cry out. He knew who caused the conflagration. He did.
It was not supposed to be like this. It was supposed to be a clean kill, of only one man. It was not supposed to lead to the death of many others and loss of property.
He gaped in silence as buckets passed from man to man, as a final man threw water over the fire. He even felt the water splash at his face. He saw men charge inside, as fiery planks of wood threatened to fall over the men.
"Get out!" he called to them. "Get out right now!"
But just then he heard a deep rumbling close to his ear. "Wake up, idiot!" He felt another splash of water across his face.
He opened his eyes and saw that he was back in Saitou's office, Saitou with knit brows and an empty glass in one hand. He found his own hands stretched out in front of him, still calling to men who just disappeared from view. He lowered them slowly, and brought them to his face as he wiped away the cool water, some of it dripping from his hair.
"If you had dozed quietly, I might not have done something this drastic, you fool," the policeman murmured.
Kenshin bowed meekly and apologized.
"Get out of my office and go home," Saitou ordered with commanding finality. The red-haired man obeyed, trailing drops of water on the wooden floor as he left.
He could not believe it was that bad already. He thought he could hide it from people for longer than this. It made him very worried. If Saitou already noticed, what did Kaoru-dono know about it?
It had started a few weeks ago, when everything had finally settled down. Sano was gone now to other places in the world, and Megumi had moved to Aizu where she could be more useful. He was quite happy that everything was quiet now.
Unfortunately, it was rather TOO quiet for him.
For more years than he can count, his head was filled with thoughts, of different kinds. For several years, they were thoughts of survival: where would he get his next meal? For a few months: how was Kaoru-dono? How do I stop Shishio? How do I get through to Enishi? Now that all of his thoughts were taken care of, and all his questions answered, there was suddenly not much for his fast-paced brain to think about.
That left his brain susceptible to other thoughts.
His nights now were filled with terrors of the past. He would not be asleep for longer than 20 minutes, when the images began to run through his head. Blood on the streets. Blood on his hands. And blood on himself. Otherwise, it was filled with that sight of blood on a very striking resemblance of Kaoru, so real it deceived him, and still filled his nights.
He would awake with a start, then try to stop himself from going back to sleep. He did not want to see those images again. He hoped Kaoru did not know or notice. He told her every morning that he had had a good night. He did not know if she bought it, but she did not ask any further and just gave him a smile.
But the next night would come, and it would be the same, all over again.
Like right now.
A vision of the pretty and confident young lady appeared in front of him, her ponytailed hair swaying back and forth in the breeze, a basket in front of her. Then it slowly faded, and the cackle of many unearthly voices rang around. She will never be truly yours, they said. Never. You are deceiving yourself. She will never be truly yours.
"Kenshin?"
It sounded like Kaoru, near but far. Where was she coming from? Where was she? No, not again!
"What did Saitou-san say?"
"Don't.........go..........Kaoru-dono............" he pleaded. He did not know where her voice was coming from, and it seemed to be fading away.
"I'm standing right beside you, Kenshin!" her voice came from very near him, and he felt her take his hand. "Stop standing there like you have seen a ghost!"
"Oro?" He held his head and shook for a while, and saw that he was standing in front of the police department building.
"Silly dear old Kenshin, how long have you been standing there?" she gave out a little laugh.
"I.........do not know........" he answered as he scratched his head.
"Doesn't matter anymore," Kaoru smiled, and pulled him by the hand. "Let's go home. I've got enough vegetables here for you to cook for dinner."
He stopped walking so suddenly Kaoru was pulled back with a snap. "I have been out of sorts today, Kaoru-dono. I might burn the rice and ruin the soup. You go and handle it. I will just get some medicine from the doctor, alright?"
Even as she doubted this decision, she nodded and walked on home.
The doctor that replaced Megumi was not as caring or as capable as her.
"Do you have anything here for someone having trouble sleeping?" Kenshin calmly asked.
The doctor did not even give him a look. He just walked to a cabinet, took down a small bottle, and handed it to him. "Sleeping pills. The new thing from the West. Just take one every day that you feel you need it. Come back in a week."
Kenshin looked at the glass bottle, full of little white circular pills. "But, sensei, how do I pay for this?"
"Whenever you can," the doctor answered with a wave of the hand, as he returned to his filing. He let Kenshin leave without a word.
Kenshin did not feel the ground under him as he walked home to the Kamiya dojo. He felt light-headed, as if he was floating a few inches off the ground. He was only aware enough to know where he was walking to.
He entered the gate, and proceeded to the well. He drew himself a bucket of water, then readied the ladle. He took out the bottle, opened it and took out one of the little pills. "Well, I hope this works......I cannot keep lying to Kaoru-dono......." He popped the pill into his mouth and washed it down with some water.
Whatever was inside that pill, it acted quickly. A few minutes later, he felt the ground spinning around him. The nearest spot was the porch, so he dizzily walked there. He felt the desperate need to close his eyes, to stop the spinning, to sleep. At first, he refused to give in to that urge, scared of more nightmares. But the chemicals were stronger than he, and he finally surrendered.
He knew, saw, and felt nothing more after that.
Kaoru came to the front of the dojo and called for Kenshin. It had gotten dark already, and he had not yet appeared in the kitchen. She found him slumped at the front porch, a small bottle beside him.
She had heard things in the market about small bottles filled with white pills. A few deaths had already occurred due to those small bottles, and no one was exactly sure why. Nobody had reported these deaths to the police, for they all just thought their time had come to die. Thus, despite the rumors, people kept buying the pills in the small bottles, for various reasons.
After several terrible thoughts ran through her head, she ran to him and checked for a heart beat. Normal. Breathing. Normal. He was not dead. She gave out a big sigh of relief. She then shook him gently. "Time for dinner, Kenshin." But she got no response. Stronger shakings and calls did not yield results either. This was not normal sleep. Someone even in the deepest of dreams can normally be awakened if waked furiously enough. Kaoru practically shouted into his ear, and still got no response.
Sweat dotted her forehead. He was too heavy to be carried by a woman. Yahiko was not sleeping at the dojo that night. She no longer had Sano to help her with him.
She ran back into the house and got a blanket. She spread it out, moved him a bit and got the blanket under him. "Sorry, Kenshin, but I didn't know what else to do," she apologized to the dead weight. Then, she pulled at the blanket, and dragged the man into the practice area just beyond the front porch. She got his pillow and blankets, and settled him there comfortably for the night.
"The things I do for you, really now!" she muttered as she walked to the front porch. There, she found the bottle of pills, still full. She took it up, and looked it over carefully. It was exactly as the rumors had described it. They were marketed as sleeping pills and pain relievers. There was nothing in the package about its terrible effects, and nothing even about the ingredients.
She was not sure what the pills did, but she realized quickly. They could be dangerous. She had to convince him not to take them anymore.
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I am not sure yet how long this will be, but I know it will be rather short. If you have suggestions, comments, and ideas, send them over when you review. Thank you very much for reading it. Hopefully I'll see you soon!