Hello! Finished in a wave of inspiration over an evening and a next day. Many possible stories came to mind. In the end, this is what survived. Thanks for reading. Hope you like this new chapter.
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"Don't bother me, woman."
He brushed her aside, as she watched the massacre of innocent carrots, cabbages, and tuna. It had indeed been a long while since he had control over the kitchen, but the half-mashed, half-chopped carrots were a terrible thing to see. His coordination was still a bit askew, and his slices of tuna came out very uneven.
"I can do this, alright?" He told her with a steely voice.
"But," she begged, "can't I at least-----"
"Get out! Now!"
She was making things worse, he fumed to himself. He knew without being told that the chopping was terrible. She did not have to nag about them. Exasperating woman.
He was annoyed. Kaoru had been slowly tapering off the medicine, a little too quickly, in his opinion. He once checked the paper the doctor gave her. He found out, unfortunately, that she had been following the dosage closely, and that his irritation was unfounded. However, while the nightmares did not return, he found it harder and harder to sleep for a whole night. He kept tossing and turning, his mind awake but blank. It was driving him crazy.
"Hey, Kenshin......" Yahiko called out.
"What?" he snapped at the boy.
"Easy! Kaoru just wanted to know when you'll have breakfast ready," Yahiko said.
"If she can't wait, she can go hungry this morning," he growled. Yahiko ran off in a hurry.
This was the second day since Kaoru announced he was cleared of the medicine. She had given him his final dose. There would be none after it. He did not know what to feel. He missed its effects, but no longer wanted to hurt Kaoru. This confusion, the lack of coordination, and the lack of sleep all combined to make him annoyed at everything.
He salvaged what he could of the carrots and mutilated cabbages, assembled a quick salad, dumped all of the serviceable tuna onto a plate, and heaped rice onto two rice bowls. "Breakfast is ready, you two!" he shouted out to them. He washed his hands, still muttering under his breath, and left the kitchen.
He ran into Kaoru on the way out. "What about you?" she asked. "Aren't you having breakfast?"
"I tried to hurry up the breakfast since you were hungry, so go on and eat. I don't want to ruin your breakfast." He spoke icily and walked away.
Yahiko and Kaoru had a quiet breakfast, filled with the sounds of battle screams from the dojo.
"Why is he practicing his drills so hard, Kaoru?" the boy asked.
"Getting rid of stress, I think," she answered.
He unleashed his annoyance at himself through his drills. He did not want to be angry at her, but the annoyance just came out. He wanted to scream it all out. He should not be treating her this way, after everything she had already done. He was failing her again!
The voices rang again. She will never be truly yours!
But she is mine! She told me herself! He swung at the air and sliced a ghost in half.
You are kidding yourself! The voices replied.
Yes, I am! She is mine! I promised to protect her! Now get out of my life and stop bothering me!
He swung, struck, and lunged in all directions, at all the threatening voices. He did not stop for hours. He did everything short of ruining the wooden floors in trying to defeat the monsters in his head.
Hunger and fatigue finally worked its effect, and he finally dropped and lay flat on the dojo floor, panting and sweating. He fought hard, but in the end, he had lost to the ghosts all around him, once again.
"Kenshin.........." Yahiko meekly called to him.
"What is it?" he asked, still with some irritation.
"Message from the precinct. Saitou wants you."
"Fine," he acknowleged. "Tell Kaoru-dono. Now get out of here."
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Saitou Hajime shook his head, very slowly. "This man gives such bad luck."
It had been roughly two months since he had last seen the redhaired annoyance. Aside from arresting three doctors and five quacks, he had gotten nowhere nearer to solving the case. The doctors met with contacts of contacts. Saitou was not even close to finding out who was the main distributor of the dangerous medicine. Until they find out, they could not make a case to the health department.
When Himura did not report or visit after a whole month, Saitou sent out an informant to look around the Kamiya dojo and see what was wrong. The report came back that he was sick. He then checked for himself, without telling the raccoon or her young ward. He found the redhead in a condition similar to other reports of drug intoxication. He called the man a thousand idiots, muttered a thousand curses, and had the district doctor taken in for questioning.
Chou did not want to be an undercover agent, after hearing what had happened to Himura from his superior. The other agents had managed to get second-hand information, but not much. Most potential informants had died before they got to them.
For the most part, only Himura was left, and he was still quite useless.
He appraised the replacement doctor of the problem, required his help in getting information, and asked that he watch out for Himura. Idiot or not, Himura was a good source of information and a reliable think tank, one Saitou did not want to lose. Once the doctor told him that the redhead was cleared, he immediately sent a message to the Kamiya dojo, requesting for Himura's presence at the precinct.
"Have you gotten anything out of him yet, boss?" Chou strolled into the office.
Saitou answered with a puff of his cigarette. "If you can give me a good way to extract information out of a sleeping man, I might give you a raise."
Because Himura was sleeping soundly in the policeman's leather chair, and seemed very exhausted.
"How long?" Chou asked.
"An hour, at least," his boss puffed.
A few knocks were heard, and a young lady looked into the room. "Good afternoon, Saitou-san. Do you know where I can find Kenshin?"
"Perfect timing, raccoon," Saitou remarked. "Maybe you could help us with him." He pointed to the chair.
Kaoru bowed as she entered, peered over the chair, and sighed. "Sorry, Saitou-san. He has had this bad habit of tiring himself out, since we came home from the clinic."
"Finding another way to sleep?" Chou asked.
"Probably," she said. "What did you want to know from him?"
"We were wonderin' if he knew where the main factory was," Chou answered for his boss. "Where those pills are made, you know?"
She nodded. She kneeled beside Himura, and tugged at his ear gently. "Hey, sleepyhead, wake up and talk to me. Saitou-san wants to know where you bought that second bottle. Do you remember?"
He swiped angrily at her, as he slowly opened his eyes. "What's the idea waking me up.........." He looked around, saw Saitou, and grew ashen-faced. "My sincere apologies, Saitou."
"Make a note to maintenance, Chou. Tell them to get rid of this chair," Saitou ordered. Chou nodded with a grin. He then faced Himura. "Well? Do you remember the route?"
"Barely," he replied.
"Take me there."
The company lost no time, and started walking out of the precinct and onto the streets. Kaoru and Chou allowed the other two men to take the lead and walked behind them.
"Hey, little lady, care to tell me what makes that redhead so tired like that?" Chou asked her, hands over his head. "I seem to recall he has great stamina."
"Against himself, he doesn't," she answered.
Chou, of course, did not understand, but he left it at that. He started whistling a little children's tune.
The four continued to walk, keeping thoughts to themselves.
Eventually Kaoru noticed that they were walking in circles. She had seen the Akabeko twice on their route. Chou whistled away his irritation. Himura kept plodding forward onto a street they had been before. Kaoru noticed that his eyes were blank.
Saitou stopped in front of Himura and grabbed the front of his yukata. "Either you lead me there now, or I will leave you here," Saitou told him sternly. Himura did not seem to understand the situation.
Kaoru approached them both. "Let me handle this, Saitou-san." She held his hand, and spoke close to his ear. "Hey, Kenshin. Take a good look around you."
He followed her orders, and nodded when he was through.
"Now close your eyes, and remember. You stood here that day, right? Where did you go next?"
He closed his eyes for a few minutes.
Kaoru squeezed his hand and shook him. "Remember now?"
He pointed to the right.
Kaoru and Kenshin now took the lead, with the two men close behind.
When she noticed the glassiness returning to his eyes, she gave him a little shake. "Hey, Kenshin, where to now?" He gave her an angry sideglance, but pointed to the next direction.
They reached an inconspicuous warehouse in the middle of the city. It still had traders, middlemen, and glass-eyed customers loitering near its gates.
"How did you know about this?" Saitou asked him.
"The contact was not available. I was directed here."
He did not have to tell the policemen about the jeers and sneers from the people inside, when he made his purchase back then. He remembered enough of the event to give Saitou a general layout of the warehouse floor, all without any of them being seen.
"Good work, for a spaced-out redhead," Saitou puffed at a cigarette. "We know what to do from here."
His eyes started to droop. They had walked several kilometers to get to the warehouse. "Just get rid of them, Saitou. It was a mistake. A mistake that will not........happen again............"
Saitou puffed again, and faced Kaoru. "Get this man to bed, raccoon."
She bowed, took Kenshin by the hand, and left Saitou and Chou.
"That was great work you just did, Kenshin, don't you think?" Kaoru said cheerfully on the way home.
She was answered by silence.
"Everyone makes mistakes, even you," she prodded.
He snapped at her. "I know I made a mistake! I know! Stop reminding me, woman!"
"It's Kaoru, Kenshin," she muttered.
"I know........I know............" he muttered back between clenched teeth......................................
After dinner, she found him at it again. Sword in hand, he practiced all the drills and sequences of his technique, over and over. Eventually he moved forward and backward, striking in an unpredictable sequence, as if fighting someone.She found it odd how determined he looked. His eyes were purple yet fiery, glued at an imaginary opponent that was quick on its heels. He kept striking and attacking it with unusual ferocity. And he kept opening his mouth and murmuring something, as if he was talking to his unseen opponent.
She retrieved a bokutou from the wall, and inched her way nearer to him. He charged, sakabatou to his right, and swung upward. She moved in, blocked the strike with a downward stroke, and held on.
"Kenshin look at me, listen to me!" she shouted to his face. "Stop punishing yourself about the past! You tell others to move on. You have to do it yourself!"
She hit his wrists with a quick move of the bokutou, and made him drop the sakabatou. He looked up at her, as if awakening from a dream, and saw her with surprise.
"Listen! I know you have killed many people, and I know you have made mistakes. But all grudges have been settled, all enemies have been beaten. You don't have to think about the past anymore." She took a deep breath. "Remember what I told you last year. I do not want the Hitokiri Battousai to stay. I want the rurouni to stay. Stop reliving your life as Hitokiri Battousai. That is not you anymore."
He lowered his head.
"And if I had my way," she added quietly, "I wouldn't want you to be a wanderer any more. I want you to stay here, always."
He was silent for a moment, deep in thought. Then he whispered. "You will never be truly mine. I do not deserve you. That is why I gave you so much trouble over the last few months. I wanted to forget. I did not want to think about it. The past just gave me reason after reason why you would not love someone like me."
Kaoru looked at him, defeated and anguished.
"I knew by the second day that the medicine was dangerous. But the thoughts of men long gone kept coming back. The voices that told me I was a loser and a fool kept ringing in my head. I know I was causing you pain. It just gave me another reason why you would not accept me, because I can and I did cause you pain. A vicious cycle. I wanted to forget it. I wanted to run away."
"But......"
"You really think I am someone who would not run away? You think wrong, Kaoru. Why do you think I wandered for more than ten years? Because I wanted to forget who I was, because I wanted to run away from myself. I promised you that I would not leave here anymore. But you cannot stop me from running away from myself. I found a good way to do it."
She did not know what to say. She placed her wooden sword on the floor and sat beside it, her eyes fixed on him.
"I was scared out of my mind. After years of being alone, I found someone I wanted to protect with my life. I did not know if she wanted me to. Who am I to believe she would accept me? I knew I was not worthy. No matter how I looked at it, I was not worthy. I had absolutely nothing to offer her. And after years and years of taking husbands, brothers, and fathers away from women, do I deserve to be a husband and a father myself?"
She saw a few tears moisten the wooden floor.
"Maybe Enishi was right after all. I do not deserve this life I have right now."
Now this was too much angst out of Himura Kenshin for her. She folded her hands over her chest and tossed her head. "Nonsense. I thought you found your answer when you fought Enishi. Where is that answer now?"
He looked up at her, his face in a question mark.
"I heard it, and so did Yahiko and all our friends. You will continue to fight, forget the past, and protect the present. You swore to do that. You said that was your answer. Where is it now?"
His eyes opened just a little wider.
She looked back at him, and gave him a gentle smile. "Please cheer up, will you? That answer, that promise is still there, I know it. I will keep reminding you of that promise, as often as necessary. I'll help you along the way. You'll never have to fight alone, if I can help it."
"That still does not change the fact, Kaoru."
"What fact, Kenshin?"
"I...............I...............love you, Kaoru." He paused. "But I cannot have you."
She blushed. But he needed an answer.
"You are limiting yourself. You, who can do the impossible."
She took a deep breath, and forced her tongue to say the next words. She had wanted to say them for so long, they were stuck in her throat. She gulped and retrieved the words, and said them slowly.
"I. Love. You. Think of absolutely nothing else."
She rose, and gave him a little peck on the forehead. She returned the wooden sword to its place in the wall, and began to walk to the door. She then turned back, and told him softly.
"You only have to ask."
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Some irritability and emotional instability is bound to happen while a person is withdrawing from drug abuse of any kind. I hope I got that across with this chapter. Thanks for reading the ramblings of a crazy med student. Yeesh, I'm making longer chapters now.
The chapter after this one will come after a long while again, since second semester is starting next week, and I'll be busy this November. I will post a new chapter when I'm ready. I still suggest that you place me in your author alerts, since I don't know myself when I might be able to post. At least you'll get an email when I do post. Thanks a lot for your patience and understanding, and I hope you liked these last two fast chapters. For those who are asking how long this will be: I don't think I'll go beyond 15 chapters.
Brittanie Love – Thanks a lot. JML – Thanks for liking the doctor. junyortrakr – Yeah, thanks for reminding me about that problem. samuraiduck27 – They'll be OK. Thanks for reading! Hikari Kitten – Aw, glad you liked that mushy part! evilteddybear – Thanks for answering why you're an evil teddy bear. I hope you do get well pretty soon. I try to update regularly. It's something to think about that isn't directly related to schoolwork, and it's a way to unwind and let out thoughts I can't show in public.