Author's Note: Viper, I found the artist. It's from the group Cradle of Filth, from ther album "The Principle of Evil Made Flesh", the "Imperium Tenebrarum"
Reminiscence of the Bakumatsu
Kenshin sat on the bridge over the little river he usually took Ayame and Suzume to when he went fishing. Today, however, he was alone. The sun was about to set, bathing the world in an eerie red glow. The red of blood, Kenshin mused. So much like the times of the Bakumatsu when the world really had been bathed in blood, both of the Ishin Shishi and the Shogunate loyalists. Still, not much has changed,the red-haired swordsman mused as he thought about the people he had passed today. The old woman from the tofu stand, barely able to support herself and her two children, the sickly youngster who had to sell miso in his father's place because they couldn't afford to send him to school, Yahiko, who had been forced to work for the Yakuza as pickpocket because he had lost his parents to the war.
Swords in hand at the bloody fields of history
Is this what we worked for? I haven't seen any proof that things have improved. True, the people at the top have changed,
but are they really doing the right things?Kenshin couldn't help but think about what the people had lost because of the
revolution. Fathers. Brothers. Sons. Not a single family, it seemed, had survived the revolution intact or without pain.
the pain of loosing a loved one.
We rend our blades through dogma and humility
He had once told Yamagata, that they had raised their swords and fought and killed for a new world, where everyone could live equally and in peace. Was it all a silly dream?
Carve the future according to our will
They had turned the world upside down, slashing open the new era, drowning the old in blood and burning it to ashes. Was it really worth it? Was it really worth killing and destroying everyting for a dream?
Set worlds ablaze with our seething fire
How many lives had been lost, how many homes destroyed, how many of them by his own hand? It had seemed to right at the time, but now...he couldn't tell. He had no idea whether what they had done was right or wrong. "History is written by the winners," the saying goes...and history would no doubt record the revolution as a good thing. But was it really? Was it really such a good thing to raise swords against your own kin and fight against those you owed allegiance to because of your own beliefs, that may have been flawed? Just fight to be acknowledged and granted freedom to make your own choices?
Let you all acknowledge that we are here
The Meiji government had so far failed to improve anything, or hold even the tiniest of promises they had made during the revolution. The farmers were still poor, the streets littered with homeless and old veterans who were out without a purpose after their services were no longer needed, who had served their country and Emperor well, but had received nothing in the end.
As masters to rule this failing humanity
The Meiji government had deceived and abandoned the Sekihoutai, pushing off all the fault for not being able to keep their
promises on them, sacrificing them like lambs on an altar to feed their own power, creating more enemies than allies.
Incensing those who knew the truth, who, enraged with the current government, were trying to excercise their own idea of
justice by uprooting the entire system once more and starting another revolution, refusing to yield to the seeming
oppression and deception of the Meiji.
Our beings formed in rage and defiance
The only thing that had been accomplished so far had been that the weak had become even weaker and been oppressed even more in the chaos that followed the close of the Bakumatsu, and the collapse of an ordered system had caused many to flee and resort to thievery and honorless robbery. Many a proud samurai had been forced to become ronin and abandon his honor in order to survive.
With strength to trample the weak and the foolish
Once the proud supports on which the country had been built upon, the samurai, the people...what had the Meiji revolution
brought them but the hurt of loss and the pain of oppression? The destruction of homes and slaughter of people? And still,
in his mind, Kenshin could see the ending days of the revolution, Ishin Shishi parading through the streets of Edo and Kyoto,
holding up banners of the Emperor and burning the old standards of the Shogun.
And so we march with burning brands
Had it all been worth it? Had they done the right thing? Kenshin shook his head and stood. Only time would tell...
Temples of flame on our path to glory.
OWARI