A/N: Short chapter... just trying to see if I can bring things back on track.... Of course, I was never under the impression they were off... but apparently, it is possible that I have made the plot to complicated and boring... I can try to simplify things in an effort to save the fiction... but I don't know what it will do to the plot itself. If I don't like what it does... I would rather trash the fic that change it that much. Anyway... here it is...
Haruko: Definitely a shorter chapter, but I find it as nerve-wrecking still. The plot's developing along just fine, and I would suspect a lot of readers would be glad to see Salvation on the way!
Glossary: Ikke=Home, Niisan=Older Brother, Sochi=Son (affectionate), Chichioya=Father (Humble), Koishii=Dear/Darling, Anata=Beloved Husband, Bakumatsu=Revolution, Kodora= Small Tiger, Ne=No, Hai=Yes,
Chapter Sixteen :The Silver String of The Gemini
It was there.
He could see it.
It was floating among the stars like a single silken strand of a spiders web as it swung to and fro in the gentle winds of the Starscape, and every so often the light of the waning Moon would glint off its thread thin surface turning it into a thread of gleaming silver.
"It is so long, Uncle... I did not know it would be so long."
"Of course it is long, Young Sword. It must reach from your soul all the way back to the world of men, and that is a very long way." Aoshi's deep voice was filled with amusement as the boy marveled at the incredible length of the 'bonding string' that attached him to his father and brother. "And it is Silver as well."
"Silver? Does that make a difference?" Glowing Aqua-amber eyes turned to gaze in
confusion at the tall stoic ninja. "Aren't all the bonding-strings the same?"
"No, Young Sword, they are not. See here," and the long fingered pale hands flashed before the boys started eyes and suddenly produced a gleaming string of purest jade that seemed to glitter on its own. "This is my bonding string. It binds me to those I care about the most. Misao, and our daughter Lira, and as you can see, it is not silver."
"Ne, it is Green."
"Hai. But it will lead me to them just the same as yours will lead you to your brother."
"I think I understand." Once more Kenji gazed outward along the neverending length of his bonding string as it disappeared into the 'Plane of Star's' leading away toward both the tortured soul of his brother and the amazing strength that was his Father's soul. "Otousan's is gold, isn't it?"
"Hai. Very good. You are beginning to understand. Are you ready to leave now? Time grows short as it always does, and it will not wait for us."
"Hai. I am ready. Show me how to follow?"
"It is really quite simple, Young Sword. After all, it is your bonding string."
"Of course, Uncle." A playful smile turned the youth's lips as he turned and looked into the laughing green eyes. "But I still need to know how to use it."
"Hai. That you do." A strong hand descended upon his shoulder and squeezed in
reassurance. "Take it in your hands, close your eyes, and find your brothers face in your mind."
"Hai. Then what?"
"Envision his heart being attached to the end of the string..."
"Hai."
"Listen for his heartbeat, and when you hear it, envision yourself beside him wherever he may be and it will be so."
"Hai. But Uncle?" Kenji opened his eyes and looked quizzically at the older Man. "How do I get back once I am there?"
"Just wake up Kenji-san."
"Wake up?"
"Hai. Remember? We are setting on the back porch of Saitou-san's Ikke. Only our minds are here in this place. You and I are in deep meditation outside where the wind is beginning to blow a chill, and the others are wondering where we have gone."
"I... I had forgotten." Strangeness draped itself over his shoulders like a cloak as his mind registered the fact that he and his Uncle were in fact still setting on the ground behind the small house in deep meditation, and that this Starscape within which they stood now was a place that could only be reached through the power of the mind. He had forgotten he was drifting in an alternate reality that existed only within the infinite reaches of the trained ki mind, and now the statement of 'wake up' finally made sense.
"Do you remember now, Kenji?" Aoshi's gentle voice wormed its way into the younger man's troubled thoughts and he turned to face the knowledgeable ninja once more.
"Hai. I feel... very strange now knowing we aren't really here."
"But we are really here, Kenji... do not think for a moment you are not. If you lose your way inside the 'Plane of Stars', you may be lost forever."
"What happens if I become lost?"
"The 'Searchers' come and look for you, but, I must warn you, those who have become lost in the past... none of them have ever been found."
"Why not?" A note of panic filled his voice as he considered how terrifying it would be to be drifting forever lost in this strange world. "What happened to them?"
"They are dead. The mind can only live for so long inside of this limbo before panic and fear turn to despair and grief. Then comes the moment when the mind simply can no longer go on and it lets go of itself and it turns to dust."
"Kami... what happens to the body?"
"It dies." A shiver raced through the young man's body as he tried to digest this harrowing information and unconsciously his grip on the bonding string tightened until his knuckles turned white. "I am only telling you this for your own safety, Kenji." The hand on his shoulder squeezed again.
"Hai. Uncle, I realized that. I guess I better not get lost, ne?"
"Ne, Kenji-san. You will not. I have faith in you. You will come back. Just keep my face in your mind... Remember we are setting on the porch and you have only to open your eyes to be back."
"Hai... I will remember."
"Ka, then for all that is good and right in this world, Young Sword... find your brother and begin the reunion of the Gemini."
"Gemini?"
"The Ying-Yang. The Twins... One light, one dark. You must be together if you are to fight the Bane, Young Sword. It is through your power, your mates ki augmentation, and your brother energy catalyst that you will send that bitch back into hell where she belongs... surely you have seen this by now? Have you not?"
"I..." The pieces were falling into place. Christian's power nearly equal to his own, but so completely opposite... If they had not been fighting each other... what would happen if they combined their power and used it together with Quii as the stabilizing root to keep them from blowing each other up? But what would be the focal point? Who would focus all of that energy? Otousan?
"You must go now, Young Sword, time waits for no man, not even he who is blessed of The Hand of Fire."
"Hai." Closing his eyes, he began to concentrate intently listening for the one heartbeat he knew was there. Silence reigned all around him as his mind whirled down around the silver thread searching for the heart that was attached to the other end, and suddenly, seemingly out of no where, the world inside of his head was filled with the thundering 'thud-thud, thud-thud' of a beating heart. "Chri-stan..." The name fell from his lips light as a feather and Kenji reached for the sound as he envisioned the tanned face surrounded by dark chestnut hair and filled with snapping indigo eyes that he had seen only once, but had been imprinted upon his soul like the burn of an iron.
Then, just as suddenly, he felt himself pulled at an alarming speed through space and time, the bonding string sliding through his hands like liquid fire leaving blisters on his palms and fingers as it passed through. The pain was intense, but Kenji pushed it out of his thoughts and continued to concentrate on the beat of his brothers heart and the features of his face.
'I am coming.'
Aoshi stood alone among the brilliant starburst and shooting comets. One moment Kenji had been at his side, the next the boy had simply vanished into nothingness taking the luminescent silver bonding string with him. 'He is on his way.' The ninja thought as a sigh of fatigue lifted his broad shoulders. 'May Kami-sama be with him, for I cannot.' And then, in the twinkling of an eye, the tall man cloaked in white vanished as well and the "Plane of Star's' stood empty of living presence once more. Only the glittering of the millions of dancing diamonds that graced its skies gave testament that any life at all had ever existed within the infinity of its cold and empty beauty.
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Kaoru and Misao had finally made peace and were setting happily next to each other talking about their children and husbands... and the past.
"Why didn't Lira come with you, Misao? We have not seen her for such a long time."
Misao smiled as she thought about the wild, free-spirited 12 year old daughter she shared with Aoshi and shook her head with amused affection. "Well, for one thing. She isn't here with us right now."
"Not here?"
"Nope. She is up North with Sano and Megumi. She had been pestering us for weeks to let her go see them and their kids until Aoshi just finally kissed her and stuffed her on a train. She has been gone for about three weeks now."
"Oh, Daddy must be going insane by now." Kaoru tried to muffle a giggle as she thought about the kind of a father the stern ninja had turned into after Lira had been born. He could not keep his hands off the little bundle of black hair and sea-green eyes, and the baby had seemed to be just fine with that as well. Lira had grown up 'Daddy's little girl', and Aoshi had given her everything she ever wanted. "Hmmm, no wonder he wants Sano and Megumi to come home so bad."
"Of course..." The two friends shared a long giggle between them before Misao finally
sobered up. "But you know, it probably would be a good idea if they were here this time. We did not have any casualties before... well, not really anyway, but the game is different this time. We aren't dealing with people anymore."
"I know, Misao. Are you as scared as I am?" Kaoru began chewing on her bottom lip.
"No. How could I be?" She reached out a comforting hand and gripped Kaoru's wrist.
"It's not my son who has the weight of the world on his shoulders... It's yours."
"He is still so young, Misao... still my little boy."
"He's not a little boy anymore, Kaoru, and it's time you faced up to that. He is the same age Kenshin was when he was the Battousai you know."
"Don't say that, Misao. He's nothing like Kenshin was when he was that age."
"That is not my point, Kaoru. My point is, stop treating him like a baby, he's a man just like his father was. Give him the credit he deserves." Kaoru turned to look into the fierce gaze of her oldest friend and knew she was right. Kenji wasn't a little boy anymore. He was an accomplished and gifted swordsman just like his father, and he had been given a task of great proportions to accomplish. If he was going to be able to do it, he was going to have to have his whole familybehind him to do it.
"You are right, of course. He is a man now. He has even chosen his life-mate already."
"Quii?"
"Yes. I think we all knew he would eventually. They have been thick as thieves ever since they were children. It was bound to happen."
"She is the best choice for him, you know that?"
"Yes, I know that... but I still wonder about Kuumi. What will become of her now that
Kenji and Quii have each other?"
"Kaoru? Are you blind? Have you lost every single one of your perceptive bones since you stopped teaching and turned the Dojo over to Yahiko?"
"Nani? What are you talking about?" Kaoru's dark blue eyes glittered with agitation at Misao's rude comment.
"I wasn't even here for the fireworks and I can see it... Haven't any of you figured it out
yet?" Snorting in incredulity, Misao threw her hands up in the air in exasperation. "Please don't tell me that I am the only one in this house of Master Ki's that can see this?"
"See what, Misao?" Kenshin walked across the floor and knelt down beside his flustered wife. "What are you talking about, if I may ask?" His worried glance traveled from one woman to the other in concern.
"Kuumi.Kaoru is wondering what is going to happen to the dear girl now that Kenji and Quii have become life-mates, and I can't believe that she is so blind that she cannot see what is right in front of her nose."
"Hmmm, well, perhaps you would be good enough to tell us both because I do not see what you are getting at either."
"I don't believe it!"
"I think we got that. Now, could you just explain yourself?"
"Fine... do anything of the strange things happening around your other son and her bring any ideas to your little brain, Himura-san??" The sarcasm was heavy but the meaning of her words more than clear. "Who seems to know what is going on with him, hmmmm? Who seems to be the most worried about him, and who has been the one to care what happens to him from the very beginning?"
"Kenshin? Could it be?"
"Oh God.... Kuumi and Chri-stan?"
"Boy, are you two ever slow... Sheesh! I figured all of this out in a couple of days and I wasn't even here when any of it happened. I just HEARD about it. You two actually saw it. What a couple of dummies."
"MISAO!" Kaoru's voice was bordering on real rage at that point as she shot poison and daggers at her friend. "I think that is enough already. We've been under a lot of stress lately."
"Stress, smesh... You've just lost your edge."
"MIS..."
"She is right, Kaoru... we have lost our edge if this has been in front of us all of this time and not one among us could see it."
"The boy's evil, Sochi. I have felt the strangeness of his ki-spirit and I believe he is beyond all help." Hiko's large frame materialized from the shadow's as he slowly approached the small group. "I sensed it in him from the very beginning on the first day. There is a demon's rage that burns within him, and it is that which nearly succeeded in killing you. He cannot control it... I do not believe he is even aware of it. It lurks beneath his skin like another spirit sharing the same body with him and it is infinitely dangerous. No matter what we may believe the Kodora's Destiny may or may not be, this boy is beyond saving."
"I will not believe that." Kenshin's voice dropped to a growl as he turned his eyes to face his father. "I have also felt the wrongness within him... but I have felt the good as well... I will not abandon him to his demon's. I will not let him suffer as I once did."
"Kenshin..." Kaoru laid a tender hand on the stiffness of her husbands upper arm feeling the angry tenseness within him rising. "If we cannot save him..."
"We Can!" He shouted suddenly his eyes reflecting furious gold. "You saved me, Kaoru, did you not? You saved my soul from the pits of everlasting hell and damnation because you loved me despite all that I had been and had become. Is Chri-stan so much different than I ever was? Is he??" Golden fury turned and pierced into her shocked blue eyes. "Was the Battousai any less dangerous or demented than is the demon who haunt the soul of my son?"
"B-but Kenshin, we don't know what h-haunt's Chri-stan... do we?" Kaoru sent a frightened look up at her Father-in-law as well as one into the startled blue-green eyes of the woman setting across from her. "How can we save him if w-we do not know what p-possesses him."
"It is in his blood, Kaoru." The tone of Kenshin's voice calmed, but only marginally as he turned his gaze onto his own clenched fists. "The blood of the de'Angeles witch runs side by side through his veins with my blood, and it would appear the two have not reconciled to live in peace with one another. He must find a way through his heart and soul to make the two function harmoniously, or he will never gain control over himself or his powerful ki."
"You believe that is the strangeness I have sensed in him, don't you, Sochi? His dual bloods warring for control over his ki?"
"Yes, Chichioya... I do."
"Then you do not believe he is evil at all?" Hiko sighed deeply and lowered himself
carefully to the floor beside his seething son. "And you are willing to risk everyone's lives on that belief?"
"No, I am only willing to risk mine and Kenji's life on that belief, Chichi. I would never bring anyone else into this matter who is not directly connected to my own family."
"What about Quii-chan? She is directly connected to your family now that she has become the Kodora's life-mate? What about her? Will you risk her life on your assumptions that Chri-stan is not the demon harboring evil man I fear him to be?"
"That cannot be helped, and you know this, Chichi... Quii-san has made her choice. She must go where Kenji goes. That is not a decision that is mine to make... it has already been made."
"Hai. You are right."
"Then do not accuse me of dragging innocents into danger, father." Kenshin's voice was once more bordering on a feral growl of furious anger as he favored his father with a look that made the older man shift uncomfortably.
"All right already... You've made your point, Sochi. Stop looking at me as if you are about to set me on fire. If you aren't careful, you just might as angry as you are letting yourself get over this."
"Angry? I have not even yet begun to get angry, Chichi." A snort of derision and
indignation was heard as the red-haired man tossed his head back. "You of all people should understand the sort of trials and difficulties Chri-stan has had to face while growing up, and the kind of dual personality it may have created within him as a result. He is not that much different than I."
"You are talking about the Battousai again, aren't you?"
"Hai. I am. Do you not see a similarity?" The golden crystals pierced into Hiko's narrowed emerald gaze like daggers of hot flame. "I, too, ended up with many scars upon my soul which resulted in a dual personality of sorts. That was the only way I was able to perform my function as Hitokiri for the Bakumatsu, and as a result, I became the Battousai while Himura Kenshin faded to the back of my mind."
"Kenshin," Kaoru's voice brought him around to her. "There is a difference you are not considering, Anata."
"Nani?"
"You are aware of Battousai's actions as well as your own. Chri-stan does not seem to be aware of what happens when his dual self rises to the surface... remember what Kuumi said in the beginning?"
Kenshin's brow furrowed in thought for a moment as he tried to recall what Kuumi had said about Chri-stan's behavior with her that first day she had met him in the street. Kaoru was right, that was a difference he had not considered. As he thought, he knew there had to be a reason for the phenomena, and somehow he would figure it out. If it was the last thing he did, he would figure it out and he would find a way to save his son.
He would find a way to save them both.
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Kenji sailed at lightening speed through the vortex of the starscape, but the blinding rush of dazzling lights and bleeding colors went by him unnoticed as his eyes remained tightly shut. He was maintaining his intense concentration on the image of his brother's face and the sound of his beating heart and nothing else was being allowed to interfere with either of those things.
As the flood of his pure white spirit-ki carried him through space and time, the handsome boyish features of his face were drawn up into a tight mask of fierce mental focus shutting out all other sources of energy and anything else that might feel familiar. He could feel himself getting closer as his skin began to tingle with that strange sensation he had only ever felt when in the presence of his blood brother, and that knowledge urged him forward as his anticipation grew.
'I am almost there.' His mind thought in joyous excitement though there was a small hint of fear mingled within. 'I am coming, my brother... can you feel me? I am coming....'
The Sun had set hour ago it seemed, and the air had turned a freezing cold that threatened to turn the organs inside of his body into blocks of living ice. Never had he felt so cold... so alone... so small. Where was his strength? It seemed to be running out of him like blood gushing from an open wound. He would die soon... he knew this. She was going to suck the magical life-force from his soul, and then she was going to drink the blood of his pitiful life and he would finally be dead.
Deep within himself he prayed for his own death. He prayed for God to come and slip free the soul that lay trapped within his ravaged body for he no longer had the strength to set it free himself, but God never came... no one came... only Her. Only the Demon-Beast that was what was left of what had once been his Mother. How? He would ask himself when the night hours came to haunt his feverish mind. How could she do this to Him? Her only son? How and Why? She was killing him slowly, torturously and she was reveling in it, and all for what? Revenge?
"Die Himura..." She would rasp and cough as her great clawed feet scratched at the marble floor each time she paced across it. "Come for your precious son... come and die you filthy bastard's son... come and see what a mess I've made of your precious boy, and then die screaming as I gobble your soul up and send you to rot in Hell until the end of all time... Then the power of the Unborn will be mine... mineminemineminemine..."
She was insane, of course, he knew that... but then, so was he or soon to be so. How much time did he have left until his mind failed him completely? How much time until he could no longer tell the difference between reality and the nightmares that plagued both his waking and sleeping thoughts? Life was short, he had realized too late. Too short to be spent on vengeance and hatred for whatever reason one may have, and somewhere inside of his turmoil filled soul, Christian finally forgave his Father the murder of his Mother.
'She deserved to die, Father.' The thought was barely a wisp of reality as it drifted through his befuddled mind. 'It was her evil ways that brought her to this end... it was God's punishment that her life be forfeit for her blasphemies and sins against the world... She needs to die again... God.... Help me... Help me...' The world was so small. All black and white it was without any beginning or ending. No doors, no windows... just....
"Chri-stan..."
That voice... he knew that voice, but how... where...? He struggled to open his eyes but they were so heavy... so heavy.
"Chri-stan... can you hear me, my Niisan?"
Could it be? The struggle became a battle as the emaciated man fought to open his eyes and move his arm. 'Ken...' Half a thought formed in his mind as he unconsciously reached out for what he could only pray was there but did not believe would ever be. Then, a miracle happened... the most beautiful, brilliant white light he had ever seen began to shine and it seemed to infuse a holy strength into his weakened body until he found the energy to at last open the bruised and shrunken eyelids.
"Ooooooooooo...." His voice was less than a raspy whisper as he gazed upon what could only be called an angel for it could be nothing else.
A/N:I am asking for reviews please. Is this interesting or not? Should I continue or not? Has the story lost its cohesivness for everyone or do we still know what's going on? I know what's going on and where I'm going, but is everyone else up to speed or is it crap??
Review please... its necessary...