Memory's Touch: Part 4
A RK fanfiction by eriesalia: onigirichan @ mindspring dot com
Standard disclaimer applies.
"Megumi-dono!" Kenshin's appearance a half-second later roused her from her confused state. Almost reluctantly she tore her attention away from her rescuer and looked at Kenshin. His expression of concern reminded her again that she had just escaped considerable danger.
"You're slow." The man frowned irritably at Kenshin.
"It is a good thing that Master was here." Kenshin answered with an evasive smile, avoiding the intense evaluating gaze of the other man. Only then did Megumi realize that in the past her rescuer would have been Kenshin, known for his speed and reflexes, and not this man. "This unworthy one was wrong to send Shinomori-san away so easily—"
"It was my fault." The mention of Shinomori embarrassed her. Not only because of what Kenshin's statement implied, but for drawing the attention of Hiko Seiijuro back to her. And also to the fact that the master had yet to put her down.
Her voice was respectful, but distant as she acknowledged the man who was Kenshin's master and who had saved her from serious injury. "Sensei— thank you. If you would put me down I would trouble you no further—"
"No."
She turned her head slightly to look at the man, wondering if she had heard him correctly.
"No?" Her eyes narrowed as he continued to move down the path, with Kenshin following somewhat meekly behind. "I am a doctor."
"Of little sense, it seems." The man apparently was not one for pleasantries. "As a doctor, you should know that your likely injuries mean you should not walk."
Again she opened her mouth to protest, but as he shifted her slightly, she inhaled sharply as she felt pain shooting through arms and legs. For once, Megumi Takani had to admit that she was wrong.
When she shut her mouth, the man snorted and then turned his attention back to his 'stupid pupil.' "You seem to have very little in terms of baggage."
"Of course not," Megumi answered crossly – aware that the man was again bullying his pupil. "We did not plan to stay long."
"Master means your medicine chest," Kenshin turned away quickly. "I'll get to it."
"There are only bandages in there—" Megumi's voice trailed off as she recalled that it had fallen or rather been abandoned as she had fallen down the path. As Hiko placed her under one of the large trees near his home and kiln, she looked after Kenshin helplessly. "It's not worth hiking all the way back up –"
"Nevertheless, he will do it," the man sighed his impatience with her. "And he will bring other things as well that will be useful for your injuries."
"Medicinal herbs—" she stated.
"Among other things-- you forget that we lived here for many years on our training, without need for a doctor."
She stiffened slightly. "You don't think very highly of doctors, do you?"
He laughed. "You take things too personally, Takani Megumi. I am just saying that both Kenshin and I know injury, sickness, and death quite well."
"Then you see what I see," she tried not to frown as he positioned her on the ground and straightened out her legs. She winced as he palpated them for swelling and breaks through the fabric of her kimono.
"Your legs are fine." He ignored her for a moment , instead turning his attention to her arms. His fingers moved expertly up and down her left arm– indeed as one who was experienced with injuries. Of course -- the injuries he had treated were those obtained during battle, not falling like a clumsy child down the side of the mountain. As he turned to his attention to her other side, she inhaled sharply as he pressed on her lower right forearm.
"Your arm is broken, Megumi Takani. But as for my dimwitted pupil--" he looked at her. "The scar on his face grows fainter each time I see him. Enough so that even he did not have to wear a bandage – even if it was dark."
Megumi immediately forgot her pain. "Then he will not die soon?"
"I will answer that question in a few days time," Hiko answered somewhat distractedly as he looked about for something to wrap around her arm. "When I've seen the entire picture. I take it that his loud-mouthed girl is in Kyoto?"
"Yes—" Megumi, in her relief, was able to answer with a sly smile . "--with his loudmouthed son."
She noticed the slight raise of eyebrows. Not at the news of a son – which she was certain Kenshin had kept him informed of – but at her. He had clearly not expected her to be so equal in her impertinence.
"I am glad then, that my pupil did not drag them out here. I detest noisy women and children. Now about that arm--" As his fingers reached for the hem of her outer kimono, her other unbroken arm suddenly made itself useful.
For the rest of the day, Hiko Seijuro the thirteenth stoically bore an imprint of a hand on his normally unmarred face.
Kenshin did not dare ask about the origin of that mark. But he wondered if it had anything to do with the strange smile on Megumi's face and her arm in its pink sling.
~
As he walked away from the fallen torii gates of Mt. Hiei Aoshi reflected.
Five years had come and gone – to some quickly, but for him with an excruciating slowness. The guilt over his men's death and the suffering he had caused to his own family – his clan—had been slowly eased as he did what he could to assist affairs at the inn.
Every year he had come here, sometimes more often, to replay the lesson in his mind which Himura had to deliver to him in a fight and through which he realized how he strayed so far from his former identity as Captain of the Edo Castle Guard. That day, fighting in the library hidden deep within Mt. Hiei, he had reclaimed that identity and been defeated. And it was Aoshi Shinomori, Captain, that challenged Shishio and aided Himura.
But the cycle of debt had not been nearly repaid until he had come again to help Himura. And even after he had done what he could to deliver Tomoe's diary, and to assist him in battling Enishi – he had not felt closure.
He realized now, as he looked at the ruins of a battlefield which history would never admit took place, that something had substantially changed from his last visit here. The remembrances of the past did not hold as much bitterness as they ought, and he realized that he was truly free to live for the future.
He understood now what he had failed to see weeks before. The picnic at Mount Ueno had marked the end of his journey. Seeing Himura content with his wife and child had changed him and moved him, just as it had Megumi Takani.
It was evident on her face, and the way she moved quietly and lightly the rest of the afternoon and evening. It was that quality that had made him pay attention to her.
Not that he would deny that she was attractive; Hannya had made sure to make his Okashira aware of that so to reinforce the importance of Kanryuu's commands to keep his golden goose from being harmed by the other guards in the estate, in addition to keeping her flying from her nest . But the awareness was not quite the same-- her own deeds had tainted his perception of her then, just as his own subservience to Kanryuu had tainted him.
Somehow -- from the day Kenshin Himura had stepped into her life, she had been put on the path to being restored to what she ought to be. And her journey, he realized, had also been completed.
The few impassioned kisses they shared were not a response to the past, but a tantalizing glimpse of a potential future. While his family at the Aoiya had made him smile, and given him some purpose and function the past five years – it was a pale shadow of the life he used to have. He was not certain it would be adequate to tide him over for the next thirty years of his life. Had it been, he knew that many hope he would marry Misao -- who at 21 had just come of age – in essence tie in the past with the future of the Oniwaban.
He was well-aware of that expectation, and had done nothing. Perhaps it was that he had been waiting for something else.
Or perhaps someone. Someone who, if he had not been uncertain of his own motives, might have yielded to him not just with that kiss, but much more. Someone who – at her essence – was more like him than any other.
Someone who understood him. Someone he understood.
As he continued back down the path he had taken earlier that day – he reveled in that new insight and the stirrings of purpose within in his mind.
Deftly that woman had used logic and reason to silence his ill-planned proposal, but logic could be patiently fought, and yielded once more.
Author is experimenting with narrative structure trying to balance the quieter thinking part of this story with something to interest those who hate quiet stories. In light of my previous fic and other very good A/Meg fics pursuing the path of a slow building relationship, I have tactically taken a different approach to reflect Aoshi's decisive and active part of his nature. CL: not sure if my email went through. Heian=analogy as opposed to direct reference.
Notes on the Hiko/Megumi comments. Actually there is such a fic at Takani X's website (go through my profile to the shrine to fanfics, etc.). Also Hakubaikou's Recovery has an excellent dynamic between the two. Their dynamic here will differ from both.
