Disclaimer: I don't own Rurouni Kenshin
In you resides my single power
Of sweet continuance here
-Hardy, "Her Immortality"
Cherry Blossom Dream
Chapter Five: The Birth of Men
Closing the heavy door behind her she breathed heavily, her back laying against it. She had never expected to meet Saitou at the Festival. Was that how all her encounters were going to be? She hoped not.
A smile wavered on her face...the look in his eyes when she had suggested her job was far too amusing; though it sickened her on some insane level. Sex in general sickened her. The male body was hideous; a hideous that she had become accustomed to; a commonplace.
Looking at the old, tall clock that sat near the corner it read about ten o'clock. How long had she been out?
Gazing over where the wash room rested she felt a need to cleanse herself. It would never help though, the shame was much to permit; it was in her very blood. Shame was her essence, her badge of courage, her own personal story.
Stripping off her cloths, throwing them the same green chair where William had sat, she walked into the room and there she stayed until good William came back...and from there her mind was free for the second time that night.
"Kenshin it's so good to see you!" Misao exclaimed rushing to hug him. Kenshin smiled, opened his arms like he was welcoming a child, and embraced her back.
"Same here." Kenshin replied looking over the young woman's shoulder to her husband, and his long time friend. Letting go of her she returned to her husband's side.
"Aoshi. I'm glad you could come." He held out a hand and they shook firmly.
He had just arrived at the festival and looking at the moon's placement Kenshin could read it was about ten o'clock. He had got suck in the office with extra paper work to be done and he didn't want to leave anything unfinished so he had stayed the several extra hours afraid that Megumi might burst in at any moment and remind him gently that he was suppose to be at the festival with she and the others, but he hadn't expect Misao and Aoshi to be in the company.
"Where are Megumi, Sano, and the others?" Kenshin questioned looked through the crowd of joyful people. Misao shrugged.
"Yahiko saw Tubsume and went off with her, and Sano and Megumi said they were going to go get a snack, and Dr. Genzai and the girls are playing games at the moment." Misao conveyed all she knew.
Kenshin turned to Aoshi. "I heard from Ambassador Fuji that the Oniwaban is sending spies to watch the American Delegates that arrived today." Aoshi lifted a brown nodding.
"And that you are especially keeping an eye on William Harold."
"The American's are not to be trusted nor are some in Japan" He paused for a moment then continued.
"We have gathered information that Harold isn't of good ethics. We have speculated that he and maybe some others are trading information with some syndicates to weaken the Meji Government."
"Yes, so far we have stopped most of the assassinations that were planned." Misao put in looking at her husband. Kenshin nodded.
He had heard of the assassination attempts, the Minister of Defense had almost reassigned him to be a body guard; a job that would have greatly board him.
"Now you guys aren't talking about work are you?" A goofy voice broke through the conversation and they all turned their heads to the voice to see the goofy smile of Sano with Megumi right beside him.
"Sano." Misao exclaimed smiling. "I never got to ask you before you ran off with Megumi, how are you doing?"
"Well I guess I'm doing well. The shipping company is boosting in more profits everyday." Sano said proudly nodding at Aoshi.
"I guess everything is going well for you Aoshi?" He questioned looking at Misao. Aoshi regarded him causally.
"Indeed, thank you for asking." Sano laughed and looked at Megumi and winked; the Fox-Lady was always right about women.
"At least she taught him talking mannerisms." Megumi hit him and Misao gave him an icy glare. After a few words Sano walked over to Kenshin patting him on the back.
"Hey old man. How is work?" Sano teased Kenshin. God knew the man needed it. Ever since Jou-chan left nothing ever really made the ex-hiktori smile.
Kenshin sighed. "Busy." Sano nodded. "I know what you mean."
"Hey Fox where is chan?" Sano asked referring to Yahiko. Even after six years, the boy now being seventeen, he stilled called him chan.
Frustrated by the nick name Megumi decided it was best to ignore Sano. No matter how much she loved him, she hated the name. "I think he went off with Tubsume."
"I'm glad for Yahiko." Kenshin put in looking around at his friends. "It's a good time for him to start settling down."
Everyone's hearts weighed down on them. The Kenshin of six years ago would never had said something of that topic, but everyone knew why he said it; he didn't want Yahiko, who had been like a son to him, making the same mistake as he did with Kaoru.
"Hey everyone enough with the long faces." Sano said wanting to get off the subject. "Let's go see Tae I heard that she didn't close the Akebeko tonight and I'm hungry."
"You're always hungry." Misao laughed as they made there way to the restaurant...never truly smiling.
Kaoru laid in the cover of white sheets. Her body was damp when her mind came back in focus, it was now morning. Turning around she saw William looking up at the ceiling. Oh how she longed just to get away from him. He smiled at her touching her cheek.
"You're beautiful." How many times had she heard that same sentence, she was sick of it, but still she smiled. The play was turning out perfectly, the audience was buying every single word of it as if were actually true. She could almost hear applause every now and then.
She looked into his eyes as he said it and once again the chill grasped her heart. His eyes. Inwardly her heart stopped functioning...his eyes...she knew that look.
A scream arose in her throat but never tore through it. Please, please no, she thought.
"Kaoru would you mind entertaining some gentlemen for me?" Oh how simply he said it, how easily it came through his horrid, sinful mouth. Sally was right every complaint was asking for a favor...a favor that she had to do...no, it was a duty. She was just a toy, and he was her master. She never had a choice.
The sheets were drowning her, and she couldn't breathe...how much longer could she hold her breathe? She had been holding it for six years.
She wanted to scream, shout, take a knife and drag it through his heart, but to all this hatred and passion her voice rose as sweet and calm as it had ever been. "I would love to good William."
He was far from good as she herself saw the lecherous smile coax its way onto his visage. "I expect the best from you, dear; your well breed mannerisms should please them." How did he put it so lightly...mannerisms...sexual acts...selling her.
He touched her cheek once more, smiled, got up and dressed. Morning light was just now peaking through the covered window. Why did it seem always to be covered?
"Kaoru I will be back with my visitors around eight, be ready." And just like that he left closing the door lightly.
The room was still, she sat on the bed motionless, and in that instance without warning, the cold grip around her heart became too strong. Pulling her hair she screamed silently having her eyes drown her cheeks with a salty liquid that had been long been damned. It all washed out with wrathful vengeance...but still through all this no one heard a thing; it was all silent from her. Her pain was just for her, and no one else.
Stumbling out of the horrid white bed, now tainted with black mold, she crossed the room nude to the old secretary collapsing once again on the chair. Her tears were subsiding slowly as she swallowed them with shame, mentally chastising her insipid mind.
Opening the draw she drew out the old worn brown book given to her by Antonio, wishing he were here. It was there, in that hard chair, she stayed leaning over drawing in the words forth from that old brown book understanding but not comprehending why this God would let his child suffer so, but all the more wanting a substance to fall onto, and before she knew it her world faded into black.
The smell of ink and leather greeted Kenshin as he walked into his office; it was plain with only the bare essentials, all of the conferences took place in Saitou's office. Taking off his black trench coat he set it into a near by closet, closed the door, and went to his desk.
His hand tapped along the mahogany wood. "Six years." He whispered. "Six damn years."
He sat quietly at his desk, he had more than enough to do that day. Misao and Aoshi were staying in Tokyo for a while; they had business to attend to...business that he that he was of course involved in. It seemed as though there had been another attack last night during the festival; an attack that succeeded.
Taking the files off his desk he flipped through them.
Misaka, Ichiro
Age: 43
Birthday: October, 11 1845
Height: 5'4
Weight: 150 lbs
Occupation: President of Foreign Trade
Place of Death: Mistress Mononke Tea House
Time of suspected death: 10-12 pm.
Date of Death: May 20, 1882
Description: Broken neck. Bruises across body. Five ribs on left chest broken. Found with hands cuffed around back, and mouth gagged. Braded with the letters M.D.L. burned on chest.
Suspects: None. Last person to see him- name: Ukio, Yukina.
Age: 21
Occupation: Geisha. Not a suspect has an alibi that coincides with three others.
Names: Mistress Mononke (Owner of Tea House).
Urina, Sentra (Geisha).
Harold, William (America customer).
All have check out with a clear case.
It went on to say the more specific details that Kenshin didn't bother with. He leaned back in his chair. Why trade? Japan was just now starting to export more, and that name William Harold. Kenshin leaned forward. Harold wasn't to be trusted, yet his case check out.
Grabbing a piece of paper he scribbled down a few notes. He had to send a team to investigate all export centers in Japan, and have extra watch on the American. He would have to talk to Aoshi and the political leaders later.
The door swung open. Kenshin smiled; his senses never failed him. "Saitou, good morning. What took you so long to get down the hall?"
Kenshin looked into his face and something clouded his mind. Saitou stood in the doorway with a God-like smile on his face; his eyes teasingly as though he held the most precious gem in the world, but it quickly went replaced again with his sardonic smirk. His eyes loomed on the desk.
"I see you have read about Misaka-san." Kenshin nodded.
"I was planning to send out a team to all export centers in Japan." He didn't need to expound on the subject. "I presume you know the Geisha's witness to her alibi was William Harold."
Saitou nodded. "The Oniwaban has sent more eyes to investigate him." Saitou relpied."I have read the new reports from them and it seems that he isn't working alone. They still haven't tracked who or what is helping him."
"It still may not be him." Kenshin put in. Saitou waved him off.
"All evidence is pointed towards him, Battousai." Kenshin glared. "And we are needed to attend a meeting this afternoon. He will be there."
Saitou inwardly smiled. He had done his searching on Harold, and it seems that he was accompanied with someone to his journey to Japan. After last night's incident with the long forgotten person he had followed her back to the hotel and found out that she was with Harold. He wondered what would Battousai think about Kaoru being a prostitute to Harold.
He would speak no word of it; it wasn't in his rights. If that girl wanted to be found then she would show up, or they would meet later. He left Battousai with his thoughts a little while later, smiling cynically as he did so.
What would he think of the toy she had become?
Night had settled over Japan. Kaoru lifted up the widow curtains, her eyes nothing but calm.
There was a knock at the door and without a word it opened. Kaoru opened the glass panel feeling a cool breeze flow around her slightly lifting her lavender wrap, and her loose hair flow like a raven wings behind her.
"Get ready. He will be up here momentarily." Came a deep voice. Kaoru nodded saying nothing; all she had to do was count the seconds...she knew them far to well.
She closed the window gazing once more outside. It wasn't so hard not to breathe anymore when it was actually happening...it only hurt when she had to think about it.
The door opened, and she again heard the same voice. "You have thirty-five minutes." The door closed, and Kaoru turned around to see a young boy no older than twenty.
She smiled; he seemed to be a first timer. She saw the tender look on his face mixed with excitement. Breathing she walked over to him. It was so habitual now after six years.
She touched his brown hair, and looked deeply into his hazel eyes. If he were handsome she wouldn't have known- men were all the same.
"What's your name sir?" She asked quietly into his ear, sucking on his lob slightly. She again smiled how easily they fell when she persuaded them with her hands.
He groaned. "Aten."
The word's of Sally spoken in her ear. 'Pleasure him. That's all were good for. That's why we're here. We are hear to cater, to serve, but will have our repayment in the end Kaoru...we will have it in the end.' The voice droned on, but Kaoru turned a deaf ear to it. She had heard it too many times.
"What's your desire? I' am yours." His arms wrap around her and it was in that moment the boy-child became a beast; and another man was born.
He slept soundly, his breath coming in and out at constant intervals while she held her breath. She wished she could breathe an easily as he.
She looked back out the window focusing on the never ending roof tops of people's housings that were dyed blue with the night. She placed her hand on the glass; it was cold; instinctively she wrapped her robe around her tighter. The cold never left.
Her eyes focused on William once again...he looked like an angel; fair, tall, and fashionably pale. She sighed; angels didn't exist, and there on the bed laid her proof.
The week had passed in the time a year should have gone by, she should have known that he would start selling her. How many men had she served these past seven days? She didn't want to think about it- if she didn't think then she wouldn't have to vomit.
"Darling you wouldn't believe who the government has working for them...oh you must have heard of him he was a legend in Japan; I even heard about this man in America." Kaoru ears pricked up...'a legend.'
She smiled calmly hiding whatever emotion played inside her, but she quickly shook her head. No, Kenshin would never work for the government. "Who good William?"
"A man named Kenshin Himura, known as Battousai." Kaoru dropped her writing utensil, but William talked on.
Kaoru sat still at the secretary smiling and nodding while violent feels raked her mind; hatred, and no, nothing else...or nothing else she wanted to feel.
When William finished his exclamation Kaoru waved her hand. "Oh yes, I remember hearing the stories about him, but", Kaoru folded the piece of paper that sat in her lap that had the arrangements for her and William that night.
"Why would the government ever let a man like him in?"
Kaoru smiled at William; he sensed no venom or anything else from her.
No, Kaoru, don't think about that man, she thought, but she found that she couldn't. He, Himura Kenshin, worked for the government. Her hands fisted, she was bound to meet him.
She smiled. A little dark ray implanted into her eyes; it would be amusing to see his expression when he saw her, amusing and....
Kaoru looked outside the window. She didn't want to face any of her past images. Shame took hold of her, she wanted to scream. Why did she care about her profession now? It didn't matter, did it?
The image of that boy that first night filled her mind; he looked so young before she tainted him with sin, at that time he wasn't a beast. She shivered...that boy had turned into a man before her very eyes; he turned into something horrible, he turned into an abysmal creature. All men were the same.
A knock sounded at the door followed by a man's permission to come.
"Sir, I have interesting news about the girl." Derek raised his eyebrow looking at his mignon.
"Really? Please, do tell." He leaned back in his chair. The man was corrupt, no matter that his fair hair and eyes beheld him as beautiful as any angel created by God; he was rotten to the depths of his soul.
The man, usually the best at his job a tough guy one would say cowered beneath his stare. He smiled. He use to always see that same expression on his little foreign money maker; that is until she became what he molded her to be...nothing but a hallow doll.
"Harold is selling her to the highest bidders, and since you only arrived today," He squirmed by the man's calm expression. "I'm sorry that I couldn't get to you sooner, Sir."
'Ah, Kaoru seems as though you have been working without my permission.' He waved the man off; he knew him well enough, the so called tough guy had worked under him for years now. "Its just gives me all the more reason to kill William Harold." There was a dry chuckle as he spoke.
"Kaoru, noticed me also, Sir." Harold nodded, glad.
"No matter, I expected her to. She must have known that I would never let her go off with anyone alone, even a paying costumer." He leaned back on his mahogany desk. "I doubt that she even knows that I'm here in Japan."
The man nodded. "Go get Preston; I need to speak with him." Derek said referring to his right hand man; the only man he, other than himself, to gain his respect knowing him since his boyhood years.
With a simple bow the informant let shutting the door behind him.
Derek got up and went to the window looking upon the nicer harbor ports. Kaoru didn't even know that he owned this building in Tokyo let alone was major influence here just as he was in American ports.
He smiled, closing the curtains and returning to his desk. William was but a simple pawn in this game, and pawn that he would soon have to be rid of...just like that fool Misaka, though he was never really a pawn...and it was there where the true story started.
If William hadn't have hired men and seen through Misaka's demise then he never would have let Kaoru go with the man. Harold was an idiot, and he hated weak men like him, but that weak man knew far too much already.
Derek had given him letter, and papers to give to members that he had as underlings; government officials, but mostly syndicates. But with secrets had possessed Harold would have to die, something that Derek had failed to mention in their contract.
Not only that, but dared to sell Kaoru to others without his permission and was gaining the fruits of it. Never would William Harold know how deeply he had gotten himself into with Derek Lacher. In fact the only reason he had let Kaoru go with Harold in the first place was so he could get rid of a few disturbances for him before he reached the shores of Japan, that and he paid an enormous amount for his dear Kaoru.
He smiled at her name; she had never told him from where she came, all he knew was that her name was Kaoru Kamiya and was from Japan. She was the only woman he slightly admired, her and Sally, but he had broken her just as he had done Sally. He smiled at the mere memory of their broken faces.
He opened his top drawer and drew out a file that he had received prior to being bordered onto his vessel that carried him to Japan. The first time he had read the contents he wanted to laugh. Here in his hand he held Kaoru Kamiya's file transported all the way from the Japanese Record Hall; in it contained all information about the girl. Police reports and certificates cluttered the file.
Kaoru hadn't lived alone for every long after her father died. He knew that Battousai, no her corrected himself, Himura Kenshin now one of the Head Detectives of the Japanese government had dwelled with his young escort. But not only that, she also bordered Sagara Sanouske...a big name in shipping now a days. 'They must have been at least friends.'
Himura had been nothing but a pain in his side; the man was good he would give him that, but it wasn't only that that made him want to laugh, not even his legendary name frightened him as he heard about it all the way in America, but as he read and reread the files he noticed that there was a pattern in the many occurrences that happened at her dojo.
He flipped through. 'It says here that she died and it was later found out to be a farce by a man named Enshi Yukasihiro.' He remembered the name of the famous trading company's old owner, he himself had made a few under dealings with him.
He shook his head, there was no way to be for sure, but it seemed to Derek that Himura may have loved his little Kaoru and vice versa. He leaned back as the door opened, he would find out in the end, and then he could use to her to his advantage.
A/N: Sorry guys that this chapter took so long. So what do you think, and I'm sorry I honestly don't know where I'm going to have Kenshin and Kaoru meet, but I have a plan and I think it is a real good one, but its going to take time. Maybe if I wrote one big, huge chapter I could get them to meets like in two more chapters, but this story needs allot of consideration but there is so many details and thing intertwining with one another.
If anyone was at all confused by this chapter please tell me! Please Read and Review, and thanks again!
Don't You Just Hate Me,
CrypticMaidenRK