About all the questions regarding time travel:
I thought I'd dedicate a whole chapter trying to answer the questions about time travel and paradoxes. I know I disrupted the timeline by having Kenshin NOT kill Akira, which would lead to Tomoe not having to seek Kenshin for revenge and her not dying.
Frankly, I'm not a big fan of Tomoe and would rather write her out of THIS fanfic for the sake of my sanity.:)I had that default chapter before but I deleted it, and well, I feel like I have to answer the questions about what I changed in the timeline and I was going to insert it with Chapter 5, but I wrote too much. lol
Do you guys watch Stargate SG1? They've discussed time travel and different dimensions in that episode loads of times… Even Stargate Atlantis touched the subject of time-travel last week.
There are infinite numbers of possibilities in every case, and it is said that outside each reality, there exists a different reality which resulted from exactly the same scenario, but with a different choice made.
I'm not much for explaining that scientific mumbo jumbo stuff, but if you've seen those episodes they'll make sense. lol
For example… with that reasoning, we can safely assume that there could be an alternate universe of Kenshin out there (If they were actually real) wherein Kenshin killed Tomoe that night that she saw Battoussai kill that assassin… or an alternate universe where Kenshin didn't meet Kaoru… get it?
In Stargate Atlantis, the Earth expedition find themselves in the city of Atlantis in the bottom of the sea at the beginning of the series. But they arrive just in time for the shield to shut down and water floods the city. Eventually, the emergency system kicks in and the city rises to the ocean floor once more, saving them. But according to last week's episode, that isn't what happened the first time.
The first time it happened, everyone drowned except for the leader of the expedition, because she somehow managed to get into a tunnel jumper that contained a time machine, and traveled back to the time of the Ancients 10,000 years into the past.
By her traveling back to the past and making sure that the shield was still up by the year 2005 and enlisting the help of an Ancient who set the emergency systems on, she saved her alternate 'future' self – the one who is in Stargate Atlantis right now.
If you don't watch Stargate, have you read/seen Harry Potter? In the third book/movie (Prisoner of Azkaban), Harry and Hermione use Hermione's time turner to go back 2 hours in the past, with Dumbledore's urging. We are only showed THAT timeline, but doesn't it make you wonder whatever happened to the FIRST Harry and Hermione?
I'm speculating that they might have died or got their souls sucked out of their bodies, and maybe Dumbledore went back in time to warn himself… that's why we have that scenario where Harry and Hermione go back two hours in time to 'save' themselves.
The FIRST EVER Harry would not have had that OTHER Harry there to save him and conjure the Patronus when the Dementors were feeding off of him and Sirius. We only follow the path of THAT particular Harry where he already had the OTHER Harry save him and Sirius from the Dementors.
It's confusing, and it took me a while to process it, but it made total sense to me that's why the Stargate Atlantis episode made total sense to me as well. LOL
You have to remember that by Kenji traveling to Kenshin's past and inadvertently changing it, he's creating a different type of reality. It branches out from what really happens in the Series, movie and OAVs. Although, I couldn't help but wanting to incorporate some things that happened in the RK series and OAVs into my story, this fic is going to change the timeline.
I was thinking earlier today that perhaps, if Kenji doesn't go back to his own time, they can have a Back to the Future storyline when they meet Kaoru… with Kaoru kind of having feelings for Kenji instead of Kenshin so Kenji ends up having to push his parents together… but that's way over my head since I still have my hands full with this one. lol
Speaking of Back to the Future… before Marty goes back to the past for the first time, his father was bullied around. By him traveling to the past, he helped his dad overcome the bully. When he went back to the future, his dad was the one doing the bullying. Bill was cleaning their cars, etc… etc… the second time he travels back, he changes HIS future, by not engaging in that car race which caused an accident.
Remember the alternate reality that he traveled into and the doc explaining on the blackboard? He drew a straight line and then drew another line that branched out from Marty's original timeline.
Another example would be from Charmed. The sisters first time-traveled in that Nicholas episode, un-blessing the ring.
The best example from that series is the Phoebe burning at the stake episode. In that episode we see that Phoebe dies at the stake and Piper has a little GIRL. In that future, Prue is still alive and owns Bucklands. The reality of Charmed right now is Prue is dead and Piper has two BOYS.
I'm sure that there's another Charmed reality out there where Piper still has that little girl and Phoebe really did die at the stake, but we are only shown ONE reality at a time.
In this fanfic, because I messed up the original RK timeline by dropping Kenji in the OAV, preventing Kenshin from killing Akira, this fic should be considered an alternate universe/reality.
I still would like to have the familiar faces/events in the RK series, so it's going to cause a lot of confusion.
I've always loved Battoussai/Kaoru fanfics, and Bunny's 'How the Past can change' fanfic (link can be found on my favorite stories list) got me to thinking of how it really can change if Kenji, instead of Kaoru, went back in time instead.
I feel like I've taken on an impossible task. I don't think a lot of people are going to be happy with the way I write this, but please, this is my first ever fanfic, and every time I see the RK Series and then the OAV, I get mad at how Kenshin turned out to be.
I would imagine Kenshin to be a wonderful father, just looking at how he treated Ayame and Suzume, but NOOOOOOOOO, they just had to kill him off and embarrass him by not even making him catch that fish Sano tossed at him. The OAVs broke my heart, that it did.
This fic is my way of trying to fix it. :P
I hope this not so short interlude made sense and helped ease the confusion a bit. :)