Well, and this is chapter five. I had it scribbled on a paper somewhere since long ago, and, since Fate made me find it, I decided to honour the circumstance by typing it down and publishing it. It´s not the end of the whole projected fic, just the end of the first part... and still, if I am to be completely honest, I can tell you that I doubt I will write anything else related to this story any time soon. Sorry. At least it´s not as if you hadn´t already got used to the idea of this fic being discontinued by my year-long delays.
(And I suppose that one day I will get interested in the subject again, and may even find it, though I´m not too much into writing right now.)
As always, I thank all my reviewers effusively, and especially those who were still waiting for this fic after so many months. You made me happy, and also sad, in a sense, as I don´t feel like I can give you any more.
Chapter Five Takani MegumiThe doctor got up in a suddenly worried rush, and tiptoed towards the door from where the noises that had roused her from her sleep were coming from. She could see the light of torches at the gates of the dojo and, as her heart started to beat at an increasingly quick pace inside her chest, she distinguished the voices of many men.
Kaoru-san.
Not allowing her mind to be paralysed by the growing terror, Megumi´s immediate reaction was to get inside the house and check whether the girl was in her own room. When she discovered that it wasn´t so, her legs failed her and she collapsed on her knees in the floor, overwhelmed.
They were there. They were there for her, and for Kaoru, who had got in the way. Himura-san wasn´t with them, and nobody could save that stupid girl. That stubborn, stupid girl…
But no. She could not allow herself to be carried away now of all moments. She had to think, and concentrate in the best course to follow. Whar could she do, with her limited means, to stop anything horrible from happening?
You won´t escape me, ever. You will be mine for the rest of your life, whether you want or not.
Megumi shuddered, and laid a pair of glassy eyes on the floor. She could flee, run far from the place before anybody noticed that she was there. She could start again somewhere else…
Start again? another inner voice chimed in almost immediately. How could she ever start again anywhere while knowing that corpses, two corpses, had ben once more left in her wake? That girl, who didn´t know anything but naively could not stand to see her leave because she was afraid of being alone, who thought that everything that happened was her fault, and recklessly tried to solve it herself. And Tomoe-san, encased on a fragile shell that could not stand any blow from the outside world, and who had finally found a troubled rest in a small room of that dojo. Both trampled, and then hauled aside by the people who were searching for her because of the things she did in the past.
And he? What would he think? Would he still believe that she could atone, that she was doing everything she could to make things right?
Curving her lips in a wry smile, the woman got up and went to her clothes box to search mechanically for a haori. If she jumped in the middle of the fray now, there was nothing that she could possibly achieve. She could search for Himura-san, but she did not know where he could be at the moment, and in the case that she could find him somehow, it would already be too late. The best thing she could do was to sneak away in the darkness while they weren´t paying attention and search for help…the police was the only option.
They can discover you. They can point at you, give you away, saying "this is the woman who killed so many innocents with the cobweb opium". See? There´s no escape.
Never…
Megumi swallowed deeply, and shook her head before starting to run past the darkness of the house, and past the fearsome brightness of the turmoil. To be discovered was terrible, and even more terrible to be trapped again in the shadows that she had tried so hard to forget. But, to be afraid for all her life, and be reduced by her fear to a wretched mockery of a human was much worse. It was worse.
After the torches of the false Battousai´s men were left behind in the distance, houses, alleys and streets succeeded each other at a vertiginous speed in the woman´s mad run. There wasn´t anyone out there at those hours, and the police quarters weren´t too near to the place. Terrible thoughts about what would happen if they didn´t arrive quickly enough began plaguing her mind, panicking her so much that she refused herself even a stop to regain her breath. Faster….some way, somehow, she had to be faster.
"Megumi-dono!"
Feeling as if if she had suddenly been victim of a hallucination, the doctor saw the floor beckoning her, and her body fell into the man´s hesitant arms.
"You…! Quick!" she was able to utter between heavy gasps for breath. "Kaoru…"
"I know." he said. Surprised, the woman lifted her eyes to meet his, and realised that they were clouded by an urgent concern. His breath came out irregularly too, which could only mean that he had also come running. " I´m sorry…. I could not gather the information until now. But tell me what has happened."
"They are at the dojo…and Kaoru-san is probably there too." Megumi explained. "I was able to escape and went searching for help. Please, be quick! Don´t worry about me!"
The wanderer´s eyes widened as his mind processed the information. Immediately, his hand travelled towards the hilt of his sword, and in a second he was gone.
Godlike speed.
Megumi arranged her hair and clothes a bit, while she tried to muster all the energies that she needed in order to follow his trail towards the battleground. In one of the motions, her hand touched inadvertently the spot where his arm had rested mere moments ago, and it remained there for the additional length of a fleeting moment.
Somehow, it felt better now.
Kamiya Kaoru
"So it´s you…" The girl retreated two involuntary steps, but grasped her wooden sword in a firmer grip. "Battousai has deigned at last to show his face and answer to my challenge!"
"Could be said so." the giant man sneered, taking his mask away to reveal a brutish countenance adorned by a long, dark beard. "You were getting a little too persistent."
Several of the men who came with him laughed at the joke, and Kaoru needed an effort to keep her calm. She wanted answers before the inevitable fight.
"What grudge do you have against my dojo?"
"Against your dojo?" Battousai stared at her for some instants, then let go of a laugh. "What makes you think that I have anything against your dojo? I like it very much, in fact…that´s why I´m making such efforts for it to be mine!"
Kaoru loosened her hold on her sword and for a moment, in spite of all her precautions, her face registered the full impact of her shock. This made Battousai´s minions laugh even harder.
"So… you did all this because you want my dojo?" she cried.
"This, and a woman who lives with you." the monster answered with a grin. "I would pay the Chief with her, and Older Brother would be happy."
"A woman…who lives with me? The Chief?" The girl´s eyes widened. Though she was wise enough as to regain her stance before anyone could take advantage of it, her mind was suddenly thrown in turmoil, and she almost staggered under the weight of the unexpected information. What did they want with the women who lived with her? What could any of her friends have to do with such a…with such a gang?
No…impossible!
"Which woman are you searching for?" she asked, defiantly but curious at the same time. "Tell me!"
Battousai frowned.
"Don´t play the fool with me, girl. You won´t be harmed if you comply with my wishes and give me the dojo together with the woman!"
"But who is she?" the girl cried, feeling the familiar taste of frustration embittering her tone. Maybe that was why Megumi-san had wanted to leave that morning. Maybe that could also be why Tomoe-san did not want to go out from her room all of a sudden…couldn´t she have feigned her illness?
But probably, her mind resolved as she shook her head to dispel those unfair suspicions, it was just that stupid criminal trying to make up stories to confuse her without even knowing whom he was talking about. And not very brilliantly, she had to add.
"I want the woman who is staying with you in your house at this very moment. "the man explained, as helpfully as before. Kaoru could perceive now a certain tinge of impatience in his voice. Damn bastard…
"I won´t suffer any of my friends, my father, my style or my dojo to be insulted by a filthy murderer of the likes of you!" she shouted, raising her sword to prepare her first attack. If they were minimally honourable, the minions would stay away from the fight and she would have a chance. If they weren´t…. well, did she have any other choice?
"If you want anything from my house, you´ll have to fight me first!"
Battousai smiled disagreeably, and unsheathed his steel-forged, killing sword. In spite of her determination, Kaoru could not help but shiver as she remembered the outcome of their previous encounter, when her wooden sword had been cut by the sharp edge of his blade.
Did she really have a chance?
"Let´s fight, then." he conceded. "It could be fun. Everybody, stand aside! I want to kill the woman alone."
Between sneers and loud side coments, the men all did as they were told, and Kaoru was left alone to face the gigantic figure of the legendary killer. Swallowing the knot in her throat, she decided to shorten the agony and lunged forwards for the man´s side, hoping that he wouldn´t have time to counter the surprise attack. Battousai´s hand grasped the blunt weapon, and broke it in two in a bout of strength.
Game over.
"How could you ever think that you would defeat me with a toy weapon?" the monster sneered, as he grabbed her by her clothes and lifted her feet from the ground. "Do you really believe in those stupid preachings of your useless sword style? Kenjutsu is violence and its essence is none other than death! Anyone who doesn´t understand this won´t be ever to teach anything or to have a dojo, let alone to face the hitokiri Battousai!"
Kaoru struggled to free herself from the humiliating position, but stopped when she realised that her efforts only led to suffocate her and quench her breath more and more. Tears of despair fell down her cheeks, every fiber of her being revolting against those horrible words that crushed and negated everything that her father and her had ever believed and fought for.
"Swords…are for protecting." she hissed. "They shouldn´t be used….to kill!"
The grip of the monster loosened, and her ears were filled with a loud, hideous laughter.
"Oh, really? Then, why isn´t any sword protecting you now?"
The girl opened her mouth to answer, but closed it again as the words fled her mind in a vertiginous whirl.
Wouldn't all those ideals be nothing more than a joke if you let yourself be killed for them?
In a last, mad struggle, the girl tried to kick her enemy, to bite or scratch him away with her remaining forces. The broken remnant of her wooden sword fled her grasp, and it fell to the floor at their feet with a smothered noise.
Father, I´m….sorry…
"Let go of her at once."
The pression of Battousai´s hand suddenly disminished, and Kaoru saw everyone´s faces turning towards the dojo gate. That voice….
…could it be…?
"You again!"
The red-haired wanderer withstood their glances with a matter-of-fact composure that seemed in deep contrast with Kaoru´s worried evaluation of his possibilities, so much that it made her cringe. Idiot, idiot, he realise…?
"No, don´t!" she shouted with all her remaining forces. There was a knot in her throat as she imagined him challenging Battousai with his useless bravery, and being slicd in two, thrown dead to the floor….for her sake. "You can´t… you can´t face this man! He´s too strong!"
"Who are you?" the killer demanded in disdain. "Another one of those idiots who believe that swords are for protecting?"
Furious again, Kaoru attempted a new struggle to free herself. If she could regain the floor….if she only could regain the floor, maybe…
"No."
The girl´s body went limp, and her eyes were set on her rescuer in disbelief. In fact, now that she payed attention to her expression, she suddenly thought that she started to spot some….different things about him. The everpresent silly smile had left his lips without leaving any traces, and his wide, innocent eyes were narrowed to calculating slits. His sword was still inside its sheath, but Kaoru could perceive a strong ki around him, and a chain of movements that showed that, behind a relaxed attitude, he was guarding each of the enemy´s openings against any sudden attack. He looked like a swordsman, she realised, though not quite like the ones who surrounded him.
He looked like a real swordsman.
"Uh?" Battousai had at last got over his surprise enough as to regain his sneerng attitude. "What are you saying?"
"The sword is a weapon. Kenjutsu is the art of killing. That´s all there is to it, no matter which beautiful words you may choose to describe it." the wanderer continued, walking some steps towards them. "Kaoru-dono´s beliefs are those of a person who has never had to soil her hands. An idealistic joke."
Kaoru did not want to hear more, but she was unable to do anything except watching in fearful fascination how the polite little funny man turned in front of her eyes into someone dangerous and unknown. To think that she had even compared him to her father in her inner musings…. could he really have been such a consummated actor?
You trust too much.
Probably, she answered to herself while a tear tricked down her cheek. Probably she did.
"Still." The tear froze in mid-way, and the girl opened her eyes again. What she saw almost lost her completely, for the silly smile was back, the violet eyes had widened, and he even seemed to have dropped his guard. Once more, he looked every inch like the clumsy man she had grown to like and trust, and her confusion reached its highest limits.
Who was the real Himura anymore?
"This unworthy one will confess that his wish is that her idealistic joke became true in a world to come. I like it much better than the true nature of kenjutsu."
Even though she could not quite forget his previous appearance, or the danger that they were both in, Kaoru could not help but curve her lips in a tentative smile.
"Damn you!" Battousai sounded mad, as if he felt that he had been made a fool by his opponent. "Attack him now!"
"No!" Kaoru cried, horrified. All the men inside the dojo save the one holding her got into clumsy stances, and made a circle around the imperturbable wanderer. Wanderer or swordsman….he had no chance agaisnt so many people, she realised in dismay.
"You can stay back if you don´t want to be hurt." he announced. His opponent sneered, and five men charged at the same time as he laid a hand on the hilt of his katana. Kaoru´s eyes perceived the scintillating blur of a reflection, and then, before she had time to be too sure of what had just happened, she saw five bodies slammed on the floor and walls of the dojo. Some of their companions drew back in terror, others growled in frustration and attacked on turn. One by one, everyone was thrown off balance, projected backwards and reduced to a silent heap by the precise and deadly movements of the red-haired swordsman, who performed at the speed of the gods.
Swordsman…
…killer…?
The red-haired man finally landed at the centre of the vortex of scattered bodies, with his sword propped against the right shoulder. Nothing challenged him now, except the crushing weight of silence.
"I think I forgot to tell you something."he broke it with his own voice, so uncharacteristically sharp that it reminded Kaoru of the edge of a blade. "The technique of the hitokiri Battousai isn´t the Kamiya Kasshin Ryu, or whatever self-taught technique that you use. It´s Hiten Mitsurugi Ryu, a technique created in the Sengoku era that uses godlike speed to kill several enemies at once… unless using a reversed blade."
"Red hair…A never healing wound in the left cheek…."the thunderstruck young woman heard her captor mutter between clenched teeth. She couldn´t believe it. She couldn´t. It simply… could not be. "… the real hitokiri…"
The impostor threw Kaoru back on the ground, and his gigantic body towered over the red-haired swordsman´s small frame.
"I see…" he mulled. "So there´s two of us… but only one can hold the title, isn´t it?"
His opponent´s eyes were crossed by a shadow of… was it sadness?
"So it´s that." he said, calmly getting into a stance again. The other man raised his sword over his head, and slammed it down on the floor in front of him with all his forces. In spite of her shock and confusion of feelings, Kaoru found herself crying in worry.
"N…" But before she ever could finish the word, a lean, quick figure appeared soaring high over the impostor´s head. The hitokiri´s sword connected against his raised hands, and the impact brought him down to the dojo floor in a crashing noise and a rain of splinters. Then, he looked at him briefly, and shook his head with a strange heaviness in his glance.
"I don´t feel the slightest attachment to the name of Battousai. "he explained. "But I couldn´t allow someone like you to use it."
"D…damn you…" the defeated man growled in frustration, trying to get up to no avail. The hitokiri pressed the sharp edge of his blade against his throat in a quick movement.
"I gathered plenty of interesting information in your own dojo at the city outskirts….Hiruma Gohei." he declared. Kaoru watched the scene from the same spot in which she had been discarded like a ragged doll, too overwhelmed by the circumstances as to even move a finger. "Your brother told me about that scheme to get hold of this dojo and use the land for building, and also about that important leader of a criminal sindicate that you had made a deal with."
Gohei made a furious move with his head, as if to deny indignantly what Himura had said, but the red-haired man´s eyes glittered with a spark of amber that put a swift end to all protests.
"Which was the woman that he wanted? Was it her?" he asked, pointing at the dojo gate with his chin. Kaoru turned her head also in renewed concern, and her heart almost stopped beating when she distinguished Megumi´s silhouette silently standing there.
"Y…yes…"Defeated, the pitiful figure of the man that had pretended to be the legendary killed lowered his eyes, and surrendered his last bouts of useless defiance. "It w…was the dark haired doctor, the one who was hiding there. I could… I could do as I pleased with… all the rest."
Himura Tomoe
Flames cracked happily over the family hearth, smothering the soft fall of the snowflakes outside the warm shelter of the small mountain cottage. In this enclosed, secret place, both were at last free from everything that had hurt them in that harsh, cruel world of lies, deceits and violence, unseen by the prying eyes of those who would bring their unhappiness and refuse them those guilty illusions of innocence. They were alone, in a world of fire and snow.
Tomoe snuggled even closer to Kenshin, afraid in her subconscious that something was bound to shatter that instant of peace and take them apart. Exhausted, she closed her eyes, and allowed herself to relish in the gentle embrace like nothing else had ever mattered in her life.
He was so young! He hadn´t even known how to do it properly; that funny scandalised look of shock and suspicion at how his body was surrendering to an incontrollable urge had never disappeared from his eyes wholly. How many times should he have been told to crush any weakness or distraction before the enemy used it to destroy him, that was something that Tomoe had wondered about many times, only to feel a pang of sorrow and regret in her heart afterwards. Wasn´t that what she was doing also? Wasn´t she trying to destroy him, to stab that red-haired, quietly happy yet regretful medicine peddler who believed he would come to fulfill at last his hidden dreams of a new life far away from the horror, and grieved silently for the things he had done? Wasn´t she going to plunge her knife in the most fatal of all his weaknesses, the newfound trust in his heart, his love, his sanity?
"Tomoe."
"Yes?" she purred, resting her head on his shoulder. Their skins were still brilliant with the sweat of their lovemaking, already a blurred sweet memory that would never fade completely from the minds of either.
His next words came only after a while, and they were uttered in a strangely quiet, thoughtful tone.
"Once all this is over, I will learn how to protect people without killing. Tomoe... I swear that I will protect your happiness."
Her lips hesitated for a bit, before curving into the warmth of her first real smile since the world and the people who had ever wanted to protect her had faded away from her sight forever. His eyes looked full of hope, of serious determination but also of joy at the certainty of a distant yet real liberation. The steely coldness of the amber of the walking corpse had gone how, replaced by the warm glow of the life that was awaiting him. Once this was over…
In that moment, for the first time, Tomoe knew for certain that she had failed. Prisoner in her own trap, she would give her life to assure that he could have that life he so wished and deserved. Because his wish of living was far greater than what hers would ever be, she would die for him.
It was meant to be like this.
He had fulfilled his promise. Tomoe rolled over her bed, and pressed her face against the covers to quench the tears of joy, mingled with all those tears of sadness and guilt that also welled from her eyes once the wall had been torn to pieces. He had fulfilled his promise to a woman who had ruined him, been faithful to the memory of the person who had betrayed his trust. Maybe he remembered her, or even had forgiven her, why not? Maybe….
The woman shook her head, trying once more to erase the wild thoughts and imaginations that were agitating her mind and robbing her of her painfully achieved inner peace. To her frustration, however, she realised that it was to no avail this time. The irrational, terrible glow was still there, in her eyes, as much as she tried to plunge them in the shadows of the dark chamber. The smile was there in her lips, as much as she tried to smother it under the covers of her futon.
She hadn´t ever imagined that hope could be so terrible.
Takani Megumi
Kaoru looked horrified. In a slow pace, and not before she managed to give a sharp intake of breath, the mortally pale girl started to approach the dojo gate, trying by all means not to step over any of the bodies lying on the floor.
"Please…" she muttered. The wanderer lifted his glance from Gohei, with his eyes a bit widened in surprise. "Please don´t… don´t kill him too."
The man was somewhat flabbergasted at this, and lowered his sword. From where she was, Megumi was able to hear the false Battousai´s sigh of relief.
"They are not dead. "the real hitokiri answered in a voice that came out very hollow. "My blade is reversed."
As if to punctuate his assertion, one of the "corpses" groaned in pain and moved his right arm aside. Now, it was the girl´s turn to be flabbergasted.
"They are all… alive?"she muttered in hopeful disbelief. "No one… has… died, then?"
"No." he confirmed, sheathing his sword and starting to walk towards the gate as well. Megumi could see the dead serious expression in his face as he did so, tinged with a shadow of sadness. "I´m sorry for having lied to you. I didn´t want to scare you, Kaoru-dono. I... will return to wandering now."
"He…hey!" The girl´s countenance went suddenly frantic. Surprised, both the doctor and the wandered froze in place. "Don´t leave, you idiot!"
The red-haired man´s eyes turned big as saucers.
"Kaoru…dono?" he inquired, truly, honestly lost for the first time in Megumi didn´t know how many years.
"You… you said that you didn´t like the true nature of kenjutsu. That you wanted swords to be for protecting people." she exclaimed in a shaky voice. "A.. and then you did it. You protected me without killing anybody. You don´t have to be Battousai… I like you as the wanderer!"
Megumi gasped, and had to undertake great efforts to keep her countenance even after the shock of those words. Was that girl stupid, or what? Even after what she knew, even after what she had seen… could she… still…?
"You will never understand. "she said, turning away to leave before a silly irrational hope could start to thrive in her own heart. It was better like this.
Better for everybody.
"Megumi-san, wait!"
The older woman clenched her fist.
"Opium maker."
Kaoru´s mouth froze in mid-yell.
"…what?"
"That´s what I was in the past, and the reason why they were after me." the doctor explained in a bitter tone. "Himura saved me from those people two years ago. They were my band."
The girl looked down slowly and began to play with the folds of her hakama, clearly overwhelmed by that information. Silence weighted heavy over the trio for minutes, in which the clouds obscured the moon outside and then went it away to let it shine again over the courtyard.
"I´m sorry."
Megumi could not believe what she had heard.
"What did you say?" she asked in a slow, composed voice, turning back to face the girl. She seemed strangely desperate, but not only because of all what she had experienced minutes ago. Something was driving her now almost to the edge of tears.
"I misunderstood you. I---I thought you wanted to leave because you were afraid of the…."Just about to say "Battousai", she rectified just in time, and sent a nervous glance in the direction of the ex-hitokiri."… the man who was threatening me. I didn´t know... I had no idea. Please… stay here a while more."
"Stay?" The woman huffed. She did not want or need any pity, and much less from someone who was so silly as to even grasp the full scope of the situation. "How can you be so stupid as to believe this is over for me? The man that you found so frightful was used to be only the beginning of this. You wouldn´be able to imagine the extent of the power, influence and ruthlessness of the people who are after me and, believe me, they will return. Do you still want to die?"
She doesn´t want to be alone.
"At least…."the girl muttered sadly, kneeling in the midst of the wrecks. "would you stay to help me… to clean this?"
A pair of eyes filled with anguish met Megumi´s, and she almost backed away at the intensity of the feelings of the person she was used to consider as nothing more than a naïve, shallow girl with no worries. Himura-san´s words were coming back to her mind now, reminding her that Kaoru had lost her parents and wrestled with her loneliness while she tried to salvage her dojo and uphold her father´s ideals, that she had trusted everybody blindly because she needed them to be trustworthy… and that now, faced with eveything that had happened in that fatidical night, her shallow surface was crumbling down at last to show her need and her pain.
That it was not compassion, but a real plea what shone in her eyes.
"I…" she started. She felt a strange warmth inside her, even as she wrestled with the appropriate answer and kept finding clouds everywhere, looming over her immediate reality. "I can´t…"
"I promised I would solve this." Himura´s voice interrupted her all of a sudden. It had sounded strangely eerie, unexpected in the silence of the night, and both women were surprised at the look in his face when he finally turned to face them. There was a smile on his lips, and also in his eyes for the first time. "And I promise I won´t leave until Megumi-dono is safe to stay with Kaoru-dono and Tomoe-dono or wherever she wishes to stay."
Kaoru looked up in delight. How she was able to change her expression wholly in just one moment was something that Megumi wouldn´t ever get, even if she had had the time to wonder about it in the middle of her own feelings of hope and gratitude. Even if it was just for some minutes, she wanted to be absolutely selfish now. She wanted to forget her worry, her dark memories and the knowledge of her past an her burden and just… believe.
He wanted her to.
"Really?" the girl squealed. "Will you stay here then, Megumi-san, and….and…." Obviously unsure as to how she should call him now, her voice faded away in some awkwardness. The wanderer just smiled, and made a dismissing gesture with his hand.
"My name is Kenshin." he said on a soft, quiet tone. "Himura Kenshin."
(end of first part)