SHADOWS OF RED
by Hime-kou
Author's notes: We get into Battousai's head! Battousai is OOC for this...wayyy OOC. I can't even find him in there.
Kenshin is not mine! Nope, I don't even own the manga or anime. Poor...destitute...me...
Chapter 8-In the Eye of the Beholder
Battousai seethed at the girl. How dare she? He was used to the fear he commanded, the respect, even if he didn't like it. So now this show of disrespect and fearlessness unsettled him.
Of course, it's not like I actually deserve respect. The fear though...
As he turned to leave the washroom, katana in hand, a glint of metal caught his eye. Leaning against a corner of the washroom was a sword.
Her sword.
I'd better return this to her, and my apologies, he thought as his anger drained away at the sight of such a killing tool. It reminded him that she wasn't just any girl. She was a hitokiri too.
If she's anything like me...he sighed and recalled the evening. Tonight it had been a daimyo named Kunii. He had been easy to kill. All the guards he had posted around his home did nothing to dispel Battousai.
Others, perhaps, would have been stalled, but not Hitokiri Battousai. Not the best of the best. One instant, sixteen men dead.
He surely must've looked like a demon then. Blood dripping from his katana, hair red as the liquid on his hands, eyes he knew to be an unnatural shade of amber.
But after he had turned to leave, away from the sea of broken bodies and bloody waves he had left, it was the sound that tore his heart the most.
Crying. Wailing.
Women and servants, screaming in pain. Heartrending. And he was forced to think, as he ran along the dark streets away from that bloody spot.
What did he know of Kunii? He might have been a good man. He might have been dignified and a had a sense of justice. He probably had a family. A wife, children...maybe even a son.
One like Shinta.
One who might turn out the way Shinta had.
All he knew was that Kunii's name was written on a piece of paper in a black envelope.
And so he slashed. And so he killed.
Where was the justice in that?
Shuddering, he shook off his thoughts and walked over to grasp the katana.
It was a beautifully made sword, balanced and flawless. Approximately seventy-four centimeters long, it weighed less than his, of course, for a woman needed a lighter weapon. It was thinner also, but its side was as sharp as his though, and the sheen bright and beautiful.
The tsuka was worn smooth by use.
He carried it with him to his room. The girl--woman?--Sachiko was elsewhere in the house. So he quickly changed into clean clothes left on his bedroll and began to wander the house in search of her.
It was large, sparsely furnished, long and narrow. One main hallway radiated from the doorway, leading to the kitchen towards the back. Artfully arranged flowers and scrolls hung in the recessed alcoves along the hallway.
On the left was the washroom, next to the kitchen, and preceded by the main room. To the right, a narrow staircase extended upwards, towards the second story. Directly next to the stairs was his room, neighbored by hers.
Katana in hand, he decided to head upstairs. Perhaps she had found something to occupy her up there. Walking quickly, he pushed aside the door that hid the stairs and stepped in.
The stairs creaked and shivered when he stepped on them. A musty smell struck his senses, and dust lightly carpetedthe cool stairs. The staircase was narrow, enclosed, and steep. And dark. The walls pressed against him on either side, enclosing, squeezing. A heavy feeling seemed to seep from the darkness above, settling into his limbs and onto his shoulders.
Gradually, the natural light of night began to fill the stairway. He reached the final stair and stepped onto the second floor.
He was at one end of a large, open room. Two large, square, shoji windows behind him and two at the far end shone faint light into the dark room. He could see the smooth wood floor, dust now gathering above the dull surface.
Cobwebs dangled over his head. Silence settled heavily onto every surface. Here, no braziers or candles burned. This silent, dark, world was totally alien from the bright one downstairs.
A training room, he thought with wonder. A long unused one, but one nevertheless. His hand went unconciously to his saya and he burned with the desire to practice. It was this he truly loved. Not the killing, but the pure movements of a sword. A song, it seemed, that sang as his blade hummed through the air.
Wielding the sword not to harm, not to kill, but simply for the joy it gave him. At first, when he first began to train with Hiko, it had been that way. The joy of the sword and the sword only, not its power as a weapon to kill. Those few early years had been pure delight.
And he had tossed it all away.
Disillusioned, far too young, stubborn and proud. He had thrown away the very things that made him happy.
When he was younger, he desperately wanted to go and be "hero," to play at being the savior of people. It had been his dream to save the poor citizens of Japan, to give the bad people what they truly deserved.
Now, older, wiser, he wanted desperately to go back and be the humble apprentice he once was.
There was no glory in battle. There was nothing heroic about killing. And the people he had once deemed bad...were much more complex. No one in the world, he had discovered, was either "good" or "bad."
There was no boundary, drawn in steel and etched in rock, that divided people into good or bad. They all fought for what they believed in, and who was he to judge which was the better or the worse way?
People, in the end, were always people. Evil was merely in the eyes of the beholder. And all had eyes with which to see.
Points of Interest (i.e. don't know what else to call this...)
1. Tsuka...the hilt on a sword. It is made up of the ito (braid), the menuki(ornaments), the fuchi (hilt collar)the tsuba (guard), the same (rayskin), and the kashira (endcap).
2. Sachiko's Technique...Am just adding something to my info on Sachiko's technique. Hers is a form of battojutsu, or swords art with the intent to kill. Generally, swords forms that end in -do, such as kendo and iaido, teach the form to improve oneself. Styles that end in -jutsu, such as battojutsu and kenjutsu, are meant to teach the tecniques of war.
Sorry for the lack of updates! I hit a total writers block and didn't know what to write. But here's a chapter that deals with philosophy and Battousai. Enjoy!