Cleansing: A Samurai 7 fanfiction

Author: Cal-Reflector

Disclaimer: I do not own Samurai 7 or the characters contained therein.

Chapter 5: Faces

Ukyo's palace, approaching Kanna village, three years ago

Racing through the decks of the gargantuan flying fortress that was ablaze everywhere from the destruction wrought by his comrades, eyes reddened by smoke from burning hulks of jagged metal and smoldering craters, sword in hand the only reassurance which bound him to sanity and kept him from losing his mind, Katsushirou ran and tore through every moving thing he came across, regardless of whether they were fighting or fleeing. His long black strands trailed behind him wildly, his face twisted in anger and agony like a demon who left in his wake a trail of corpses and dismembered limbs. A pungent odor filled the air, permeating every pore in his body and his clothes, so strong that he could taste it, so thick that he saw it coloring his vision; the smell of sulfur and gunpowder, of burning fuels and plastics and singed hair and slick blood and scorched flesh.

The smell of the battlefield.

Onwards he ran, frantically, aimlessly, his katana sinking into and through everything that it encountered, his motions lacking all the form and finesse that is the pride of a samurai's practice. They were artless chops, hacks, and stabs, driven by the brute force of a haunted man hounded to desperation with loathing and hatred for himself; they were the swings of a butcher's knife.

His desperation came from the loss of the two things he held dearest, more necessary than air and more precious than life itself: The loss of his honor as a samurai, when he committed the most appalling deed of fratricide; when in the confused heat of battle, he picked up and pulled the trigger of that foul gun, spewing bullets that ripped clean through his enemy and into Kyuzo's body. Kyuzo, that superb man, that magnificent warrior whom he so admired and looked upon as an example for all samurai, whom he endeavored to emulate, whose wide, disbelieving eyes met his own horror-filled gaze at that moment when he realized that he would never fulfill his wish of facing Kambei in a proper duel, that his life had been ended by the gun in the hands of the shaking young man before him, his comrade.

The loss of the person he swore to protect, who promised to stand by him and never leave him to face the coming trials alone. He lost her when he kissed her outside the Hotaru Inn weeks ago, when she had looked at him with eyes filled not with tenderness, not understanding or acceptance, but shock; dismay. It was a look that bunched into a fist and struck him across the face, leaving him reeling and stunned. Heart broken and hardened by her rejection, he turned and left her, and he never looked back.

Now later, in what he believed, hoped, was the final battle in which he would meet his end, as he surrendered himself to the intoxicating scent of the battlefield and the heady feel of bloodlust, he found the image of her entering back into his mind constantly; breaking in despite his resistance as he struggled to quell all tender emotions and feelings he held for her, knowing on whom her heart truly rested, someone who he could never hope to and would not compete with. When he pushed away from her that night, he had determined to close his heart to her, to kill all the hopes that their promises to each other once held… The face of the girl for whose sake he picked up his sword and sullied it in blood, the blood of his enemies that he let fly through the air now, splattering onto his hands, his clothes, his face, and as he cleaved another man in half, he felt the wetness on his cheeks increase, not from the crimson spray, but a salty trail of tears from his own eyes.

Why am I still living? Why am I still living when Gorobei-dono is dead, when Heihachi-dono is dead, when Kyuzo-dono is dead, murdered by my treacherous hands? Why am I still living when Kirara-dono doesn't need me anymore, when she has Sensei to protect and look out for her and make her happy?

Why am I still living when there's nothing, no one, left for me?

Why am I still living?

And with his sword gripped tightly in hand, eyes red with smoke and tears that mingled with the blood on his face, he charged towards the enemy, his mouth open as a scream welled up from the depths of his soul.

On that day, something within the young samurai died.

----

Present day, Rikchi's home.

Katsushirou snapped up into a sitting position, sweat running down his forehead and back as his body heaved with ragged breaths. One of his hands was twisted into the blanket that covered him, knuckles strained white from the tension that had seized him during the nightmare, the nightmare that happened three years ago and had revisited him ever since. His eyes darted about the dark, unfamiliar surroundings; a clean room inlaid with tatami mats and enclosed with paper-screen doors, a cup and a pot of water on a platter beside his bed, a thin sleeping robe around him now damp with moisture from his heated body. He became aware of a coppery taste in his mouth, and drawing two fingers to his lips and coming away with red, found that he had bitten through his lower lip to suppress the scream from his dream.

He shut his eyes and fisted a hand against them, the images lingering in the recesses of his mind brought back by the taste of blood; it was the first time he had that dream since he returned to Kanna village. In the three years of his sojourning, Katsushirou had seen the vision often enough, reliving that terrible day when he lost his goal and direction in life with the death of his comrades and the loss of the girl whom he had made a promise with. It was yet the wee hours in the middle of the night, long before the break of dawn and his usual time for rising. Finding his throat parched, he flipped back the blanket and reached over to pour himself a cup of water, the liquid stinging as it passed over the break in his lips. His thoughts returned to the expression of the blonde samurai in the red jacket that day; as he lay dying in Kambei's arms, Kyuzo had not looked at anyone in particular, but for a moment Katsushirou had glimpsed his gaze locked with his own, with the same studied look of stoicism that he was so famous for among friends and foes alike. The red samurai's eyes had been neutral, carrying no malice or accusation towards the young samurai who had taken his life by mistake.

Three years later, Katsushirou wondered still what Kyuzo had meant to convey to him through that gaze in the final moments of his life.

----

Four days later

A calendar keeping precise dates was of little import, except to mark a few important dates for festivals and ceremonies, to the inhabitants of Kanna village, with its freedom from technology and the hustle and bustle of swirling commerce in the major cities. The farmers understood the time from the change of the season and its subtle effects on the land from which they raised their livelihood; presently, it was close to the time for the late autumn harvest, when the stalks in the fields were heavy with heads full of rice.

Usually, there was little to gossip about in the tight-knit community of the village, especially with the amount of preparation there was to be done as harvest season loomed, which is why when Shino, daughter of the wizened farmer Manzo, began wearing in public brighter colors and even some modest accessories, word soon began circulating amongst the womenfolk that Manzo's daughter had in mind to attract the attention of one particular young man. More enthusiastic relaters of the tale even whispered to interested listeners of how the girl had been discretely visiting Rikchi's home to consult his wife, Sanae, on the fine subjects of makeup and dressing one's appearance. More extraordinary however was the fact that old man Manzo was not busting a blood vessel over the matter; rumor even had it that Shino's undertaking had the tacit approval of her famously stringent father, which was probably as telling on the matter as the bold behavior of his daughter.

None of this ever reached Katsushirou's ears, for obvious reasons, and the fact that he was a marked man was obvious to everyone in the village but the young samurai himself.

Kirara rarely give herself to gossiping with the women of the village, but had caught wind of this recent development from Komachi's chattering. On this afternoon, she was overseeing her younger sister's writing lessons in their home; copying from one of her simpler books which she used for instruction, an exercise which the energetic Komachi soon grew restless from as she rested her head against the table where they sat.

"Nee-chan…"

"Not until you've finished five pages." Kirara replied flatly, not skipping a line in the book she was perusing.

Komachi eyed warily the brush and ink blot to her side and sighed, the rustle of the browning foliage in the garden outside taunting and filling her with a desire to run out and scoop the fallen leaves into a pile with her friends, to serve as a pyre to roast orange yams in… She eyed her sister pleadingly, but Kirara was used to this maneuver and kept her eyes on the pages of her book. Komachi sighed again as she thought longingly of her friend's position of freedom. "… I'll bet Okara never has to copy verses or learn calligraphy."

"That's because she's not the water maiden." The former water maiden turned a page in her book slowly, a classic work of literature about courtesan romance which she acquired from a traveling librarian months ago by trading him two volumes from her own collection.

The present water priestess pouted and picked up the brush, watching as a drop of ink fell back into the blot; she was sorely bored, and even though she understood that her sister meant well for her to be literate, love for reading and writing was something that she simply did not possess, and not even her precious sister's most earnest entreaties could change that. Aware that her efforts to sway her older sibling had failed, Komachi changed the subject. "I wonder what Katsunoji is doing right now…"

A small smile appeared on Kirara's lips. "Who knows, reading a book perhaps; Katsushirou-sama learned to recite and write a fair hand when he was young, you know."

Komachi turned up her nose sourly, as if the very thought of her Katsunoji holding a scroll of poetry lowered the opinion the she had of the young man. "Not if Shino keeps visiting Rikchi's house all the time, pretending to talk with Sanae-san when she's really there to see him." The smile faltered slightly as Kirara lowered her book, which the latter did not fail to notice. "Well, it's not as if she actually gets to see him much, since Katsunoji is rarely home these days, as he now spends even his afternoons walking or training in the woods far away or sitting by himself on top of the samurai-samas' hill."

The trace of relief which Kirara felt at her sister's words was soon followed by worry for the young samurai's recent state of withdraw, but before she could inquire more into the matter… "Komachi, how do you know all of this?"

The young girl grinned confidently as she put her arms behind her head. "My friends and I keep close tabs on him. We know where he's been in a day, when he takes a bath, even what he had for dinner… speaking of which, he's been eating less lately." The elation on the young girl's face dimmed as she rested her head atop her arms folded across the table. "I think something is bothering Katsunoji; he seemed less energetic these last few days."

Kirara was aware of the change as well. For a while after they invited him over for dinner, he seemed to be renewed with genuine light-heartedness… up until a few days ago, when the melancholy returned; it reminded her of how he appeared the first night after his return. "I wish… that he would talk to me about it."

As the two siblings sat brooding at the table, Komachi began to fume, her mind occupied with the absurdity of their situation; two fine maidens fretting and frowning over the emotional boy who used to be (and in Komachi's mind, still was, in a way) at the bottom of the pecking order in their little band of swordsmen and farmers. She was not as immature as her older sister imagined, no matter how often she was told otherwise, and she had seen how Kirara's spirits lifted since Katsunoji returned; whereas before she had drifted aimlessly like a lone fish in the river that had lost her way, she was now joined by another one, equally aimless, but together they were able to surely, if not slowly and clumsily, help each other move in the right direction: forward.

And she was going to memorize and copy down her sister's entire collection of books and scrolls before she let her waste another three years, waiting and wondering whether her life ended the day the samurai left Kanna village.

"I'm going to go find him."

Standing up abruptly, Komachi was at the screen door slipping into her sandals before Kirara could react from her surprise. "Wait, Komachi! What…"

"I'm going to find Katsunoji to go see the maples with me tomorrow; the weather lately is perfect for a walk." With one hand on the front door, Komachi turned at the last moment and addressed her sister almost as an afterthought, though her candid grin suggested otherwise. "Oh, and you're welcome to come along if you like, Nee-chan."

It was not until a minute after the door slid shut and Komachi's footsteps passed out of earshot down the path to the village that it occurred to Kirara that her sister might have merely been looking for an excuse to go out and play and skip her lessons. That or she was merely being considerate for the young samurai… and perhaps for her older sister as well.

Kirara sighed as she walked back to clean up the writing utensils her sister had left in such a hurry, and found herself smiling a little.

Probably a bit of all three.


Authors Notes: Thanks to all who have waited, some longer (much longer…) than others, with such patience on this sloth of an author. The story is still very much alive and kicking, thanks entirely to your encouragement and enthusiasm for this little, but growing fandom.