Disclaimer - Embrace me! I am the owner of Rurouni Kenshin!
Enishi - Yes, and I love the Battousai!
Hitoezakura - Do you have to be so sarcastic?
Enishi - Do you have to be stupid?
Hitoezakura - I don't own Kenshin...happy Enishi? Watsuki's the rightful owner.
I'M SO SO SO SO SO SO SO SO SO SO SO SO SORRY!
I haven't updated for three months now! Please forgive me! My life has become scholarships, projects, tests, assignments, competitions, and conferences, and I've finally found a bit of time to relax!
Anyways, this chapter was so difficult for me! I felt like I couldn't capture Tomoe's emotions well enough. I think I did okay, but you'll be the judge of that. In addition, Oibore and Enishi's conversation takes a new turn, and I'm waiting for feedback on that too. So any readers, please respond to this chapter, for my sake!
Read onwards!
TO INSANITY AND BACK
Chapter Three - Destroyed Happiness
The first year of Genji, April 4, 1864…this day shall forever remain etched deeply in my thoughts, into my heart, into my soul; into my rare smiles,…my hand is shaking so hard, I can hardly write. My usually graceful script suddenly seems like that of a child just learning his new brush strokes, jilted and forced, as if I cannot bear to write these words. The tears cannot flow, but I feel the grief…
Was this how father felt after losing mother?
This is how I feel today…today I received the news that Kiyosato Akira is no longer a part of this world. He has received Heaven's Justice from the Ishin Shishi, brutally maimed and murdered by the shadow assassin. Instead of sparing me the details of his death, the telegram graphically described the death of my fiancé. A painful blow to his chest, a sword through his throat, a beautiful red flower clasped in his fist…everything described in that mere telegram was vivid in my mind…
A beautiful red flower…his first gift to me was a bouquet of fragrant scarlet blooms…scarlet blooms that died the day he did, wilting away under my negligent care…
Scarlet…the color of the blood that was spilled that night…
No matter what I say, no matter what I do, I cannot help but think of his death. The shadows haunt me, taunt me, and claim that he is now theirs. The bright skies suddenly turned gray, depriving me of warmth, the very warmth he brought to me during all those days we shared together. The beautiful flowers have suddenly stopped blooming, marking the death of my happiness, marking the death of him…
And it is all my fault…it is all my fault…it is all my fault…
Akira is dead, and I am responsible for his death…
The world has suddenly become so cold, so dark, and so lonely. Enishi still stands by my side, begging me to eat, hugging me desperately, trying to bring my smiles back, the smiles I once bestowed upon him so lovingly. However, Enishi's childish coaxing only reminds me of how Akira desperately tried to see my smiles…it only reminds me that my lackluster face is the reason he went to war… "If the second son of a samurai cannot make you happy, I will at least be known as a warrior of repute," he had said with a gentle smile, waving to me as he left with his comrades.
If only I had cried out to him, begged him to stay, pleaded him to stay, told him that I was truly happy to receive his love, that I needed nothing else but his love, he would've stayed. I never wanted him to enter the war, but my lackluster face could reveal nothing. I could not utter a word as he disappeared from my sight. I stood there helplessly, his delicate hairpin tucked into my hair, and holding a plant adorned with scarlet blossoms, the same scarlet blossoms that adorned his body…the same color as the scarlet blood that stained the ground beneath him…
I cannot eat, no matter how much Enishi persuades me; it hurts too much to swallow…I cannot sleep, Akira's face haunts my dreams, seeking me behind my eyelids…I cannot step outside again, the world I once wanted to explore with Akira is no longer the same, it has become dark and cold, eerie and lonely, and I can no longer view it with my once innocent eyes…the world has lost the energy, the energy I depended on…the world has lost Akira…
All I can do is lament the fate that has been bestowed upon me, upon us, upon our love, as I stare at the hairpin nestled in my hand, my last memory of Akira, the only trace of him that remains above the soft soil of the ground that he was buried in…
The world has changed, and so have I…I cannot step into the light and feel the joy and exhilaration I once felt…I can only sit in my dark room, illuminated only by a single candle, ignoring the childish pleas of my younger brother, ignoring the deep, sorrowful tone of my father, ignoring everything but the memories I once had…
April 4th, 1864 – I had not anticipated the events that were to occur on this day, not at all. I had wished for Akira to disappear, and I received my wish. I was truly ecstatic that the one barrier between Tomoe's love and I had finally been destroyed, but it came at a price that I was unwilling to pay – Tomoe's smiles. Smiles that she bestowed upon me often, smiles that she could barely form for Akira, smiles that were worth more to me than all the treasures of the world.
I don't regret Akira's death, not at all. It may sound harsh to you, but in all honesty, I hated the man. I accepted him simply for the sake of Tomoe's happiness, and now that he was dead, I was no longer concerned with him. He meant nothing to me, and therefore he did not need my sympathy or concern. However, he meant the world for Tomoe, because in a mere instant, she became a shell of a woman. She sat in her room, staring at a hairpin that Akira gave her as a parting gift and a dead plant, its once scarlet blossoms now shriveled and brown. Nothing I said or did or felt brought her back to me, and my frustration started to know no bounds as every single one of my efforts to make her smile turned to dust, ineffective and worthless.
I could not understand why my sister would become so depressed upon the death of a man who could not even understand the workings of her mind. He immediately assumed that her silence meant she was unpleased, not even opening his mind for a mere second to see that try as she might, Tomoe could barely smile. In my opinion, a man who could not understand my sister is filth, filth that deserves to be crushed underfoot and thrown into the sea so that it may never return to land. I received this wish – Akira was found on the ground, drenched in a pool of his own blood, drenched in the dark scarlet liquid, enhancing my triumph. However, how could it possibly be a victory if I lost my sister to it?
Those cursed words, those stupid, unnecessary, ignorant words. "If the second son of a samurai cannot make you happy, I will at least be known as a warrior of repute." Never in my entire life had I heard words so ignorant, so idiotic, and so pathetic. Akira did not deserve her love – he had failed to understand her despite her lack of emotion. His love for her was not as strong or understanding as mine, and he therefore had no right to love her. Time and time again I repeated these words to my depressed sister, insisting that she was better off without that pathetic fool, but she would simply close her eyes, as if she was blocking out my words, ignoring me. I tried to convince her that he brought his own death upon himself by actually thinking that he had to join the war to please her, but that still did not ease her from her pain, pain caused by Akira, pain caused by her own father, the man who had initiated this relationship in the first place.
I hated him more than ever. I was not related to him any longer. He was weak, pathetic, depressing, and now he was guilty of destroying Tomoe's happiness by creating a relationship with filth for her. Both he and Akira were to blame, and I knew I would never forgive either one of them. Neither one of them deserved my forgiveness or my respect.
However, they did not deserve Tomoe's compassion either! Why did she offer it to them so willingly? Why did she torture herself over Akira's death? Why did she truly love him, despite the fact that he was unable to understand her? What drew her to that piece of filth that did not deserve her love? Questions swirled about in my mind, but when I inquired, I received a mere sob, and my concern would ignite into rage against both men.
However, that still did not change the fact that Tomoe was dying inside, and thus, the day of my victory became the day of my downfall as well. I was starting to lose Tomoe to the ghosts that haunted her minds, to the shadows that lingered in her room, depriving her of the light of the candle and the warmth of the sun. Akira's death ate her away inside, and I stood there, unable to do anything, my helplessness and inability to help Tomoe forget about Akira eating me away inside.
Neither she nor I deserved this torment, and eventually, the torment led her to the roads of Kyoto, roads that led her away from me forever…
"New revelations about your sister, hmmm?"
I snapped the diary shut to avoid Oibore's eyes from scanning the pages of my sister's heart. I had no intent of sharing the torment she and I suffered through all those years ago, nor did I have the intention to share my current feelings. Whenever I thought about Tomoe's misery over Akira, my anger seemed to intensify. I could never understand why Tomoe loved a man who misunderstood her so greatly, a man who could offer her nothing, and this lack of understanding enraged me. I thought I always knew my sister, but ever since the end of Jinchuu and this diary, I was starting to feel alone, starting to lose the bond I had shared with my sister, starting to lose her ghost to the shadows that surrounded and choked me with its dark tendrils.
"Go away" I muttered angrily, thoroughly enraged and perfectly content to wallow in my misery. "Leave me alone."
Much to my discontent, Oibore calmly sat down next to me, despite the fact that the glare I directed towards him was full of fury and annoyance. I seriously wondered whether he needed his prescription checked, or whether he was just too ignorant to see that I was seriously livid with his actions.
I heard a flutter of wings, and slowly watched as a few birds floated down from their high perches to join Oibore. Thankfully, they kept their distance from me, but that still did not make them any less annoying.
"You're thoroughly incensed today," observed Oibore, fingering the birds softly. Seeing as I no longer had my beloved shades, any idiot could have seen that was angry.
"You're a perceptive man, aren't you?" I muttered sarcastically, rolling my eyes in annoyance. Oibore laughed and nudged the birds away from him, as if he wanted to keep the conversation private. Seeing as birds cannot really communicate to humans and would never be able to convey the content of this conversation to anyone, I though that was a rather stupid action on his behalf, but I was also quite thankful that the birds were finally gone.
"I suppose anyone can see you are angry," replied Oibore with a chuckle. "That's why no one offered you dinner today; they were all too scared because you had this expression of fury etched in your face. However, no one seems to know the reason why. That's what I was trying to determine."
"And what makes you think that you deserve to know why I'm angry?" I snapped angrily, slamming the diary onto the ground. "What makes you think that I will tell you everything that has happened to me, why I sit her, mourning my sister's death, why I'm sitting in this dump of a home?"
"Because keeping your anger within yourself is quite unhealthy. You need to vent your emotions", answered Oibore quietly. I was on the verge of strangling him at that point, and I finally lost my temper.
"You think I need to vent my emotions?" I yelled furiously. "That will never help! Those three bastards did not deserve the love she gave them! None of them deserved her compassion, yet she gave it to them! They tortured her so much, yet she smiled for all of them! Those bastards don't deserve that from her!"
"Don't you think that those three feel the same way?" asked Oibore curiously. I was about to reply when I realized that I was quite confused and did not really understand the question he had posed upon me.
"I don't understand," I muttered in annoyance. "What do you mean?"
"I lost my daughter years ago, about thirteen years ago," murmured Oibore sadly. "She was a beautiful girl, and in any other family, she would have become even more beautiful as she grew older and older. However, her beauty was marred because she was born to me. She became a mother to my son while I wallowed in my misery of losing my wife. Six or seven years later, the fiancé I had brought to her died. I was still so lost in the misery of losing my wife that I did not think about the fact that she was in the same situation that I was in. I never outstretched my hand to comfort her, never stroked her hair, and never wiped away her tears. A few days later, she disappeared from my life, and a year later, I discovered that she had died a violent death, but with a smile on her lips. The same smile that she offered to me so freely as a child, the smiles she bestowed upon me when I smiled back at her. However, all those years, I left her in agony and suffering...I did not pay attention to her emotions or to her. Nevertheless, she still gifted me with her smiles and compassion."
"What are you trying to say?" I muttered, quite annoyed that he was going on about wallowing in misery. That just reminded me too much of my father, the weak, pathetic man sitting in that dark room all those years, never once concerned with his daughter or son, only bestowing upon them agony and suffering.
"I gave her all that pain, all that suffering, yet she smiled at me…" murmured Oibore. "Her compassion ate away at my heart, leaving me with the fresh pain of guilt. You say those three men did not deserve her compassion, that they tortured her. Yet you don't see that perhaps they feel just as guilty as me, perhaps they too, realize that they didn't deserve her compassion."
"I don't care" I insisted angrily, starting to dislike the fact that this man was acting so pathetic, so weak, and so idiotic. "If they knew they didn't deserve her compassion, then they shouldn't have accepted it! By accepting it, they destroyed her! Now leave so that I can sleep in peace!"
Oibore calmly rose from his position just as I lay down on the rather uncomfortable ground, stretched out and prepared to sleep. Just as I had shut my eyes, I heard a hoarse whisper from my companion above.
"By accepting her compassion, they destroyed her, eh? However, if they had not accepted it…then what would happen to her? Did you ever think about her boy? Imagine what would happen if you had offered compassion to her, and she rejected it? Would you not feel like dying? So perhaps by accepted her love, they managed to help her, no matter how brief their time with her was…"
He walked away quietly, leaving me alone with my thoughts. His words echoed in my ears, haunted my soul.
The truth was, during Jinchuu, I had offered Tomoe love, sacrifice, everything I had within me. Yet I was only greeted with her frowns…and that ate away at me inside…
Was that what the old man was talking about?
With a sigh, I shifted in sleep to stare at the skies. It was a cloudless night, yet clouds of confusion seemed to mar my mind and disturb my sleep. I stayed awake all night, staring at the stars, desperately hoping to see her smile among those stars like she had before.
She never did.
And it tortured me inside that my compassion was not enough to bring a smile upon her face…it was not enough.
When was this penance going to end? When was she going to return to me? When was she going to smile like she had all those times?
She had accepted all three of the men in her life that had tortured and pained her soul – she accepted our father, Akira, and Battousai. But why was she not accepting me, the one person who never ever wished to see her in pain, and the one person who never caused her such agony?
I tossed and turned all night, the questions in my mind haunting me as I desperately searched for answers.
Please please please review! I could really use your feedback on this chapter, and I would love to hear from all of you!
Until next time, Ja ne!