Pain of the Past
Chapter 2
By Hikari Tsuki Chi
Disclaimer- If I did own RuroKen, which I don't, I would have pushed for the Jinchuu Arc to be animated.
Note- I often in the flashbacks or dreams based off maigo-chan's translations, throw in some of the original Japanese words. Why? Umm… it's less to do with I know Japanese and kinda more to do with the fact I have a complete set of Rurouni Kenshin manga in Japanese and that I can read hiragana. Yeah… I don't wanna brag, but when you save up $210, then it kinda shows you're devoted.
Chapter 2-History
The day passed quickly enough for Kaoru, almost too quickly. It seemed to have only have been an hour when her last class left for the day and she was putting up the equipment. Sanosuke dropped by her classroom since his last class ended fifteen minutes before hers. He taught the boxing/wrestling class at the same school as Kaoru, and she had met him when she had answered the ad for a new kendo teacher at the school a year ago. Having graduated a year early, she was the youngest teacher there, at twenty. Sanosuke himself was twenty-two and had only been there a year before she had started. (1) During the lunch break, she had told him of her trip to the old dojo the day before and he had urged her, instead of going to the museum, to go to his friend Himura Kenshin, a professor of Japanese history at Tokyo University. Sanosuke had assured her that his friend was an expert on swords and could give her the history of the swords better than the museum could. "Oi, jou-chan, you almost done?"
Putting up the last of the equipment, she grabbed the duffel that she had kept in her locker during the day and said, "I'm done. You sure that your friend can tell me about the swords?"
"I told you jou-chan, Kenshin's the best at these things. He could probably tell you about the dojo itself too. He knows more about the Bakumatsu and Meiji Jidai than any one else in Nihon."
They started walking to the campus. "I told Kenshin we were coming today, so he'll be in his classroom since his last class of the day lets out around this time." Sanosuke said as they entered the building, passing students leaving classes.
The classroom his friend had was like an auditorium, with a blackboard, table, overhead projector and screen at the bottom with the seats for the students in a half-circle/stadium on the other side of the room. He was organizing papers when they walked in. "Ah, Sano, looks like you were able to get through all the students. Were there casualties this time?" he asked as Sanosuke and Kaoru walked over to his table.
"Not any more. They know what happens when they get in the way. This is Kamiya Kaoru. She's the one who found the swords. Jou-chan, this is Himura Kenshin."
During the greeting Kaoru had bowed when her name was mentioned, and Kenshin returned in kind. Kaoru studied him. He had red hair, which just brushed the collar of his flannel shirt. His eyes were a peculiar shade of blue, one that looked like a soft lavender color. He had a scar on his left cheek in the form of a cross, leaving Kaoru to wonder where he had gotten it. His flannel shirt was left opened to reveal a T-shirt under it. Khakis with sneakers completed the outfit. An image of the man from her dreams appeared over his image, and she had to give herself a mental shake to rid her vision of the specter. Smiling calmly, he said, "You have a question in your eyes."
"Aren't you a little young to be a professor? And are you even Nihonjin?" The questions came out before Kaoru could stop them, and she blushed at her sudden bluntness.
"I'm thirty, and my mother was Irish." The answer came so calmly that Kaoru figured that he got those questions a lot. "Sano said you found swords at a old dojo you inherited?"
"I called him at lunch." Sanosuke muttered to her when she turned her questioning eyes on him. Turning back to Kenshin, she said, "Hai. My father left the property to me when he died six months ago and I had just gotten around to investigating the place yesterday, Himura-sensei." Showing respect for his position as a professor.
"Kenshin will do. You're not one of my students. Where did you find the swords?"
Pulling the swords from her duffel, she placed them on the table opposite the papers and answered, "They were in the training hall, at the head, where it looked like there was a shrine to the creator of the style."
"A shrine?"
"Hai, the dojo was the original dojo for Kamiya Kasshin Ryuu, but has been taught at the Kamiya-Myoujin Dojo since the creator's daughter was killed. It remained in the family as a residence and was handed down in my family, but I haven't entered it since my mother died as a child."
"Had you ever entered the training hall as a child?"
"Iie. I wasn't allowed, but my father told me that the swords of Kamiya Koshijirou, the one who created Kamiya Kasshin Ryuu at the beginning of Meiji Jidai."
"Do you know their history before than?"
"Iie. Kamiya Kasshin Ryuu was created after Kamiya Koshijirou saw the bloodshed of the Bakumatsu at the hands of satsujin-ken, and sought to create a style based on katsujin-ken. He was killed during the Seinan Wars."
"Ah…the Bakumatsu…" he said, examining the condition of both swords. Both were in perfect condition.
"Do you think that's important?" asked Kaoru.
"It could be. Do you know how old the dojo is?"
"Otou-san told me that it's been in the family for many generations, being descended from samurai. But he did tell me about how in Meiji 11 a man claiming to be Hitokiri Battousai killing people under the name of the school, causing it to lose its students. Apparently it was just someone who wanted the land for its value, because of the Westernization policy."
This caught Kenshin's attention. "Did he tell you who stopped him?"
"He would just smile and say that it was, supposedly, the real Battousai, as a rurouni, who defeated the imposter. But I don't know. It seems a little too much like out of manga to be real."
"They say that the line between fact and fiction is not as thick as we might think. And no one knows what happened to Battousai after the First Battle at Toba Fushimi. Whether he committed seppuku or lived into the era he helped build, is entirely your opinion. As for the swords, I would say that these are something to be prized, and probably safer in a museum behind glass then left in an old dojo on the edges of town."
Accepting Kenshin's opinion and taking the swords back, Kaoru thanked him and left, Sanosuke staying behind. Turning to Kenshin he asked, "Oi, why'd you ask about the dojo?"
"I had a feeling, de gozaru." Sanosuke raised an eyebrow at the 'de gozaru' but keep quiet. "Anyway, I'd better catch up with Kaoru. She promised me dinner."
Watching Sanosuke leave and close the door behind him, Kenshin turned back to his desk and pulled out a notebook. Flipping through the pages, he stopped at the last full page. Looking over a drawing of a dojo, old but well-maintained, and a sketch of a girl, details fuzzy except for her blue eyes, he whispered, "A feeling… Sessha had a feeling, de gozaru yo. Nothing more." Closing the notebook and placing it in his backpack with the papers that needed grading, he left his classroom and headed to his car, eyes distant as he remembered the dreams that haunted him every night, dreams of a history he'd rather not remember…and of a girl he had lost…
Well, how was it? Isn't there anyone who has read this and liked it? If you have a comment and can't review, please send me e-mail. No reviews gets me into a runt I can't climb out of…
(1)- I have them a year older than they were in the series because it made sense to me in my head and it's artistic license.