Pain of the Past
Chapter 3
By Hikari Tsuki Chi
Disclaimer- I do not own Rurouni Kenshin. Watsuki-sama has that honor. But I do own this story, even if the general idea is kinda overused.
Note- DOMO ARIGATOU GOZAIMASU! THANK YOU VERY MUCH! That was to broken-beer-bottle, the first person ever to review this!
Chapter 3-Images
Reaching his apartment, Kenshin tried to get started on grading the papers his class had turned in, but his mind wasn't on it. It kept drifting back to the meeting he had had. He had seen those swords before in his dreams. They were never wielded, but in front of a shrine to someone in a dojo-training hall. Leaving his papers and entering his kitchen, Kenshin dug around in a cabinet before finding a bottle of sake and a cup. He had one kept up there for the term paper seasons, when the good and horrible papers the students handed in gave him a headache. Also when his guardian came on his rare visits from Kyoto, he had to keep it hidden unless he wanted his guardian to drink it. (three guesses to who it is, and the first two don't count)
Pouring some out and downing it in one gulp, Kenshin winced slightly at the off taste it had. No matter what kind of intoxicating drink he drank, it always had the same off taste to it. It was coppery, almost metallic-like…like blood. He had noticed it ever since he had been dragged out for his birthday to a bar once he was legal. Pouring himself another cupful and sipping it slowly, his most frequent dream played itself out before his eyes. Walking down a dirt street, dressed in old time clothing, sword on his hip, a girl, wearing similar clothes and carrying a bokken, jumped him, calling him Hitokiri Battousai. Crashing into a wall, saying he was a rurouni, the girl unsheathing his sword, revealing a sakabatou. Her running off, to the real killer. At an old dojo, the man before him falling to the ground, murmuring the word "strong", him going off on this speech about how kenjutsu is satsujinjutsu, the art of killing. Taking down man after man, even five at a time. Turning to the man who held the girl in the air. Saying that Hitokiri Battousai didn't use the style he was dishonoring, nor did he use the original style that the killer used. That he used Hiten Mitsurugi Ryuu, the Honorable Sword of the Flowing Heavens…
Kenshin wasn't stupid. He knew that the style of the densetsu hitokiri was the same one that his guardian had taught him. Battousai's master was still alive when he died. Closing his eyes, he felt something wet on his left cheek. Brushing it lightly with his fingers and opening his eyes, he pulled away his fingers. It was blood. His scars were bleeding. Again. They did that every once and awhile. The vertical scar had appeared one morning in the months before his fifteenth birthday, bleeding slightly. The scar that crossed it appeared the night of January 2nd. He was doing the last of his vacation assignments, when he suddenly smelled white plums. Going to the window, he saw it was snowing. Turning to the mirror, he saw the new scar that had appeared, bleeding and running through the first one that had appeared.
The white plums confused him, because it was the same perfume that his one serious girlfriend had worn. Yukishiro Tomoe had been his girlfriend during that hectic 9th grade year where the whole of that grade's population panicked over the threat of entrance exams. She had been three years older than him, and just before break he had broken up with her, saying that while he loved her, he felt that she would be happier with someone else. And she was, having married an old childhood friend that she hadn't seen in years, Kiyosato Akira. But that night when the second scar had appeared, he dreamed that he had killed Kiyosato, him having been guarding his target. The second dream was where he had killed Tomoe by accident, her having gotten between his sword and his target, striking both of them.
But now his scars would bleed whenever he dreamed that a raven-haired girl with striking blue eyes had been shot by the older version of the boy that he glimpsed in the dreams that had Tomoe in them, and where he had killed him, defiling a holy sword, and his vision going black as he heard and felt people running towards him, feeling their shock, feeling their horror, their sadness… Kenshin dozed into a light sleep, never one to fall asleep deeply nowadays, not with the dreams, yet knowing that their images of a painful past that he'd rather not remember would taunt him even in this doze…
With Sanosuke and Kaoru…
Kaoru, as she had promised Sanosuke, treated him to dinner. Not her cooking of course, not after he had insulted it and she had thrown everything in reach that wasn't breakable at him. No she wasn't dumb enough to do a repeat performance. They ate at the Akebeko, where Tae bugged Sanosuke about his tab. Again. For the twentieth time this week. And the thirtieth time this month. And it was the 8th of May. Paying for the food and Sanosuke begging that he would come up with the money soon, they left. "Why didn't you tell Kenshin about the people you saw? Maybe he could've told you who they were."
"One, I don't know if I saw anything at all, and two, he would've thought I was crazy. But I was planning on driving out there again before sundown to see if it happens again. Wanna come?"
"Might as well, not like I haven't got anything to do."
They drove out to the dojo, Kaoru telling Sanosuke everything that happened in the training hall the day before. They arrived just before the sun began to set. Entering the training hall, Kaoru went over to where she had been the night before, Sanosuke following her. Shadows grew longer as the sun fell lower, the remaining light tingeing everything orange. Just as before, the translucent images appeared. But they were different this time. The police officer guy was there, but someone who looked a lot like Sanosuke was also there. The police guy stabbed the Sanosuke look-a-like in the right shoulder, the images fading out and a bloodstain appearing on the floor, and the images from before appeared. The vision continued on longer than before, ending when the red-haired man straitened up and opened his eyes, revealing cold hard amber, which sent chills down their spines. "Wh-what was that Jou-chan?!?!" exclaimed Sanosuke, shaken up over the images.
Kaoru, who had gone over to each bloodstain to find that it was really blood, answered, "I don't know, but watch." As she spoke, the sun had set fully, and the stains disappeared. "You saw that too right? So I didn't image it."
"Unless we're both going crazy, then we both saw it."
"But there is a chance that we didn't see it and we're going crazy? Or at least I am since I saw it first."
"Let's just get out of here, this place gives me the creeps."
Agreeing fully, Kaoru and Sanosuke went back to her car and left. After depositing Sanosuke at his apartment, Kaoru returned to her own.
This mystery churned in her head. What was the secret of the old Kamiya Dojo? Why did a dojo for a peaceful sword style have such a bloody past? Who was the red-haired man? She knew that his name was Himura Kenshin, but who was he? Why does a man in present day Nihon look like a man from the Meiji Jidai? Kaoru knew one thing for sure, that the images should be just be a figment of her imagination. Yet something inside as she passed the hours until her bedtime told that they weren't her imagination. That they were real. And that she had lived through the events in her dreams and the ones the dojo played out to her. If only the cold in her bones would just go away…with the images…of a past that was full of pain…and trying to take over hr life…
End of Chapter 3How was it? I wish that this story would get more reviews, it only has one! It makes me feel unloved…