Pain of the Past
Chapter 6
By Hikari Tsuki Chi
Summary: See Chapter 1 for complete summary.
Chapter Summary: Kenshin and Kaoru discover that the old dojo may have played a bigger role in their past lives then previously thought, more images, and more hints to how they may have died in Meiji. Time is fluid, and the past begins to flow into their lives once again.
Note: Not really much to say, just that I am completely disregarding Reflections. I've never seen it, and would probably only want the DVD to complete the OVA DVDs and to find out exactly what happens, since from what I've found out, it's pretty damn depressing. Story's after the battle with Enishi, about a year, and before Kenshin and Kaoru are married and have Kenji. Sanosuke stayed in Japan, and Megumi never went back to Aizu. At this point, only the core Kenshin-gumi, with Kenshin, Kaoru, Yahiko, Sanosuke, and Megumi, are going to be in the story. Tae's gonna play a minor role, mainly just to bug Sano about his tab. (heh) The people I consider to be 'outer' Kenshin-gumi members, like the Kyoto Oniwabanshuu, Saitou, and Hiko, along with Yutaro, at the moment would only be seen in the flashbacks and dreams, or mentioned in conversation but never seen. Tusbame will mainly be mentioned in conversation to annoy Yahiko about his love life, and might make a minor appearance, depending on if I think she could add something to the story…or plot. Not sure even if I HAVE a plot. If you haven't guessed already, I'm making this up as I go. (sweat drops) I mean, I have a general idea of what's gonna happen, just not the whole story down to every little detail. I find that I do better in the long run if I don't plan ahead; stories just turn out better that way. So please bear with me. But right now I'm happy cuz last time I checked my Chem. Grade, I have a 99.0 in Chemistry, at the Honors level, which is better than my dad did in all four years of college. So I'm kinda giddy.
Thank you to: mellyd, Lady Alexiel (anonymous), Candace Goodnight, and rain angst for reviewing this story.
mellyd: I'll try and make some big things happen soon, so don't stop reading b/c nothing big's happened yet. I probably haven't even hit the main conflict yet; all this is just side conflict. ; So please stay with the story!
Lady Alexiel (anonymous): Sorry 'bout overdoing the definitions; but this is where Catholic school education taught me to be through; sorry if you think it's halting the story.
Candace Goodnight: Thanx for the gold star! For that you get a cyber cookie! Wish I had a real one, 'specially a homemade chocolate cookie one.
rain angst: You also get a cyber cookie!
Ya want a cyber cookie? Make me feel loved! Flamers… I'll just hand you over to Koinu-chan16, or my friend Marie. And you don't want that. If you criticize in a polite, respectful way, I'll listen, but be rude, and you'll get yours. Hell hath no fury as a woman scorned.
Chapter 6- Flowing
When we think of Time, we think of a moving entity, moving in one direction, never being able to recapture the past…or relive it. But Time is fluid, always flowing…and perfectly capable of moving in directions other than forwards. Some might compare it to water, where you think you've got a hold of it; it flows away, slipping through your fingers, escaping.
Love's a lot like that too. Just when you think you have it, it slips through your fingers, sometimes forever, sometimes it comes back. But whether or not it stays is entirely up to you.
Hitokiri Battousai learned that lesson the hard way, learning it when his katana caressed his lover's flesh in the worst way imaginable. He was marked then, marked with what love can do at its worst, when passion and desire and the will to live couples with instinct and becomes the demon that lives in us all, what happens to us when we let instinct and passion rule us, and guide us.
The only thing more terrifying than when we become that demon…is when we let it come, when we welcome it.
When the Rurouni side of Kenshin lost his love, when her heart was shattered by the cold metal of deadly Western technology, he was encompassed by his grief and rage. Battousai also let his grief at losing his second happiness and rage at the one who struck her down surround him, and when the Rurouni willingly shattered the shields that had held him back for so long, he answered the summoning of the ice-cold war blood. And in that moment, he became the true Battousai.
Battousai lives, even in this modern day where he's thought of as mere myth, in the darkness of the mind whom now bears the soul of his innocence. And now that his Rurouni side has found his second happiness…he's not going to let her go. He waits patiently, for the ten long years between the battleground of Toba Fushimi and Meiji Tokyo, along with the hundred years to be re-incarnated taught him a valuable lesson in patience. He waits to claim what is his, and claim her in the best and only way he knows how.
But that path is closed to him, for so long as the naïve and oblivious Rurouni re-incarnate of Kenshin held control and was unaware of his existence, he was trapped in their mind. There were cracks in the shield, not large enough for him to take control from, but large enough for him to send hints to Rurouni. They may not be the hints gentle enough to spark a return in his memory, but then again Battousai was a warrior of war, destined to live in the heat of battle. They were enough for Rurouni to start slowly putting the pieces together, enough for flashbacks to start occurring on their own. Enough for the cracks to, ever so slowly, begin to widen, and weaken the shield further.
And so Himura "Hitokiri" Battousai waited. Waited for the day he could claim his second happiness and never let her go. Ever.
Back with Kenshin and Kaoru in safer waters…In the drive over to the dojo, there was a silence that wasn't the uncomfortable kind that begs to be filled, but one where you aren't scrambling for some way to end it. The only thing besides the noise of the city that broke the quiet over the car was the music from her CD player, an American song that Kenshin vaguely recognized. "What's this song called?" he asked Kaoru.
"My Immortal. It's by an American band called Evanescence. It's my favorite foreign band."
Nodding slightly, Kenshin listened to the words.
I'm so tired of being here Suppressed by all my childish fearAnd if you have to leave
I wish that you would just leave
Because your presence still lingers here
And it won't leave me alone
These wounds won't seem to heal
This pain is just too real
There's just too much that time cannot erase
When you cried I'd wipe away all of your tears
When you scream I'd fight away all of your fears
And I've held our hand through all of these years
But you still have all of me
You used to captivate me
By your resonating mind
But now I'm bound by the life you left behind
Your face it haunts my once pleasant dreams
Your voice it chased away all the sanity in me
These wounds won't seem to heal
This pain is just too real
There's just too much that time cannot erase
When you cried I'd wipe away all of your tears
When you scream I'd fight away all of your fears
And I've held your hand through all of these years
But you still have all of me
I've tried so hard to tell myself that you're gone
And though you're still with me
I've been alone all along
When you cried I'd wipe away all of your tears
When you scream I'd fight away all of your fears
And I've held your hand through all of these years
But you still have all of me…
"It seems to tell about us, don't you think?" Kaoru asked, having reaching the dojo but leaving the car on until the song was over.
Caught off guard Kenshin exclaimed, "Oro?"
"Think about it. With all of the dreams we've been having, it really does seem that we're haunting each other."
"There's still the possibility that we're dreaming."
"Then how can we be in each other's dreams?" she challenged.
"How can we-" Kenshin we caught off guard as the street shifted, and changed to a completely different one, an old fashioned one. "How can we be in Meiji Tokyo?"
"Nani yo?" Looking around, Kaoru saw that Kenshin was right.
"Look, " he said, pointing. Turning to where he had pointed Kaoru gasped. It was the man from her dreams, clear as day, the man whom looked like Kenshin, dressed in an old-fashioned faded red kimono and white hakama. A bag was slung over his shoulder as he walked, completely walking through Kenshin's outstretched arm, as if he wasn't there at all. "Okay, what the hell is going-"
"Hitokiri Battousai!"
The man turned, blinking, and Kenshin and Kaoru turned with him. It was Kaoru, dressed the same as the Kenshin look-a-like, but in a dark blue kimono and hakama. She also carried a bokken. She said, "At last I've found you. Your two months of bloodshed in the streets ends tonight. Prepare yourself!"
"Oro?" was the questioning reply from the other Kenshin, as well as from her Kenshin. The other Kaoru continued. "Don't play innocent with me! Who else would ignore the edict and walk around with a sword!"
She charged him, and swung at him and he leaped out of the way, but crashed into a fence and fell to the ground in a heap."That didn't take long…Hitokiri Battousai?"
"Rurouni. Sessha wa rurouni. Sessha is merely a tabi no kenkaku, de gozaru yo. Sessha doesn't know anything about bloodshed in the streets-" said the other Kenshin, being cut off by the other Kaoru.
"Well-well how do you explain this katana at your waist? Kenkakus aren't allowed to wear real katanas!" she exclaimed, drawing the blade.
Kenshin drew in a sharp breath as everyone, both past and present, saw that it was a sakabatou. While the other Kaoru went on about the sword, the present day Kaoru asked, "Doushita?"
"I have that exact same sword, at my apartment. It belonged to my mother's ancestor's pupil. The reason I have it is because that not only was I named for him, but also I supposedly look like him. And every year, on May 14th, it somehow gets covered with bloodstains, and the next day, they're gone."
The scene faded, with the other Kaoru running off towards the police whistle, and the present day Kaoru and Kenshin found themselves standing in front of the dojo gate, as if the vision had never occurred. "What the hell was that?!" exclaimed Kaoru.
"This hasn't happened before?"
"Not like this! The last few times it's just been washed out images, bloodstains, and no sounds! Not a whole event playing out before my eyes when I'm not even in the area where it happened!"
"It's highly doubtful that the street we found ourselves on exists in the present day. This may sound strange…"
"Nani?"
"…but it almost seemed like Time—folded back on itself—in a sense. We think of Time as something where, once that moment has pasted, we never experience the same way again for the rest of our lives. By definition every human contact is a singular event that cannot be repeated, so the only way that we could have seen what we did was if, for a few minutes, we actually traveled back in time, per se, and witnessed something that otherwise we'd have no way of witnessing."
"But why'd your hand past through him?"
"Two objects cannot occupy the same point in space. You learn that in physics class. Maybe the same thing applies to souls as well. Maybe we were really seeing our past lives, and since two objects cannot occupy the same point in space—or time—it seems, obviously first right would go to the original 'object' occupying that space, and second right to visitors, and since technically we were visitors there, we could only see and heard those events, but not interfere in them."
"Why can't we interfere with the past? Maybe if we did, we wouldn't be having the dreams."
"It's 'cause of the grandfather clause. Say you go back in time and kill your grandfather. Then your father wouldn't have existed, and neither would have you. But really you'd just have a different grandfather and a different father, and you'd be the only one to notice anything different with your reality."
"So even if we did interfere, then we could just wind up making things worse, right?"
"Exactly, and we'd be the only ones to notice that things had changed. And we wouldn't be changing time; we'd just be creating an alternate dimension, all because of the grandfather clause."
"Maybe you should've been a whatever it is that teaches this stuff, and not a Japanese history professor. You would've made more money that way."
"My guardian always told me that it's better to fail at something you love, then to succeed at something you hate. I only took the course because I needed my science credits to graduate. I was good at it, since it's mostly theory, but I didn't enjoy it. I enjoy Japanese history, and I like to see the light bulb go off in a student's head, so that's why I'm a professor."
"Never thought of it that way." Kaoru said, opening the gate.
Following her in, Kenshin noticed the smell of jasmine. Must be her perfume, de gozaru. De gozaru? I've only seen that used in the old documents from the times of the samurai. Either I've been working too hard, or these dreams have made me lose it. Even if they were just my imagination, then why do I feel like I've been here before?
Entering the dojo, Kaoru checked her watch and the sun. "It should be starting up soon…"
Her words were cut off as the same thing that happened outside by the gate happened again. Kaoru could tell that it was the same fight as before, but this time you could hear what was being said, and the people were solid. Seeing Kaoru's wide eyes, Kenshin asked, "This…hasn't happened this way before?"
"Iya. You couldn't hear what they were saying, and it wasn't like we were back in time." She said, and they both turned their attentions to the fight as it began.
From where they were standing, they could see the fight from the other Kaoru's point of view, meaning that when the other Kenshin raised his head up they could also see fully his now cold amber eyes, seemingly glowing in the darkness of the dojo. But the part that had both of them gasp was when the cop came back through the hole in the wall that the other Kenshin had sent him through. "My orders are to evaluate your strength. But I don't care about them now. Mou korosu."
The tone in the other Kenshin's voice was a mix of coldness, challenging, and what almost sounded like a dismissive tone. "Mou korosu ka? That's my line."
They were abruptly brought back to their own time as the other Kaoru fell to the dojo floor on her knees. Kaoru had unknowingly mimicked her counterpart's position on the floor as she stared wide-eyed at the bloodstains on the floor, which were fading slowly as the sun settled beyond the horizon, its lingering light casting long shadows over the floor. Kenshin was breathing hard, his left hand having gone to the exact same spot where his counterpart had been injured. "I…I just wanted to show you the dojo…I wasn't expecting this to happen." Said Kaoru, pausing as she breathed deeply as she stood, trying to calm her racing heart.
"That battle…"
"Nani?"
Turning to Kaoru, Kenshin said, "I've dreamed of that exact same battle every May since I turned twenty-eight. I also dream of leaving a blue-eyed girl behind…" trailing off as they found themselves standing by a stream, the other Kaoru watching the fireflies. The other Kenshin came up, and she was at first happy to see him, but then it turned to concern when she saw the look on his face. The other Kenshin was talking about how deep within himself there was a hitokiri who would never change, and that with each attack, he would draw more of Battousai out, and it would be harder for him to return back to the Rurouni with each battle. The other Kaoru argued back that he had always been able to go back to normal before, and that no matter what happened, he was still Kenshin, a rurouni who didn't kill. He told her how happy he was at the dojo, and he hugged her, to the shock of not only her, but to the present Kaoru and Kenshin. With a sad look in his eyes, the other Kenshin said, "Sessha wa rurouni. And it's time for me to wander once again." And letting go, walked away into the pitch-black darkness, alone. Kaoru fell to her knees with tears streaming down her face. As the present day Kenshin and Kaoru found themselves back in the dojo, a voice whispered to them a date: Meiji 11, May 14th.
Deep in Kenshin's mind with Battousai…Leaning back against a mental wall, sword in hand, Battousai whispered, "Time is beginning to flow once again…" He stood, and, placing his sword next to his wakizashi in his belt, continued. "I am no longer allowed to remain still."
Looking towards the barrier that held him to this place, watching Kenshin walk Kaoru from the dojo to her car, he asked, "What will you do, Rurouni?" His lips twisted into what mirrored a smirk, his eyes glowing slightly in the semi-darkness of Kenshin's mind. He knew what was coming. "There are two paths open to you: remember who and what you were—what you are—or death. Those are your only choices, Rurouni…" His words trailing off as he chuckled, which grew into a laugh, the laugh of the insane, of those who are scheming something that's not entirely for the benefit of the light, the laugh of the darkness…of the flowing river of time…
End of Chapter 6-FlowingNote: How was it? It would've been longer, but I wanted to make this a Halloween chapter 'cuz it kinda seems like one to me. STILL gonna beg shamelessly for reviews. REVIEW ON PAIN OF DEATH!!!!!!!!!!! Also if you review and you're nice and don't put me down, I'll give you a cookie!
Glossary
Hitokiri Battosai- why are you even here?
Katana- Japanese sword
Rurouni- again, why are you here?
Nani yo? - What
Sessha wa rurouni- see chapter 1
Tabi no kenkaku- again, see chapter 1
Doushita- What's wrong? Or, What happened?
De gozaru- for the third time, why are you even here?
Iya- no
Mou korosu- see chapter 5 collective glossary
Mou korosu ka?- the previous, with the 'ka' making it into a question
Wakizashi- short sword wore with the katana by samurai
Please proceed to the little purple box at the bottom left-hand corner of your screen.