Pain of the Past
Chapter 9
By Hikari Tsuki Chi
Disclaimer: Is this needed?
Note: Sorry it's been so long; homework. But I got a 94 on my first AP World History test, the only A I think…
Review Responses are on my profile. Blame FF dot net.
Chapter 9- Knowledge
When Kaoru, Sanosuke, and Yahiko saw the police tape around the school, they knew that it couldn't be good. Walking over to Principal Maekawa, Kaoru asked, "What happened?"
"Water main under the school blew, not to mention the boiler exploded, the ventilation system is suddenly full of mold, and all the fuses in the school's fuse box blew, which are all not commonly used anymore."
Kaoru winced at the list of damages. "What are you going to do?"
"The city is going to give us enough money to pay for someone to completely strip out the building, but it will have to be completely rebuilt inside. Thankfully, there's enough in the system's budget to rebuild inside, but it will be a few lean years after the rebuilding is complete."
"Was the kendo dojo affected?"
"Fortunately, no. It's far enough away from the school building that it wasn't really affected. The school will be closed, and by the time summer break's finished up, there should be enough ready rooms to teach in."
"Will the students be divided amongst other schools?"
Maekawa shook his head. "All the other schools in the district are filled to capacity. But something is bothering me."
"What is it?"
"I know you've moved out to the old Kamiya Dojo after your apartment building burned down recently, but at the time everything happened, it was around the time you would normally be in the staff room in the mornings."
"I got a later start because the tori-atama wouldn't get up." Kaoru growled, but quickly calmed and said, "Do you think that someone is targeting me?"
"I believe so, but that really doesn't make any sense. Your father had no enemies, and all the feathers you've ruffled amongst the National Kendo League have been soothed once you proved that you had skills. I would stay on my guard, Kaoru-kun."
Kaoru paled slightly. "You better be careful too. If someone IS targeting me, then they could go after those I associate with."
"Don't you worry, kenjutsu-hime." Smirked a voice from the shadows, watching Kaoru and Maekawa. "I won't be after him. There's only one person in the world that I'm after." Receding farther back into the shadows, he questioned the air. "I wonder if I'll have to kill you again right in front of him to draw out the one I want…?"
Back at the dojo…
Sanosuke laid stretched out on the porch of the dojo's living area. Why'd someone attack the school? Those sorts of incidents don't just happen on their own, no matter how old the systems are.
He sighed. He hadn't gotten much sleep last night. Not with his dream. Why do I keep dreaming of someone who looks like Megitsune? And this dojo. Now that I'm living here, this place…it's like I know every room, even though before yesterday I had never been in this part before. Why does it seem like my answers are just out of reach?
Closing his eyes, Sanosuke dozed off, into a light yet dream-filled sleep.
Yahiko paused mid-stroke as he heard Sanosuke's snores. He rolled his eyes. The only one of us NOT awake for two hours after what happened, and he's the one that falls asleep. Go figure.
He continued to practice, the images from last night filling his mind. That kid…he sure did look a lot like me. But what is going on here? These weird dreams of mine only started up a while ago, yet what they show seems very familiar. But the question is; are they a product of my imagination or did all the things they show really happen? Tho' I can't imagine arguing with Yutaro like that…
The hope chest and dairy sat in front of her, seemingly mocking her. Kaoru sighed. I have nothing to be afraid of. I have nothing to be afraid of. I have something—NOTHING—to be afraid of. Aw, forget it.
Gulping, Kaoru picked up the dairy. On the front inside cover, there was a name. "Yukishiro…no wait…Himura…Tomoe…" she read slowly. There was never anyone I know of with that name in the family or in the old dojo registries. Maybe she was the wife of the man in the picture, the one that looks like Kenshin and has the same name, and he had her diary. But she wasn't in the picture; did she die? Kaoru clenched her teeth as a voice from memory rose in her, painful. "The brother of Himura Tomoe, sessha's wife…the wife killed by sessha's hand…"
"Okay, this has nothing to do with what I'm looking for, so on to the chest. Great, now I'm talking to myself." Kaoru muttered to herself.
She opened the chest. Kaoru carefully lifted out the old clothes that she had found when she had opened it before. She then carefully picked up the decorative bokken that rested beneath the clothes. It was beautiful, jasmine and sakura blossoms carved along the blade, painted, connected by braches to a single branch on the hilt. A baby tanuki sat at the base of the single branch, and a name was carved under the tanuki, painted in with gold. "'Kamiya Kaoru'. This belonged to my namesake?" Kaoru whispered.
Another memory filled her, this one not as physically painful. The rurouni…gave this to her…for her 18th birthday…she wondered how he could have afforded to give this to her…carved it himself? Kaoru's mind returns to the present with tears in her eyes. Why do I feel like something terrible happened only a few months after that happy day…when I…she…finally learned that he did love her…
Rubbing her eyes, Kaoru picked up the old photograph and sat it aside, to show the others later. The chest was now empty. She frowned. I guess that this doesn't have what I'm looking for. "Wait…" she whispered. "In the room I'm in…there's another chest…"
Remembering that fact, Kaoru nearly ran to her room, after carefully replacing the clothing she had found, leaving out the bokken and photograph. She hadn't had the heart to move it into the closet when she claimed this room as her own. It felt like it belonged where it was. She opened the chest, and carefully removed the kimono, obi, hakama, and gi that rested inside one by one, looking for something that she knows she'll find.
Hitting bottom, Kaoru felt around for a loose plank that she somehow knew was there. Finding it, she lifted it up, reached into the space, and…
A diary. Flipping it open, Kaoru whispered the name that was written on the inside front cover, and realized that this may be what she was looking for. "'The diary of Kamiya Kaoru'…Kami-sama."
Later that night…
The five of them stared at the diary on the table, like it was going to bit them. "Well…who's gonna read it?" asked Yahiko.
"I think Jou-chan should read it. I mean, didn't it belong to your namesake or somethin'?" asked Sanosuke.
"It looks that." Kaoru didn't really look convinced by that.
Megumi sighed and said, "Well get on with it tanuki-chan."
"Don't call me that." Kaoru growled, but she reached for the diary anyway.
"This was definitely written in Meiji. Looks like it was started in February of Meiji 11. 'Today was…unbelievable. Otou-san once said that sometimes, if you write something out, you can deal with it better. I've had this diary for a while, so I guess I should start now. There's been a man calling himself Hitokiri Battousai who's been killing people in the name of my dojo, the Kamiya Dojo. I've been going out early every morning trying to find him. I can across this one man, about my height, wearing a sword on his belt. I attacked him, and he crashed into a fence. No idiot like that could possibly be Battousai. His sword wasn't even a proper blade! The cutting and blunt edges were reversed; a sakabatou. Why would carry a sword that can't kill? He said that he was a rurouni. Then the police whistle blew and I ran off. It was Battousai, attacking the policemen. I got cut, and the rurouni saved me. He's sleeping in the shed, 'cuz he ran in on me in the bathhouse. He's staying with me since I doubt that he has room for an inn. My last three students are gone; no one wants to learn the style that Battousai uses. But my family's dojo never teaches murder! It teaches self-improvement through the blade. Besides, the dojo was only established 12 years ago, after Battousai had made his name in Kyoto. Even now, the name 'Battousai' strikes fear. I hope the rurouni stays a while; even if he is a wanderer. He cooks better than me.' That's the end of the first entry." Kaoru said.
"Well read on!" exclaimed Sanosuke.
Why do I seem to know just what is going to happen next? Wondered Kenshin.
Casting a worried look at Kenshin, Kaoru moved onto the next entry. "'I know I wrote yesterday that what happened was unbelievable, but today was even more unbelievable. I had a dream last night, about a man that my father broke the thumb of and expelled 11 years ago. His name was Hiruma Gohei. Right after I found his name in the registries, he came in with a bunch of lackeys. He explained that he wanted revenge on the dojo for what happened. Also, with the westernization policy, the land value of the dojo would increase 5 or 6 fold. As I am the last of the Kamiya line that I know of, so long as he got my thumbprint on a new deed, he could get me out of the way and take the dojo. I couldn't hurt him; he was so much bigger than me. One of lackeys slid the door open, and fell, revealing the rurouni. Gohei asked him if he believed in my dojo's teachings of katsujin-ken, the sword that protects. He said no. As my heart fell, he said, "A sword is a weapon. The art of swordsmanship is the art of killing. No matter what pretty words you use to speak of it, this is its true nature. What Kaoru-dono says are the words of one who has never bloodied her hands; an idealistic joke. But sessha prefers her idealistic joke over the truth. If sessha could have a wish, it would only be that her joke became the truth of this world." Gohei ordered his lackeys to kill him. I yelled at the rurouni—there was no way he could have handled all of those guys—but he just stand there calmly, and told the lackeys that if they didn't like seeing the doctor, then they should leave. They answered back that no one would need a doctor; that there would only be his bloody corpse. They jumped him, and… he flattened them. Even with my training, I could barely keep up with his movements. Someone wondered out loud whether he was using magic. But it wasn't magic; it was speed. The only school that teaches that kind of speed is so rare, with only one master and one apprentice, and there was no way that the rurouni could be of that school… Gohei took in the rurouni, and I realized what he did. Red hair…cross-shaped scar on his cheek…speed that rivals that of the gods…
'This sweet, smiling man was the most feared assassin of the Bakumatsu no Douran, Himura 'Hitokiri' Battousai.
'Facing him, Gohei was no match for him. And after all that, that jerk was just gonna leave me to clean up the entire mess! He said some nonsense about it would be against my best interests to have the real Battousai staying in my dojo. I told him that if he insisted on going, that he could at least tell me his name. His real name. He told me. Himura Kenshin. 'Heart of the Sword', how fitting.
'He wound up staying, if only for a while. But he's not sleeping in the shed. Unless he walks in on me in the bath again…'"
The room was quiet. No one spoke, lost in thought about what they had heard. Slowly, one by one, as the minutes turned into hours, each retreated to their own room. Kenshin was the last to retreat.
Reaching his room, he sat down heavily on the tatami. Why do I feel so possessive when I remember that incident? Like it hasn't been haunting my dreams for a few years now. The feelings he had when he remembered his dreams…stunned him. The waves of possessiveness and anger that came off some dark corner of his mind, a corner he didn't want to acknowledge but somehow knew would have to in some future scared him. That part of him that declared Kaoru his. That part of him that bristled when Kaoru, Yahiko, and Sanosuke told him what happened to their school, the part of him that seemed to know just who was behind these incidents.
(So you're finally starting to figure it out, Rurouni.)
Kenshin's eyes, which he did not remember closing, flew open at the sound of the voice inside his head. It sounded like him, but…harsher. Darker. Less sane.
"Who are you?" Kenshin whispered soundlessly. "Get out of my head."
(But I can't do that, you see. I'm you and you're me. At least, I was once you. But now we are completely different. Except on one thing. You want to what that is?)
Kenshin gulped as he slowly nodded his head, clinging to some desperate hope that whoever it was in his head was someone else.
(She belongs to us. No matter how many times we die, no matter how many times we are reborn, she will always be ours. No exceptions.)
"No. I could never—not without her permission, and even then…" He tried to reason with the voice, but all he got in return was mocking laughter that sent chills up his spine.
Hands moving on their own, Kenshin lifted up one tatami mat, removed a loose floor board, reached into a hidden space, and…
A journal.
Kenshin stared at it, the way one watches an enraged snake or circling predator. He knew, without even checking for a name in the front inside cover, that it was his.
He had no classes the next day, and there was no way he was going to go to sleep, not with Crazy Voice-san in his head. Summoning his will, Kenshin opened the journal to reveal messy, barely legible kanji and kana, and began to read, searching for knowledge that he wasn't too sure that he wanted to learn…
End of Chapter 9-Knowledge
Sorry about the delay. I've been working on MII, and there's school, and my friend Sarah got me hooked on Gensomaden Saiyuki. If you want bishonen, read that. But I like the RurouKen guys better The Saiyuki guys remind me of some of the guys in RurouKen. Hakkai reminds me of Kenshin, Gojyo reminds me of Sanosuke, Goku reminds me of Yahiko, and Sanzo reminds me of Saitou. But with Lirin clinging on his head, since she reminds me of Misao, then he reminds me of Aoshi, if only because of that attraction, though he's more vocal.
Sorry about the lack of Sano/Megumi moments. This story focuses a lot on Kenshin/Kaoru, but their moment will be next chapter. If I remember. Their story is sad, but the Kenshin/Kaoru story is sadder. You'll see what I mean when I finally reveal just what happened.
Kenjutsu-hime: Kenjutsu princess
Sessha: Kenshin's 'I', Viz translates it as 'this one'
Bokken: wooden sword
Kimono, gi, hakama: Japanese clothing. There's more than one of each in the chest, but you don't do plurals in Japanese, you use counting numbers, but I don't know those prefixes for clothing.
Obi: sash worn with the kimono
Kami-sama: Oh my god
Tanuki: raccoon dog
Otou-san: Father
Bakumatsu no Douran: Bakumatsu
Tatami: those floor mats you see in anime and manga, if they're in a traditional house and/or a shrine
Kanji: Chinese symbols used in Japanese writing
Kana: symbols used in Japanese writing that are purely Japanese but derived from kanji; there's two different systems, one used for native words, the other used for loan words taken from languages other than Chinese and for emphasize on words.
Ya see that button in the bottom right hand corner? The one calling your name and begging you to click it? Click it and tell me what you think.