The Tears of a Warrior
Chapter 11 - Shades of Revolution
Chizuru nervously glanced at Kaoru as they walked through town. It'd always been awkward for her whenever an adult accompanied her, even if that adult happened to be the mother of the boy who she cared deeply for. Not only that, the girl noticed that Kaoru possessed several bruises that ran up and down her arms, the kimono unable to hide such conspicuous marks. Though she noticed them, she wasn't sure if she should mention it. After all, Chizuru felt as though she was being nosy and shamelessly trying to pry into Kaoru's personal business wasn't something she wanted to do. …However, those cuts and bruises concerned her and she knew that Kenshin hadn't been the type of man to inflict damage onto his loved ones.
"Aaah, Kaoru-san…I-I have a question…"
Kaoru noticed Chizuru's sporadic stuttering and looked down upon the girl in question. "What's the matter?"
She wasn't sure exactly on how to phrase it. Granted, she couldn't just blurt out something along the lines of, 'Oh no! Your arms are so repulsive looking! What happened to you?' Chizuru shook her head at the mere thought that formulated in her mind. "Um," she muttered just above a whisper. Kaoru arched an eyebrow once she saw Chizuru fumbling with the sleeves of her conservative blue kimono. "…Kaoru-san…um, w-what would you do if someone hurt you badly?"
"Physically you mean? Why, did someone do that to you?" Kaoru inquired in a concerned tone of voice.
"No, no it's not me. …I'm just worried…because I saw the marks on your arms…" she slowly trailed off and averted her eyes from the older woman. "I'm worried, Kaoru-san."
Kaoru took a deep breath and looked down at her hands, "there's no need to be worried. I'm all right."
Chizuru took Kaoru's abruptness as a signal that she no longer felt comfortable talking about the subject. And yet it still made Chizuru wonder if she really was all right. She knew Kaoru to be a strong individual and nothing short of brave. So why had she turned away? Had Kaoru been abused? "If she really was, I'm not sure I want to know who did it to her. I'm sure whoever inflicted such damage on her must have been very strong," the youth pondered. "All right," she spoke cheerfully, "I believe you. I'm sorry to even bring it up."
"No, it's all right Chizuru-san. I appreciate your concern," Kaoru replied mutely.
The two had been talking for what seemed like quite a long time. The awkward feelings Chizuru had experienced in the past two minutes had decimated, as she realized that they reached her home. Chizuru stammered a quick goodbye before promptly jogging toward her front door. "I hope she doesn't think I'm rude," Chizuru thought again to herself, busily playing with the sleeves of her kimono. Kaoru knew it to be a nervous habit of Chizuru's but thought nothing of it as she waved goodbye to the girl.
"Now I'm starting to worry everyone around me…" Kaoru muttered as she solemnly went on her way.
Kenshin fumbled through the drawer in his room while his son looked…quite apathetic…to say the least. He wasn't even sure as to why he asked his father about his past. There was nothing he could do about it now. He let his blue eyes busily dart around the room to make up for the lack of communication. There was something stagnant in the room, possibly because they hadn't uttered one word to each other ever since Kenshin told Kenji to follow him. And of course, Kenji had been known to appear fidgety if ever he was presented with some sort of awkward situation. This was of course, no exception. He hoped to find something around the room in hopes of finding something worth looking at.
The teen glanced down at his hands and examined his fingers. Ah, that hangnail looked pretty interesting right then and there. Or how about the fact that one of the floorboards seemed to be loose? Surely the candle in the corner of the room had some sort of appeal…?
…
No such luck.
"It would be GREAT if I could get the hell out of here. But nooooo, I just HAD to freaking ASK. Now I'm sitting here and practically pretending that the floor is remotely interesting. Joy."
"Now where did I put it?" Kenshin silently cursed and proceeded to look through more drawers.
"As if he didn't have enough to look through," Kenji's thoughts hissed inside of his mind.
"There's no way I could have misplaced it…" Kenshin murmured yet again.
"Wait…misplaced what?" Kenji's eyes began to widen.
"I wrote all of my entries in there!"
"ENTRIES?" Kenji shrieked.
"Yes, entries. I wrote a journal," Kenshin replied, "why, is that a problem?" He arched an eyebrow and looked at his son. Kenji looked as though he was going to have a heart attack. The poor unfortunate realized what he had said…a moment too late.
"Shit! I said that out loud! Now he's gonna ask me why I said that. Then I'm gonna get it from him cause I HAVE his journal! And then mother will find out! And she'll get mad at me too! And then she might not let me see Chizuru as punishment…!"
"…Kenji, are you all right?"
"…swing down with his sword and get my THROAT CUT or something!" Kenji let his shoulders drop as soon as he finished ranting. His colorful imagination had really gotten the best of him. He quickly regained composure, as he vaguely remembered Kenshin asking if he was all right. No. 'All right' would be refraining from blurting out that Kenji obviously knew something about his journal entries. 'All right' would most probably mean that Kenji should not have been hyperventilating. And yet…
"I'm all right, father," Kenji said stoically.
Kenshin was certain that Kenji was just putting up a front. However, he dismissed the issue by averting his eyes. "Well, since I must have misplaced my journal, I guess I'll tell you everything I know from memory. Is that okay with you?"
Kenji, on the other hand, was merely thinking about how he dodged the bullet concerning the journal. He was sure that Kenshin had suspected him, but Kenji counted his lucky stars like a good boy and let the matter be put to rest. "Yeah sure, whatever you say," he replied absently.
Kenshin readied himself to share his life story with his only son. His only child, whose flesh and blood came from a part of him, and a part of Kaoru as well. He wasn't sure if there was a delicate way to go about sharing his adventures and his hardships. However, he was certainly willing to try if it meant having Kenji accept him as his father.
"I guess…that things must have been hard for you, Kenji. I don't know for certain, since I'm not you. But I can imagine that growing up without someone to always be there for you was difficult." Kenji folded his arms and turned his nose up at Kenshin. "And I've never been able to talk with you about my life because I always felt that you were too young. I didn't know if you would be willing to talk to me. But now you're 15-years-old."
"I'm aware of that," Kenji retorted.
"I think that I was very similar to you when I was your age. Truly. I…was told that I was a caring person. And I did my best to try and help others. My parents died of cholera when I was very young. I felt as though helping people was something I was obligated to do. Since I had no parents, I hadn't wanted people to become accustomed to the suffering I once experienced. I think it was too much for me to handle at such a young age."
"And why do you say that?"
"Because I wanted to rush in and blindly help everyone I possibly could. And my master knew that. He tried to stop me from going, he said I was his idiot apprentice," Kenshin paused and felt his lips curl upward. Though Kenshin hadn't let out an appreciative laugh, he smiled for a few moments before continuing his story, "and during the Revolution, I said that I could see pain and suffering right in front of my eyes. Even though I was one person, I had to help. I had to try and make a difference somehow. I think I was around fourteen…"
"But you should have known that just one person probably wouldn't have helped at all. No, instead, you worsened the situation and earned yourself a hateful name."
"Yes. I became a Hitokiri. It was…sort of ironic…that I was trying to stop assassins and yet I ended up becoming one myself. That whole time was depressing. The whole time…when I got this scar…" Kenshin faintly placed his fingers upon his cheek. The scar was still there, its outlines faint and light pink. "It rained blood. Everyday. I never imagined I would see so much…crimson in a mere four years."
"How did you get your scar?"
"…It was the doing of two people. And I killed them both. One of the deaths was completely unintentional."
"Who was it?"
Kenshin's eyes narrowed and as he looked down at the floor, bangs of red shielded his vision. For a moment, he sat thinking about Tomoe. He wasn't sure if he really wanted to tell his son about her. Or worse, he wasn't sure of what he might think of it all. After all, she had been the first to steal his heart away. She was his first love, his sheath during the chaotic times of the Revolution. If it weren't for her, he wasn't sure if the ice around his heart would ever thaw out. Such an important role in his life she was. And Kenshin was contemplating if he should hide her from his son. "…A woman."
"You should really stop being so vague," he said crossly.
"She was…the woman I had fell in love with during the Revolution…"
Kenji's eyes widened. "You…you killed her?"
"Unintentionally. But even before that, I felt as though our relationship was also unintentional. You see, the person that gave me half of this scar, and the one that I killed first…was her fiancé." Kenji took a step backward in disbelief. "I imagine that she was crestfallen…and most likely wanted revenge for what I had done to shatter her life. However…I'm not even sure of what happened. I met her again in a bar… and we began spending more time with one another. And that was how our love somehow came to be. I met her when I was fifteen, your age. And she had been eighteen."
Kenji said nothing; his facial expressions spoke volumes instead. In the pit of his stomach lay an unfamiliar sickness. Something that made him want to throw up. Learning even the beginning trials of his father's life had been difficult enough for the teen to bear.
"Tell me Kenji…do you know what love is?"
Kenji looked up into his father's solemn eyes and reluctantly nodded. "I…I think I am in--"
"With Chizuru-dono?"
Kenji nodded. "…I feel as though she is very important to me, and that I will always be there to protect her no matter what dangers I might face. She's always been there to talk with me and to listen. In some ways, she is my most valuable friend."
"What I felt with her was similar to your description."
"No…" Kenji muttered. "No. You met her under the circumstances where she was initially looking for revenge and most probably wanted you dead… And she somehow changed her mind and fell in love with you even though you killed her fiancé. That situation isn't even remotely similar to how I care for Chizuru-san." Kenshin sighed and folded his hands. "That woman… that woman was… only out to kill you at first. I wouldn't even call her feelings for you love. And I don't care if you'd like to argue that they were. I, personally, have no attachment to whoever this was. Mother is the only one who I considered to be truly in love with you."
"I know she is but--"
"Then where does your heart stand? Do you still think of that woman all those years ago? Because if you do, then I have nothing to say to you right now. If you still think of her as your lover, then you are obviously not the man everyone thinks you are. You are a cheater. You cheat mother. And I will not stand for that. Ever." Kenji backed away further and quickly dismissed himself from Kenshin's room. "I will never forgive him for that. How dare he prove himself disloyal to mother," Kenji thought angrily, placing a hand on the hilt of his sword and stepping outside of the doujo for fresh air.
"I'm ready to face you again," Kaoru said sternly, her clammy hands shaking uncontrollably as she held her bokken in front of her.
"Your words and your body language are fighting intensely with themselves," Hikojirou calmly noted, readying himself with a shinai. "Are you sure you're ready for this again? You know, you can always succumb to me without having to hurt yourself. That's what it is, you're aware…it's self-infliction… You're allowing yourself to get hurt. You'll never win."
"Spare me. You know that I'll never back down. Especially if it means gaining my freedom from the likes of you."
"Touché, my dear."
Kaoru slowly let her eyelids close and tried her hardest to remember what Kenshin had been telling her. She tried to read Hikojirou as best she could, but the more she tried to listen to his heartbeat, the more she studied his facial features, she found him to be relaxed and as calm as ever. There were no traces of emotion once he held a weapon in his hand, something Kaoru found to be extremely difficult to overcome. But there was no way to back down now. Kaoru knew that.
She counted to three before quickly opening her droopy eyes and ran toward Hikojirou, making him think as though she was going to collide with him head on. He looked at her, the same vulpine smile attached to his lips, and waited for her to carry out her incredibly simple attack.
The agile woman leapt to the right in a matter of less than a second, came toward her target and allowed her knuckles to turn blazing white as she held onto her weapon with such an extreme force.
And then…there was blood.
The world went dark, and all was quiet…
A/N: Blah, I'm sorry this took so long. I remember writing this story in anticipation when it first started out. Then it sorta went... "eh" on me. But it's funny. Because once I started writing this chapter, I got so into it. Weird how that happens, huh? I wrote just a little more than usual in this story, probably because of that whole Kenji and Kenshin segment
I adore writing Kenji's parts in this story. He's so arrogant and yet he's really caring at the same time. I wasn't going to have Kenji forgive Kenshin in this chapter, since it'll probably take a lot for him to actually accept him. You can tell, since I (hopefully) made him appear stubborn.
Yes, a little cliffhanger for you all. I am actually going to start writing the next chapter right now. And I have a new story coming out soon. Stay tuned, haha
(And I do know that the title of this chapter is also an RK song) I found it...vaguely appropriate?
