The second chapter. Enjoy!
But I first would like to thank those who reviewed last chapter. It was more than I thought I would get to be honest. And to those lurking out there. Thank you all very much for reading!
I also inquire you to read the author notes. They are very important at times. Well, mine are. I usually put some info on whatever in them so please read them over. See, now this one is important. It's saying the importance of the author notes.
Just tell me to shut up anytime.
Japanese Glossary: Nasakenai- shameful, deplorable. Shimatta- damn it. Ondori- rooster. Kuso- shit. Kusotare- shithead or bastard. Tori-Atama- translated to 'Rooster Head' in the anime but really means something like 'Bird-brain'. Nani- what.
Disclaimer: I do not own Samurai X or Rurouni Kenshin. But they're both on my Christmas list (even though the holiday is a ways away still) but the only thing is somehow getting this to Watsuki-sama before then….and getting past the people who stopped me last time I tried….
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Love That Never Dies
Chapter Two
Remember Me
Drizzling droplets splattered across the concrete in no particular pattern. People holding brief cases and umbrellas over their heads scurried this way and that way to escape the oncoming downpour, oblivious to the two clad in old fashions standing amidst the commotion.
Battousai flicked his confused gaze from the woman before him to the people around him and saw how they paid him no heed
It was as if he wasn't there.
Always, he could slip through crowds as nothing more than a shadow. But even then someone was bound to spare at least a fleeting glance to the soundless redhead.
"Kenshin," She spoke again, sadness and longing in her voice and eyes for him he that could not fathom.
'What is this woman?'
Nothing more could be said when he turned and ran from the situation at hand. It felt so wrong putting the distance between them but his feet carried him away with the swiftness of the wind and silence of the cat.
Strange he thought as the spot her fingers almost contacted above his brow became significantly cooler than the raging fires that continuously seared his skin, tortured him.
Ever since that night, that memory that brutally silenced anything and everything before that event. He could remember nothing but that raining night.
But her. She had an extraordinary hold on him that he never imagined possible for one as cold and distant as he.
Battousai only demanded his feet to halt once he reached the city limits and he stared at the long strip of pavement stretching for miles to the horizon. Perhaps if he left Kyoto he would be left alone. Perhaps if he stayed…
Battousai shook his head and turned back to the lights, amber crystals reflecting each and every ray to come in contact with the darken orbs through the drenching water falling from the sky. He would never run from something as trivial as this.
'Nasakenai.' He thought upon himself as he stalked back into the city.
Never would he run from a challenge.
The Hitokiri Battousai never ran.
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"Shimatta!" Sanosuke roared, swinging in his anger at the wall. Kaoru stood behind him, sapphire eyes unfocused as if in a daze. "We've searched all these years for him and he runs off! Kusotare!"
"It's not like he wants to be found." Yahiko spoke from his seat against the stairs leading to the back entrance to a building.
"He didn't remember you at all?" The ondori asked Kaoru. She nodded negatively. "Kuso. Maybe I should get hold of him and knock some memories into the big head of his."
"Yeah right." Yahiko snorted. "Would that be before or after he kicks your ass? He's not Kenshin, that's Battousai, Tori-Atama!"
"Shut up!"
"Now is not the time for this!" Kaoru barked, silencing them both. Somberness returned as her angered face fell with her question. "What will we do now?"
"Only you can do it." Sano said, lifting his arms, palms to the sky. "I can't. Yahiko can't. Kenji and Sanami can't do it either."
"I know." She answered. "I just don't know what I'm supposed to do when the time comes."
"The only thing I can say is that it'll just…well," Sano stammered, not real sure of what he was meaning to say.
"Geez, Kaoru. What happened to you in your old age?" Yahiko felt the heat from her glare and finished his thought quickly. "You'll know." He blurted. "When it comes down to it, you'll know."
There was shock in the air before Sano broke the moment. "That's the smartest thing I think the kid's said his whole life AND death."
"Shut the hell up, Sanosuke! I'm gonna beat the life into you!"
"Beat the what? And there it goes, folks."
"Can it, Tori-Atama!"
Kaoru sighed and gazed into the watery sky. The downpour didn't last too long and it now drizzled but the storm looked far from over. She had stood there when he disappeared from her sight again, a terror that she had never seen in his eyes whenever they were the color of molten flames or the blue-purple of the rurouni she fell helplessly in love with all those years ago.
How could things have turned this way? She had pushed the sense of dread from her mind that night, smothered it with the knowledge of his capability of taking care of himself.
Oh, how she wished she voiced those gnawing concerns when she last saw his smile before disappearing into the rain.
Tears flooded her vision, blurring the barely visible stars shining through a small gap in the rolling clouds and when the thunder clapped, water rained from the midnight sky as drops of heavy burdens and loss fell from her dull eyes, mixing with the cold tears of the air.
Kaoru fell to her knees, crouched low to the ground with her arms wrapped protectively around her middle as the rain soaked through her clothes and chilled her broken heart. The harsh sobs wrenching themselves from her throat were overpowered by the loud clattering of the shower as she buried her face in her hands, the tears soon dripping from between her fingers. The indigo ribbon fluttered to the ground, allowing her long, raven-black hair to flare across her back.
She had taken Yahiko's words to heart, about knowing when the time came. That did not scare her. That she believed to be true. But what scared, no, terrified her was what if that chance never presented itself? She never had the chance to save him? What if they spent the rest of eternity chasing a ghost of the revolution who was damned to roam the earth and never find peace?
Irritation filtered its way through the pain and her eyes hardened with determination. How could she condemn herself to failure before she really began? How could she abandon him in his time of greatest need, even if he didn't know of it himself?
Though the tears still ran down her face, she made a solemn vow that she would do everything within her power to save him. Her husband. Her rurouni.
And she kept her promises.
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A surge in the left side of his chest tore a gasp from his mouth.
Shooting a glare at the speedily thumping organ beating through his chest, his scanned around him for whatever made his heart twist like that. A flash before his eyes revealed to him that same woman huddled on the ground, violent tears pouring from lifeless orbs and his heart wrenched again.
The sudden urge to find her and take her into his arms nearly overwhelmed him and his head spun as he savagely fought the feelings.
'Damn her.'
Battousai stumbled in his steady steps into the place he decided to remain. He did not even called a home. He had no home.
A murderer like him did not have a home, didn't need one.
Couldn't have one.
He nearly fell as he lowered himself to the floor with much less grace than usual. Even as he sat awake for many hours, his vision was filled with pictures of her, haunting and comforting.
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He made sure to stay clear of that bar and especially the stand across the street from it He was no coward but he'd be damned to let her do that to him again. As the nights slowly elapsed, she never showed. Battousai felt what could have passed as relief at this. The fire that raged under his skin had long since passed and he had forgotten the whole episode. Or so he wished. Solemnly, he'd find himself searching for a brightly colored kimono weaving it's way through the crowds. He swore he heard the laughter of children calling him a number of times. Every now and then he could feel slender, loving arms wrapped around him and with it came the warmth of a body pressed close when he woke and, for a second, it felt like home.
He was going insane.
Never before had he felt the want to draw blood.
This was becoming too much for him to handle and it angered him more so.
For all those nights she was gone, not a drop of rain nor a cloud in the sky passed over the city and he should have known what he would see when the thunderstorm rolled in.
There she stood, the wind whipping both their hair in the fierce gusts of wind. The anger that was building inside took the reigns as he quietly approached her. She gasped as a firm hand grasped her shoulder and spun her around to shove her into an alleyway and against the wall. Raging flames of molten amber glowed brightly in the silhouette of him.
"What did you do to me?" Battousai snarled, his hand itching to grasp the single katana in his possession. She remained silent as she never faltered under his dangerously cold stare that would have had any man wetting himself in fear. "Answer me!"
The words that came from her mouth where softly spoken. "You still don't remember, do you?"
"That is not an answer, woman. Now answer me."
She shook her head, tears pooling in her eyes and he resisted the urge to wipe them away, his grip on her arms tightening but she never made a sound. "I cannot give you an answer to that, Kenshin." His lips curled in a snarl at his name that she had no business of knowing. "But there is something I can give you. If you'd only let me."
"Nani?" Battousai asked but she was already shifting in his unmoving state at the thing she said that he did not comprehend.
Her shaking fingers reached to touch his forehead.
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Guess what. It's rained! YAY! I'm happy. With the thunder and the lightning and all the good stuff! Isn't that right CA?
CA:back turned to authoress:
JSB: Hello! I guess she's distracted again…
CA: Oh, I'm distracted all right:turns and suddenly has a very large and deadly weapon:
JSB: EEP! I forgot!
CA:chases the poor authoress with the strange manner of deadly weapon for saying Aoshi was there when he wasn't in the last chapter:
Please review if you wish. The authoress would greatly appreciate it seeing as it will be the last thing she ever reads…:sweatdrop: