Megumi wasn't sure how long she stared at the journal, at delicately written words that whispered of a little life snuffed out like a candle. Carefully, hoping against hope, she turned dusty page after page in the ash infused journal, praying that there would be some sign that the girl, that the young woman named Rin had somehow managed to beat the odds and lived to write another entry.
Other than a desperately tender list of Rin's never-ever experiences, there was nothing, save a page near the end that had a scrawled email address and what Megumi assumed was Ken-san's mobile number. His writing was the antithesis of the girl's, masculine, and a little messy.
(Nothing…but ashes…)
Megumi picked the journal, the little heartbreaking accounting of a life gone wrong, and held it against her chest, cradling the dirty, dusty document like a mother would an ailing child. She was horrified, heartsick, and indescribably sad as the full ramifications of this loss, this utter lack of living hit home.
(My father…)
She sank down into the nest of blankets, still holding the journal as she curled into a little ball.
(He wasn't just someone who worked on the Himura Project)
She closed her eyes, remembering against her will watching her father's calm face as she fell away from him after he'd dropped her, the lack of care or compassion as she struck the floor, her head cracking open on the cold marble.
(He WAS the project…)
She swallowed, swallowed again, then had to get up quickly and run outside where she was violently sick to her stomach, vomiting over the side of the building. Heaving, her body trying to expel the idea of such monstrosity along with the food that her system so desperately needed, she sobbed in between shuddering coughs until she didn't have tears to shed or stomach bile to bring up. (How could he do this?) Weakened, she rolled over to her side, her arm hanging limply over the lip of the roof. (How could he inflict such horrors on innocent children?)
A dark part of her mind whispered that she knew perfectly well how such a thing could happen. (Is it so different from what I had a hand in doing?) There wasn't that big of an ethical gap between innocent children and innocent solders who thought they were doing their duty to their country, only to have their lives taken violently from them as their DNA broke down, causing instant systemic organ failure. And while she could claim perhaps that she didn't know that the serum was going to be tested years before it was ready, and wasn't exactly a willing participating in the research, it didn't negate the fact that a part of that unnatural concoction came from her and that ignorance counted little against the life of another human being. Megumi groaned. She could taste vomit in her mouth and rolled to her stomach as another round of useless dry heaves overcame her.
(I am my father's child after all…)
It was the worst single realization of her very long life.
She spent most of the night thusly, her body exposed and prone to the dark sky and the cold, laying still and silent like the dead thing she never could quite be. Eventually, she rolled from her side to her back and watched, her tear soaked lashes freezing on her face as the stars and moon rotated overhead in a celestial dance that she didn't understand and certainly had no part of. She was numb, freezing from the inside out at the realization that the horrendous legacy of her father hadn't stopped with herself, her brothers or even Rin and the other nameless, faceless children of the HIMURA project. (It extends through me, like an aggressive cancer that has metastasized) She closed her eyes, feeling decidedly non-benign.
She considered the counsel that Ken-san had given her on another roof when she wanted to cast herself off of it. His admonition in the aftermath of such horrific knowledge seemed laughable, foolish and impossibly naïve, a gentle platitude that didn't pass the muster of her wretched choices and repugnant legacy.(If he knew who I was, whose child I am, perhaps he would have given me a well needed push…)
Meg swung her overhanging hand slightly, the cold air causing her to shiver. That old, useless temptation flared. She ignored it. What use was dying if you didn't stay dead? No. She had to come up with some other way of atoning.
(How can I possibly make amends?) She thought of all the other children that her father had destroyed. She thought of kind Captain Sagara and his brave officers who she had inadvertently helped murder.
But most of all, as she lay on the roof looking up at the sky, she thought of Rin.
I have never, ever really lived at all… She found it beyond ironic that a child who wanted to survive and experience life had been cruelly culled while a woman who found no redeeming value in drawing breath was condemned to experience year after year of existence.
(Would that we could trade places…) Megumi frowned, moving her hand to rest atop the now healed hole in her chest. (Would that she could have the time allotted to me instead…)
Megumi's frown deepened as she looked up at the dark sky and the pale moon's valleys, plains and shadows. (I have all the time in the world…) A thought formed, was discarded and then cautiously was picked up again and re-examined.
She thought and thought, unaware that hours were passing, that the darkness was waning and a greyish dawn was approaching fast on the Eastern horizon.
(…and so does she) While the child's body had been reduced to ashes, her dreams, her hopes, her heartbreaking list of never-evers had gained a foothold in another life, had found a home in another's thoughts and memory.
(Rin will live in me. Through me.)
Megumi stood up, her icy features frozen with resolve as she marched back to the shack.
ebruary 8, 2060 My Name is Megumi. I am 41 years old* and have never, ever done anything worth writing about. I'm writing this journal on behalf of and in the memory of Rin in the hope that it will make it harder for her story to ever be forgotten. I've never kept a journal in my life, but decided that a late start is better than nothing. Tonight I will make a list of the things that Rin wanted to do and add to it the things that I have never ever done. Perhaps if there is a next life, if that child is more than ashes, she will remember this list.
I hope so, because it is a good one.
Megumi began with Rin's dreams, a list that comprised the hopes and desires of a very dead young girl and added to them a couple of rusty hopes and half-forgotten goal of a very weary and rather cynical woman. As far as lists went, it was nothing spectacular, but as Rin had wisely written on the eve of her demise, a late start was better than nothing.
Once her list was done, Megumi carefully re-read the entire journal, turning each page slowly as she committed the contents to memory. Near the very back, she found that she'd missed something earlier. She gasped and hesitantly pulled out a small piece of paper that had been slipped tightly up against the crack of the journal binding and that had photo stickers randomly affixed to it. They were old photos and small, each not much larger that the width of two thumbnails set side by side.
"Kenshin," she murmured, wide eyed as she looked at the odd set of photographs. They were pictures of her friend as a child. He'd been a tiny child, a darling red haired whisp of a boy, who seemed hell bent on making his companion, a dark haired, handsome man who was anything but whispy smile. In a couple of photographs, the little boy seemed to almost be succeeding. She looked at the child, seeing in the youthful features the hints of Kenshin's adult visage, and then looked very carefully at the other person in the photograph, a man she surprisingly knew.
(What are the odds…) Megumi thought as she ghosted a finger over one of the stickers, remembering back to an unexpected meeting many years before, of an evening that had been filled with conversation, music and dancing. The man had aged, but only a little. (Except for his eyes) she conceded, seeing in the dark orbs the heavy burden that time and knowledge had bestowed to the tall soldier.
"I wonder if you're still alive," she wondered aloud as she took the photo covered slip of paper out of the journal and set it carefully atop one of the boxes, (This was not something that Ken-san would have wanted to part with), "and what you would think of this fine, fine world we're living in?" They had spoken, she and the man who Kenshin was trying to make smile, had spoken of many things that night, of hopes and possibilities and the promises of a world and of people being better.
Megumi smirked, her expression becoming bitter as she compared the woman she had been then (so young, so hopeful and idealistic) with the woman she was now and wondered if Kenshin's companion had fared any better in his endeavors. Somehow she doubted it. A part of her wondered what role he played in the HIMURA project, why he of all people, had somehow bonded with the child in the pictures. A larger part of her didn't want to know.
(Too many questions…not enough answers….)
She sat silently for several minutes, thinking about how this potentially changed things with Kenshin, with herself. The moment of reverie passed. It was growing bright outside and she had to get moving. Megumi forced herself to prepare more rice and eat it. She would need energy for the task ahead. Once she'd shoved more hot rice down her sore throat and swallowed bottled water till she felt like bursting, she began to tidy up the little nest of Ken-san's making. The sun was rising and she would soon need to leave this place.
She folded up the blankets on the floor, placing them neatly atop cardboard boxes, then after a moment's hesitation, stripped naked, folded up the bloodstained clothing and set the crimson dyed shirt and sweatpants beside the blankets that smelled faintly like her friend. The clothes he'd lent her could not be salvaged, but she knew better than to casually discard evidence of her almost but not quite demise. She then washed herself as well as she was able with some bottled water. (I'll have to find a shower or bathroom as soon as I can and do a better job) Megumi worriedly, hoping that she now just looked ill-kept rather than as if she'd just been shot in the chest.
She put on her scrubs, grimacing with distaste as she pulled the hateful garments over her head and up her slender hips, then rummaged around the shack for several minutes, hoping against hope that she might find an old pair of shoes, socks or boots to slip on her bare feet. She came up empty handed or specifically empty footed. Nor was she able to find anything that resembled a jacket, sweatshirt or coat. She was out of luck. (And unless I want to attract undue attention, Ken-san is going to be out a blanket until I can find other clothing to wear …) Regretfully, Megumi picked a blanket and wrapped it around her shoulders, trying it on for size.
(ooc: *While Megumi is chronologically 41, her physiological age is closer to that of a woman in her late teens to early twenties. Rapid cellular regeneration dramatically slows the aging process, an unexpected side effect of synthetic DNA intracellular bonding. )