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Chapter Three: A New Road
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It sounded so easy when he first set out to do it, but now that the red gate was in sight, the boy wasn't sure if he could. Walking through the gate itself seemed a transgression.
The stone pathway glistened beneath his feet in evening dew: the remnants of rain that had yet to fall its last on the streets of Kyoto. Kenshin knew how many years it had been since he had traveled to this part of town. He also knew how many days, and how many hours. The time mattered not, however, when his knees began to shake with each step he took.
Her headstone would come into view any minute now, and his breath was thick with the strain of keeping his emotions steady. He took the last few steps toward the grave and stood frozen before it, studying the cobblestones almost against his will, his head refusing on its own to look up--
'Anata...'
A gentle glance in his direction.
He knew she was smiling inside, even though it didn't show, and it warmed him.
It was the slight patter of a drop of rain on his neck that made him lift his eyes. The moment his gaze lit on the stone he found it obscured by drops of water, not rainwater this time, as he read the inscription.
The flame-haired boy knelt in silence, his left hand clenched around the hilt of his sword as though trying to hold on to some semblance of serenity in the face of bitter instability. He watched quietly as rain began to soak his skin and clothing, bringing the cold and heavy weight of the water.
...Bloody rain...
Kenshin clapped his hands together in succession, bowing his head as he knew to do, trying to follow what gods and tradition dictated in silence. But the more he tried to follow and school his mind into submission, the harder it became to retain the well-kept facade. Fragrant incense from one of the nearby graves filled his nostrils, and finally the shell was cracked as he pictured her face in his mind's eye.
It shattered almost instantly.
"Tomoe..."
The young man's hand went to his face, covering his eyes partly in shame and partly in such an utter despair that he felt it choking him. A sob was caught in his throat and he lurched forward, just barely catching himself before he hit the ground. His topknot fell from its constricting tie and fell about his shoulders, dripping with rain.
It was enough.
"Anata, I... I am trying. I am doing what I told you I would, but... it's just," he choked, "it's just hard, sometimes..."
The rain filled the silence with a shower of falling stars as he tried to keep talking to her, each word an ache in his breast:
"You weren't supposed to be there that day. In the snow..." The boy's shoulders shook. "I... I should've-- I'm sorry, I know I shouldn't think like that, " he stammered quickly, realizing his train of thought just as it left his mouth. "I know, I-- I'm sorry..."
Kenshin's face crumpled, and the sob found voice.
"...I miss you, anata..."
The boy dropped his head to his knees, pulling himself into a ball on the freezing, wet cobblestones, tears mixing with sheets of rain: the water beneath him no less beautiful than that which hung in the shimmering evening sky.
...I love you...
A few hours later, as Kenshin hauled himself to his feet, his sword wilting toward the ground in his grasp, and slowly trudged away into the bleeding night, a presence in the graveyard made itself known to the darkness. The letters on the headstone sparkled at his back, slicked with rain and almost reaching for him in the faint light as he disappeared into the haze:
Himura Tomoe
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"Are there no towels in this place?" Hayashii grumbled, rifling through the lower drawers of the cabinet. He'd just bathed and the cold was starting to get to him, due to the wind from the storm. It'd begun a few hours ago, while he was soaking, and actually it was much more relaxing to switch from steaming hot water to cold droplets, but now his wet hair was chilling him.
The room they'd been given was of average size and furnishing, but compared to the places he and Himura had slept for the past month, it was a palace. This did not mean, however, that Haiyashii was going to go without his towels. He was nearing fifty, after all.
"Time to take the initiative, I guess," he huffed to himself.
He dressed in his yukata, (which barely fit his broad frame and considerable paunch,) and made his way down the staircase at a relaxed pace. This was one of the most decadent luxuries he'd had in ages, and he intended to enjoy it in full. The government owed him that much after being trapped under a pile of bodies for hours, anyway. That battle still gave him nightmares, not to mention what had followed.
Damn boy keeps accusing me of scaring him... What about me? These gray hairs weren't here before I met you, Himura, he thought grumpily.
The cooks were hard at work from the smell of it, and his mouth began to water at the scent of roasting vegetables and piping hot soups. He could really go for one of those udon bowls he knew they were making. Maybe three.
Haiyashii poked his head out from behind the wall as he came to the main floor and made a beeline for the dining rooms, fully intending to stuff himself and go to bed uncomfortably full. He sniffed contentedly as the door came closer and closer, the handle in his grasp.
Ahh... They have fish broth too, not that weird root we had to use on the road--
"Thanks again, Yuki, that was--"
Without warning, the door slid open and a man walked straight into him, bowling him over onto his backside and landing on top of him with a yelp.
Haiyashii would have sighed, had the breath not nearly been knocked out of him.
Is there no rest for the weary?
The yukata-clad man on his stomach scrabbled to get off of him, simultaneously trying to help him up and making a general mess of things.
"I'm terribly sorry, sir--"
Hayashii snarled in annoyance, waving the man's hands off him. "Watch where you're going, you little runt; that could've..." Abruptly he blinked in mid-reprimand.
"...Inoue?"
A pair of dark brown eyes peered up at him from where the man sat, practically in his lap.
"Captain?"
Hayashii was indeed confronted with his former underling from the Aizu squad.
"Inoue!" the man roared, wrapping both arms around him and squeezing the living daylights out of him with a bear hug as he struggled.
"Captain-- can't breathe--" the skinny man gasped out.
"Oh, sorry," Hayashii apologized sheepishly. He sat up and let the former soldier rise to his feet, obviously pleased to find him still alive. He was indecently happy to see him; it'd been far too long since he had seen any of his men from the war (or anyone willing to speak to him about it.) Hayashii began interrogating him jovially. "What happened to you after we separated? When did you get here?"
"Well, um, a few days ago," Inoue scratched his head, obviously pleased as well but trying not to show it. "I basically ran and hid after you saw me. After all, the Shinsengumi were after me too, being involved and all." The smaller man motioned that they enter the dining room while they talked, and he held the door for him. "There wasn't much to the hiding part, but conscience tends to catch up with you. I went into battle for the Ishin Shishi shortly before you did, apparently about a month or so. I survived, wandered a bit, and realized my best chances for employment lay here. Spent most of the battle sneaking around the sidelines, though," he finished embarrassedly.
"Well I'm more than glad you did," Hayashii told him, sitting on the tatami in seiza in one motion. "I can't tell you how nice it was to see a familiar living face. Aside from Himura I don't see many friends these days; makes me wonder if they're still out there."
Inoue looked slightly surprised. "You're still traveling with Battousai?"
"His name is Himura, Inoue."
"Oh, right," Inoue assented, acknowledging the misstep. "Sorry."
"Don't be," Hayashii reassured him. "There's not much to it except that's what he prefers. It's hard to insult him these days... Matter of fact it's hard to get him to react to anything at all," he muttered.
"He's doing well?" Inoue poured a cup of tea for his former senpai, pushing it towards him on the tabletop.
"As well as can be expected. I had to play a bit of a nursemaid after the last stunt he pulled," remarked Hayashii, accepting the cup. "He tried gutting himself after the final battle, believing it was in reparation. I had a time fixing him up after that, let me tell you."
Inoue stared at him.
"He tried to commit seppuku?"
Hayashii nodded grimly. "I'll never know what made him miss, but I found him in the field with his sword stuck through his side. He told me he deserved it, that he needed to pay for what he'd done." The former captain gazed into the depths of his teacup, watching his reflection in the liquid.
Inoue took a sip from his cup and laid it on the table carefully. "Why didn't he make himself pay for it, in the end?" he inquired. His tone was more rhetorical than accusatory.
Hayashii looked up at him.
"...He is paying for it."
The two men were somber for a while, drinking tea in silence while a few customers entered and left, carrying noodle bowls. The waitress had just deposited a bowl of broth in front of Hayashii when a loud bang came from the direction of the front gates. Hayashii and Inoue listened, the bigger man preparing his chopsticks as a pair of voices came lilting from the lobby through the shoji doors:
"Sir, are you all right? Do you need to... oh, my--"
"Himura-san? What--"
Hayashii dropped the bowl and rushed to the door, swishing it fulling open and running into the front foyer. He found a pair of servants huddled around a figure dripping with rain and leaning on a sword for support. The bigger man practically flung the two people to the wayside.
"Himura? Himura, what happened?" he barked out, glancing quickly over his bent form.
When he received no answer from the boy, Hayashii picked him up, sword and all, and headed for the dining hall. He could hear the former manslayer's ragged breathing and felt him shivering through the thin gi. He appeared unhurt, but Hayashii could guess from the water dripping onto the floor that he'd been caught in the rainstorm; for how long, he had no idea. If he was soaking, perhaps the aggravated wound had opened.
Inoue stood up swiftly as they entered, a shocked expression opening his mouth in an 'o'.
"Give me a blanket, please, and a cup of hot tea," Hayashii requested of him, and Inoue nodded before running off. The big man sat Kenshin down before the fireplace where two tea kettles were warming, rubbing the boy's arms for warmth and trying to get his attention.
"Himura?" pressed Hayashii. "Boy, look at me. You okay?"
Kenshin's eyes were vacant, but a small sliver of recognition slit through the fog as he met the older man's gaze.
"Hayashii," he murmured.
"Where did you go?" Hayashii questioned, flinging a blanket over his shoulders and tugging him into his lap. "I thought you said you were going the shrine and coming back for dinner. Mattaku, it's only down the block!."
"...I went to see her," he said in a whisper, finally looking at the larger man. His gaze was filled with wonder, but a single tear went unnoticed down his cheek. It was channeled by the scar marking his face. "I went to see her."
Hayashii's lips compressed into a thin line as he realized what had transpired. He put an arm around the boy's thin shoulders and pulled him close.
"She was happy you came," Hayashii assured him gently. "I know she was."
He tucked the boy's head beneath his chin to still his shivering, wrapping the blanket tighter around him and poking the fire to build the heat. Inoue entered just as Kenshin uttered his soft response:
"...Does she really want me to live...?"
The room went silent. Inoue stared, his teacup tilting and spilling a little onto the floor. The few patrons busied themselves with their food, trying to appear as though they hadn't heard. A waitress chose that moment to dart back into the kitchen, mumbling something about getting the soups.
Hayashii blanched. "Himura?" he said softly.
"Is this really how I'm supposed to do this?" The boy's voice was hoarse, raw with cold and emotion. "Was I wrong in my choice? Does she want me to try to carry this weight?"
"I believe she would say so," the bigger man answered finally.
Hayashii let him mull it over for awhile, watching intently as Kenshin's expression slowly changed.
"...I'm sorry," he murmured tiredly, leaning against him with a sigh. "'M just tired... 'S... harder to think... when 'm... tired..."
After a few moments, Hayashii felt his body relax fully in his arms, his breath evening in the rhythm of sleep, and the boy was out like a light. Hayashii smiled as Kenshin nugded his wrist as he slept, reminding him of a child fidgeting in a dream.
"Oyasumi, boy," the former captain breathed with a smile, stroking his flame-colored hair.
Inoue simply stared from his spot on the floor, unbelieving of the change in manner the boy seemed to have on his former commanding officer. For a little while he was fine, rocking the boy like a baby, muttering to him in a fatherly fashion.
The next second, Inoue was startled when the man spasmed so sharply that he nearly dropped the sleeping manslayer.
Inoue reached for him with a worried cry. "Captain?!"
He was shaking, eyes wide, a heavy sweat breaking out across his forehead. Something had gotten him, that was certain. He looked as if he had seen the proverbial ghost.
"Captain, what's the matter?" Inoue urged him. Hayashii looked at him as if he were a foreign object.
"N... nothing," he managed. Before his eyes, however the image still lingered, along with voices that had once been as close as the boy was now:
The feel of soft hair beneath his fingers, a light breath on his shoulder, the weight of a child.
"Tou-san!"
"Ne, Tou-chan, can we hear a story tonight?"
"Yeah, can we?"
"No, not tonight; you'll have nightmares."
"Pleeeease, Tou-san? I'll put Sei-chan to sleep myself tomorrow--"
"What? Who are you?! What are doing here-- AGH!"
"Mika, get the children--"
"Tou-chan!"
"TOU-SAN!"
"Captain, are you sure you're all right?"
Hayashii was snapped back to reality when Inoue's face was inches from his own. Kenshin still lay sleeping in his arms, looking very young and very innocent, despite how much blood remained on his hands (in his own eyes at least.) It wasn't fair to him. The former captain watched the boy sleep; how his breath stirred the cloth of the blanket, how smooth and peaceful his face remained in rest: different from the stoic, protective mask he was forced to don in daylight.
"...Can we be forgiven for our deeds?" Hayashii wondered aloud.
"Can we forgive ourselves, Inoue...?"
The man was silent.
Hayashii looked down at the sword the boy had brought with him, not giving it much thought at first glance, but then something gleamed at him from the hilt, and his complete attention went to the inch of bare metal that was made visible when he'd lifted the former manslayer into his arms:
A bright gleam came from the edge of the blade that faced him-- the edge that, on most swords, was flat and dulled.
Hayashii could have grinned, had he not still been shaking.
The boy had obtained a reverse-bladed sword.
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See there? SEE THERE?! I CAN update a fic I haven't touched in years! I HAVEN'T GIVEN UP ON THEM-- STICK WITH ME!
More will-- WILL-- follow. See you soon readers.
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