And here, we come to the heart of the matter.
Duh, if I didn't own Rurouni Kenshin in the last chapter, do you really think I'd own it in this one? I mean, come on, the likelihood of that happening is what, a bazillion to none?
When he stepped back out on to the porch a while later, he was not surprised to find the Kamiya woman sitting there, apparently waiting for him.
"I'd offer you sake," she said, glancing up at him, "but I don't keep it around the house. Sanosuke's the only one who would drink it, and he already costs me a minor fortune in food. I refuse to support his vices, as well."
"Ah," Saito said, feeling awkward. The unusual emotion annoyed him. "Where is the rooster-head, anyway? Where's the brat, for that matter? I thought the lot of them couldn't bear to leave you on your own for more than five minutes."
"Yahiko is working at the Akabeko," she answered him seriously, as she had all evening, ignoring his sarcasm. "Sanosuke is probably off gambling, drinking, fighting or harassing Megumi. Possibly a combination of all four. Would you like some tea? There are some onigiri as well."
"Did you make them?" Her reputation as a cook was well-known…perhaps infamous would be a better word. He thought it best to be safe rather than sorry.
"Oh, for…!" she rolled her eyes. "Yes, I made them but they taste just fine. Just because I can't get them to stay in a proper shape…! Humph. I've had more important things to focus on than making a perfectly round rice ball!" She grumbled and glowered at him, then snatched up one of the lopsided shapes and took a bite.
"See? Not poisoned or anything!" She glared at him, daring him to say anything. He shrugged and sat down at a respectful distance, lifted one of the freshly poured cups of tea and avoided the lumpy onigiri. She snorted and rolled her eyes.
"You're not concerned about being alone with an unrelated male? Your reputation could suffer if someone happens by," he was making conversation, not particularly worried about her reputation.
"I live with Kenshin and Yahiko," she said wryly. "Sanosuke is a regular visitor and overnight guest. I run a dojo and teach at other dojos in the area. I know more men than women. Trust me, I gave up worrying about some of the finer points of propriety a long time ago."
He shrugged. She made a good point. Still, if she'd been any other woman, he'd have long ago written her off as promiscuous. Ordinary women simply did not spend time in the company of unattached males. Interestingly enough, it was her reputation as a teacher, which even now was growing, and which protected her status in the community.
She took a sip of her tea.
"Still don't know why you're here, do you?" She looked out over her dojo yard as if contemplating the white wall surrounding her property.
He glanced at her.
"You know, I've noticed something," she said, not looking at him. "You tend to come here to pick a fight with Kenshin whenever you need to sort something out. I've seen a lot of fighters do that, especially men like you and Kenshin who were in the Bakumatsu.
"But you don't come here because it's Kenshin. It's the straightforwardness of a real fight, when things are black and white, life or death. You pick a fight with Kenshin because he's the only one who can fight you to a standstill so you don't have to hold back. You trust Kenshin to be good enough to not die.
"You came here tonight, as you've done before, looking for clarity. That much, I understand. What I don't know, however, is why you're feeling lost."
She sipped her tea. He glanced at her, then looked out over the yard.
She was right. It was annoying for him to admit it, but she was right. Damned tanuki. She was beginning to remind him of his keen-eyed master. That old man had never missed a thing, no matter how Saito might have tried to hide it. Somehow, he always knew. And Saito had always ended up telling the old man everything.
"It isn't your concern," he scowled.
"And yet," she replied blithely, "it is."
"I haven't killed the battousai yet," he snorted, knowing her concern would be all for the redhead.
"No," she said, perfectly calm. "And he hasn't killed you, either."
"True."
They sat in silence, sipping tea and looking out into the yard.
"Kenshin doesn't always fully understand why you come to pick a fight with him," she said quietly. "He thinks it's because you still hold a grudge from the Bakumatsu. He thinks he should be punished for what he did then, and you're the gods' way of reminding him that he'll never be free of that debt."
Saito snorted. "We all deserve some sort of retribution from those days."
"Hmmm."
More silence. He listened to the crickets chirping softly, the buzzing rising and falling in a long, rhythmic tide against his ears.
"Do you really?" she asked, startling him. "Do you really deserve retribution?"
Startled, Saito glanced at her, then away.
"Yes," he said quietly, firmly. Saito Hajime was nothing if not honest.
"Did you believe in what you were doing? Did you believe what you were doing was right and just?"
"Of course," Saito snorted.
"Has something happened to you since then to make you change your mind, to make you doubt that?" she asked softly.
"No," Saito was puzzled, waiting to see where this line of questions would take her.
"And do you think Kenshin believed any less in what he was doing than in what you were doing then?" she sat very still next to him on the porch, her words falling like soft rain into the air around them.
For a long moment, the tall man was silent.
"If he'd had any less belief in what he was fighting for than I had in what I was fighting for, neither of us would have lasted. Neither of us would have become what we did. We were the best. Or maybe we were the worst. But we balanced each other out. If either one of us had believed any less in what he was doing, we would have long since been dead."
"So you both still believe in what you fought each other to try to achieve," Kamiya said quietly, sipping her tea. "By opposing each other, you created the world we live in today. Neither of you precisely got the world you were hoping to create, but rather got a little of each of your desires incorporated into something else, something wholly unique, and, in its own way, pure."
Saito was silent. He looked down at the nearly empty cup in his hand, tilting the pottery so the tea leaves in the bottom of the cup sloshed around like a lazy tornado. Kamiya lifted the tea pot to pour him a second serving.
"Why do you deserve retribution, Saito Hajime?"
Startled, he glanced up at her, the cup nearly slipping from strangely nerveless fingers. He tried to cover his discomfort as he always did when faced with an awkward situation. He waited in silence, trying to see where she was going with her infernal questions, trying to anticipate her tactics, wondering if he should be gearing up to go on the offensive, or just preparing to flee.
"And why do you call yourself Fujita Goro?" she asked. "Saito Hajime was as much a hero in the revolution as anyone. It is a name worthy of respect and fear. Yet now, you go by another name.
"You say you deserve retribution," she said quietly. "But you have yet to tell me why. I wonder if you even know."
She sipped her tea and gazed out into her yard, strangely introspective.
"Do you?"
He hadn't meant for the question to slip out, had intended only to sit there in the gathering darkness and drink tea and pretend to have polite conversation. He'd told himself he was merely being courteous, polite to a woman who was obviously important to an old enemy.
But the words were out, now, and he could not take them back. And even more strangely than the slip of his usually disciplined tongue was his sudden interest in what her response might be.
She cradled her tea cup in both palms, studying the dark liquid as though she were a fortune teller reading the leaves in the bottom. When she spoke, he had to crane his head to hear the soft words.
"Once upon a time, there was a terrible war. There were brave warriors on each side of the fight, all of whom believed implicitly in their cause, knowing that surely the gods must be on their side. Many people died. Great warriors, the likes of which are only seen every few hundred years, fought each other for the right to claim victory and supremacy. Their battles became myths within moments, and those myths became legends over night. The great warriors became as gods, wielding the forces of death – and occasionally life – over all those around them.
"In the end, one side won and the other side lost; which one did which is not really so important to this story. But the warriors who had fought so hard, who had created the new world, were suddenly no longer necessary. Battles with swords were rapidly replaced with diplomacy; death threats were replaced with sanctions and law. And the great warriors who had held so much power were suddenly useless, helpless within the very world they'd made.
"And so, they began to disappear. Some drifted away to return to homes and forgotten families. Others set out to wander the world, to find their purpose in life. A few felt horrible guilt and sought atonement while others went mad and set off on darker paths to destruction. And still there were a couple who remained behind, waiting, watching, looking for the tiniest misstep in the new world so they would know if things went wrong, and would be able to step in if they were suddenly needed again."
"Get to the point, Kamiya," Saito growled.
"Did I say there was a point, Saito?" she snapped at him. "This is not your story."
Saito snorted and rolled his eyes, his annoyance clearly demonstrating his opinion of that statement.
Kamiya ignored him, taking a sip of her tea and staring into space for a few moments, then continued her story as though she'd never been interrupted.
"The ones who returned home returned to people who did not really want to hear about the war. Their families and friends, more often than not, only wanted to hear about the glories of battle, but not the hardships, the loss, the suffering and reality. They did not want to hear tales of friends dying in pain, alone in the mud. They did not want to hear about the screaming and cursing, the fear and the guilt. They did not want to hear about how silently, secretly, the survivors of each battle were glad that they were not the ones lying in the dirt, wide eyes staring forever into empty space, grateful that they had lived and someone else had died instead.
"Or worse, there were those who wanted to hear about the blood and gore and would listen in fascination to tales of horror with bright, uncomprehending, bloodlust-filled eyes. These were the people who had never and might never see battle, might never comprehend the loss of life and what the war had meant to the losers – and the winners. To them, it was simply another story; perhaps it was true, perhaps not, but either way, as real as it had been for the teller of the tale, it would still only be a story to the listener. And at the end of the day, these people could go home and lay themselves down and sleep the sleep of innocents, never to be haunted by bloodied hands reaching out for salvation or by terrified voices, begging to be allowed to live.
"And so, the warriors who returned to these people learned to speak of their experiences on the battlefield in very general terms, if at all. They learned to tuck their pasts away as though it were a completely different life, as though the warrior who had wielded the katana on the battlefield was someone else entirely than the man who worked the land. And perhaps that is exactly what happened.
"The wanderers roamed the land, looking for a new life, a new reason to continue living. Some would find it while for others, the quest itself would become their reason for existence, and they would become lost in it.
"The guilt-ridden taught themselves to see shadows of their misdeeds wherever they looked. Even the small measures of peace they sometimes found or had thrust upon them were not always enough to assuage their consciences. Their lives became a constant search for forgiveness, forgiveness for crimes they knew they would have repeated had they ever been needed to protect their ideals. It was this knowledge, this truth, which would continue to torment them for the rest of their lives. They may have regretted their actions, but they would still have done them, because, in the end at least, their behaviors may have saved more lives than they damned.
"The madmen, well, they just went crazy. Some went quietly insane while others were more…dramatic. Some ended their own lives, and some tried to end the lives of others. Either way, there was no peace for them, and no escape from the demons which plagued them.
"But it is the ones who remained behind who I have always found the most interesting in this particular story. Do you know why, Saito Hajime?"
"Do you actually expect me to answer that?" Saito asked drolly.
Kamiya smiled a little. "No," she said, "no, I don't, but not because the question is rhetorical or because you're being an ass. I don't expect you to answer the question because you don't actually know what the answer is."
"I'm sure you're going to tell me, whether I want to hear or not," Saito muttered.
She went very still for a moment, then put her teacup down. "You may leave at any time, Saito Hajime. You have free will. Nothing, especially not me, is keeping you here without your consent."
Saito was surprised that he felt ashamed. He dropped his gaze and sat, silent, and waited to see if she would continue. He would not ask her to, though. Oh, no; he had some pride left. He would not beg for anything, especially not a bedtime story from an idealistic wannabe warrior woman. He winced at that last thought, feeling even more ashamed that it had even popped into his brain. She didn't deserve that bit of spite, and he knew it.
She sighed. "The war never ended for them. They never trusted anyone; eventually, they began to believe that they could not even trust themselves. They became bitter, cynical. Their pure intentions became corrupted or turned fanatical and they lost sight of the very ideals which had driven them in the first place. In the end, they lost everything."
The man who had once been known as Saito Hajime and now served the state in the guise of a police officer named Goro Fujita sat in the dark with the strangest woman he'd ever met. For a moment, he could almost believe that of all the people in the world, this woman might have the answers he was so desperate for, might know the reasons behind why he was the way he was. And maybe, just maybe, if she could tell him, then he might find a moment's peace for himself, might find a bit of the rest he hadn't known he had been seeking for so long. More than that, though, perhaps she could justify his continued pathetic existence in a world which had long since rejected him.
But though he waited, still and silent, nearly holding his breath, almost desperate to hear her next words, she said nothing.
And Saito Hajime, a man who had fought in war and helped change the fate of his nation, felt part of his soul crumble away into dust.