Kenshin: Sessha refuses to read this chapter, that he does. *wanders out*

Justice: ._. I kinda figured that might happen.

Tomoe: I like this chapter.

Hiko: You've got a complex, woman. Which it is, even I don't know.

Justice: *nibbles on an egg roll* (o.o)

Going to be doing some rewriting of the first nine chapters while I'm fiddling with chapter twelve. I figure there's a good amount of cleaning up to do, not the least of it being formatting fixes.

Ch.10 was terrible with that. (A. engravers MT font didn't work. o.o (B. I didn't realize it wasn't bolded, so there was nothing differentiating Hiko's doppelganger's speech from Hiko himself aside from a few // //, which aren't exactly eye-catching. Ah, well, mostly fixed.

Other issue with Engravers is that it is default capitalized, so I need to go back and fix a few lower-cased kenshins in the chapter. (o.-) By the by, bring a tissue, I think this one's pretty good.

XIII

The Sword of Seijuro Hiko

by Justice Stryfe

_________________________________________

Eleven: Trepidation

Hiko awoke to the sun peeking over the horizon to greet the land with its warm rays. His eyes simply opened, instantly awake and fully rested.

The birds were singing, and a squirrel sat atop his chest, nibbling what looked like a radish. Hiko, having not been aware that squirrels ate radishes at all, merely stared at the rodent with a mixture of curiousity, a dash of amusement, and just a pinch of dumbfoundedness.

All of nature seems to regard me as just another tree or rock to sit upon, as if I have no rights whatsoever as a human being. He smiled warmly at the small creature enjoying its meal. Besides, don't squirrels hibernate this time of year?

As if on cue, the squirrel perked up, looked into the friendly face of the world-weary swordmaster, and tossed the last bit of radish into his left eye.

_______________

Normally the road to Otsu was a pleasant walk, filled with friendly country citizens and kindly land barons who tried to remain unattached in the war, despite its closeness. The birds would chirp, the cats would chase one another, and children would squeal and chase the cats. Even though it was the cold season, there had been a warm streak for several days, and the citizens were enjoying the peacefulness of their idyllic life.

Today was rather different. Though by no means unfriendly or threatening-looking, the citizens were nonetheless wary of an extraordinarily tall and powerful-looking caped man who, grumbling without cessation, would stop whenever he saw a squirrel (there were many in Otsu), reach into a small brown pouch he carried with him, and pitch a bit of sliced radish at the apparently offensive creature. When he hit, he would throw his head back, arms spread wide in victory, and laugh hysterically. When he missed, he would swear violently and continue the assault until he achieved his objective, at which point the laughter would become truly terrifying. The squirrels chittered in what some might dub amusement, had they been human, and the man's solid black eyes would be filled with a fiery light as he sought more victims.

The citizens decided he'd lost his mind in the war.

Eventually, his thirst for revenge gave way to the realization that he would never conquer an enemy so numerous, and he lapsed back into silence, only occasionally muttering darkly to himself. A talent of his, one of many, had been the capacity to enjoy himself in the smallest things in life, even when all seemed dark. That power of detachment had served him well for many years.

Now, as he approached the town of Otsu, he could not help but feel a sense of foreboding. He was perhaps five miles distant, according to a friendly old man he'd passed just moments before his last squirrel, and he had yet to decide what to do about Kenshin.

Alright. Time to think this through thoroughly. His stomach growled, and he grimaced at the realization that he'd thrown the remainder of his fresh vegetables at his adversary all morning, and would have to make do with bread and a rather crusty cheese. Perhaps I could purchase some vegetables or even some meat from a farm around here. It's worth a try, at any rate. Turning around, he started back towards a backpath he'd seen about a half mile ago, hoping someone in this relatively well-to-do looking area had some food to spare. He ignored the victorious chittering in the trees that taunted him about how the forest had defeated Hiten Mitsurugi.

The day couldn't get any worse though. Surely being assaulted by squirrels was the low point of any day.

______________

"Just kill me already..."

An old man of perhaps sixty-five whirled his head around to stare at Hiko. "What was that?" he fairly squawked, his wicked, beady little black eyes zeroed in on Hiko's throbbing skull.

The Hiten master sighed, and kept a firm grip on the arm of the wriggling youth he'd caught in the farmer's storage barn. "I didn't say anything, old man, you're hearing things."

The path he'd seen had indeed led to a farm, which was good. The farmer who owned it was affable for the most part, but slightly senile, which was bad. He had agreed to sell the hungry swordmaster some dried beef and vegetables, which was again good, and would have remained thus, had Hiko not smelled chicken and fish tempura upon the farmer opening his door wide to exit the house - that was most certainly bad. He'd chalked it up to one more run of bad luck.

They'd traveled to the shed together, Hiko attempting (and failing) to convince the old man that tempura was, in fact, a foreign dish, and not of Japanese origin. "Portugal!" the man muttered, shaking his stick in Hiko's face. "No need for those foreigners around here, boy. Our food is ours!"

That had begun a long tirade about traditional Japanese values which Hiko had chalked up to his own idiocy for engaging an old farmer in so frivilous a topic. Hiko endured all for the sake of a more substantial meal, but had been dozing when the old man was bowled over by the barn door swinging open and a child of perhaps ten had dashed out of it, arms full of various foodstuffs. He'd gone perhaps a yard when he was caught by Hiko.

"No respect these days!" he shrieked, waving his stick up and down. "Thieves! Killers! That's all Japanese youth are these days!"

Hiko's face was a study in longsuffering. "Old man, I'm hungry, and I have a good distance to go yet. Can we skip to the part where I buy food?"

"Pay! What about this whelp stealing my store? That's what my family and I are going to eat this winter!"

"Orphans have to eat, too, old man," Hiko replied wearily. "I'm not condoning what he did, but I'm not really eager to debate it, either. Can we talk about my food?" Food, good. Talk, bad. Simple concept, really.

"Truth be told, young man, that there is about as much as I planned to give to you. I can't spare any more than that." he sighed. "If only it hadn't been stolen... just can't trust anyone to respect another man's property these days. Stealing food of all things. I wish dearly that it could be recovered."

Hiko stared at him in unvarnished astonishment. "The food is sitting right there, old man."

"Aye," the man said, inclining his head slowly, his face a study in austerity. "Stolen from under my very nose. I'd sell it to you, if I still owned it."

"But you do, it's sitting right there." He resisted the urge to point, like a child, at the haphazard mounds of wrapped meats and vegetables.

Very slowly, the old man motioned for Hiko to bend down slightly. Every instinct in Hiko instructed him to run screaming from the place, but he unwillingly complied with the old man's request. The farmer placed a hand on his shoulder, no doubt meant to be comforting, but oceans of distance beyond foreign to a man as aloof as Seijuro Hiko. When the man spoke, it was in the reassuring voice of a grandfather speaking to a distraught child.

"It's alright, son," He affected a pained smile. "Those goods are stolen, son. I cannot give you what I don't own anymore."

The silence that followed was deafening. Even the wriggling youth stopped his escape attempts in order to stare, dumbstruck, at the nodding old man, shaking his head every so often in apparent dejection at the state of mankind. Hiko, bent over double in order to accomodate the short old man, wild-eyed youth in one outstretched grasp, cape flowing gently in the breeze, responded to the absolute incoherency of it all in the only fashion he knew.

His eye twitched.

"Well," he began, feeling like the biggest fool in Japan, "since it's sitting right there," he said, ever so slowly, attempting to break through the glassy-eyed veneer over the farmer's mind, "and I've recovered the stolen food, which is, at this point, not stolen anymore," Gods, my master would never stop laughing, he groaned to himself internally,"I'm going to go ahead and take the food that was stolenbut isn't stolen any longer, and I am going to pay for the stolen-but-returned food. Here," Hiko said, handing the old man a solid golden coin, then motioning gently at the supplies scattered upon the ground. "This will pay for all the food that is absolutely not stolen, but, in fact, belonged to you, and now belongs to me." And leaves me a step closer to needing to find an actual job, instead of living off the money from the eleventh master's old life. One more thing to worry about.

The elder's eyes widened in awe at the thumb-sized chunk of gold, and bowed, thanking Hiko profusely as he meandered back to his farm, the impetuous youth forgotten in favor of the coin. Smiling slightly at the insanity of it all, Hiko turned to face the scrawny black-haired youth he'd caught by the arm. "Hungry, eh?"

The youth glared at him defiantly. "I don't need your help!"

"I've heard that several times in my life," Hiko quipped. "Each time, it's been a bald-faced lie born of entirely unjustified self-confidence." The youth wrenched his arm to one side again, failing to budge Hiko in the slighest.

Hiko pulled him up to eye level by the arm, startling the boy. "Children are always trouble," he grunted. The youth glared. "For someone who didn't need my help, you sure kept quiet while I was paying for the things you stole. Reconcile that with your quick-mouthed ego, while I eat the food. I'll consider it payment for saving you a thief's beating, and enduring that inanity of a few moments ago."

With that, Hiko abruptly dropped the boy on the ground, and turned to pick up the wrapped foodstuffs laying scattered about. Only a few seconds passed before the boy attempted to make off with one of the wrapped items, only to be tripped up by Hiko's booted right foot abruptly appearing before the dashing boy. A faceful of dust and a broken, splattered squash were the only things the boy received for his trouble.

"Don't be so wasteful with good food, kid." Hiko grunted, immeasurably pleased with himself. "There was nothing wrong with that squash."

The boy growled loudly, but, to his credit, didn't attempt to attack Hiko. A few moments passed while the boy fidgeted and fumed, and Hiko enjoyed the devil out of it. "Well, if you make yourself useful picking all this up, you can eat some of it. And save me the yap about not needing help, boy," he added, cutting off the impending retort, "you're so damn hungry, even your face is looking skeletal."

The black-haired youth growled again, but got to his feet and began to pick up the scattered vegetables and dried meats. "The cheese is mine. You can have the beef, you look like you need it."

The boy grabbed a few more vegetables and the cut jerky, and ran into the forest beyond the barn. Hiko repressed a sigh and, gathering the remaining vegetables and meats into his travel sack, and set back for the road.

_______________

He took another day and a half to reach the town, mostly because he stopped a mile from the farmhouse in order to gather his thoughts. The day was well-spent, and, after a great deal of reflection and consideration, he felt that he had at last figured out what to do about Kenshin. The only thing left to figure out was how to get the boy to go along with it.

His first thought upon entering Otsu was that there was no village nicer to settle down in that the quaint little farming town he now strolled down. The people were friendly and cheerful, the children were playful and bubbly, and he'd been offered a sweet rice ball by what had to have been the most adorable little girl in all Japan.

Naturally, though, he didn't let the depth of his feelings show. He was Seijuro Hiko, after all; nobody else in Japan was going to be that for him. He settled for a warm smile and a silver coin in return for the treat.

Munching thoughtfully, he realized that this was what he'd intended for his student. A small village, a few good neighbors, some fields to till, and (most importantly) a good woman to keep the idiot in line. Unbidden, Ayane's face came to his mind. Softly, he tried to push it away.

I am more regretful than I can express, but I must look to Kenshin's welfare. Forgive me.

Throwing himself into his renewed role as master and surrogate father, he stopped by a variety of shops inquiring about Kenshin and his not-so-pseudo wife. He had a fair idea where they lived from directions given him by Katsura and his cronies, but he wanted to feel the situation out first.

Though it was only morning, he felt that he needed time to rest and think a bit more before scaring the hell out of his apprentice with an unexpected visit, so he wandered through the town until he located a modest inn. The rooms were cheap, and the owner found favor in Hiko's eyes, as he kept a large stock of sake for guests at a good price, considering the high quality. Gods, sake, opening a bottle and inhaling deeply. The aroma... a fine sake, indeed. How long has it been since I had a drink?

Purchasing the large bottle for himself, he wandered down the hallway and opened the sliding door to his room. He'd rest for the evening, and speak to Kenshin in the morning. He'd lay the plan out on the table without a hint of his usual arrogance. The boy would see reason now, surely.

As he stooped to remove his boots and relax in thought for a few hours, he noticed something in the corner of the room. It was small, particularly small, but it was making a strange noise that he didn't quite recognize. Eyes narrowing in curiousity, he opened the shutter over the window to his right and glanced into the now-illuminated corner at the source of the noise.

It was a cat.

Akitten.

It had a fish in its mouth.

It followed him.

Hiko left the inn without a word.

_______________

Growling at being intimidated out of his respite, Hiko wandered the village again until the irritation faded, and he decided to go for an off-the-cuff approach and speak to Kenshin that very instant.

Off-the-cuff took a turn for the worse as he meandered his way into the forest beyond the village, searching for the right words. He'd been wandering for several hours, and the sun and sky were now hidden by clouds, blown in by a chill breeze. I really ought just go now. Waiting around to form words for a speech isn't something for me to do. He didn't feel the need to explain himself often - in fact, ever before, that he could remember - but he felt that Kenshin would respond better if Hiko presented himself as a peer, and not as his master, to be consulted, not obeyed. The boy as he was now was far less likely to answer to him as a student to a teacher than he was years ago.

It was certainly nothing his own master had ever done - nor was it something he was eager to do - but he supposed, in honesty, the boy was now a man, having seen much of life, between both war, and love. I don't care about my pride anymore, so much as simply getting things done. Whatever it may require of me, I am willing to pay the price.

Chiding himself on his uncharacteristic behavior, he pulled his cloak closer around himself, chilled by the cold winter wind that had loosed a flurry of snow. He growled low in his throat; he was filled with a sense of foreboding by the snow - his master had died on a snowy night, and Kenshin had left on a newfallen snow in the dead of winter. Since the latter, the sake he'd had in winter had tasted bland.

He felt a tremor in the ground, and heard the sound of snow falling as the trees around here were rattled. His eyes snapped westward. Gunpowder in the forest? It bears examination. He turned and ran deeper into the forest.

He'd jogged perhaps two miles before stopping to examine the annoyance in the back of his mind, mounting steadily as he'd found himself deeper in the forest. Halting, he closed his eyes and reached out around himself with his mind. Nothing.

He scowled, reaching deeper within himself. Something in the forest was blocking his sense of direction and ability to sense the presence of others. All he could feel was a vague blur of life - many lives, but which were animals and which might be people, he was unsure. He could not put a direction to any of them; it was as if their life-force was spread out over the whole of the wood. And the sun being obscured, I can't navigate normally either. Delightful. What on earth is this strange sensation obfuscating my swordsman's sight?

He trudged onwards for perhaps another mile, vastly annoyed at his inability to pinpoint the beings he sensed around himself. One might well be a squirrel, for all he knew. All of them might be squirrels. He couldn't tell.

Abruptly, he felt another tremor in the ground. He whirled to his right and tore off through the woods again, dodging branches and alarmed deer as he went. He grimaced as the wind brought the smell of blood to him.

Around half a mile from where he'd felt the second tremor, he came across the body of some kind of warrior plastered in many places around the trees. At the center of the blood splatters and pieces of shredded flesh lay a large crater. As he walked to the crater, he noted a slight trail of blood and footsteps leaving the area, away from where he'd come from. He followed the path, his stomach tightening in apprehension as he affected a much faster pace.

Two miles past the tattered corpse he'd come across, he found another field of blood, albeit larger than the other. A second, larger crater was also present, and there was a wakizashi stuck in the trunk of a nearby tree, the blood on it dripping slowly as it froze to the blade. He snarled at his inability to tell one sensation in his mind from the other as he wandered all about, seeking a trail to follow. At last, he found it, the blood trail being considerably wider and the footsteps more shuffling, fading from sight swiftly as the flurry became a blizzard of vicious intensity.

His heart beat painfully against his ribs as he dashed faster. He could feel nothing, and the forest was eerily silent, save for the sound of his boots and breathing. It has to be Kenshin. Who else would be out here, fighting in the middle of nowhere? This region isn't involved in the fighting. He weaved in between trees and bushes, his physical senses sharp and looking for anything that might be a threat. He put on an extra burst of speed and cleared a small ravine, and heard the sounds of battle faintly in the distance.

His speed picked up again, sustaining a run speed faster than any man could hope to sprint for more than a few seconds. Desperation pulled hard on him, and he ran even faster, so that he left a trail of ethereal blue light in his wake, such as Wintermoon left when swung in battle.

Through the trees, he flinched as he heard Kenshin's voice raise, loud, but broken and gargled, as though spitting up blood. He pressed himself all the harder, removing Wintermoon and its sheath from his belt, prepared to slay the very second he reached the battle.

He broke through the trees at great speed, eyes tracking wildly, settling on a charging Kenshin, sword held high above his head in one blood-soaked hand, running straight into the charge of a brawler, knife in hand, whose arms alone held more muscle than Kenshin's entire frame. Beside them both, a young woman dashing into the middle of the fray, her arms outstretched as though to shield Kenshin from the coming blow. Hiko came down upon the ground, sliding across the snow in the opposite direction as Kenshin's battle-cry rose to an earsplitting roar of defiance. He could find no footing to propel himself to the fight.

He knew, for one, horrible fraction of a second, as the wind howled one last time and sent a chill down his spine that bordered on otherworldly, and as time seemed to compress a thousand ideas, arguments, and realizations into the very literal blink of an eye; in all that, he knew that everything had been for naught - his techniques, his Hiten Mitsurugi, his philosophy, and his secret swords amounted to complete and total irrelevance in the face of this most desperate of moments.

"Your life would be easier as a normal man, with a normal man's concerns."

He whirled about, the winter winds gone, Kenshin nowhere in sight. He was in the center of a farming village, hundreds of miles and a decade and a half away. He gasped, seeing in his mind the scene of a twelve-year-old boy, staring up into the aged, line-creased face of the master swordsman who'd just saved his family, his blade and cloak coated in blood. "Are you certain this is what you wish?"

Hiko stared, dumbstruck, as the boy turned to look at the gathering of people around him, his two sisters, his younger brother, his weeping mother, and the sorrowful resignation in his father's eyes, the gathering of all the townspeople he'd known since his birth, some wounded, some unhurt, but mourning the dead, all eyes fixed on him. The graying swordmaster's shoulders fell slightly, and he closed his eyes in contemplation.

"It is a life devoid of joy."

Conviction. "A man who eats his brother is not a man any longer -"

Regret. "I'm sorry, master."

Obsession. "- he is a mad dog, -"

Despair. "My dreams are nothing, my sword is purposeless, and I have no idea what to do now..."

Determination. "- and should be treated as such."

Frustration. "It's because you don't get it!!"

Compassion. "The people are afraid! Whatever reasons you have, they mustn't be abandoned!"

Realization. "It has been as you said it would be, master."

Grief. "I wanted flowers for the graves, but all I could find..."

Failure. "were these -"

Innocence. "Shinta."

Arrogance. * A child's name. No name for a swordsman - from now on, your name will be - *

Guilt. By that token, one could ask YOU why you trained him to be the perfect killer!

Culpability. * What have I done? *

PENALTY.

"KENSHIN, STOP -"

The sound of a finely crafted, razor-sharp blade cleaving through tender, bloody flesh, the sound agony all its own.

He felt himself stumble as he saw Kenshin's blade carve through not only the brawler, but the raven-haired young woman he'd been living with, as she threw herself between the combatants. He didn't know why, and at the moment, it didn't matter. Slowing to a halt, he watched the brawler fall away, and the woman collapse against Kenshin, who stood perfectly still in shock for all of five seconds, until the woman shuddered and coughed up a spray of blood. The entire sequence happened so swiftly, but for him, it was as if every second was an hour.

The scream that erupted from his blood-drenched student rent Hiko's tattered soul to shreds. As he watched the boy's shaking frame try to hold the woman in one piece, he lost all will to keep going; he didn't even realize his legs had given out on him completely, and he fell to the ground hard, grinding himself into the dust from the sheer speed he'd fallen from. Struggling angrily, his mind twisting itself in rapidly dwindling denial, he scrambled to his feet, trying to resume running, but again, his knees buckled, leaving him kneeling on the ground, bereft of strength. He stared dumbly at the horror before him, and all the power, speed, and knowledge he posessed were so much less than nothing in the face of what had befallen his student.

Faintly, in the wind, he thought he heard her name being spoken through a veil of sorrow and guilt so thick that even he could not cut it. Straining to hear what was being said, he was suddenly assailed by the pungent stench of blood that he knew all too well, mixed with the floral scent of white plums. The sickly sweet mixture of aromas threatened to make his stomach rebel.

Slowly, the young woman reached up, a tiny dagger in her hand, and ever so slowly, the blade traced a wobbly path through the air to Kenshin's face. Hiko did not move, lost in the moment and unsure what was occuring, unwilling to speak or interfere. From where he stood it seemed as though she merely let the blade hover in front of his face for a moment before moving it away. Convulsing in grief, Kenshin bowed his head and spoke in a broken half-scream, as her arm fell limp to the ground.

The gutteral sound became the cry of a million husbands on a thousand battlefields throughout Japanese history, long, loud, hoarse and broken, wrought of emotions so overwhelming in intensity that no words could differentiate between them and anger seemed guilt, and guilt seemed sorrow, and terror laced through all of them and mingled into something darker than each, to which he could give no name. The sound took away Hiko's very will to live, and doubly so as he realized the boy had been screaming the woman's name.

I can't be seen now, not like this, not when it's all too late. Gods damn it all, I have to go, he can't have heard me, the way he was screaming. I have to go now.

Another voice in the back of his head loosed the most primal of snarls at him for even thinking of abandoning his student in the face of his darkest hour. Hiko wasn't even sure if it was his own voice, or his enshadowed counterpart, or if it even mattered. He tried to stand, to get away, and the voice did not give voice to so much as hurl his guilt at him. As though struck, his head snapped forward, and again he felt it, like a carpenter's hammer striking him from behind.

* * COWARD. BETRAYER. YOU FAILED HIM ALREADY, AND YOU"RE GOING TO DO IT AGAIN. * * The knowledge fell upon him like a rain of spears, and he clutched his head in agony.

I have to go. He can't see me now, not now, not when it's too late, all too late... I can't bring it all back down on his head again for leaving at all -

* * WILL YOU FINISH THAT? DO YOU ACTUALLY INTEND TO BLAME HIM FOR WHAT'S HAPPENED HERE? * *

He'll see it in his own mind... I can't stand it. I can't stand to see his face right now, and I can't stand to inflict that guilt upon him. I can't - I won't. I won't survive it.

He forced himself to his feet, almost tripping over Wintermoon, and hurled himself into back the forest, the longsword feeling alien to him in his hand.

I've never accomplished one good thing with this sword in all my life. Always a second too late to prevent a tragedy, only able to see justice done. What's it even matter? Justice isn't bringing anyone back, and the injustice is so far over the scale that the threat of death doesn't even intimidate the wicked into submission anymore. No matter how many I kill, they just keep rising up and taking more with them.

He half-stumbled, half-ran perhaps five miles through the freezing night, heart aching as his apprentice's screams tore at what was left of his soul. his mind a jumble of incoherency, recoiling at the colossal injustice of his life, and his student's. Idealistic idiot, yes, but just that; idealistic. He started swinging the damned sword to protect the innocent. His soul was draining away for the sake of a better tomorrow for everyone else, and he'd been rewarded for his sacrifices by accidentally killing his wife with the sword and sword technique given him by the man who was supposed to be looking out for him. Choking back a sob, the first since his master had died fifteen years ago, he sank to the ground amid a small grove surrounded by bare-branched cherry trees.

I pranced around and waited all day. For once in my life, I hesitated - and everything has been destroyed as a result. I could have prevented it all this very morning. All of it... from the beginning... all my fault - and all the penalty is laid upon Kenshin.

He beat his fist upon the ground in impotent rage, the cold, hard dirt giving way only slightly to his half-hearted blows. He felt a great chasm between his body and spirit, as though the one had been removed from the other and set some miles apart. He couldn't even muster the energy to scream. On his hands and knees, he wept silently for the futility of his life, of the anguish of his student, the knowledge that nothing could be done to help either cause any longer, and the bitter realization that it was his own doing.

Death. That was the word he'd been unable to find. Stripped of the emotional distance that was a consequence of living day-to-day in a world gone mad, the true horror of the word settled coldly into his heart and smiled at him, warm, placating, infinitely regretful and more vile and repugnant than words could express. His control gave way, and he vomited in between bouts of racking sobs until his body grew so weary that even the dry heaves ceased to plague him.

Shakily, stripped of his strength and majesty as heir to Hiten, he wobbled away from the place he had fallen and vanished into the trees, aimless, hopeless, and lost to the world and all in it.

In the trees behind him, two sets of eyes exchanged knowing glances, and, veiled in shadow, followed him deeper into the woods.

_____| END CHAPTER 11 |_____

Author's notes:

Chapter 12: Fulmination is already started, so don't worry, I'm not vanishing again.

Hiko didn't start the blizzard, I'm not falling back into old habits. (o.o)