How the Past can Change
A K&K Rurouni Kenshin Romance FanFiction
by: bunny ;D
Disclaimer: Rurouni Kenshin is the creation of Nobuhiro Watsuki, with the manga and anime rights belonging to Jump Comics and Sony Entertainment, respectively. I do not own and did not create the series or its characters...I'm just a fan, and I have no money anyways, so NO SUING ME!! :D
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A/N: This story is altering the original story of Rurouni Kenshin / Samurai X. It also has some OOCness, (especially with Battousai.) If you don't like that idea, or can't handle it…I would advise you not to read this fic. If you are a hard-core Tomoe and Kenshin forever kind of person, I would advise you to not read this fic. Don't get me wrong, I like Tomoe, this is just a different story ok?
Ja ne,
Bunny ;D
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The elder Kaoru chewed on her lower lip in thought while the younger Kaoru once again burst into tears onto her older self's shoulder. Future Kaoru put her arms around herself consolingly and patted her back as she shot another glare at Kenshin. "We're going to my room." She informed him as she began to pull her younger self towards their bedroom door.
"But Kaoru-" Kenshin pleaded as they walked away from him.
Future Kaoru paused at his plead, halting her younger self as well before she exclaimed, "You are so STUPID sometimes Kenshin!" She waited a moment to let her words sink in before saying, "At least now I know why I'm here, we can discuss this later when I'm not so upset" before she continued on towards her room.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Chapter Thirty-Nine – Explanations
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Upon entering the younger Kaoru's room, the elder Kaoru led her younger counterpart to her futon and after unfolding it, laid her down. Placing a gentle hand on her forehead in a motherly fashion, she let out a big sigh.
"I'm sorry." She said before continuing, "This is all my fault. If I hadn't ever gone to the past, you wouldn't be going through this right now. Not that I know completely what you are going through, mind you, but I have a pretty good idea."
The younger Kaoru let out a huff of her own before asking a bit irritably, "can you enlighten me a bit on what relationship you have exactly with Kenshin?"
A bit taken aback from her younger self's continued hostility, the elder Kaoru moved back a bit and removed her hand to twist it in a nervous gesture with her other hand. She unconsciously bit her lip in deep thought, and then sighed once more before saying, "well, I suppose I should start from where your Kenshin came into my life. No need to tell you about my own, since it's irrelevant." She paused to take a deep breath and then plunged in. "On the day of my wedding in my own time, I was somehow transported 14 years into the past; only to come face to face with my soon to be husband as a teenager with a sword to my throat and no recognition of me whatsoever. Not realizing immediately what was going on, I said a few things to him…specifically his name, which gave him enough curiosity to spare my life and drag me back to the Inshinshishi hideout." Kaoru paused a moment to let out another sigh as the memories began to consume her and she turned her glance from the now wide-eyed younger Kaoru to the floor before continuing. "It was at that inn, that I met the woman who was supposed to have been his first wife, and was somehow placed by Kenshin into the role of his wife instead. I was in a very difficult situation. I was changing the past, and even worse, I couldn't help but fall in love with the younger version of my future husband. There were distinct differences in him than my Kenshin of course, but deep down, in the parts of him that I love so dearly, he is the same man. Even worse, Kenshin returned my love and wished to have us married for real. The war in Kyoto reached a fevered pitch, and as the Shinsengumi burned down the city, Kenshin and I were instructed to flee to a house in the mountains. We had a brief wedding ceremony on the way there, and proceeded to live in the house as a married couple for about nine months." Kaoru paused there to take another deep breath, and then meeting her younger self's eyes she continued, "On the day that Kenshin was summoned back to duty, I was transported back to my own time. A few hours passed before the Kenshin from the past came to my time trying to bring me back with him." At this, the younger Kaoru gasped in disbelief. Silent tears began to run down her cheeks as her older self continued, "He challenged my Kenshin, claiming that since he had married me first, I belonged with him in the past, not in my own time. It broke my heart to see him trying to fight himself," she took a ragged breath as her own tears began to slowly spill over her eyes and said, "I stopped them, but at the cost of them both being hurt deeply by the whole encounter. It wasn't long before the Kenshin from the past left to go back to the war. That was the last time I saw him until just now." She finished, and let out a final big sigh.
Sitting up, the younger Kaoru covered her face with both hands and sobbed openly into them.
Not knowing quite what to do, the elder Kaoru rubbed her younger self's back and said, "I'm sorry you had to find out this way. You have been married to Kenshin since before you met him. I took that choice away from you, and if you don't love him as I do, then I'm very deeply sorry. I never even considered the repercussions of my actions and of Kenshin knowing even pieces of his past. I had the silly notion that for you, it would be exactly the same as it had been for me, meeting him in the streets of Tokyo searching for that damn fake Battousai."
The younger Kaoru tore her hands away from her face and with flashing eyes cried out to her other self, "No wonder he referred to me as his wife!" Gasping for breath she ranted, "He's always seen me that way. A little girl version of the woman he fell in love with." She spat. Then taking a deep breath and calming a bit, she continued on as if mumbling to herself, "This explains so many things…those awful dreams for one…but I…he never bothered to tell me." Getting worked up yet again she continued, "Not even when I was old enough to understand. Not even after father left. Why would he do such a thing? He hid it from me! He deceived me! He's been lying to me since the day he came to live with us!" She banged her fists down on the floor, outraged at how she had been treated.
The elder Kaoru cringed at the situation, at a total loss of how to patch things up between her younger self and her first husband. Attempting to calm her younger self down, Kaoru grasped on to her other self's shoulders and said calmly, "Look at me. Look into my eyes."
As the younger girl lifted her eyes to her future self's, both Kaoru's found themselves in a trance like state. Memories started flooding the elder Kaoru's mind, intense visuals and conversations that had taken place. In just a few minutes, she now had all of her younger self's new memories of the past. As the last visual faded, she gripped her head and fell backwards onto the floor groaning "Oh My God." As her head impacted the floor, she drifted out of consciousness.
Startled by her older self falling over the younger Kaoru leaned over to inspect the situation. She blinked at seeing the elder Kaoru unconscious. "Uh…Kaoru?" she questioned, feeling utterly ridiculous calling out to herself. When there was no response after a third try, the younger Kaoru began to panic a bit. Standing up on wobbly legs, she stumbled over to the doorway and slid open the door while yelling out, "KENSHIN!"
It was only a second before Kenshin was standing in front of the younger Kaoru at the doorway of her bedroom. "She's unconscious!" she exclaimed to him. "What should we do? Is she ok do you think?"
Kenshin's eyes widened before he pushed his way into the room and in two purposeful strides found himself at his first wife's side. Kneeling down to take her pulse and check her breathing, he said to his Kaoru, "what happened to her?"
Fidgeting behind him, Kaoru said, "I don't know. One minute we were talking about…" she paused before finally deciding on saying, "stuff. And then the next thing I knew, she was groaning and falling over backwards!" she exclaimed.
Kenshin sighed as he stood up. "I'll go get some water, hopefully that will wake her up," he said before swiftly exiting the room and heading off to the kitchen.
Taking Kenshin's vacated spot, Kaoru knelt down next to her future self and wondered, 'how can so many horribly confusing things happen in one day? My God…I thought our love could survive anything…but this? Married since I was four years old. Am I nothing more than a replacement of whom Kenshin really wants?' It saddened her to think that way, but she couldn't help herself.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This seemed like as good enough as any a place to stop. I hope you all enjoyed this chapter. You've certainly been waiting long enough for it. O_o;;
The long and short of it is: these past several months, I've had a lot of major changes in my life. I've been adjusting new a new way of living and doing things on an unset schedule for my days, which made finding time for something like fanfiction writing extremely difficult. I've also been caught up with working and making major changes to my own websites, which has taken up a great deal of the time I would have otherwise used to update this story. Needless to say, I'm not sure when I will have the opportunity to update again, but I can promise that I still have every intention of finishing this story, and that I'm hopeful that now that I have somewhat of a pattern to my days that I will be able to find more time to update this story more regularly.
Please don't forget to review, and also I'll be writing that 1000 reviews party soon as well, so if you want to participate, don't forget to let me know.
Lots of love,
bunny