The Faerie Chronicles of Kenshin & Kaoru: Immortality, a Rurouni Kenshin fanfic by Raberba girl
Chapter 11
A/N: Huh...I just realized that I've been procrastinating on updating this story for over a month. Oops. -.-
o.o.o
She landed with a crash, her fall broken by something relatively soft that grunted when she fell on it.
"Oro..."
'Can't be,' Kaoru thought dizzily. Yet she had no time to catch her breath or collect her thoughts or even look around before she was yanked to her feet, and a sharp length of cold metal was pressed against her throat.
"Who are you?" a voice demanded in her ear. "How did you get in here?"
"Guh," Kaoru croaked. Looking around wildly, she found herself in a room made of black stone that was hung with brightly-colored tapestries, which very nearly but not quite took the edge off the slight chill in the air. The room was a bit too big for the number of its occupants: a large oak table with many chairs stretched through it, and a modest fire flickered quietly in a huge fireplace.
Yet, despite the fact that it was obviously built to accommodate about a hundred people, the only ones there besides herself were a large, well-built man who lounged in a sort of throne and studied her with an unreadable expression; whoever it was who had her gripped in his arms; and...Kenshin, still sprawled on the floor where he had fallen, staring at her with huge eyes and his mouth hanging open.
"K...Kaoru-dono?"
"Don't be stupid," the man holding her snapped. "She's some imposter, sneaking around the palace - look at her, she's not a day over twenty. And she's kind of hot."
"Kaoru-dono was very pretty when she was that age," Kenshin protested, finally climbing to his feet. "Even now, she still looks very well for her years."
'What are you talking about?!' Kaoru wanted to scream, but was unable to make a sound for fear of the blade at her throat. 'I'm Kaoru-dono! ...Aren't I?'
"Kenji," suggested the man on the throne, "perhaps you ought to let her at least speak for herself before we decide what to do with her."
"Oh- Right."
Kaoru was spun around and pushed roughly so that she was sitting on the table. For the first time, she got a look at her captor - it was startling how much he looked like Kenshin, if Kenshin was (or at least looked) a few decades older. There were silvery streaks of gray starting to run through the dark red hair, which was tied tightly back. The blue eyes were narrowed in suspicion as he held his sword ready; the face was still good looking, despite its age. Perhaps most importantly was the thin X-shaped mark crossing the left cheek, a bit hard to see in this lighting.
"You're a Himura king," Kaoru gasped. "K...Kenji I?"
"Yeah-" he started, then frowned. "'The First'? What, the kid hasn't gone and tried to usurp me, has he?"
"Never mind that," Kenshin was saying. "Shishô, she's not the real Kaoru-dono, is she?"
Kenji snorted. "There's no way. Oi, you," now addressing Kaoru, "what do you think you're doing, crashing in on the Unseelie Regent and a couple of Himura warriors?"
"I was trying to get home," Kaoru growled. She would have said more, but the regent had risen and was now moving toward her. Kaoru leaned forward, meaning to hop off the table, but he reached her before she had barely moved, and she found herself leaning back again, frightened.
"Just hold still and don't say anything for a minute. This won't hurt." The large hand touched her face gently, his fingertips as sensitive as a blind man's. Kaoru shivered a little, but felt nothing except a slight warmth creeping through her forehead. Then the man lowered his hand again. "Huh. She's the real thing."
"She is?!" Both Himuras looked astonished. Kenshin put a hand on her shoulder, his expression anxious.
Kenji immediately sheathed his sword and grabbed her arms, staring earnestly at her. "Hey, I'm sorry, I really am, I wouldn't have attacked you or anything if I knew!"
"Kaoru-dono, what's happened to you?" Kenshin said in bewilderment.
"Are you guys crazy?!" They were crowding her. Kaoru struggled to get off the table and edge away from them, brushing past Kenshin because he was the one more comfortable with. As the regent folded his arms and leaned against the table, the Himuras tried to follow her, but Kaoru waved her hands wildly, trying to ward them away. "No, stay away from me! I mean it, don't come any closer!"
They stopped. "Why do you look like you're seventeen?" Kenji wanted to know.
"Because I AM seventeen!" she yelled, nearly adding, 'You idiots!' "We got arrested because you turned out to be Battousai," she glared accusingly at Kenshin, "but then some scary guy kind of helped me escape, only I lost him and then I stumbled in here, and I have absolutely NO idea what's going on. I just want to get home."
The men all looked at each other, then back at her. Kenji slowly grinned and jerked his thumb at Kenshin. "You're saying this guy ended up in prison?"
"Yes. Because he's Battousai."
"Um...is this a - surprise to you?" Kenshin stammered, looking utterly bewildered.
"Of course it is!" She was yelling again. She forced herself to lower her voice. "It's kind of shocking when I find out that my weirdo, crazy fairy godfather turns out to be some terrorist!"
They were staring at her again. "Your fairy godfather?" Kenji repeated in disbelief. "Are you sure you're feeling all right?"
"No," Kaoru said in despair, "no, I'm not. I really, really do not know what's going on."
The regent now spoke, his voice quiet, but deep and authoritative. "Why don't you just tell us, from the beginning, what you know. We'll decide what to do afterwards."
So Kaoru told them, trying to summarize as much as possible, but it still took a long time. Kenshin and the regent listened quietly, rarely interrupting. Kenji interrupted a lot, but got told to shut up by the others so much that he finally gave up and started fiddling with some loose threads in his sleeve as he listened.
"...and like I told you, that's how I ended up here." Kaoru sat back and looked at them expectantly.
Kenshin was staring at the ground, looking upset. The regent was shaking his head with an irritated expression, and Kenji was studying Kaoru thoughtfully. He was the first to speak. "Huh," he said softly. "So you don't remember me at all, then. I'm just 'King Kenji I' to you."
Kaoru swallowed. "Well...who are you, then?"
"Don't tell her," the regent said sharply.
"I wasn't going to!"
"What? Why not?!" Kaoru exclaimed.
Kenji looked back at her and grinned. "Seems like this is stuff you're supposed to figure out for yourself, but..." He suddenly strode forward and, to her horror, scooped her into his arms to give her a bear hug and then kissed her cheek. "I'm allowed to do this much, at least. I love you so much!"
The affection in his tone was real, which freaked her out the most. She pushed away from him. "Don't do that! You're-!" 'Just a stranger,' she meant to say, but then realized that, at least from his perspective, he wasn't. Then she realized, "Oh my gosh, I just got hugged by King Kenji I."
He was laughing. "Man, you are even more fun when you're younger than me."
"Wait a minute!" She was staring at all three of them now, finally understanding why their clothes looked like they'd come from a museum display. "If you really are King Kenji I - am I in the past?! Did we time travel?!"
"If it really was that brat who broke you out of prison," the regent mused, "then I suppose it's quite possible."
"Why would he randomly time travel like that, though?" Kenji protested.
"She says that she thinks the cell was made out of iron," the regent said, as if he was speaking to an unintelligent student. "Enishi wouldn't have had any problem with it himself, but he couldn't physically get her out by traveling through space. He had to travel through time instead. If she hadn't gotten lost, it should have been a simple transitional journey."
"Oh," Kenji realized, "like when Dad used to come visit us secretly, back when he and Mom were separated." He gave Kaoru a strange look then.
Kenshin appeared to have been thinking very hard. "So Shishio is alive," he murmured unhappily. "He means to do evil in the future, where apparently this one has gone to stop him..." He looked at Kaoru. She could not help being glad for the difference in atmosphere, for she was used to an uncomfortable intensity in his expression, as if he was always holding back something that strained to get free. This Kenshin, however, looked at her with a calm steadiness that she found herself grateful for. "And you're certain? It truly is Sano and Yahiko and Megumi-dono and the others, safe and living there in the future?"
"Yeah. Why, what's wrong with them?"
"It...it just explains something," Kenshin said slowly, "something that has troubled this one for quite a while."
Kaoru suddenly noticed his scar- his birthmark. When she had first come, the cross-shaped mark had been almost as hard to see as Kenji's. As she had told her story, however, the mark had darkened and thickened just a little, and now it was fading slightly again. It was like the thing reacted to his moods. "Does your birthmark change color?" she asked abruptly.
Kenshin looked startled for a moment, then laughed along with Kenji.
"Yeah," Kenji explained. "It's the Himura family curse, you could say."
"The mark tends to fade or grow more vivid depending on this one's feelings," Kenshin admitted. "Your rose is the same, Kaoru-dono."
Kaoru caught her breath. "My rose? You mean..." She pulled the necklace out, with the little ruby pendant glinting in the firelight. Kenshin and Kenji leaned forward to study it with interest. The regent came over and touched the necklace, just as he had done Kaoru's forehead earlier.
"It's the same rose," he said, "enchanted to look like a piece of jewelry. There is a sense of your enchantress's magic on it."
"T...Tomoe-san?" Kaoru said in surprise. "She's around in this day and age?"
"Well, she is fae," Kenji said, as if such a thing made instant sense.
"She lost her original immortality," Kenshin clarified, "so she is very old now. But it looks like soon she will have discovered a way to recover her lost years."
"Hm." Kaoru fiddled with the necklace, thinking.
"Have you tried unlocking the spell on it?" the regent asked.
"Yes," Kaoru said forcefully, remembering her increasing efforts to figure the stupid thing out. "I've banged on it, looked for hidden catches, tried all the passwords I could think of, nothing. I don't get it. If you're some sort of fairy king or regent or whatever, can't you open it?"
"It is meant to release its secrets only to you," the regent said. "It doesn't seem like it even has any use to anyone else." He shook his head. "If you're the one who locked it up in the first place, you'll eventually be able to open it again."
"But I wasn't a fairy back then," Kaoru said in despair. "I wouldn't have known anything about magic, would I? Maybe I was stupid and made the password or whatever too hard to ever guess."
"That's your problem, then," said the regent.
"Oh, great," Kaoru grumbled, though not quite daring to be outright rude to his face. The man was pretty imposing.
"So what are we gonna do now?" Kenji wanted to know. He grinned. "Gonna take her home with you, Dad?"
"Of course not," Kenshin yelped, glancing at Kaoru out of the corner of his eye as if she was some fascinating temptation that he wanted to avoid. "Kaoru-dono would...probably not be happy about it."
"About having a beautiful, nubile young girl who looks exactly like her teenage self hanging around you?" Kenji said teasingly.
Kaoru blinked. "Wait, what? There's another Kaoru?" Oh, duh. King Kenshin and Queen Kaoru. Wait...if Kaoru herself looked exactly like the queen- "Wait, wait, wait!" she cried frantically, trying to shut up Kenshin and Kenji because they both looked like they were about to speak. "Never mind! I don't want to know! I really do not want to know!"
"She needs to go back to her own time," the regent said.
"We can't take her, though," Kenji protested. "She's from, like, hundreds of years from now! Anyone who tried to take her would never be able to get back. Except Titania, and there's no way that's happening; and Enishi's still holed up under-" He went abruptly silent.
"Call him," the regent said to Kaoru.
"Call...Enishi-san?" she said uncertainly. What, on the phone?
"No." Kenshin looked adamant. "She's not going anywhere with that man."
"Then who's going to take her home, you?" the regent said harshly. "You would leave your family and your country to take a younger version of the queen to her home, where you would, what, team up with your future self who is already there on legitimate business?"
"She's...she's not going with him," Kenshin repeated.
"What's, um, so bad about this Enishi guy?" Kaoru asked cautiously.
Kenshin and the regent did not answer. Kenji laughed grimly. "Do you know that Shishô here is the Unseelie regent?"
"I don't even know what 'Unseelie' means."
"Dark fae. The ones you really, really don't want to meet in a back alley at night."
Kaoru stared at him. "Wait...you mean you're the king - regent, whatever - of the evil fairies?"
"Believe me, it was not by choice," the regent growled.
"You were the only choice, though," Kenshin said unhappily. "You know this."
"Of course I know it. I wouldn't have taken the job otherwise."
"What does this have to do with Enishi-san?" Kaoru insisted.
"He's the Unseelie King. The real one."
"...Oh." Kaoru swallowed. "Who's his sister, then? He rescued me because of her. Maybe she can help."
The men glanced at her. "Enishi's sister is Tomoe-dono. She's the only one who could ever really get through to him."
"Tomoe-san?!" Kaoru put her head in her hands. That quiet, beautiful woman she had known, first a fairy and now the sister of the king of the dark fairies. "I don't get it...I don't know how many times I've felt like my head was going to explode in the past few weeks..."
"Your head feels like it's about to explode?" Kenji said in alarm. "Shishô, is there some kind of destruction spell on her or something?!"
"It's just an expression," Kaoru said quickly. One that was giving her a sudden pang of homesickness. "Look...how dangerous is it for me to go with that Enishi guy? Is he really the only one who can take me home?"
All three of the men started talking at once, but it was the regent's voice which cut through the others'. "If Enishi's walking loose, it means he's gotten free from his prison, and if he has freed himself, I doubt he would have any reason to harm her."
"But-!"
"Still-!"
"Would you rather the Seelie Queen escorted her instead?"
Both Himuras fell abruptly silent.
"So the 'Seelie' are the good fairies?" Kaoru asked hopefully.
"Ha ha ha ha," Kenji laughed humorlessly. Kenshin said nothing, but shuddered.
"I know it goes against your gut instinct," the regent said impatiently, "but you've both had more than enough experience with both courts. It's either Titania, or the Enishi of the future. Think about this rationally instead of letting your feelings get in the way. Which one would you trust more?"
"Which Faerie ruler would I trust more?" Kenji shook his head. "That's like asking, 'Would you rather be strangled by a python or stomped to death by an elephant?'"
"The elephant," Kaoru said. "Quicker death. I assume."
Kenji laughed, this time sounding genuinely amused; Kenshin gave her a wounded look. "Kaoru-dono..."
Kaoru took a deep breath. "How do I call Enishi-san?"
She half expected someone to rattle off a phone number, but the regent only said instead, "Say his name three times. Since he's the king, he's not obligated to answer, but if he's looking for you, calling him will give him your exact location."
Kaoru blinked. "Oh - you meant, literally call him." She looked around. "Do I have to do anything special? I mean, it's not just 'Enishi-san, Enishi-san, Enishi-san,' is it? That feels kind of silly-" She broke off with a yelp when a fifth person suddenly appeared in the room.
"Figures you'd be with him," Enishi growled. "You realize that you were, like, one step away from wandering into oblivion? I had to circle around, and lost you for good. Finally just gave up and went home. Was trying to think up some good excuses to tell Neesan when you finally called."
Both Kenshin and Kenji had drawn their swords and stepped in front of Kaoru, bristling. "Um...guys?" she said uncertainly.
"This one is not letting you take her," Kenshin growled.
"You'd better not hurt her," Kenji threatened.
Enishi rolled his eyes. "I could care less, you know. It's no skin off my nose if the little idiot is stuck in the era of no air conditioning, central heating, or indoor plumbing. I'll just head back and tell Neesan and the other Kenshin that their precious Kaoru is safe and sound and entirely out of their reach." He turned to go.
"WAIT!" Kaoru screeched, shoving past the Himuras and running after him. The realization of being stuck in a place where she would not be able to use flushing toilets or have air conditioning in the summer was very jarring, not to mention the prospect of never seeing her family and friends again. "I want to go home! Please, I didn't call you for nothing, I promise."
"Kaoru-dono!"
Kaoru turned to face him, her eyes flashing. "I can't be stuck here. I can't." She jumped a little when she felt Enishi's hand on her shoulder. She looked up and saw him watching Kenshin with an evil smile.
"Don't worry, Kenshin. I'll take really good care of her." He leaned down and kissed Kaoru's neck.
"Hey!" She shoved him away indignantly, even as Kenshin was surging forward with a shout. "Don't do that," was all she could think to say, glaring at him.
Enishi shrugged, his arm still around her shoulders. "Nothing personal. I like getting a rise out of him."
The regent had raised an arm to bar Kenshin's way. "He's just trying to get you to make a fool out of yourself, and it's working."
"Don't you touch her," Kenshin snarled at Enishi. "Don't you touch her!"
"Hey, Dad," Kenji said, frowning as he looked hard at Enishi. "He called you 'Kenshin.'"
Kaoru did not see what was so important about this, since it seemed like pretty much everyone just called him 'Kenshin.' Kenshin, though, was breathing hard as he glared at Enishi.
Enishi looked away. "Don't read too much into it," he mumbled. "Calling you 'Battousai' just makes me mad. I promised my sister I'd play nice with you." Still holding Kaoru, he turned away, and she stumbled after him. "This time," he told her firmly, "do not let go. I'm NOT chasing after you again."
Kaoru clung to Enishi's arm, sparing a glance over her shoulder as they stepped into the otherworldly pathway again. The last she saw of the past era, the regent was watching them go as inscrutably as ever. Kenji had a hand raised in reluctant farewell, and Kenshin reached after her desperately. "Kaoru-dono...!"
To be continued...
Author's Notes: Thank you for the support, guys. It seems like every time I try to post something in this fandom that's not KK, people retaliate, so it's nice to know that not every RK fan hates me or what's important to me. All I ask is that people have respect for others and recognize that pairing preferences are just that, preferences, so I really appreciate seeing people do that.
Adapted from a review reply:
You would not believe how many times I have tried to forgive this fandom and move on. The reason why I can't is because EVERY SINGLE TIME I DO, someone else comes along and tries to dictate my own opinions to me. This has happened at least five times in the last couple of weeks, so imagine what it's been like for me, having to put up with it for the last several years.
I want very much to be able to give up posting RK fanfiction forever, but there are various reasons why I can't yet. If I could disable reviews for specific fics like I can on other sites, then I would; but all I can do on FFN is use a review filter, which is useless to me. If a review is submitted, I don't care whether it's public or not, but there's nothing I can do on FFN to avoid immature idiots who can't keep their mouths shut. Every single snippy, critical, misunderstanding, idiotic comment just reconfirms why I hate this fandom so freaking much.
I don't care in the least that people's opinions are different than mine. What I care about is that they're trying to mold MY opinions to fit theirs, and that they criticize me to pieces until I'm oversensitive and then turn around and criticize me for being oversensitive. I'm just completely fed up with it and I have zero tolerance left for it. Then people come along and criticize me for "giving up," when I have absolutely no reason to continue putting up with it. It's frustrating and discouraging, you know?
What I meant by "letting the haters think they've won" is that every single thing that sucks about this fandom is tied to the attitude of most KK fans. Therefore, giving them exactly what they want, more chapters of a KK story, after they've continued to pick on me for liking something that's not KK, is letting them think they won. But it doesn't matter, because there are only a few more chapters of this left to post and then I won't have to deal with it anymore.
Objectively? I don't have anything against the main pairing. The reason I've come to hate it so much is that it is the reason for and has come to represent everything I hate about the fandom. Seriously; if KK didn't exist and Kenshin never had a love interest, the RK fandom would be like the Kingdom Hearts fandom (way more tolerance for and interest in alternate shipping and platonic love) and wouldn't have these problems. But KK does exist, as do the problems that stem from it, therefore I hate the pairing.
I never said I was going to finish this story. When I first updated with the "final" draft, I included a note for people to look back at a certain chapter which includes a summary of Immortality. It's at the top of the Part 5 prologue ("chapter 38," according to FFN). All I've been posting are old drafts that have been sitting on my flash drive for years, none of it is new. (Except for the omake I'm going to put at the end, as a gift to kokoronagomu. A gift, to a very lovely friend who never abandoned me even after I stopped writing for RK and came to hate her OTP. Yet even for her sake, writing a KK story was very difficult and I won't be able to do it again. I'm sorry, kokoro. The one I finally finished, which I'm going to post as an omake to Faerie Chronicles, is short and I don't like it at all, but it was the best I could do. :/)
Anyway, that omake is the only new part of this series, and I was only able to do it because of strong friendship, and as a one-time thing. If I ever do write new RK fics and need a throwaway background pairing for Kenshin and/or Kaoru, I will be using crack pairings, because KK romance kind of makes me sick now and I never want to write it again. Maybe platonic, because I think that the idea of Kaoru as Kenshin's little sister is kind of cute (and would suit their age difference way better), but definitely not as romance.
I apologize for not replying to messages - it's gotten to the point where I procrastinate for weeks on even reading reviews on my RK stories. I can't stand getting negative feedback on them anymore, so I don't want to even look at the reviews, because I'd rather not read them than open them to find that they're from yet more people determined to make my life in this fandom miserable. When I finally do get around to reading the reviews, the supportive ones are a relief, but there's inevitably at least one that makes me want to reach through the computer screen and throttle the person. [This paragraph was written a while ago. Now I'm opening the reviews quickly again, with full expectations of them being more crap, and I usually end up either being rude to whoever commented or losing the message in the sea of 500+ e-mails I still need to sort through. -.-]
I can handle legitimate criticism just fine for my original stories and other fanfiction, but not for RK. Any comment in the RK fandom that's even the least bit critical just keeps re-aggravating me over and over again, because I've been rubbed raw and I SERIOUSLY cannot handle any kind of criticism WHATSOEVER from this fandom anymore. Other fandoms, yes; and from The Layman, whom I can trust to be objective, then yes. Otherwise, everything else that's even a little bit negative is just one more piece added onto the "I hate the RK fandom" pile.
[Remember that this was adapted from a review reply.] I do want to thank you for at least mentioning some positive things about the story that you liked, instead of just using the whole "review" to criticize me, or even to fangirl about KK and then take off without mentioning anything specific. (Those kind of reviews just convince me more and more that my story could be the best thing ever written or utter crap, but people would love it regardless, solely because it's a KK romance. -.-)
I also want to thank you for not being completely anonymous, because that's another thing that ticks me off, people who are too cowardly to pick on me without any contact info. I appreciate both those things, thank you for trying to balance your comments and for giving me a way to respond.
As for you idiots who now seem to be trolling me on purpose, grow up and get a life.