The Faerie Chronicles of Kenshin & Kaoru: Immortality, a Rurouni Kenshin fanfic by Raberba girl
Chapter 12
They stepped into Himura Castle, some sort of ancient banquet hall that had been furnished like a huge modern living room, with couches and televisions and coffee tables.
"Uncle Enishi!"
"Hey, he brought KAORU-CHAN!"
The next instant, Kaoru found herself being crowded by a bunch of curious-looking children.
"Kaoru-chan, we're so glad you're safe!" Suzumi cried, hugging her.
"Oh...Suzumi-chan, hi." Kaoru hugged her back shakily. It was such a relief to be home.
Wait a minute, home?
"Kaoru-chan, is Ken-jiichan okay?" Aya asked anxiously.
Kaoru looked around and realized that most of the children were looking very strained and worried, as were the adults that had come over to join the group. "Um..."
She looked to Enishi for help. He did not meet her eyes, but merely sat down on the ground, picked up a toddler that had crawled up to him, and started cooing at it. The child giggled and reached up to pat his face, dribbling a spot or two of drool onto his jeans. The Faerie King did not seem to mind.
Kaoru looked back at everyone else. "Look, the last thing I knew, we were having a war at the restaurant and I had no idea what was going on."
"Shishio made his move," Sagara said shortly. "Some of our men were hurt, but luckily no one killed. We also got the kids out all right, the Suoh lady's off with Kiyosato's wife and Kensuke's back home with his parents." He gave Kaoru a pointed look. "The only ones MIA were you and Kenshin. Our mole hasn't been able to give us any specifics yet."
"Grandma, did Uncle Enishi save you?" one of the children asked.
"Um...sort of? Yes?"
Everyone looked at Enishi. "Don't look at me, I'm not on my brother's side any more than Kenshin's." Enishi lay down on his back and held the toddler's arms as she stood shakily on his chest. Delighted with the novel feel of flesh under her feet, the child began bouncing happily. "Oof..."
He quickly sat back up again. Now that the child was standing on firm ground, he cautiously started to let go of her. She promptly started to collapse, and he caught her before she could plop to the floor. Gurgling, she stiffened and then collapsed her legs again, then abruptly launched herself into his chest. "Ow."
"Who is your brother?" Kaoru asked.
Enishi's eyes slid to hers, then away. "The guy in the bandages," he said nonchalantly. "Oi, when are you gonna start walking properly?" This last bit was, Kaoru assumed, addressed to the toddler, who was now biting his shirt and then pulling back to critically inspect the resulting drool-marks.
Kaoru threw up her hands. "So I just got saved by the guy whose brother is trying to ruin my life. Great. No wonder Kenshin and Kenji-Ô didn't trust you."
"Kenji?" many voices asked (with widely-varying honorifics or lack thereof). "You saw him?! Enishi(-san/-jisan/-kun), you took her to Faerie?!"
"I didn't take her anywhere," Enishi grumbled. "She got lost all on her own." The toddler reached up to poke at his glasses. "Cut that out, you. Now they're smudged."
Akira impatiently reached down and hauled his daughter out of Enishi's lap. She squawked in protest. "Just tell us what happened, will you?"
Enishi abruptly stood up. Kaoru noticed that all the adults automatically backed away a couple of steps, though the children did not seem particularly alarmed. "Nothing happened," he snarled, apparently more unpleasant now that there was no longer a cute niece to temper his mood. "She called me. I didn't feel like resisting. I tried to haul her out. She got lost like an idiot, I chased her down and brought her back. The end."
In the next second, he vanished. Literally. It was quite a shock for Kaoru. The toddler burst into tears.
"Grandma, is Ken-jiichan okay?"
Her head still spinning from the Faerie King's sudden disappearance, Kaoru looked down and saw a little girl with Yahiko's wild hair and Tsubame's wide, innocent eyes gazing at her anxiously. "Um...please call me Big Sis, not Grandma, okay?" Kaoru looked away. "Kenshin is..." She looked up at all the tense-looking adults. "I think the vice chancellor still has him," she said in a low voice.
There were a few gasps. A shocked silence.
"You mean Uncle Ken got captured?!" more than one of the children exclaimed in dismay.
"No way," Sagara burst out, sounding as if he had very narrowly avoided cussing in front of the kids.
Kaoru looked away. "I only saw him on a television screen, but...it looked kind of bad. His prison must have been iron, too."
More suffocated cursing. Sagara turned to Yahiko. "Get Chou. If you still can't get hold of Saitô directly, tell someone to get himself arrested or something. Someone track down Kiyosato's wife."
Kaoru found that she was shaking. In light of the chaos that was starting to form at the news of Kenshin's capture, she felt bad about interrupting with her own needs, but she didn't know how long she could go without the support of real life. Besides, she was a queen, wasn't she? "Where are my parents?" she wanted to know.
Most of the adults looked too busy to hear her. Tsubame, though, paused and said compassionately, "They're here. Would you like me to bring you to them?"
"Yes. Please."
Her parents looked shaken but all right. Iori seemed as happy as ever, occupied as he was with a cookie. As soon as Kaoru came into the chamber - an odd-looking room, with its ancient stone walls and modern furnishings - her mother came rushing over to hug her, and her father was not far behind in inquiring after Kaoru anxiously.
"Mom, Dad, I'm fine." Kaoru blinked and realized suddenly that she was close to tears. "Are you guys okay?"
"Yes, but..."
"Kaoru!" her mother burst out. "Did you see them?! Those...those strange people- creatures..."
"Trolls and goblins," Kaoru said softly. "Elves and shape-shifters. So you saw them, too?"
"Something strange is going on," Mr. Arai murmured.
Kaoru hesitated. She wasn't sure if this was the best time to tell them, but...things seemed to be getting worse and worse. Perhaps the sooner they knew, the more prepared they would be to handle whatever would come next. "Mom? Dad? I need to show you something." She reached for one of Iori's cookies and turned it into gold.
o.o.o.o.o
Kaoru and her family slept at the castle that night. They were given a guest room, which she suspected had had the same function hundreds of years ago, albeit most likely without the cable TV and Internet connection. Kaoru wanted to go straight to sleep, but she knew she would not be able to even if her parents had let her climb immediately into bed, which they didn't. It was already late, but they stayed up talking until long past midnight.
The Arais seemed very shaken and upset, but to Kaoru's relief, they didn't try anything like disowning her or denying the facts. It gave her hope that maybe they could find a way through this together, that maybe they could still be a family even when the rest of the world was being turned upside-down.
A little past four in the morning, the door opened.
"Um...yes?" Kaoru said uncertainly.
The woman, who was very beautiful (of course she was, pretty much everyone here was), dipped a little curtsey. "Hello, Kaoru-chan. I'm Sara," she said. "I...thought you might like to know that they've brought Ken-chan back."
"They - have?" Kaoru stammered incredulously. "They broke him out of prison?! Battousai?! From under the vice- From under Shishio's nose?!"
Sara grinned. It was suddenly obvious to Kaoru that this woman was a fae. "Sano-kun and the others are quite resourceful. We're very proud of our boys." She gave a little shudder. "I'm just grateful we didn't have to ask Lady Titania for help after all."
Kaoru felt her flesh creep at the sound of that name, but she did not want to ask about it. She simply nodded, glanced back at her parents, and went to follow Sara out.
Kenshin looked terrible. He'd been a little beaten up, but it was mostly the way he half-lay draped in Sano's arms that scared Kaoru the most. He looked exhausted almost to death, as if he couldn't stand up on his own. He should be...stronger than this.
It didn't matter. Kaoru hurried to him at once, without even thinking. As soon as he saw her, he straightened up a little and took a firmer stance, though she noticed that he did not let go of Sanosuke's supporting arm.
"Kao-"
"Ken-" Kaoru suddenly froze. A familiar dark figure had come looming up behind Kenshin. "Th-That man!" she squeaked, pointing.
Everyone glanced at Fujita, who gave the odd impression of a wolf that had found itself in a sheep pen and decided that the occupants were not worth his attention. "Arai," he greeted dryly.
"But you're- Aren't you-?!"
"He's an ally, Kaoru-dono," Kenshin said, his voice sounding strained and almost too quiet for her to hear.
She supposed that she had to take their word for it, though it was creepy being watched by the same cold-eyed man in uniform who had delivered her to Shishio.
"Um...all right." It was hard to move, hard to breathe, until Fujita had stalked past her and disappeared down some corridor, accompanied by Sanosuke and one of the giggly fey women who liked to call Kenshin "-chan." From the sound of their talk, it seemed like Fujita was not his real name, and that he was somewhat irritated at having his cover blown.
Kaoru looked back at Kenshin, who was now sitting down. One of the giggly women, though not giggling now, was massaging his shoulders. Someone handed him a cup of something hot, and several of the children had gathered silently around his knees. He rested a hand on one of their heads and gazed at them until someone nudged him and told him to drink.
"I'm sorry," Kaoru whispered, not knowing why.
Everyone looked at her, confused. "What?" Kenshin said.
Kaoru did not know why she did what she did next. She drew in a breath, stepped forward, and set her hand against his forehead as if she was going to feel his temperature. He closed his eyes as soon as she touched him. She couldn't stand seeing him like this, she wanted him to be strong and well and smiling - she wanted to hear him laugh.
Her hand felt hot; there was a sense of - of flow, as if something was moving steadily from her into him. Kenshin yelped, his eyes flying open again, and dropped the cup, but he did not otherwise move. He stared at her with wide eyes, astonished and trusting, but Kaoru backed away as she suddenly became keenly aware of how not human she was. "No," she whispered. Then she turned and fled.
She had no idea where she was going, only that she wanted to get out, get away from all this, to run from the increasingly strong feeling that she was unwhole, that part of herself was looking for her, and she did not want herself to find her because then, everything, everything would change.
No one stopped her. The castle's main doors practically opened for her of their own accord (which did not help her mood at all). The cool night air rushed past her face, and then Kaoru came to a dead halt.
'Um. That. Was not there before.'
It was like a wall had sprung up around the castle in the hours since she had last been outside of it. When Kaoru blinked and looked at it a certain way, it seemed shimmery and flowing, like a rainbow veil. When she blinked again and tried to look at it normally, it seemed like a towering chain-link fence, with barbed wire at the top and slightly humming with electricity - or like a thick stone wall; it disturbed her that she could not tell which. Slowly, she moved toward it, unbelieving. There was no gate, at least not along the length she could see. She could not get out.
It was shimmering again. Kaoru very cautiously raised her hand to it, though she did not touch it. She was startled at the softness that brushed her fingers, a sort of silkily organic feel, like the ear of an infant or the petal of a rose. Encouraged, she stretched her fingers out further, then snatched her hand back with a yelp, wringing it and staring at the little pinprick of blood on her fingertip. As if she had touched a thorn. Or a spindle. 'I'm not going to fall asleep for a hundred years, am I?!'
"Kaoru-dono?"
She whirled around. Kenshin was standing a little ways behind her, looking concerned. There were a lot of people clustered up by the castle as well, but Kenshin glanced back behind him and they began trickling reluctantly back inside. "What is this?" Kaoru half-yelled at him, gesturing at the veil/fence/wall/humongous thorn bush.
"A barrier," he said. "For protection. This is not the first time Himura Castle has been in need of it." He tilted his head a little. "Just out of curiosity, what does it look like to you, Kaoru-dono?"
"I don't know," she growled. "It keeps changing."
"Really?" he exclaimed, looking surprised.
"Why? What do you see it as?"
He gazed up at it thoughtfully. "Usually it looks like a stone wall to this one. Every once in a while, particularly if a powerful fae is near, it looks less...natural." He shrugged. "It's different for many, though."
Kaoru shivered. "It's...magic, isn't it," she managed to say.
"Enishi's work, that it is. This barrier has stood for a long time, and endured much. The fact that it is once more visible does not bode well for us: our enemies are at work."
"Shishio?" Kaoru said cautiously.
"Yes."
They looked at each other for a while. "You don't look very tired anymore," she finally said. "I thought you were wounded."
He said, sounding very careful, "This one was wounded, that he was."
Kaoru looked at her hands. "So I can...heal people now."
"Thank you," he said, sounding more like he was trying to be soothing than polite. "Erm...Kaoru-dono..."
She narrowed her eyes at him.
He looked unhappy, but did not back down. "This one was not the only one with injuries. There are several who have...not yet recovered. From earlier."
Kaoru sighed. She knew what he was asking and didn't want to do it, but knew she had to, otherwise she would be a horrible person. It wasn't that she didn't want to help them, because she did very much - it was the fact that she shouldn't be able to help them the way he wanted her to, yet was going to have to acknowledge that part of herself anyway. "Fine. I've never healed anyone before, so I'm not promising anything," she said, unable to keep some bitterness out of her voice, "but I'll see what I can do."
To be continued...