***DISCLAIMER***

I don't own anything-Rurouni. Just wanted nostalgia to paint it with words. Hope it reads pretty.

The AU changes are as backed-up by research as I can afford for a hobbie. The Ainu people's culture and struggle are way too complex to pretend a fanfic can cover any of it, so, take it as 'loosely-inspired' in historical and cultural elements from 1800's peoples that lived in lands currently identified as part of Japan. From a *total outsider-with-too-much-time-on-their-hands's* perspective.

Please enjoy at your discretion.

THE BOY

It was its own sort of twisted blessing when it ended so fast for them. The boy should almost feel grateful: ThebloodtheswordsthescreamsthePAIN. And then they hit the ground with a wet thud—most, if not all, before they even knew it was over. Everyone but him. The boy was stuck there for all of it: They had pulled him away, trying to make a run for it. Their hands had tried to cover his eyes as the bandits caught up to them. Her lips had tried to tell him to run, to live, to—but then a sickly thin gleam of metal went through her throat and words got stuck in her mouth. A gurgling sound replaced them as the blade retreated. She crumpled over him, eyes wide, scared. And he couldn't lift a sword for dear life.

Now he was deer-eyed, legs pinned down by her dead weight. A blood-dripping sword hovered above, against the dark leaden sky, ready to come down right between his eyes. Something wet and warm trickled down his legs.

Then it all turned red.

But he wasn't dead.

"You were unlucky, child," a deep, solemn voice announced. The blade clanked against the ground next to the meat rag doll that had wielded it just a moment ago. In its place now stood a tower of a man, staring at him not with malice, nor bloodlust. Not even pity. He just stood there, staring matter-of-factly at him.

"The shogunate's laws have been lax since the arrival of the black ships two years ago," What? "More and more self-declared ronin prowl as bandits in this area—" The boy started blankly as the man jerked his sword clean, a buzzing sound in his head drowning his words and blurring the world around its edges. Oblivious, the man continued: "Some fate brought me here and I have taken revenge for you. But the dead will not be brought back to life by mourning or hatred. Such things happen every day, everywhere in this country. You should be thankful that you, at least, are alive."

Without waiting for a response, the man sheathed his sword and started walking away. The boy remained pinned in place, the foreign jumble of words echoing in his head without any meaning. But then the man paused. The edge to his words was now softer when he added: "If you go to the village at the foot of the mountain and tell them your story, they will care for you."

The boy didn't respond, couldn't respond. His eyes were still fixed in the pool of blood around the bandit's corpse, how it kept growing and growing in the dark, dyeing the girl's pink kimono a deep shade of black.

When he tore his eyes away, the man was gone.

The boy's stomach sank, scouring the moonless night up to the tree line that closed around him. Nothing. It was then that the boy noticed the metal tinge lining his every breath. It was then that he became aware of the silence crushing his head, pressing more and more as the warmth of the pink kimono started to dissipate. He was drenched in blood, who-knows-where in the woods in the middle of the night, and he had no one left… Below the first snowflakes, the thought hit him like a rock. Tears started rolling down his cheeks: No mom. No dad. No sisters. No friends. No nothing…

If I die here, it would be as if I never even existed.

He woke up to the sound of crows. Morning had crept in without the boy ever noticing, but the deafening flapping and cawing of the murder were harder to miss. It was all around him. His numb fingers curled over a handful of cold cloth over his lap. The flesh bellow felt clammy, stiff—so unnaturally not alive that the previous night flashed before his eyes once again. Blood. Fear. Cold. Alone. But when the tears welled up once more, he couldn't find it in himself to cry. He just felt… Tired. Hollow even… Was he dead too? He had held on to the girl's back for whatever warmth was left in it during the night. He stayed there, clutching and hugging and crying until he felt so numb he just passed out. Not afraid, not sad, just—Maybe that was what dying was: Being so numb you couldn't even move any more.

But that thought didn't last very long.

A sharp peck jolted him awake and he hissed, his hand bolting to soothe the sting. In an instant, the crows took to the air, their wings snapping furiously all over in loud protest before returning to their breakfast banquet. His stomach sank at the sight: Dozens of shadows fighting each other to pick, rip, gouge the flesh now warming up under the sun.

"No!" the boy cried when one of them started nipping at the crusty blood on the girl over his lap. He tried to fend it off seizing handfuls of dirt and pebbles and hurling them at the damn bird, but it came back for more over and over and over again. Desperate, the boy tugged at the pink kimono, straining to even drag her an inch away from the murder. It was like dragging a bag of rocks—slowly tearing with every move. "I'm sorry…" He whimpered, feeling the skin of the girl's knees grate against the ground as if they were his own. It took all he had to pull her up just enough to stop it, but her feet were still dragging and the crow still pecked at her toes and he couldn't—

His arms failed.

The boy hit the floor. Hard. The full weight of the girl sent him sprawling backwards, her head coming down like a hammer over his chest, knocking the wind out of him for a second. He flailed, trying to wriggle out from under her limbs, but as he did so, her head caught in his clothes, dragging it up along with him… And he shrieked.

Her face was contorted in fear, glazed eyes fixed on nothing, tongue hanging from her gaping mouth. The boy scrambled away in a panic. He knew those empty eyes, that twisted face: They were carved in the dozen bodies strewn around him—that was not her, that couldn't be her…

He gingerly crawled towards the girl's body, his hand reaching out just to cower at the touch of the rubbery flesh beneath his fingertips. His shallow breath pounded in his head, drowning the enraged caws of the crows. He reached out once more, this time more steadily, almost tenderly. That was just… death.

[Dec 14] Made some small adjustments and will be adding glossaries and historical notes to the chapters. I try to limit foreign words, but sometimes there's just no good alternative.