***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.
***WARNING***
Graphic depictions of corpses
Mentions of child trafficking & enslavement
Bakumatsu is the name of the final years of the shogunate and samurai era in Japan. It started on 1853 with the arrival of Commodore Perry's ships to the port of Edo (now Tokyo), and ended with the resignation of the last shogun plus some change –which I won't tell yet because spoilers (?) It was an extremely chaotic time –the first big one in 200+ years,- not only politically, but socially, economically, and peppered with natural disasters on top of that. Because you know, when it rains, it pours. And hails. And more.
This story begins on a night two years after Perry's arrival, on a glade by the side of a god-forsaken road.
THE BOY
He was six when he felt loved the first time. Felt at least. A waist-high, skinny boy like him, with his half-toothless smile and unruly tuft of hair, was not meant to feel loved. Not with that blood-red hair of his.
It was one of those nights when the dark fell all at once: No moon, no stars. Just a few dying paper lanterns scattered around, their light turning red at the edges of a winding trail of fear, brutally silenced by people who never even knew them. And at its very end, his skinny, small hands clung to a gasping girl with a pink flowered kimono, who traded her life to give him just a few more breaths to live before joining her.
And for a brief moment, he hated her for it.
He had known the girl for a bedtime story or two, after his sandal snapped and no one couldn't afford to stop, not for a spaz like him. He was struggling with the remains of the thong, hands tripping on themselves over the growled threat of moving on 'or else', when she knelt beside him. Tears had dried on her cheeks, everybody had them, but hers were cupping a soft smile. She took the frayed ends of her sleeves to her lips and ripped a thin strip of her coat. Threading it through his toes, she laced the sandal's weave and looped it into two bunny ears. There, all done she chirped as she tied the makeshift thong. He struggled to find the words. Thank you, Sakura-nēsan she offered. Shadowing her, they had shared a smile. But it was back when he didn't know how selfish she was: After all, in a twisted way it was good that it had ended so quickly for the rest of them: thebloodtheswordsthescreamsthePAIN, and then they hit the ground with a wet thud before they even knew it was over. That is, for everyone but him. He had been robbed of that option.
Sakura-nēsan had taken him by the arm and dragged him away when the first screams reached them. She pulled him away when the boy tried to lift a sword almost as large as himself to guard against the bandits. She tried to cover his eyes when the other girls begged for their life, only to be sneered at as they were cut down. Sakura had pushed him away as they yanked her up, lips mouthing at him to run, to live, to— A sickly thin gleam of metal went through her throat, and the words bled over the pink collar of her kimono.
In a last selfish act, the girl crumpled over him, gasping like a fish out of water as the blade retreated. Wide-eyed and with his legs pinned down by her weight, he would never escape the blood-dripping sword that now hovered above them. The edge was so dark, even against the leaden sky. And it was ready to come down right. Between. His eyes.
Something wet and warm trickled down his legs. It was his turn to die.
The blade came down. It all turned red.
… But he was still alive.
"You were unlucky, child," a deep, solemn voice announced. The bandit's blade clanked against the ground next to the one that had wielded it just moments ago, his arms and legs sprawled around like a forgotten rag doll made of meat. Behind him— behind it, now stood an ogre. No, a tower of a man. It stared at him not with malice, nor bloodlust—like the ogres from stories would; there was not even a trace of pity in the light that glinted off his eyes. The man just stood there, staring matter-of-factly at him, at the tiny, white-knuckled hands clutching the pink fabric of Sakura-nēsan's kimono.
"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, the words reached his ears but found no meaning as the man jerked his sword clean. A buzzing sound drowned everything, pressing heavy against the ears—like being at the bottom of a cold, dark lake. Seemingly unfazed, the man continued, but his words sounded muddied: "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." The man looked somewhere far, far away, and the boy could barely hear him when he finally added: "You should be thankful that you, at least, are alive."
The stranger sheathed his sword and started walking away. He was leaving, the boy realized, but he couldn't speak: his words and the man's words were jumbled in his head, booming above the bird-like pounding inside his chest. He couldn't move: his hands were glued by blood to Sakura-nēsan's back. He couldn't breathe: the buzzing darkness rushed in to crush him. But then, the stranger paused. Looking over the shoulder of his cape, stark-white in the leaden night, the edge to the man's words was gone 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 find the words to do so. But the darkness had stopped on its tracks. From the edges, it could barely, but surely, reach the pink ends of Sakura's kimono, dyeing them a deep shade of black—she would be mad, she didn't like when she got dirty.
When he tore his eyes away from the wrigley black fingers, the man was gone.
The boy's stomach sank. He scoured the moonless night for the stranger's wide back, squinting as hard as he could in case he could gleam him agains the tree line. Nothing. It was then that the redhead noticed the metal tinge lining his every breath. It was then that he became aware of the silence, then when it started crushing his head, pressing more and more as Sakura stopped moving. He felt his nails dig into the palms of his hands through the pink cloth of her kimono. Below the first snowflakes, the thought hit him like a rock: He didn't know where he was, he didn't know where home was. He was somewhere in the woods and it was dark and it was cold and nēsan was not responding. Tears started rolling down his cheeks: No mom. No dad. No sisters. No friends. No nothing…
• • •
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 Sakura's back. 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 her 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. Sakura's full weight sent him sprawling backwards, her head coming down like a hammer over his chest and knocking the wind out of him. He flailed, trying to wriggle out from under her and her limbs, but as he did so, her head caught in his clothes and was dragged up along with the rest of it… The boy shrieked.
Her face was contorted in fear, glazed eyes fixed on nothing, tongue hanging from her gaping mouth. The boy tried to push her away, flesh giving like melted wax, but not budging an inch. Panicked, he scrambled away. He knew those empty eyes, that twisted face: They were carved in the dozen bodies strewn around him—that was not Sakura-nēsan, 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. There was something caught in her teeth. The boy reached for his chest, where he'd felt her tug as he pushed her off of him: His coat was ripped right there. She—it hadn't bitten him, it hadn't tried to take him with it. A tooth was caught in his coat. That was it. That was just… death.
And he was alone with it.
[Feb 25] Added missing warnings, moar adjustments and I'll be working on Spanish version.
[Mar 24] Moarrr edits. Anyone would say I dread starting the next chapter _
Historical context:
• -nēsan (should be in a glossary, but oh, well) is a polite way to refer to either your older sister, or to a close woman older than you. Note the 'close' part; please don't go around calling every older woman 'nēsan', pleaseee. It's like calling a 30-something 'missus' (the struggle is real ;_;)
• Perry threatened with the bombardment of the city of Edo if the shogun didn't drop the 200-year-strong ban on foreigners. That ban wasn't a water-tight thing (badum-tss), but it closed the country to most western influences. In that context, a redhead Japanese was something unheard of, specially since both mother and father must have the redhead gene and it must be present in both the sperm and the egg to actually produce a red-headed offspring. Ask me how I know -.-Uu
