Chapter Fourteen: Kurogasa
Kaoru recognized that things may be winding down for the day for everyone, so she went to fix dinner. She chose to serve grilled fish which she felt confident enough to cook without Sanosuke mocking her. She was wrong of course, but she tried at least.
"I can't believe we let you cook…" Sano grumbled.
"Shut it, Rooster!" Kaoru growled.
Chisa laughed, but she was exceptionally exhausted. She had traveled the previous night from Shiga to arrive in Tokyo. Then were the great contrasts: Seeing the corpse of the man she had cared about, telling the stories about their life together, but seeing first hand the people he had terrorized. She covered her mouth and yawned.
Yahiko laid back on the ground, put his hands behind his head, and closed his eyes. Kenshin checked in again with Chisa. "Everything ok?"
"Just been a long week really; I never sleep well when Jin-e isn't home…" She thought about it and realized that he would never be home again. That, at that moment, his body may be on its way to being engulfed in flames, flesh melting off bone, all that he was being burnt away. He would never be home, but he would never be able to hurt anyone ever again. He would never be able to scare her or control her or manipulate her again.
"Keep your hair out of your face."
She swiped her hair behind her ears subconsciously.
Kenshin moved to sit closer to her. "What can be done for you in this moment?"
"Nothing. You've all done enough. After dinner, I'll join Akari at the inn. She's heavily pregnant and I hate to leave her for too long. If it isn't too much trouble, I'd like to stop by tomorrow to finish up my stories."
"Oro? Isn't Akari around ten years older than you?" Kenshin did some quick math.
"Yes. She's always been one to live life her own way, even if that means having a new child that is younger than her grandchild." Chisa giggled. "When I say that I've always wanted to be like her, I do not mean all parts of her life."
"Look at you now. A pity." A familiar voice laughed.
Chisa looked up and standing behind Kenshin was Kurogasa himself, black eyes glaring at her. His wakizashi was protruding from his chest; blood dripping from his mouth and nose. His right arm was hanging limply. Her eyes widened and her jaw began shaking. She gasped and fell backwards from where she was sitting and hit her head on the ground.
"Chisa-dono!" Kenshin rushed to her side. "What's wrong?!"
"…the wife of a hitokiri. A true pity."
Chisa wasn't crying, but she had a wild look in her eyes. Kenshin tried to help her up and she swatted him away stubbornly. "I'm more than that!" She yelled at nothing, sounding frustrated. When she looked up, Kurogasa was gone.
Kenshin stood back and waited for her to regroup a bit. She told him that she was fine, but he recognized the lie and didn't want to press the issue. She stood, brushed herself off, and pulled a leaf from her hair. Sano, Kaoru, and Yahiko just stared at Kenshin for a moment and tried to go back to what they were doing, but watched Chisa out of the corner of their eyes. She was sweating despite the chill in the air, and breathing heavily.
She knew she needed to leave, but she had already implied that she would stay for dinner. She pulled a kerchief out of her bag and dabbed her forehead and mouth. Kaoru was already finishing up, so maybe it wouldn't take much longer. She hoped Akari would be able to settle her down a bit. She was just tired, that was it.
She ate quietly, as did the others following her small outburst. She was rather embarrassed, but chose to not acknowledge that she had said or done anything odd, which she had. To see Kurogasa, not her husband Jin-e, standing there just as Kenshin had described, was a bit overwhelming. She did her very best to avoid Kurogasa when he was living and most of the time she was successful. She thought about the first time she met him.
Two months after Jin-e's departure from the Shinsengumi:
Prior to his violent departure from the Shinsengumi and knowing what his own plan was, Jin-e had purchased the homestead at Shiga in preparation. He moved Chisa in a few weeks afterwards, taking her hours away from her parents and her previous life. She was glad for the change and excited to be on a new adventure with Jin-e. Akari had not moved nearby quite yet, but was in her preparations. Chisa's parents had not been especially fond of her move and her father revoked his permission for the two to marry. Jin-e honored this and chose not to marry Chisa.
On this particular night, Chisa had been alone for a week. Jin-e had been taking any jobs he could, but she wasn't sure where he was going or when he was coming back. He instructed her before every job that if he was gone more than two weeks to just go home to Kyoto because he was dead. She would pass the time reading, gardening, and caring for their chickens and two horses; anything to break from the dread and boredom.
Chisa was laying in bed awake when suddenly the door slid open and Jin-e was standing there. She ran to greet him, but before he could respond, he jerked his head around behind him and faced the moonlit property. He stepped outside. Without thinking, Chisa ran to his side to see what he was looking at. "Hmm…Who could be hiding out here?" He thought out loud and walked further into the yard. "Chisa, you go back inside." She felt frozen and didn't move.
"You have two choices: You come out now and I kill you, or like a coward you wait until you think I'm sleeping and break into my home and I kill you. Or should I come to you?" Jin-e laughed.
A tall man wearing black hakama walked out from behind the tree line, sword drawn. Jin-e laughed, but stayed where he was standing. The man walked closer slowly. "You're a traitor to the Shinsengumi. You'll die tonight." He spat at Jin-e.
"Well, come here then. I'm not coming to you." Jin-e was standing deadly still.
The assassin was close enough that Chisa could see his eyes, they met hers. "Draw your sword, Kurogasa."
"No." Jin-e said simply.
The man paused, not sure what to say. Jin-e laughed harder. "Come on then! You're prolonging your own suffering!"
The man ran at Jin-e, but in an instant he froze mid-stride. "It's…true…" He gasped. Chisa was confused at what she was seeing. He didn't just stop running, it was different than that.
Jin-e, or Kurogasa as he was at this time, walked calmly up to the man and drew his wakizashi. Chisa knew she should leave but she couldn't stop watching. She could see the fear in the assassin's eyes. He grabbed the man by the hair and decapitated him lightning fast. Chisa gasped and clapped both hands over her mouth. She couldn't even scream. The body fell to one side and Jin-e took an audible breath, staring up at the moon. He sighed, seemingly satisfied, and turned around with the assassin's head still in his hand. Chisa looked in his eyes; they were black.
He walked up to her quietly, still smiling, and dropped the head at her feet like a cat presenting its owner its catch. "I told you to go inside." Chisa finally screamed, tears running down her face.
"Look at you now. A pity. All of this noise over one little rat. And you say you want to be the wife of a hitokiri. A true pity." Kurogasa shook his head and walked into their home.
Chisa sat outside alone for about half-an-hour, not even bothering to move the assassin's head. Her options were to go inside with Jin-e, which she knew she had to do at some point, or stay outside in the moonlight where she could just sit alone in the silence. Jin-e made the decision for her. He came back outside and wordlessly picked up the head, then the body, and carried them to the side of their shed. When he returned to Chisa, he held out his hand to her and she was too scared to refuse. They returned inside.
In the candlelight, Chisa got a better look at Jin-e's eyes. "Your eyes…Jin-e, what happened to your eyes?" She whispered.
"They'll go back." He chuckled, "You can go home, you know."
"I don't want to go home." Chisa lied.
"Good, I don't want you to." He lit a cigarette, took a deep drag, and sat in the floor.
Chisa returned to her bed silently, praying for sleep and praying that whoever came home tonight would stay out of her room.
