Rurouni Kenshin Fan Fiction / InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ A Choice of Roads ❯ Wash-out ( Chapter 7 )

Author's Note: [start vent] Neither of my betas has watched or read 'Rurouni Kenshin'. Their introduction to Kenshin consisted of, 'He's got red hair. And he's an assassin.' I have read over this chapter so many times that it might as well be written in Ancient Sanskrit for all the sense I can make of it. I even watched the Rurouni Kenshin OAV for 'research purposes'. So please take mercy on me and point out any glaring errors. [end vent] Okay... Everything's fine now....

Chapter Summary: Kagome and Kenshin bond over how much their lives suck.

Disclaimer: I don't own Rurouni Kenshin. I don't own Inuyasha. I just looked at my tuition and rent and I realized that the bank actually owns me. Does that mean that the nice people get to sue them?

Warning: Rated R for language and adult situations. This chapter: some Kenshin canon stretching/creative interpreting. Purists beware. Although if you're reading a time-traveling crossover fic...

/Chapter 7: Wash-out/

*Spilling your guts is messy, dangerous and may leave an incriminating trail of blood.*

He hadn't been able to help himself. He had finished finding the firewood in record time because it physically hurt to not be near Kagome. He didn't want to think too much about the implications of that. She had done laundry before, they had been separated before, but recently it had begun to be painful when she wasn't in his line of sight. He had been very carefully not thinking about it when he found himself downwind of Kagome on the stream, his ki carefully masked. He understood the need for privacy. Really he did. If she didn't know that he was there that counted as privacy, right?

So there he was, watching her wash, watching a dreamy smile come and go on her face, watching Inuyasha coldly and systematically tear her heart out. He didn't even know how he ended up holding her but he had no intention of relaxing his death grip on her body.

When she started talking he merely shifted her so that he could see her face and kept himself very quiet.

"My father was Higurashi Kenji, a Shinto priest. We grew up in a Shinto shrine surrounded by Shinto artifacts. I never really thought about religion though until Dad got sick. I prayed and prayed, but the illness ate him from the inside out and when he finally died I had started just praying for his pain to end. When I fell in the well and got sent here, I started thinking about religion again. Faith was supposed to make me a stronger miko, but what did I have to believe in? There was poverty, death, disease everywhere I looked. I tried to help, but it seemed that my true abilities were actually in fighting. Ironically, I am a priestess whose power only seems to manifest to kill. I was becoming more and more separated from my family and my own time. They vaguely understood that I had a responsibility but they couldn't fully understand what I became in the Warring States Era. In my time I would have been considered a mass murderer. Here every member of my group is as bloody as I am."

She paused for a second, and resumed. "You heard Inuyasha today and, as I told you earlier, the group doesn't always see my value as a fighter. I'm sure that you've also been told that I love Inuyasha. Maybe it was just because I met him first, but I felt a connection to him that all of those insults couldn't undo. We used to be friends, Kenshin. The insults never used to be this cruel and we used to have fun together as well. I never expected to replace Kikyo in his heart, but I was willing to stay anyways, just to be near him. In spite of everything, a part of me will always care for him. I will never regret having met him or any of the group, especially since it gave me my son." A brief smile for Shippo crossed Kagome's face.

"What Inuyasha couldn't know, even if he was trying to be cruel, is the current state of my relationship with my family."

Kagome's eyes unfocussed and Kenshin had to gently shake her before she continued. "Two years ago, I went back to my time for six months. I completed all of my high school courses at home, played with my brother and had long talks with my mother. My family was so happy. I was even able to get to know my Grandfather better before he finally died at the very end of my stay. After I got my high school certificate, I told my mother and brother that I was going to return to the Feudal Era and seal the well until I defeated Naraku so that monsters couldn't get through to hurt them."

"They disowned me. My mother called me an ungrateful murderer who needed to be killing people to feel whole. She couldn't understand any other reason I would want to go back since the jewel meant nothing to me and I wasn't screwing Inuyasha. She told me that I had no idea how they suffered never knowing if I would come back or not. If I sealed the well, they wouldn't be able to take any more of the uncertainty of not knowing. She helped me buy all the supplies, helped me bring them all to the well, but neither she nor Souta talked to me again. They didn't even say goodbye. I did it to protect them, to devote my time to finding the jewel. In the end I hurt everyone."

She raised broken eyes to his face. "My father told me to protect my family, to use my abilities with honor and compassion. I was even supposed to name my first son after him. Everyday that I stay here I further dishonor his memory. What have I become?"

Kenshin knew that the only way he could counterbalance her shame was to share his own.

"I was born on a farm, the son of farmers. My parents died of cholera when I was very young. I was rescued from slavery by a sword-master named Hiko. He changed my name to Kenshin as Shinta was 'too gentle for a future swordsman'. He took me in as his apprentice and began to teach me how to master his sword style."

"He wasn't a very affectionate man and he was very fond of sake, but he was fair and I was kept clothed and fed. When I saw how many people were being killed in the war, I told Hiko that I planned to go use my skills to protect the people. He told me that I would be forced to choose, to kill some people in order to protect others and that my sword technique would make me a mass murderer. I told him that I was willing to do what it took to help the people. I left and joined the emperor's forces and Hiko washed his hands of me. I never saw him again."

He took a deep breath. He had made his childhood sound so dry, but he couldn't remember it any other way or he would fall to the poison of old memories. Kagome's light touch on his arm gave him the strength to continue.

"My superior's name was Katsura. He was a tactically brilliant man and I became his favorite weapon. Nothing defeats opposition like terror. Even more than the strategically important assassinations, fear of the invisible Hitokiri Battousai started to wear down our opponents." He closed his eyes for a brief moment. There had been so many deaths.

"But I wasn't completely invisible. One man managed to mark me before I killed him." Kenshin lightly traced one of the lines on his cheek. "That would have been his only connection to me if he hadn't had a fiancée. She was very deeply in love and very determined to avenge him. She was convinced that she could find me and destroy me. She did find me. I didn't kill her and, over time, we fell in love."

There was a small choke from Kagome, but she made no move to interrupt him.

"Katsura sent me to a village at one point to hide because the war effort was in shambles. Tomoe was to pretend to be my wife, but we married in truth. I worked as an apothecary and we lived in a small house just outside of town. Tomoe had been trying to convince me to stop being an assassin and this life was starting to convince me that maybe I could live like a normal man. I was fifteen and Tomoe was older than me. When she said that she wanted to wait to get physically closer, I agreed. I would have done anything to keep physical contact in my life that didn't involve death. Later I realized that she was struggling with her feelings of guilt for her fiancé and her guilt over whether or not she would betray me."

There were tears running down Kagome's cheeks. Kenshin couldn't cry.

"She didn't betray me. She went to the opposition to tell them that she was unable to hurt me. However, another member of Katsura's group was a traitor and when I came home that evening the traitor came to me to tell me that Tomoe had betrayed me. He gave me her journal, which detailed her entire history, and he told me where I could find her and her conspirators. I went crazy, Kagome. I don't really remember much of what happened except that I ended up in a clearing with a pile of bodies. Tomoe was there and one other man from the opposition. I went to kill the man and Tomoe moved in front of my sword, saving me from his dagger. Maybe she thought it was the only way to resolve her guilt for both me and her fiancé. My sword went through both of them, but Tomoe gave me my second mark as she died."

Kenshin stared deep into the forest. "I returned to Katsura as an assassin for three years until we won the war. Her ghost and my guilt followed me for the entire time. Now, she's like a story that I was told when I was a child- sad, tragic but no longer part of my life. I thought that I loved her, but now I wonder if what I felt was even love. I certainly don't feel as if I can never love again."

He leaned his head against her shoulder, breathing in the sweet, wild-meadow scent of her hair, before sitting up again. He felt curiously light, as if talking about the past had helped lift some of the weight from his heart.

"Love isn't an all-or-nothing thing." Kagome paused, seeming to struggle with her words. "I believe that it is possible to love more than one person. However, each love is unique just as each person is unique. Whether those loves are romantic or not, consummated or unconsummated, they help build the people we become."

Her face became thoughtful. He wasn't sure that she knew that he was there. "In the end of life, I believe that we will be judged not on who we hated but on who we loved. So in our final moments all of those faces must gather with us to help us move forward as they helped us in life." She stopped, clearly embarrassed, and waved her hand. "Sorry, I'm not very good with words."

But he understood. And when he met her eyes, her embarrassment faded. They sat there until the light disappeared, not touching, not speaking. They both knew that something fundamental had shifted. Inuyasha said nothing when they finally returned to camp, although Kenshin doubted that Kagome noticed. When Kenshin finally lowered himself to sleep he tasted wildflowers in his dreams.

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/Reviewer Responses/

Somnambulicious: I hope that this chapter makes up for the shortness of the last chapter. And yes, there are reasons for the way that Inuyasha is acting. It sounds like you've probably figured out what they are, although I'm hoping there will still be a few surprises for the Inuyasha/Kagome interaction. Ah yes, I think that poor Kenshin may be a wee bit overwhelmed by Kagome and Shippo. cough*hormones*cough

Samoliver: Glad that you're enjoying the story!

Umi Youko: Well, I'm happy that you're enjoying the story. I know that I have a bit of a strange sense of humor and it's always nice to see someone else enjoying it. I do have a deep, dark confession to make though: I sort of like Kagome a little whiny, a little self-absorbed and acting like well.... an eighteen-year-old. She's not perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but I like to think that she's got a good heart in spite of it all.

Mysterylady_Tx (Erika): The large rodent that crawled up Inuyasha's ass will reveal itself a little bit later in the story. You know, I have often thought that Shippo really should be present for the training that the rest of the group does, if only to learn some basic self-defense. As you can see this chapter, Kagome is really, really lucky to have Kenshin around. I have really enjoyed writing my way through this and I hope that the current chapter matched the buildup from the last chapter :)

Ice Vixen X: Thank you for your compliments on the story! I hope that the rest of the story will continue to interest you.

Silver Neko: As I mention in my little rant at the start of the chapter, neither of my two betas know anything about 'Rurouni Kenshin'. Despite my intention to make this a story mainly about Kenshin, apparently you don't need to know anything about the show to read it. Yah, the complete lack of information about Kagome always interested me- I wondered if it was just because they thought that Kagome's past was too boring to show? Of course, in my world, there is an entirely different explanation :) And yes, I have been having a lot of fun making up quotes for each of the chapters. The bus one was inspired by my thought, as a permanent pedestrian, that pretty much the only way I'd ever get blind-sided by a bus would be if it was driving somewhere unusual. And if it was driving somewhere unusual, how the hell would it get there? Glad that you liked the combination of the chapter and Miroku's ramblings. The ramblings were actually a mental challenge to see how far I could condense the plotline of Inuyasha and still have it make some kind of sense. It's amazing how weird it sounds when you cut it down to the very bare bones :)

Write, write, write! Writing is fun!

KitsuneArasi: Wow, I'm really honored that you're enjoying the story that much. I hope that the rest of it will keep you interested. As a huge fan of alternative pairings that manage to keep a twisty sort of canon (how's that for a tough category!), I agree that it can sometimes be hard to find stories. There are some really good ones out there though and I am seriously tempted to include some of my favorites next chapter... I am very grateful that you offered your time and I may actually take you up on that offer of help, especially if you know anything about Rurouni Kenshin.

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As a final note, I've had a couple of requests for other IY-RK crossovers that I might recommend. Unfortunately I really haven't spent a lot of time looking for these and so am pretty unfamiliar with what exactly is out there. If anybody has any favorite recommendations I'd be more than happy to mention them! I know that there are some good ones out there, but I have a terrible memory and I can't remember any names right now.