Rurouni Kenshin Fan Fiction ❯ I Am Battousai ❯ Chapter 5 ( Chapter 5 )

In all his years of searching he had never thought that this was where he would end up; a broken man starring at his sisters grave with a guilt filled heart. In his right hand a book was loosely held. His knees and shins were becoming muddy from his position on the ground. His body slightly hunched over, feeling the weight of guilt on his shoulders. His white hair streaked with his natural dark brown color. His roots coming in the same.

 

What had he done?

 

He killed. He destroyed families just to find him; to find that bastard that killed his sister. He was so consumed with revenge he didn't notice that he had become like the man he hated so much. A man that didn't deserve his hate. No, he had become worse.

 

While the Battousai killed men on the battlefield he tried to save as many as well, he knew that. He never killed the helpless. He never killed woman or children.

 

Enishi's heart ached. The memories of their screams fresh in his mind as if it happened just a moment before. He hurt so many. He even killed their children and wives. He had become what his sister hated and mistook the battousai for. He had become the man that took his sisters happiness from her.

 

He had become a monster.

 

Tears slipped down his face. Just one or two at first, but then tens and twenties. Soon then flowed freely.

 

“Forgive me sister” He held the book to his chest, bending over, formally bowing to his sister's grave.

 

He didn't know how long he sat there with his head down, forehead submerged in the mud, but he soon found that he lacked the energy to move. He couldn't remember the last time he ate. He had been walking for days, desperate to make it to Tokyo, desperate to see his sister's grave.

 

“Are you alright?” A worried voice sounded behind him; a woman's. It was full of concern, that kind he hadn't heard since his sister was still alive. It filled his body, easing his pain the smallest amount, but enough to notice. Enough to bring a small smile to his face. “Brother help me get him in the carriage.” The voice was loud in his head. Reminding him of all the times he felt at peace living with his sister and father. He had forgotten what it was like to have a family.

 

He felt her run her small hands threw his hair then down his back. “Is this the grave of a loved one?” She asked in the softest of voice. There was no sympathy hidden anywhere in it.

 

Enishi didn't respond. He wanted to tell her everything, but feared the rejection. Her person called to him. It beckoned him to allow her to help. To hold his damaged soul until it could repair itself.

 

“Tomoe? That's a beautiful name. She must have been quite lovely.” The woman whispered. “Right now she is in a better place. God would have no doubt accepted such a lovely woman into his kingdom. You know, in gods kingdom any one could find peace. It is a fine place, a place of hope”

 

Enishi sat up slowly, forcing his arms to bare his weight as he looked at her strangely. What was she talking about?

 

“Come with us and I will show you want I mean.” She smiled.

 

No one had smiled at him like that in some time.

 

Studying her for the first time he couldn't help but stare. She was beautiful. Brown hair, brown eyes. Strange western clothing. Soft pale blemish free skin. A soul that shone threw her. One so soft and innocent.

 

“You have guilt in your eyes” She whispered, her fingers brushing across his cheek.

 

He closed his eyes to saver the feeling.

 

“It isn't hopeless you know” She leaned in, smiling once again. Her eyes sparkled, taking his breath away.

 

There was hope?

 

“No matter what you have done you could always admit that you were wrong and repent. If you have cause pain and death then protect others' lives and happiness. The souls of those you have wronged will find forgiveness of you and you will find forgiveness in yourself.”

 

Tears pored from Enishi's eyes. The woman wrapped her arms around him, holing him close. What could he do for his sister to show her was sorry. What could he do to make her smile again?

 

“It's going to be ok. God will not abandon you during this time of repentance, nor will I. Now come on, we need to get you fed and into a clean pair of clothes” She went to help him up.

 

“No” he whispered.

 

The girl paused and smiled down at his weakened form. “Do not be afraid”

 

“I must do something first” feeling around he couldn't find what he was looking for.

 

“Here” A man held out a small pick and hammer.

 

“Brother?” the girl questioned, letting Enishi go, allowing him to start his task.

 

“He needs to leave this woman a message, one that the world could see” The woman's brother smiled.

 

“How did you know?” She whispered, watching Enishi's carve Japanese letters onto the bottom of the woman's grave.

 

“We have something in common. He holds the look in his eyes. The same as I. We have a message to share”

 

The woman nodded, smiling at the man on his knees in the dirt. “I will go fetch his something for him to eat” She turned to leave.

 

“What is your name” enishi's raspy voice stopped her in her tracks.

 

She turned and smiled. “Magadallia, at your service”

 

“Enishi, Enishi Yukishiro”

 

“Its nice to meat you” She bowed before heading toward a nearby carriage to grab the food she promised.

 

 

@#$%^&*()

 

It had taken him some time to move from his wives grave, but with Kaoru's help he was now sitting on a nearby bench.

 

He couldn't put the pieces together. Enishi hated him. He hated him more than anything else on the face of this earth. The boy had tried for ten years to track him down and kill him. No he didn't want to kill him, but make him hurt in the worst possible way. What enishi didn't realize was that he was already hurting in the worse possible way.

 

There had been a secret that no one knew. One her younger brother never found out. One that doubled his pain.

 

“Kenshin” Kaoru's whispered next to him. “Are you ok? Did you want to go home?” She touched his shoulder to feel that the muscles underneath it to be flexed. “You know, I am not entirely sure of what happened between you, but by the look of it you were forgiven by somebody you never thought would.” Wrapping her arm around his waist he didn't move to stop her. She rested her head on his shoulder. “Maybe now you will understand that it wasn't your fault. It wasn't anybodies fault. Tomoe made a choice, and you must respect that. It was only her choice to make and you must honor her sacrifice”

 

Kenshin couldn't take it anymore. One hundred and forty years of pain was too much. He wrapped his arms around her waist in a death grip and rested his head on her lap. The day he killed Tomoe ran threw his head. “I never asked her to, I would had died for her” he voice shook.

 

Kaoru held him as tight as she could. “You never asked her to die for you and she never ask you to die for her.”

 

Tears filled Kenshin's eyes. “She was going to kill me”

 

“Yes she was, before she met you, but once she got to know you she saw that you weren't the man she thought you were, but a man worth saving”

 

Kenshin shook his head.

 

Reaching down she lifted him up, he didn't resist. Holding a wet cheek in each hand she looked him in the eyes. “She saw you for who you are; a man worth protecting. You may have killed, but regretted every life you took. You have also saved hundreds of people.”

 

Kenshin went to pull away, but she held firm. “and you are still saving them.”

 

He looked up at her in shock.

 

“My teacher told me that you were to help give woman a reason to live. You help them see what they are missing. You have given the happiness back to so many girls, who I am sure got married and had children, who have had children. Do you not see what you have done? All of the good that you have caused.” She pulled him into her chest and held him tight. “She may have been delivered a terrible fate but you were as well.”

 

They stayed like that for god knows how long. The sun had set and the cold started to sink in. Kaoru's purple T-shirt and blue jeans were not doing much to fend off the cold and she shivered.

 

Kenshin pulled back and looked her in the eyes with worry; his face streaked with tears. “Come, we must get home before you freeze to death.” He whispered. Standing he pulled her with him. “Is there a bus stop near here?”

 

They were standing very close, their breaths tickling each other's face.

 

“yes” She whispered.

 

Nodding he took her arm is his and held her close, leading the way out of the cemetery.

 

The trip home was a silent one. They sat on the bus, arm in arm enjoying each other's presence.

 

When they returned to the dojo Kaoru pulled Kenshin into the kitchen where she made hot chocolate, which was actually pretty good. That's instant hot coco for ya. Giving him a mug she pulled herself onto a sitting position on the counter. Taking her own mug in her hands he took a sip of the hot liquid. She could feel the cold from the trip home melting away.

 

“What is this?” he asked, looking at it.

 

“Hot chocolate” She smiled. “Try it, its good”

 

Deciding that there was no harm in it, unless of course you would count the possibility of there being poison or some kind of truth serum in it, but Kaoru wouldn't do that.

 

He took a sip when he saw Kaoru glaring at him. Surprising it was pretty good, too hot for his mouth, but good. Blowing on it he took another sip.

 

“Kenshin” kaoru's curious voice caused Kenshin to look up. “do you want to talk about it?”

 

He knew it. Woman and wanting to share their emotions. Next thing he knew she would ask how it made him feel and if he wanted to cry together or some mushy thing like that.

 

“I mean, I was curious what it was like back then. My father tried to raise me as if we were still living during your time, but he never lived then and didn't really know what it was like, so I was curious.”

 

Ok so he was wrong. Sighing he racked his brain for memories of his childhood, training with hiko, the revolution, and the years of wondering after. “There were no cars. They had just started to build a train. People didn't have the conveniences that they have now.”

 

Kaoru nodded. “Was life different for the people after the revolution, or was it the same?”

 

Kenshin smiled. Leave it to her to think of such a question. “Is there a reason why you are asking these? I sense and ulterior motive”

 

Kaoru blushed. “I have to…well you see, my teacher gave us an assignment to do a report on the fable, legends, or myth that I find most fascinating.”

 

Kenshin nodded. “It makes sense that you find the most interesting to be the one sitting in your kitchen” He smirked playfully.

 

Kaoru laughed. “That's right. Actually I was going to do you before you showed up, that's why finding your diary in my bag was strange, and a god send in a way” Thinking it over she started laughing again. “god send, HA, those sneaky deities”.

 

Yes, sneaky indeed. “The people after the revolution were no longer enslaved and allowed to exist under titles and classes. A farmer would be able to rise to what would have been the rank of nobility. Before the farmers were forced to grow food for their lords, but after the revolution the lords had to pay the farmers for their crops.” Kenshin leaned up against the wall across from Kaoru and slid down until he was sitting on the kitchen floor.

 

“What about the samurai?”

 

Kenshin frowned. “Most of them either became soldier for the new government, opened dojo's, or became hired bodyguard or assassins. There were a large group of them that tried to over throw the government at some point and most of them became bandits or homeless.”

 

“That's awful” Kaoru whispered, looking down at the brown liquid in her mug.

 

“Yes it was Miss Kaoru, but they were stuck in their ways. They were weaker because they lacked what it took to live. They never saw their weakness. They took the ability to adapt to the new way of live as a weakness; the inability to stand up for what you believed it. What they didn't get was that the people who fought for an ideal were living it in the new world. They wanted peace. A place to raise their families in peace. They were living their ideals, or trying to anyway.”

 

Kaoru nodded. “Who's Enishi?” She whispered, almost afraid to ask.

 

“My brother in law” Kenshin lowered his head, preventing Kaoru was seeing his eyes.

 

“What was he like?”

 

Kenshin sighed. “He was a good kid that loved his sister very much. The death of his sister turned him into a demon of vengeance. He tracked me down wherever I was in hope of giving me the justice I deserved.”

 

There was a pause before Kaoru started laughing.

 

Kenshin looked at her like she had just sprouted an extra limp from her butt.

 

“Aren't brothers strange?” She laughed again.

 

Kenshin eyed the exit. This woman was crazy.

 

“I remember when I accidentally spilt milk on Sano's new X-Box controller. He ranted on and on about how the heavens should rain fire down upon me and swore revenge. Two days later I found a flaming bag of dog poop in front of the dojo doors. A few days later Megumi had bought him a new one for his birthday. It was a better one than he had before. After that he didn't care about the old one anymore. It was like I never ruined it and he never swore revenge.”

 

Kenshin looked at her strange. “What is an X-Box?”

 

Kaoru stopped smiling. “Oh I forgot. The X-Box is something you play games on. Its hooked to the TV and you use a controller to play. The controller is expensive too.”

 

Kenshin nodded. He smiled when an image of Sano ranting with tears in his eyes about the ruining of his controller. He didn't know what a controller looked like, but he was sure it was small and fit in Sano's hand.

 

“Kenshin?”

 

He looked up.

 

“Do you want to talk about Tomoe? She must have been a strong woman to tame the infamous battousai”

 

Kenshin smirked. Tomoe really did didn't she? “She was eighteen when he married, I was fifteen. I didn't know anything about her but didn't care” He looked up at the ceiling with a smile. “She was elegant and refined, but never hesitated to talk back to me or put me in my place when I was being an idiot.” He looked at Kaoru and laughed slightly, in a dream like state. “I remember one night she kicked my out of my room when I wouldn't let her clean it as if she was my mother and scolded me for not appreciating what people did for me. It was the first time I was able to look around and see that there were people that cared about me.”

 

Kaoru smiled. “Sound wonderful”

 

Kenshin nodded. “There was this one time a few months after I brought her to our hideout, I had come home after an assassination. I went into the kitchen to wash my hands of the blood when she entered the room. She took my hand in hers and when I tried to pull them away she held on time. She said “they look clean to me”. But when I told her they weren't she just smiled and said. “With a soul as pure as your own blood could not stain it.”.”

 

Kaoru laughed. “Smart woman, and terribly brave for taking on the Battousai like that. Not that I would think that you'd take the life of a woman”

 

Stills smiling Kenshin shook his head. “I understand. People were scared of me when they didn't need to be, but it was part of bring about the new era” He took a sip of his now luke warm hot chocolate.

 

“Yes, the Battosai saved us all”

 

Kenshin nearly dropped his mug. What did she say? He looked at her in udder shock and amazement.

 

She just smiled with her eye closed. It was a smile of peace. “If you didn't fight then we may still be stuck in the ways of the old. I could have been born into servitude or maybe we would have never been able to trade with the western countries.” She opened her eyes and smiled at Kenshin, who was gaping on the kitchen floor. “Just think, one boy, barely a man, carved the way to a better era with his sword. They could make a movie out of you and make millions. A story like yours is amazing. Not to mention it would give hope to so many people.”

 

“Hope” Kenshin squeaked.

 

Kaoru nodded. Placing her now empty mug on the counter she placed both of her palms on its cold surface. Leaning back slightly she smiled at the ceiling as if she were smiling at a clear blue sky in spring. “It would show people that no matter how old or young you are, or weak or strong, as long as you focus on your goals you can make a difference…and that there is good in everybody. Never give up on anybody, or yourself”

 

Kenshin stared at his now cold hot chocolate. Being told something like that you'd think that there would be a millions questions or things against was Kaoru had said, but there weren't. He felt at peace for the first time since Tomoe. For the first time he knew that what Kaoru said was true, and he had nothing to say against it. Kenshin smiled. What a great feeling that was.

 

He continued to stare at his drink when he heard Kaoru get up and rinse her mug out, placing it on the counter.

 

He did, however, look up when he felt her standing over him. She smiled and him and reached for his hand.

 

“Its getting late Kenshin, its time fore bed.”

 

He nodded, taking her hand in his. Escorting her down the hall to her bedroom door he held her hand in his for a moment longer before bringing her palm to his lips. “Good night Miss Kaoru” he whispered.

 

Brushing a bit of loose hair behind her ear he smiled one last time before turning around and heading for his room.

 

Kaoru stood there, blushing like crazy before reaching behind her for the door knob. Turning it she leaned against the door.

 

#$%^&*()*&^%$%^&*()

 

Kenshin had been sitting against the wall with his sword in his arms like he did every night, but sleep wouldn't claim him. This time though, he didn't stay up to prevent and enemy attack or because bitter memories were getting the better of him, but because of the conversation he had with Kaoru that night.

 

He had thought about Tomoe for the first fifty years of his curse, but he found that it always made his pain worse. To compare the girls he was cursed to pleasure to Tomoe had been a sin in itself. It had taken him almost fifty-five years to finally give up comparing. He knew that he would never see Tomoe again. Even in his next life he doubted it.

 

He knew her very well. He even knew her better in the years after her death when he memorized her diary. She would not be waiting for him in the after life, but protecting and waiting for her brother. Maybe even with Akira. She had said once in her diary that they were not meant to be together, but that they were meant to heal each others souls. They were each others support, and she was right. He would have never come from the shadows it if weren't for her. He would have never found the error of his ways and traveled around the country trying to repent for them. Though maybe destroying every temple he came across wasn't a good idea, but he never killed the people that resided there. Still, he had understood long ago what they really were and have come to terms with it, allowing himself to look back at the time they spent together and laugh at the good memories instead of cry because he killed them, and today was the first time he was able look at her death as being an accident and not his murdering her. He figured he always knew that in the back of his head, but refused to believe it.

 

Thinking back now he had saved far more than he killed. He even brought relief to many families who had to live without the fathers, brother, uncles, or grandfathers that died in the revolution. He did hard labor for those who lacked the men to do so. He protected their woman and children from gangs. As a matter of fact he had defeated multiple himself. Two years before he was cursed he sent eight months helping a group of men build an orphanage and start a crop field to help field the young ones.

 

Sitting back completely against the wall, he leaned his head back smiling. He was sure that Tomoe was smiling for him.

 

He could never compare somebody like Kaoru and Tomoe together. They were very different people living in very different times. It would be unfair to them both.

He would say this though. They were strong capable woman. Woman different from the rest and it will kill him when he has to leave Kaoru.