Rurouni Kenshin Fan Fiction ❯ Lonely Road ❯ Lonely Road ( Chapter 1 )

[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]

Disclaimer- I don’t own Rurouni Kenshin or the song Boulevard of Broken Dreams.

AN: Switches to Kenshin’s POV partway through. Some spoilers for the OVA.



(I walk a lonely roadThe only one that I have ever known)

         &n bsp;  On a lonesome road in the countryside of Japan, a young man with crimson hair, the color of blood and a scar in the shape of a ragged X on his cheek walks down the road, alone. At his side is a sword, his clothes are dusty and worn, and he walks with a slow, almost predatory grace, but a feeling of sadness plagues the violet eyes of the swordsman, elusive and vague, like a wisp of smoke in shadow.

         &nbs p;  The sadness in his eyes is loss but not loneliness, as if the man has been devoid of companionship before, and does not require it anymore, has become too jaded.

           ;  Or perhaps he requires it, but is just afraid to lose that companionship, is afraid of the pain of loss once more.

             In any case, he walks steadily, silent, obvious in the fact that he has walked alone before, down this same lonely road many times before.

         &nbs p;  He goes by many names, this young man, too many for one who has yet to breach more than thirty summers. Battousai, Hitokiri, Kenshin, Shinto, and now Rurouni. Assassin, manslayer, heart of sword, wanderer, and now pacifist, or at least one who refuses to kill. Too many names.

           ;  But he prefers to be known as Kenshin.
(Don't know where it goes)
            The man whose favorite name is Kenshin walked without a purpose. Well, that’s not true, he walked with the purpose to protect and conserve life. Perhaps it is better to say he walked without a destination, alone, down this empty road.


(But it's home to me and I walk alone)          

            I walk alone. I’ve always walked alone.

           ;  But this is the first time I’ve walked alone, without a destination.

          ;   Throughout the revolution, I had places to go, people to kill. I walked alongside soldiers, alongside... Tomoe.

           ;  Images, flashes of her death, the way my blade sliced into her back as she shielded me, the way her blood rained on me, just like the first night we met. A crimson rain of death showering a vision of beauty.

         &nbs p;  She told me I made it rain blood... and I made it rain blood again, when I killed her. But this time, it fell on me.

          &n bsp; With her last breath... she completed the scar her husband left on me. She finished what he started. I bear this scar as a reminder of the lives I have taken, of the souls I have destroyed, of the families I have torn apart with my blade.

           ;  I fight for her. I fight to make sure no one else suffers like she did under the blade, like my sisters did.

          & nbsp; I don’t have any person to fight for, so I fight for all people. I have no more people to care for, so I care for everyone.

         &n bsp;  I envy the other soldiers, the homes and lives and families they can return to. I don’t remember the house of my parents, and the caravan I traveled with was no home. The only true home I had was the house that I shared with Tomoe.

           ;  But that’s not my home anymore. I can never go back there, not when her ghost haunts my every step and would only appear everywhere when I looked anywhere, would haunt my dreams even more so than ever before.

         &nbs p;  So I walk alone, with nothing but the clothes on my back and the sword at my side.
(I walk this empty streetOn the Boulevard of Broken Dreams
Where the city sleepsAnd I'm the only one and I walk alone)

         &n bsp;  The slight weight of the sword is comfortable to me, but that disturbs me more than anything. It disturbs me to know that I feel naked without a sword at my side, without an instrument of death in my hands.

           ;  My sword... my old sword created so much more than death. It broke and made dreams, it made orphans, it ended endless futures and potentials and souls. It ended the dream of my enemies and created the dream of those I fought alongside of, those who wanted the Meiji government. A sword is a dangerous weapon... a single swing can change the future of one or many people... a lesson I did not realize until it was too late. Until I had the blood of someone I cared for, until I realized I had broken the dreams of someone I loved.

           ;  My new sword cannot do any of that. It cannot make death or war. What I can use it for though, is to protect. I can use the sword to conserve lives, souls, and the dreams of the people.  

           ;  But I can’t use it to undo what I’ve done. I can’t use it to bring back Tomoe, to undo the killing strokes that ended her life, that ended the life of her husband. All I can do is try to use my sword to make a difference in people’s lives.

           ;  The weakness of that ideal sickens the Battousai... and I am ashamed to say it sounds weak to my ears as well. (I walk aloneI walk aloneI walk aloneI walk a...)
            But people fear me for this sword. Swords are banned now, of course. The instruments that caused death are being replaced by weapons that can cause faster, quicker, cleaner deaths.

         &nbs p;  That is why I refuse to help the government I fought to create. Because they would help perpetuate the cycle of death. They would seek more bloodshed, more death, more war, more destruction.

          ;   My oath, my new life, my new purpose cannot abide by that. I can no longer bring myself to send men to their deaths and more than I can swing my own sword for the purpose of killing.

         &nb sp;  It is something no one will ever understand.

             So I walk alone.
(My shadow's the only one that walks beside meMy shallow heart's the only thing that's beating)

             My shadow dogs my step, my only companion. My heart beats without any others joining in its lonely chorus, its symphony of sorrows. But at least it beats with feelings, unlike before.

         &nbs p;  Before, my heart, I felt nothing, not hatred, not compassion, not comradeship, not bitterness. I was nothing but a killer, a mindless warrior without a soul. My heart died a long time ago, stopped beating, stopped feeling.

         &nb sp;  But then Tomoe came along, and my heart learned to beat again, with her heart. Love overcame the barriers, and suddenly I felt things. I remember feelings of protectiveness, care, concern, love, and at those last moments, betrayal.

         &n bsp;  I remember Tomoe’s heart, beating alongside mine when I held her to my chest. I remember it stopping most of all, amid blood and snow, in my arms as crimson flowers blooming on pure ivory ground.  

           ;  And it haunts my step as surely as my shadow follows.
(Sometimes I wish someone out there will find me'Till then I walk alone)
            I yearn for companionship, but fear it. If I had someone, they’d be in danger, endlessly, being forced not only to contend with my countless foes made in the Revolution, but they’d have to deal with me. Or rather, the Battousai in me.
(Ah-ah,ah-ah,ah-ah,aaah-ahAh-ah,ah-ah,ah-ahI'm walking down the lineThat divides me somewhere in my mind)

         &nb sp;  The Battousai in me screams for blood, battle, death and murder. The Battousai yearns for death, to be free in battle. I am afraid of him. I am afraid of having the blood of another Tomoe spilled over the ground.

         &nbs p;  Every time I use this sword, though it is reversed, I can feel the Battousai at the edges of my consciousness, yearning to do more than simply knock out an enemy, incapacitate and injure.

         &nbs p;  He wants blood. He wants death. He wants to feel the blood of the enemy on his blade and taste the lifeblood of warriors on the wind.

             Every time I use the sword, I walk down a line between being the Rurouni I am and the Hitokiri I once was.

          & nbsp; I am afraid of crossing that line, of being too weak to protect someone and of being too strong and too ruthless and killing someone.
(On the border lineOf the edge and where I walk alone)
            So I walk alone, knowing that to get close to me is to get close to a murderer. I walk alone to make sure I never have the chance to hurt someone, to hurt another Tomoe again.

           ;  I cannot allow myself to take one more life. I do not think I could ever bear it.

          &n bsp; So I keep walking alone, on this lonely road.


AN: Not the whole song... but that’s all that needed to be written. Thanks for reading and please review!

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