Rurouni Kenshin Fan Fiction ❯ The Findings of Earth ❯ Conversations ( Chapter 16 )

A/N: Here is the revise chapter XVI, thanks a lot to JP for beta reading!

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Chapter XVI

Conversations

"So, how did you find this place?" The sun was coming through the small circular window in the ceiling of the house and Kaoru's face was illuminated by the soft golden light. Her dark hair shone and her eyes glowed with happiness.

"I stayed here for a while a long time ago."

"I thought you never left that safe house," Kaoru said. "Well except for missions," she quickly added.

"It was only for a couple of days," replied Kenshin looking at the distance as if he was deep in thought.

"Why didn't you stay longer?"

"I had to go back."

Kaoru stayed silent for a moment. "Why?" she finally asked.

"It's a long story," he answered truthfully, "and a sad one. You don't need to hear it."

Kaoru kissed him softly and leaned on top of him. He put his arms around her and she softly touched his scar with the tips of her fingers. "After all that we've been through, two lives, countless battles, goodbyes and even through the depths of hell together, and you are still trying to protect me?"

Kenshin tightened his hold on her. "I always will, no matter what," he whispered to her.

Kaoru smiled. She could always take comfort in those strong arms and she knew she would always feel protected. "I love you Kenshin," she said, "all of you. The sweet one, the strong one, the one filled with guilt and even the one that killed easily so long ago. All of them are parts of you, the Kenshin I love. Don't keep anything from me, I won't judge you, I don't have the right of ask but don't try to protect me because this knowledge is something I want and by refusing to tell me, you are keeping a part of yourself away from me."

Kenshin didn't speak. He was analyzing every loving word that came out of her mouth and the inevitable conclusion was that she was right.

Kaoru remained silent. She knew that he was sorting things out in his mind and needed time. She would wait as long as it took.

It was only thirty minutes but it seemed so much longer. "I was twelve more or less. I've been training with the men of the gang for as long as I could remember. The fighting came easy to me. Now I realized why, even if my conscious mind couldn't remember, there was a part of me that never forgot the warrior inside.

"At first it was only hand to hand combat. I learned the moves fast but I was always at a disadvantage. My opponents were always bigger than me. From time to time I had a lucky punch and my adversary was injured. I learned soon enough that that wasn't a smart thing to do. If I won on a fair fight, they would say that my ego would get bigger so they needed to show me that they were still stronger than me. They'd made me fight a second time but then it was against three or four; they wouldn't stop hitting, not even when I was down." Kenshin took a moment to gather his thoughts and then a sad smile appeared on his face. "I guess," he continued, "that in the long run it wasn't that bad. Soon I learned to win in an unfair fight. One against two, three, four and even five. Maybe I have them to thank for that."

Kaoru bit her lower lip in an attempt to stay silent. She wanted so much to tell Kenshin that if he wanted to find someone responsible for his fighting skills, that was Hiko Soujiro. The man that lived so many years ago, the teacher that cared for him, in that very special way, and not those horrible men who 'raised' Kenshin this time around. But Kaoru said nothing and simply waited for him to continue. She knew Kenshin had to get all of that out and she was there to listen and comfort him, not interfere.

Kenshin's soft voice soon filled the small house again as he continued his story. "When they were sure I could handle myself in a fight, they started the weapon training. Knives were first. I soon mastered the use of the sharp object and it became my weapon since I was ten. I was very good with it and I used it in the first mission they sent me to. It was a simple mission, a burglary. I was supposed to climb into a vent and crawl into the main room. Once I was there I had to disable the alarm system and signal the men so they could come in and finish the job. Pretty easy huh?" He didn't wait for an answer and continued talking. "I used the knife to open the vent and cut the wire. My missions were like that for more than a year. Easy ones, until the time I messed up."

Silence filled the little cabin once again. Kaoru waited patiently for a moment and then decided that maybe Kenshin wasn't ready to tell that part of the story. She didn't mind, she would wait as long as it took. "Kenshin, if you want, we can continue this la--"

Her words were cut short by the hand Kenshin raised signaling her to stop. "It's ok. As I was saying, that mission was like all the others. Crawl into a building, disable the security system, signal the men, and stand in guard until they cleared the place up. That time, when I got inside, there was a man waiting for me, a guard. Due to the many recent robberies, the owners of the building had ordered one of the guards to stay inside and watch the place. My instincts told me he was there before I climbed down from the vent I used to get in. I waited for a moment and then jumped the man and knocked him out. I left him unconscious on the floor and went to shut down the alarm. I gave the signal to the men and they walked in. It was a fast job, it never took them more than ten minutes to clean the place up and load all the stuff into the vans waiting outside. This time, however, ten minutes were too long. When they were in the middle of the job, the guard woke up. No one saw him turn the alarm on but everyone heard the loud noise of the siren. Everyone froze in the spot for a moment. The leader of the operation noticed the guard and shot him before ordering the rest of us to evacuate. The mission was a failure.

"Needless to say, the first boss wasn't happy about it. When we came back, he called me and the mission leader to explain what happened. They found out it was my fault and…it wasn't pretty. It wasn't the punishment, I could take that easily, what really hurt was that that was the day they decided I needed to learn how to kill."

Kaoru gasped and soon she found her back pressed against Kenshin's chest, his strong arms wrapped around her. She instinctively put her hands over her mouth, she wasn't supposed to make a sound, she was supposed to stay quiet and let Kenshin speak. She felt comforted and protected in his arms but that wasn't the way it was meant to be. He shouldn't be comforting her; it should be the other way around! "I'm sorry," said Kaoru after a while. "I know what that must have meant to you, if you want to sto-"

"No, this is a part of my past I must face. I won't keep you in the dark."

She nodded and felt his lips pressing against the back of her neck. She smiled; the simplest touch of those lips could make her world brighter any day.

"It was a week after that," said Kenshin after he too took comfort in the touch of his beloved. "My punishment was short and over and I was back in training. One day they took me to a different room from the one we always use for practice. I didn't think much of it at first, probably just another thing they wanted me to learn so I could be more useful in the future… I wasn't entirely wrong but I never expected what I encountered. It was one of the worst things I've ever seen, and you and I know I've seen a lot. They locked me in the room; I was armed with my knife, as usual. There was a man torturing a woman who was tied to a chair. Two lifetimes! So much blood, and that's still one of the worst things I've ever seen. I think the only two more shocking events are the death of Tomoe and when I thought Enishi killed you."

Kaoru's soft hand was on top of his, giving him the calm he needed to talk about things that caused him so much pain.

"I was moving before I realized it," he continued. "I tried knocking the man down but it never worked. He always got up again and didn't even fight back. He ignored me completely and just went back to the woman. Finally after a while, many punches, kicks and still unsuccessful, the man took out a gun, pointed it at the woman and said 'goodbye'. I knew he wasn't bluffing. I could see it in his eyes; even then I could spot the eyes of a killer. I knew I shouldn't do it, I knew I was breaking something sacred by holding a weapon the way I did but I did it anyway. Before I knew, the man lay on the floor with his throat open." Kenshin tightened the hold on Kaoru's torso as he took a moment to gather his thoughts. "It was all for nothing," he finally said. There was no anger in his voice, just the hopeless acceptance of something that can't be changed. "The woman was safe for a little while but the first boss would never let her leave, she had seen too much, knew too much. That day I broke my vow to Tomoe and killed the man and the woman as well, I killed them both."

Kaoru turned around to face him. She put her arms around him and rested her head on his collar bone. "Kenshin, there was nothing more you could do," she said in her soft voice trying her best not to break into tears for the pain he had been through.

"I know that," he replied in the same even tone of voice as he caressed her long black hair. "But this is something I have to live with. I killed them and when the time comes I'll have to face the consequences."

"Whatever it is, we'll do it together."

"There's still a lot of time before we'll have to face heaven or hell; that is if we can survive this deal with Mr. Mashido."

Kaoru suddenly turned quiet and her eyes went to the floor. Kenshin caressed her face and looked at her with kind eyes.

"That was the last time I killed," said Kenshin.

"Then you succeeded," she said. "You didn't become Battousai again."

"Yes, but I did kill and when the time comes--"

"We'll face it together," she interrupted before he could finish the sentence. "We are together for ever and for everything."

He looked at her and saw the sincerity in her eyes, saw the woman, the soul that rescued him from hell and the light of his life. He saw his companion, his soul mate, his love. He knew then that everything she said was true and that no force in the universe would ever tear them apart.

She looked back at him and knew what she had to do. "I first met Yan Mashido two years ago."

Kenshin blinked a couple of times. "You don't have to, if you don't want…"

"I need to do this," she said with a voice that spoke of determination and love. "I have to do this."

He nodded and that was all the encouragement she needed. "My father said he was a business associate. He had a lot of those, and I met a lot of people. My mother died when I was born so my father was alone and learned to depend on me in many ways. You could say that in some aspects I assumed the role of the wife. I met his clients and coworkers, went to parties with him and received people at home.

"I was fifteen when I first met Mr. Mashido. Dad invited him for dinner at home. By then I was used to have guests for dinner and knew exactly what to do. I greeted him the way a lady is suppose to but from the first time I saw him I could tell there was something… wrong about him.

"He is a tall man, about forty years old, he has gray eyes and when I saw him for the first time I thought he was pretty handsome." Kenshin raised an eyebrow at that and Kaoru smiled sweetly at him. "Of course I hadn't met you and, believe me, you are so much better." Kenshin smiled back at her and brushed the back of his hand to her skin,

"That first dinner wasn't very eventful," said Kaoru resuming her tale. "He talked with my father and occasionally asked me some polite question… The problem started a few days later when we were the ones invited to have dinner at his home. I didn't want to go; something in my mind told me it wasn't the right thing to do. I went anyway. I discovered then that Mr. Mashido was single and lived in a large estate by himself. Dinner went smoothly but I had the impression that Mr. Mashido was observing me throughout the dinner. We were about to go when my father got a phone call from the office. Dad always worked very hard. It wasn't strange for him to get calls from the office at late hours of the night. Anyway, that day my father had to go to the office in a hurry.

"Yan Mashido lives, or at least did at the time, on the outskirts of town. No public transport goes there that far late in the night so I was resigning myself to a boring night in my dad's office and a bad night on the couch in his office. Mr. Mashido, however, suggested that I stayed the night there so I would get a proper rest. My father trusted him and that's why he left me there." Kaoru gave a sad chuckle before continuing. "He trusted him, and as far as we know Mr. Mashido was his killer." Kaoru closed her eyes and tried as best as she could to hold the tear that threatened to fall down her face.

Kenshin put a comforting hand on her shoulder but soon decided it wasn't enough and took her in his arms. "I know this is hard for you," he said. "You don't have to continue if you don't want to."

There was a brief moment of silence and then she spoke. "It's ok, it's not that bad, but if I don't get it out now I doubt I ever will."

Kenshin nodded and patiently waited for her to go on.

"My father left and I stayed the night." Her voice was a little stronger and she was more determined to finish her tale. "At first, Mr. Mashido continued being polite as always but as the night went on he started to get a little more… friendly."

Kenshin's eyes threatened to turn amber but he quickly controlled the impulse. There'll be time for that later.

""He took a cup of wine and offered another one to me," said Kaoru unaware of Kenshin's tight muscles. "I refused at first but he said it wasn't polite to refuse your host. So I ignored my better judgment, took refuge in my manners, and accepted. It wasn't my first cup of wine, but if you remember, I can't hold my liquor. By the second cup I was already wasted. I don't remember much but I do know that he tried to touch me. I slapped him in the face, ran to the guest room and locked the door." Kenshin let out a breath he didn't even know he was holding.

She continued speaking unaware of his reaction. "My father came to pick me up early the next morning. I gave a polite goodbye to my host and left. I never told my father."

There was another silence before Kenshin asked her, "if that happened, then why did you think of him when I asked if you had a place to go?"

"I… Mr. Mashido and my father were friends until the day he died, or so he thought." She sighed. "I guess he was backstabbed by his best friend. He trusted him, dad always said that if anything happened to him I should go see his friend, Yan Mashido."

It was then that Kenshin understood the gravity of the situation. Kaoru's father was betrayed and Kaoru was involved even if she didn't want to be. If they ever wanted to be safe again, they needed to solve the mystery, and the first step was finding out what was hidden in that security box in the bank.

Kaoru's eyes opened wide, she had an idea.

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A/N: Please tell me of you want to be on the update mailing list, send me a mail at misanagi_zzz@hotmail.com or tell me in a review.

Thanks to everyone that reviewed or mailed me, sorry I'm not thanking you personally but real life has me really busy right now. Believe me when I say that your reviews are very important to me and that read and cherish every one of them.

I think this story is coming to and end. It would be done in a chapter or two and then an epilogue. Don't worry, you'll have all the answers by then.

Thanks for reading.

Misanagi