Rurouni Kenshin Fan Fiction ❯ Two Sides of a Sword ❯ Two Lives, One Survivor - Part One ( Chapter 17 )

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

Another Long Author's Notes!!

*sheepish laugh* Hahahahaha....it's been a while, yes? Well, I guess you can say that I got into a sort of writer's block. Then my twin, AyanamiChan, showed me this website: http://www.go-gaia.com . Gaia is VERY addicting, let me tell you ^^;;; And it's the final weeks before I leave high school and enter college as well, so there's been a lot of mess and stuff before my ACTUAL graduation. Then there's my school's anime club ^^. Was very busy trying to organize a trip to AnimeExpo this July, which turned out pretty well...now I just gotta figure out how we're going to get there ^^. But yeah...I guess these excuses don't mean much....so, I made 3 new chapters out of my writer's block slump!

Oh yes...this chapter is split into two parts, so it won't be so long that your eyes will hurt. Although...17.5 is a little longer than usual...but ah, you get the picture, ne?

DISCLAIMER: You know them, so why do I have to continue to say them?? Oh um...this was on the first chapter, I think, but to remind ya ~ there will be some Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon influence in this chapter and in some others...

Chapter Seventeen ~ Two Lives, One Survivor

The Green Destiny, a sword so often sought for yet only one person would be its master. A sword that caused so much trouble for him to let go ironically returned to his hands. Ryu looked back at his own reflection in the sword that was once his own. He despised the marred face that the intricate jade patterns reflected back, despised the picture that he now held because of a life-threatening accident two years past.

So why am I holding this now? he asked himself. Funny, he had found the weapon by accident. It was partially hidden in a bag at the corner of his and Ikumi's room and still in perfect condition despite its limited usage. The paper-thin blade was still sharp, still able to bend into the most unusual shapes and flip back into its original position. He took a couple of practice swings before staring into the blade again. The sword stared back at him, waiting patiently for its true master to continue the broken routine. He imagined his enemy in front of him, attacking, and slipped around to parry back. Jumps, flips, twists, and eye boggling combinations; he performed all these as if he hadn't fought a day without the Green Destiny. It was his sword, after all, and the weapon's true master.

"You still can't forget it, can you?"

Ryu stopped in mid-slice and turned around the face the owner of the voice. Ikumi sat behind him on a ledge with a faint smile on her face. She released her hair out of the braid's hold and let it spill gently across her shoulders before curling into the edges of her waist. She wore loose sleeping garments made out of silk, and it reflected the moon's rays. Ryu hesitantly smiled back before tearing his eyes away from his wife's entrancing form and stared back into the mirror of the blade.

"I can't believe that you still kept it," he managed to reply.

"Maa," Ikumi murmured as she hopped off the ledge, "I felt that I had an obligation to. Yoshimori-san wouldn't accept it anymore, afraid of somebody stealing it again, and I didn't want to forget."

Ryu sheathed back the sword and approached her. He wrapped an arm around her slender waist and held her close, taking in the sweet lilac scent of her hair.

"Setsuko?" he asked.

Ikumi couldn't help but giggle and rested her head in the crook of his neck. "Sleeping like a rock. Daijoubu, I've got 'Mommy''s instinct and Oniwanbanshuu ears to see if she wakes up."

Ryu couldn't help but smile above her before asking the inevitable question, "You haven't told him what happened, have you?"

He could feel her body tense a little against him. "How do you know?"

"Aoshi-san was asking me about it earlier, but I thought it was best for him to hear it out of you. You're his sister after all."

"Sou..." Ikumi replied in a soft whisper.

"Iku, he's going to find out eventually," he reasoned with her. "He's going to want to know how you know so much and he so little."

"I know; I'm just afraid," she paused. "I just hope that he makes the right decision about all of this."

Ryu sighed and pulled his wife even closer to him. "You think about others too much, you know that?"

A woman's cruel, mocking laughter echoed in the hallways of the empty temple. A wolf feasting on its prey lifted its head and wondered to itself where the source of the laughter was. Nakamoto Miyuki turned around to face her twin sister as her laughter ceased and was replaced by yet another mocking smile. Sai became irritated by the smile, glaring back at her sister.

"What the hell are you smiling about?" she growled. Out of all the times her sister had to be here, it had to be just right after an almost failed mission.

"Maa, maa, my dear twin," Miyuki replied in a sarcastic tone, "I never knew that you had the guts to do something that I would've had done right when I was given the assignment."

"Shut up. Unlike you, Miyuki, I would have rather gone for the kill. It makes life much easier for me."

"So then why didn't you?" Miyuki asked with the smile still on her face.

"Shinomori came in," Sai simply replied and looked away. "And...there was also a child there. A little girl."

"And because you saw the little one, you hesitated," Miyuki concluded, shaking her head. "What a pity."

Sai whirled around and a harsh slap echoed in the temple. A red hand print stained her sister's face from where her hand had been.

"I'm so very sorry, my DEAR little sister," Sai growled in anger and grabbed the collar of her sister's kimono," but I don't like to think lowly upon the innocent when I had never experienced a day--a DAY--for the past fifteen years in which I wasn't harmed by a man who set eyes upon me while you were at home in Japan, naive to the chaos of the world."

Miyuki didn't dare speak out another one of her catty remarks, not wanting to provoke her twin any further. She understood Sai's reasons and her cruel past, but she did not pity her. Miyuki pitied no one, even if the person tortured was her own twin sister. Sai knew this and released her tight hold to turn back and look out at the window and the vast wilderness around her, a scenery that contrasted the dark memories of her past. She wished to be free, free from the chains that bounded her to the Azuma clan. A tense silence lingered between them; Sai never really got along with her twin sister.

"She'll die within a few days, anyway," Sai finally said to break the silence. "Unless Shinomori Aoshi either miraculously finds this temple or the antidote."

"We had a spy in our ranks; it is possible that he'll find us," Miyuki informed her in a soft whisper.

Sai let out a low, sinister chuckle. "Oh, is that why you're here besides to annoy me? Like you can do anything besides being a nuisance to me and a whore to my men."

Miyuki bristled at the comment, her golden brown eyes narrowed into thin slits. "You botched up the mission with that ruckus at the school. It's also HER school."

"So? I'm not perfect as what our Okashira wants me to be, but I always clean up my own messes. I doubt that Shinomori is THAT dangerous. Surely, Rokou-sama can dispose of him easily so why does he have to play these little mind games and using us?" Sai questioned her sister.

"You know that Rokou-sama will hear about this," Miyuki warned.

"Like I care, Miyuki. I only follow orders because of my ties to you and my debt to the Azuma. What the Okashira thinks about me is not my problem."

Without another word, Sai jumped out of the window and into the wilderness, free from her worries of the Azuma clan and her twin sister's presence. Miyuki watched her go, clenching her fists in anger. It's impossible to change your mind.

Aoshi strode down the hallway with only one purpose in mind: to find a way to save Misao's life. He still wasn't quite sure how to do so; his usually well-organized thinking process was missing since the moment he had admitted to himself that he loved Misao.

He spotted the door to his sister's room slightly ajar and peered in only to find his little niece sleeping peacefully in bed, hugging a stuffed animal tightly. He inwardly smiled at the sight of Setsuko and left the room, closing the door quietly behind him. He could hear murmurs of his sister and her husband not far away but decided not to disturb them. Instead, he headed to Misao's room which was the only room with a dim light peeking through he rice paper windows. Ling was sitting on a chair next to Misao's bed, meditating, but she opened her eyes when Aoshi entered. A small smile appeared on her face, but he could tell that the master was weary from the hours before.

"So you finally decided to come here," she said to him in a quiet voice. "Has Ikumi-chan spoken to you?"

He hesitantly nodded in reply and took a few more steps deeper in the room, not quite sure what to say. Ling silently watched him before her eyes settled upon the long sheath in his hand.

"You know, you don't have to bring them," she commented, taking on a slightly amusing tone. "Your ni-kodaichi. You didn't have to bring them."

Aoshi shrugged off the comment as he took a seat at the table, setting the sheath down. "I...feel more comfortable with them."

"Is that so? Or do you fear for Misao-chan's safety?" she simply pointed out before breaking eye contact with him to look at Misao's sleeping form next to her on the bed. Misao's breathing was still quicker than usual for one to be fast asleep and perspiration glistened on her forehead. Her cheeks, thing from the past few days of little food, continued to burn a light pink as her fever continued.

"Once Jun-chan and I were able to keep Misao-chan still, Jun was able to give her an alternate antidote," Ling continued. "It has slowed down the poison's journey, but we're not sure how long it will last without giving Misao-chan the real antidote."

Aoshi nodded, studying the older woman. Every time he looked at her, a memory would flash by. She looked vaguely familiar to him, but Aoshi wasn't quite sure why yet.

"You...speak with an Osaka accent," he noticed. Ling turned to look at him, a bit surprised.

"I was born there...why do you say so?"

"My mother spoke with one before she died."

"Sou ka...Ikumi-chan told me that as well. Maa, what do you want to ask me? I can see by the look in your eyes, you want to know about something."

Aoshi finally looked at Misao; a deep pang of guilt tore at his heart. Ikumi's words rang back in his head.

I don't want you to waste your life away upon Misao's death as it had happened to me upon Fei's...

"My sister...what happened to Ikumi two years ago?" he asked as he tore his eyes away from Misao. "It's been twelve years since the day she was kidnapped; I...thought she died. How did she end up here and what is she hiding from me?"

Ling smiled a bit sadly back at him and nodded. "Ikumi-chan suffers the same pain as you do. You both have the same eyes, the same emotions flooding through them."

Aoshi looked at her with a tinge of curiosity in his eyes, but he let Ling continue.

"I was the one who found your sister: saved her from the inevitable torture that the Azuma clan would have put her through," Ling began. "We happened to be on the same ship; I used to work at the docks as more of a hobby than anything. You hear a various amount of information given there. I heard Ikumi-chan screaming and crying as she tried to break free from one of the swordsmen's hold where a small group of pure bred Azuma gathered. Of course I didn't know they were Azuma, but I was curious and approached them. That was when Ikumi-chan bit into her captor's arm," she chucked in remembrance, "and ran behind me, saying that her captors were 'bad people' and kidnapped her to get back at the Okashira."

"What did you do?" he interrupted. The thought of Ikumi back then using her persuasion to get away certainly fit his description of her.

"I asked the men, of course, what was going on, but they said to mind my business," Ling replied. "Back then, I just earned the title of 'master' and had a bit of a short fuse on my temper, so I pretty much tossed them all out into the ocean." She finally noticed Aoshi's astonished look and laughed. "Surprised, I see? Sou, I'm a much different person now than I was twelve years before. Ikumi-chan was what turned me into who I am now. She's more of a daughter than a former pupil."

Aoshi arched a curious eyebrow.

"Anyway, when I brought her back to the school, that was when she met Ryu and Fei. They were students of my former sensei before he had passed away. Those three...they were inseparable. Ikumi-chan learned the ways of the Wandon school from me and the Cantonese language from Ryu and Fei. The other masters of the school decided, after around five years since she arrived here, that she and Fei would be wed. Fei was around Ryu's age and very troublesome." Ling shook her head. "Both Ryu and Fei would get into some kind of trouble in the city and Ikumi-chan had to bail them out; it was always like that until Fei's death." She paused, wondering how to put the next memory into words. "The Azuma somehow found Ikumi-chan and got into a scuffle with her, Fei, an d Ryu while out in the city. Fei...was struck with a poison dart during the fight, but he shrugged it off as if it was nothing. He didn't want to worry Ikumi-chan, but...he died in her arms the next day before she or Ryu could find the antidote."

Aoshi silently nodded, closing his eyes. The same, her fate was the same as his. To witness someone you knew well die right before your eyes and yet you could do nothing, it was the same.

"Ryu and Ikumi-chan separated after that. She helped me run this school while he went on a training journey," Ling finished. "Three years later, he returned from his journey only to give up his sword, the Green Destiny, and well...more trouble stirred when Jun stole it."

Aoshi opened his eyes, a bit surprised. He saw Jun as a well-tempered doctor and a close friend to Ikumi, not as a thief. "Nani? What do you mean?"

"Maa, it's getting late," Ling changed the subject. "You should be getting some rest for tomorrow. Ryu should show you where Kai Xuan is hiding."

"I can look after Misao," Aoshi suggested, ignoring Ling's sudden change of subject, "so you can sleep."

"Arigatou, but I'll be fine, Aoshi-kun," she declined. "From what I've seen so far, you wouldn't sleep a wink." She stood up from her seat and shooed him out of the room much to his silent protests. "Now go and sleep, Aoshi. You must keep up your strength for yourself and Misao on tomorrow's journey."

Tomorrow's journey? So they've found... Aoshi's thoughts trailed off as he once again stood in front of the door to Misao's room, the light shining through the screens. The light represented hope; hope for him to redeem himself.