Rurouni Kenshin Fan Fiction ❯ Voix ❯ Voice ( Chapter 10 )

Chapter Nine- Voice

They were going to kill each other.

Kaoru began to run, the whole scene playing in slow motion as she tried to stop them. Two hands seized her and pulled her back, kicking and screaming for them to stop.

"Kaoru! No! You'll be killed!" Enishi's voice brought her crashing back to reality.

Her sword clattered to the ground. "But they're going to kill each other." She whispered hoarsely, falling limp against him. "I don't want him to die too..."

The sharp sensation of hot pain burned in Enishi's shoulder. He cried out and pushed Kaoru back away to protect her, slashing his sword into the angel who had stabbed him.

Kaoru fumbled for her own sword, bringing it up over her face to block the assault on her. I don't want to kill... please don't make me kill anyone...

Her eyes fell on Kenshin, whose wounds were worse than when she had last seen him. He was bleeding so much, but no matter how bad his condition, Kero's was worse. She shivered. Kenshin looked worse than he had when she had first found him.

Intuition told her to block another attack, as her pursuer continued his attacks. "Kenshin!" She cried out, stumbling backwards. Kenshin's eyes sought her, giving Kero an entrance to drive his sword deep into his gut.

Kenshin gasped in pain, a small trickle of blood staining the sword. He lifted his own sword and pressed it deep into Kero's lung. The red-winged angel stumbled back, dropping his own sword to the ground.

Kenshin's breath was ragged as he dragged himself over to Kero's fading form. "Tell them. Tell them the truth now. You're dead... it won't matter anymore... Tell them!"

Kero's eyes, clouded with swiftly approaching death, stared up at him. "It won't matter... you'll always be guilty to them..." He wheezed, bloody bubbles issuing from his mouth and the wound on his chest. "Even if they did believe me, it wouldn't matter. You're always their scapegoat... How long do you think you can survive in this world, where you'll never be accepted? How long do you think they'll allow that girl to live?"

Kenshin, mustering part of his waning strength, lifted his sword and laid it at Kero's throat. "Say it anyway. Say it to save her from the humiliation of her true killer never coming to justice."

Kero laughed cruelly. "I did it! I killed her!" He laughed harder, the laughter quickly morphing into wet coughs that brought blood with them. "She died screaming... I would never forget it, that wonderful power. I didn't hate her... but you... you would have been a danger... she was a nuisance, though... But I got my revenge... in the end..." Kero faded from sight, dying with the passing breeze.

He died laughing.

Kenshin, very suddenly, felt the effects of his wounds. The remaining soldiers that had been attacking Enishi and Kaoru had stopped, watching the death of their commander. He pressed his hands over the deep stab wound in his abdomen, dropping his sword and falling to his knees.

A great fever distorted his vision, but the touch of a pair of cool hands on his forehead eased the pain.

"Kenshin?"

Ah... Her voice sang through his veins.

"Kenshin... Answer me..."

He drew in a careful breath. "Kaoru..." Her name came as the whisper of a breeze.

"It's okay... It's all over. We can go home now..."

Home... Another sweet word. Her voice was warming him. The brilliant, warm light at the end of his hollow, bleak tunnel. He remembered the first time that voice had met his ears. It had given him such hope, knowing that there was another caring soul not seeking his demise. "Your voice, Kaoru..." He drew in another shuttering breath. "Your voice made me feel like all my dreams would come true. Your voice... brought me strength... I loved... how your voice... was like... an unending spring of hope..."

There was a drop of hot warmth on his cheek.

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She was crying.

"Don't cry... I don't know what to do when you cry... When you cry... I never know what to do..."

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"Don't cry, Kaoru... It makes me want to cry with you... Don't... cry..." She was holding back the sobs that made her shake in pain. "Kaoru..."

"Don't... speak..." She whispered, laying a finger on his lips. "You'll exhaust yourself... You'll lose all your energy..." The mist in his eyes told him he was fading faster than she could try to save him. Already she could see him losing his firm existence.

"Kaoru... Let us not say goodbye... but... until we meet again..." He felt himself slipping through. "Kaoru... I..." He had never finished telling Tomoe... Lost that chance. Kenshin felt a small bit of strength come to him. Just enough to finish.

"Kaoru... I..."

She nodded very slowly, laying her hands on his forehead, laying her hands in his bloodstained hair. "I know... You never had to tell me..." She picked up his sword and carefully cut a piece of his hair. "I won't forget..."

A faint smile brushed across his face as he used the very end of his strength to pull a feather from his wings and press it into her hands. "I know you won't... my love..."

Kaoru let her sobs go, her body shaking with the force of them as he faded slowly. The tears that had been withheld released themselves and she curled up, clenching his hair and feather close to her breast.

A hand touched her shoulder comfortingly. "Kaoru..." Enishi stayed silent, then kneeled next to her and embraced her tightly. "He's not gone... not completely."

She tried to breathe, feeling the tears rising to the surface as her heart shattered on the ground.

"Kaoru... I know you can feel it... I know you can... Just focus."

She swallowed and shivered with the cold that came over her. "I can't feel anything, Enishi... Nothing but the cold."

Enishi took her hand and guided it to her stomach. "Don't tell me you can't feel him. Don't tell me you can't see that you will always, always, have someone to remember him by." Enishi's forceful tone dragged her back to reality.

Kaoru stared around at the spilt blood on the stone ground. The weapons of the fallen scattered among final words and last prayers that still rang through the air, long after their speaker was gone. Even as all the pain and horror that was the battlefield was being taken in by her mind, she could feel the warm beating of her heart in unison with another.

"It's... not over..." She whispered, her soft voice traveling through the other words and lifting higher and higher, toward the sun.

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Epilogue

My son smiles at me from his place on the ground. He is covered in dust from his fall, where I have bent over to help him up. His laugh bubbles up from his young throat, his eyes shining brightly.

It is his voice that brings me joy, like I assume mine did for Kenshin. I swallow the hard lump in my throat and smile back at him.

In his eyes, the ones he inherited solely from me, shine his father's spirit. The same smile that he flashes for me is the one that his father gave me so many times. The sun is not so brutal today, as it makes his red hair shimmer. He leaps to his feet without my help and hugs me around the leg tightly.

"I love you!" He cries out in the voice of a young child, but I can see the man he will be already. Around his neck hangs the necklace I bought a lifetime ago, even though it has only been four years. The memories that haunted me for so long do not seem as painful on this bright day.

I look up past my son, to the mountains, which are a blue-gray today in the distance, and melt into the sky. In the basket on my arm lay several delicate flowers to take to the graves. They are not far from here, and Kenji and I are in no rush.

A loud call from another hill causes both Kenji and myself to look up and smile.

"Enishi-san!" I call back, laughing because Kenji has hold of my other hand. The white-haired man gives a feral smile and approaches us, the sun blinding on his white hair.

Kenji shakes off my hand and hugs him around the leg. "Enishi-aniki!" He cries, giving a silly little smile. Enishi smiles and takes the child's hand gently.

"You're looking good, Kaoru." He says, not looking up from Kenji.

I smile. "I'm doing well..." I say calmly, smiling. "I was going to visit my parents' graves today." I hold up the basket. "Kenji likes to play with the butterflies that stay there." I pause for a moment. "Would you like to come with us?"

He nods once and keeps hold of Kenji's hand. "I would." He replies, and I start up the hill leading to the stones marking my parents' burial ground.

I kneel in front of them and set the basket on the bright, springy grass. Enishi stands behind me, watching as a pray quietly. Kenji has found a butterfly to pursue, and is giggling hysterically as he bounces around the hill.

After several moments of prayer, I stand up and lay the flowers on the ground, picking up my basket. "Kenji!" I call to him. "Be careful!"

My advice remains unheeded as he disappears behind the hill.

"You were right, Enishi-san..." I say quietly, smiling vaguely as Kenji reappears, a few mere feet behind his butterfly.

"Oh?" He asks, though I know he knows what I am talking about.

"He isn't really gone." I hold the basket close to myself and close my eyes.

The wind brushes up against my cheeks and flows all around me. I can hear the trees swaying, and the grass resigning to the gentle force. I can already feel the rain that is only hours away on my skin, washing over my shoulders and hair. The sun is warm on my face, but not hot. The scent of the flowers carries up to me, and the taste of the sunset is on my tongue. I can feel Kenshin all around me in the Earth herself, calling up in a sweet voice that pulses through me.

"He's... right here... with me."