Rurouni Kenshin Fan Fiction ❯ White ❯ White ( Chapter 1 )

Disclaimer: I don't own RK.

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Kenshin labored his way up the tilted path, his head cast downwards, heeding his steps across the herd of snowflakes. His breath was uneven. The same journey didn't dent his endurance the last time he undertook it, but that was some time ago, and it hadn't been so icy back then. The cruel cold coiled through his skin, but at least it kept his mind awake and sharp. In his right hand, a crumbled sheet of paper. No great literature on that paper. Come, signed Hiko Seijuro. A message, delivered to him in Tokyo by a bony and nose-dripping boy who reminded him of a younger Yahiko. The only note he'd ever received from his master. So he came, alone. Some things needed not be said aloud or written down. Come.

Everything about was white. White the trees, their snowy branches wobbling with the wind, their trunks covered in thick frost. White Kyoto in the distance, seemingly a village of white sand arisen from the hands of children. Ashen, the sky where lazed pale clouds so voluminous as to make even the setting sun's light pallid. White the path where he paced upon, the soles of his zoris crunching the still soft snowy powder, interring his feet in five good inches of fresh snow, wetting his tabis and freezing his toes through the wool. White, the foggy steam streaming forth from between his lips as smoke from a furnace. White, everywhere, that lingered in the midst of winter. Symbol of purity, the white of the mikos. Symbol of death.

A clearing. He walked into it. “Master,” he called.

Hiko Seijuro was sitting on a log in front of the burning kiln, his back to him, just like last time. A different reason back then, to defeat Shishio, but Kenshin couldn't shake off the eerie feeling of familiarity. He had, he remembered, attacked Hiko from behind. A failed attempt, of course, as he had known it would have been. He didn't attack this time. Many reasons. He didn't have his sakabatou anymore, for one thing. Yahiko carried it now. Hiko's hairs, he saw, was still braided in a long ponytail. They were white.

“Master,” he called again.

“I am no longer your master, foolish pupil,” Hiko said, not deigning to turn his head. The taunting sounded half-hearted, more a habit than anything else. “You took your time coming here.”

“I came as fast as I could,” Kenshin said.

His master rose from the dead log, threw half-frozen wood into the kiln's fire. “You must be cold,” Hiko said. “Let us go inside.” The man was still as imposing as ever, even if there was an almost indiscernible limp to his gait. Kenshin didn't miss it. The sight seized his heart, somehow.

Hiko caught his gaze. “One of the advantages of aging,” he said casually. “Now my hips can predict the weather.” He coughed a little, went into the small and rustic stone house.

Inside was also as Kenshin remembered it from the last time. Wooden shelves with diverse potteries on them. Plain beige plates, delicately ridged bowls, vases that seemed to have been wrung by a shinigami's hands, an urn that had more edges than the Sensoji temple in Tokyo, and a jug with four Buddhas carved on the sides sitting in the lotus position. He wondered briefly if there was sake in it, and pushed that thought out of his mind. It was probably filled. It was Hiko Seijuro they were talking about, after all, the greatest liquor hole this side of the Sea of Japan.

“Sit down,” Hiko said, throwing a cushion at him. They both sat.

Kenshin waited for his master to speak. Hiko's face looked as youthful as the last time they had parted. Only the gray eyebrows and the silver hair reminded him that the years had taken their toll. Hiko's muscles were still formidable under his white cloak, but if one looked closer, one could notice his master's slightly sagging shoulders. Even the cloak itself seemed changed, limp where it was rigid and proud before.

“You cut your hair,” Hiko finally said, looking at him. “I almost didn't recognize you.”

Kenshin forced a smile to his lips. “Yes, I cut it some time ago.” He reached a hand where a ponytail had been, when he was younger. “I thought it would suit me better.”

“Well,” Hiko considered, “it is true that you look more like a man now and less like some pretty woman.”

Kenshin cleared his throat.

“How is that girl doing?” Hiko asked. “The one who came to see you last time you showed your face here.”

“Miss Kaoru?”

“I think that was her name.”

Kenshin found himself oddly timid. “Ah…. She is my wife now.” An unconscious shyness, maybe, a deeply ingrained yearning for the approval of this man who had been all but a father to him.

“Married, eh? Didn't think you had that in you,” Hiko smirked.

“Master!” Strange, how his master's taunting could still get at him, even now.

“Calm down.” A small pause. “Children?”

Kenshin didn't really want to think about Kenji right now. “A son,” he said shortly.

“I see.”

Was there wistfulness in his master's tone? He couldn't be sure. Kenshin shook his head.

“Enough of that,” he said. “It has been almost twenty years. I cannot believe you called me here just to chitchat about me.”

“Of course not,” Hiko said with nonchalance. “Who would want to talk about someone as dull as you.” He extended an arm to the left, fished out a jug, the same one Kenshin'd noticed earlier. “Foolish pupil, go fetch me two cups.”

Kenshin frowned. His master was still such a slave driver. “Why me?” he protested, more by habit than anything else.

“What? Are you expecting a sexagenarian to serve you?” Hiko said, raising an eyebrow. “Don't you have any respect for your elders?”

Kenshin sighed, defeated. He rose, walked to a shelf, took two cups. One, of a creamy color, was showing obvious signs of age. It had seen much use in its time. He brought them back.

Hiko poured sake into the cups. “Here,” his master said. “Drink with me.”

The both drank, in silence. The sake tasted of cherry flowers flowering on Kenshin's tongue, its rich and sweet savor flowing smoothly into his throat. This particular sake had a dank earthiness to it, a flaggy flavor that left him with the fresh fragrance of spring lingering on his palate, rather than the airy chill of winter.

“This is an exceptional sake,” Kenshin said.

“Is that so.”

Kenshin looked up. Such sake couldn't leave Hiko Seijuro unmoved, could it? But he didn't comment. “Why did you call me here?” he asked instead.

A wry smile came to Hiko's lips. “Do I need a particular reason? I just had enough of drinking alone.”

“And you called me here just—”

“Won't you indulge an old man's whims? Winter's dull around here.” It might well be, at that. Solitude must be weighting on his master's shoulders. It tended to do so, the more one advanced in age. Kenshin often wondered what he would have become, if he hadn't met Kaoru, a night in Tokyo. If he didn't have her, as anchor in his life. Would he still be wandering? Possibly, but he didn't think he would have been able to. Hiko took another sip, then another one. There was no expression of pleasure in his master's face that he could see. “The sake tastes terrible,” Hiko murmured.

Kenshin felt his eyes widen in surprise. If the sake ever tastes nasty, something within you is ill. His master's own words. He felt uneasy.

As if on cue, a sudden fit of coughing seized Hiko.

“Master—”

Hiko raised a hand, stopping him. “I'm fine,” he said. The coughing stopped. “It's just a damn cold.”

“I'll light the hearth,” Kenshin said.

“Do that.”

Hiko watched him as he picked up logs lying around and put them in the square hearth, below the suspended black cauldron.

“You don't carry a sword anymore,” Hiko remarked.

Kenshin turned his head. His master gaze still had a piercing gleam in it. Maybe he was worrying for nothing?

“No,” he said, lighting the fire. “I passed it down to Yahiko.”

“Yahiko? Oh, the spiky-haired brat. I remember him.”

“He is a fine man now,” Kenshin said.

“It is a rare sword.”

Kenshin nodded. “Yahiko is worthy of it.”

“Maybe. But why did you separate yourself from it?” Hiko insisted. “Did my teaching go right through that empty head of yours? What is a swordsman without his sword?”

“Dead,” Kenshin said with melancholy.

A short silence.

“You haven't aged well,” Hiko said softly.

Kenshin sighed. “I am not like you. The Hiten Mitsurugi Ryu is very taxing on its practitioners, and my body couldn't endure it. I wouldn't be able to use it now, even if I had a sword.” He smiled. “I have fared well enough, given the circumstances. The swordsman may be dead, but the man thrives still. I am content to simply live the rest of my days as a husband and a father.”

“I see.” Hiko's tone was definitely wistful, Kenshin decided. But he couldn't understand why.

For a moment neither of them said anything. Kenshin drank his sake. Hiko wouldn't be pushed, but there was surely a reason why his master called him here. He would simply wait.

The waiting didn't last long.

Hiko took his cloak off his shoulders, and presented it to Kenshin. “The last time I asked you refused. I will ask again, one last time. Accept this cloak. It is yours by right.”

The symbol of the master of the Hiten Mitsurugi school. Thoughts swirled in Kenshin's mind. Why was his master asking that of him now? Was it the reason he had been called here? He had made plain that he wouldn't pass down the school's techniques. He had no intention to teach the art of murder.

“I will have to refuse again,” he said softly.

“Even if it was a dying man's last wish?”

Impossible. Kenshin's breath stuck in his throat.

“Calm down. I'm not dying yet,” Hiko said. “But at least, consider it my legacy to you.”

Kenshin shook his head, letting out his breath. “Kenjutsu is the art of killing, you taught me that. The reason I fought during the Bakumatsu was precisely so that people wouldn't need to learn kenjutsu anymore, in the new era.”

“And were you successful? Is this era truly this peaceful?”

Sadness washed over Kenshin. He sighed, closing his eyes. “In part. The country is at peace now, but it is again becoming a place where the strong rules. Human nature never changes, it seems.”

“All the more reason for our school to continue,” Hiko said with passion. “As long as the strong oppresses the weak, the Hiten Mitsurugi school will still have its reason to exist.”

“Why don't you train another pupil, then?”

Hiko snickered. “I am too old for that.”

“You are not.”

“Let's not pretend,” Hiko said. “I am growing old, it's the inevitable truth. Even a genius like me can't fight against age.” He paused a moment. “I've had several pupils during those years. None of them were worthy. You may be foolish, and too small and thin, and too pretty for a man—”

“Master!”

“… but at least you were able to learn all the arcanums of the Hiten Mitsurugi Ryu. A sad sign of the decadent times, that I can't find any other successor.”

“Master—”

“I was complimenting you there. No need to be upset.”

Kenshin sighed. “Even so, I will not become Hiko Seijuro the fourteenth. As I said, I cannot use our school's techniques anymore. What kind of teacher would I be? The school would die with me in any case. Besides,” he said quietly, “in this new era, one doesn't need to be skilled with a blade. Any coward can be a killer now, provided he has a gun. Swords will soon be things of the past, relics to be exhibited in museums. Kenjutsu will become nothing more than a sport. We are vestiges of an age past.”

Hiko didn't answer. There was nothing else to be said, really.

“Your refusal is final, then?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“It was a waste to teach you after all,” Hiko mumbled.

“Not so, master,” Kenshin said smiling. “I was able to protect those who are dear to me, and for that I am truly grateful.”

“And what about the hitokiri Battousai?”

“I have made peace with that period of my life,” Kenshin said serenely.

“Ah.” Hiko observed his once-pupil. “Your scar is fading,” he said.

“Yes.” Kenshin touched his left cheek. “Though it may never disappear entirely. But I have made peace with that as well.” Some things never left you. One didn't move forward denying one's past. What would be the value of that? One accepted one's failings, and moved on.

Hiko snorted. “It seems some sense finally hammered through that thick skull of yours.”

Kenshin smiled. “It seems so.”

Hiko put on his heavy cloak again. “There is another reason why I asked you here,” he said. He took his guardless sword, and handed it to Kenshin. “Take it,” he said.

Kenshin stared at his master, then at the sword. It had been Hiko's weapon for as long as he could remember. The exterior wood had stood the test of time well, its pale yellow surface unmarred save for a single scratch at one end. He felt his hands shake. What is a swordsman, without his sword? “I don't understand,” he said.

“Of course you don't. No one ever accused you of being overly bright.”

“Master, that's… that's your sword.”

“I know that, baka.”

“Then why—”

“Take it,” Hiko commanded with a powerful voice that hadn't been diminished by time. Kenshin took it, too stunned to do otherwise, his gaze transfixed by the sword. “I want you to give it to certain boy,” his master said.

Kenshin looked up. “A boy?”

“Yes. You will find him in Kyoto, near the Ryoanji temple. His name is Kane. Kudou Kane.”

“Kyoto is not far from here. You can give it to him yourself.”

“I could, but I'd rather not bother.”

“You are lazy, as always.”

“There is that,” Hiko said pleasantly.

“I still don't understand,” Kenshin said. “Why would you give your sword away?”

Silence. An array of raw emotions whirled on Hiko's face, painfully bare for a man that often kept his thoughts private. Kenshin was reminded of the wistfulness he saw in his master earlier. He found the sight unbearable, and wished he could be elsewhere, anywhere. He felt like a peeper, witnessing his master's exposed core in all its vulnerability.

“He is my son,” Hiko finally said.

Kenshin opened his mouth, but found that no sound would come out. A son?

Hiko smirked. “What? You thought a virile man like myself would live like a frustrated monk?”

“Well no, but….” But what? It was not unexpected, all things considered. Kenshin didn't even know why he felt so surprised. It was just that the thought never came to him. Hiko, siring a son? His master was a reclusive sort, disliking extensive contacts with his fellow humans. The thought of him with a woman…. Kenshin pushed that image firmly out of his mind. Too awkward.

“He will turn fifteen in four days,” Hiko said, his gaze lost in the fire.

“Ah.” Fifteen. Genkupu, the day a boy would finally be considered a man.

“This will be my legacy to him,” Hiko said. He closed his lids. “I have only two things. The Hiten Mitsurugi, and this sword.”

“What of your pottery?” Kenshin said.

“Just a pastime.”

“Are you trying to make me feel guilty? You won't persuade me to inherit the school that way.”

“I am not trying to make you feel guilty,” Hiko said. “But the more I grow old, the more I am haunted by this thought: what will I leave behind me, when I am gone?”

Kenshin could understand that. To leave a trace, even small, something that carried your name, long after your ashes grew cold. He was thinking about that himself, of late. A distinct sign of old age. What would he leave after him? A son, of course, and a name shrouded in fear. Hitokiri Battousai. A legacy, of sort.

“But what of you?” Kenshin asked. “What will you become, without your sword?”

“Dead.” Hiko looked up at Kenshin. “Didn't you say so?”

“Master….”

“Don't worry for me. I still have my pottery.”

“A pastime, you said,” Kenshin murmured.

“It is.”

Kenshin fell silent. He couldn't think of anything to say. Still, one question remained without answer. Why wouldn't Hiko give the sword himself? A thought occurred to him.

“This boy, does he know you are his father?”

Hiko considered for a moment. “No,” he said finally.

“Ah.”

“I didn't even learn of his existence before last year, in fact,” his master said. “It is too late now to make proper introductions. I'm not one for emotional reunions, anyway. Best the boy remain unaware of me.”

Kenshin had his own thoughts about that. A boy, growing up without a father? But Kenshin kept that to himself.

“He is a fine boy, or so I'm told,” Hiko continued. “He is not much of a warrior, though, but that's no real surprise.”

Kenshin secured his master's sword in his clutch. “I shall give it to him,” he said.

“Good.” And Hiko slowly smirked.

Kenshin wondered if Hiko had asked him to succeed the school just so he wouldn't refuse his master twice. It wouldn't be above Hiko Seijuro, that sort of underhanded tricks.

They drank sake after that, and chatted about inconsequential things. Of the past, for they were both old men, one more so than the other, and old men tended to dwell in the past at length. A flaw, which even great men aren't immune to. They finished a jug of wine, and started another one, and another one after that.

Then came the time to go to bed. Another fit of coughing seized Hiko, one that wouldn't stop. Kenshin went to make some medicine for his master, and Hiko thanked him, without the usual taunting, which worried Kenshin even more. He helped his master into the blankets. When he made to leave the bedside, Hiko gripped his arm, and told him to come closer. He did.

“Thanks for coming,” Hiko said.

“There is no need to thank me,” Kenshin answered. “I owe you much. This, at last, I can do for you.”

His master nodded feebly, then whispered words into his ears, interrupted by his coughing from time to time. What those words were, though, can only be guessed. Only two men knew for certain, and neither would ever share them. Outside the windows, the moon, hidden behind the clouds, was almost invisible.

Kenshin stayed at his master's bedside that night, sitting against the wall. But fatigue finally overtook him too, and he slowly dozed off to sleep, while the coughing died down.

That particular night would be recorded in history books as a stormy one. A tempest of snow, it would be written, raged across Japan, squashing the mortal world under its might. A slight exaggeration, in truth. The weather was relatively clear, if cold and cloudy, be it in Tokyo or Kyoto. Historians are a strange lot, with a pronounced penchant for the melodramatic. But they were forgiven this once, for their grief was all too understandable, given that it was the very night the empress dowager Eisho, cherished mother of the emperor Meiji, passed away. It had snowed the night before, in any case. A day earlier or later, what great difference? It was only fitting that the heavens wept for the loss of one treasured by her son, and beloved by the gods.

It was also, incidentally, the night a certain Hiko Seijuro died. Tranquil, in his sleep. No historian was there to witness, alas.

-----

He'd had the strangest of dreams, but for the life of him he couldn't remember what it was. He knew just that it was a sad dream, and he woke up to find his cheeks wet with salty tears. It was in this heavy-laden disposition that he found out his master's passing.

Kenshin went to check, half-disbelieving, but deep down he already knew. Hiko's form was unnaturally still, as if caged in ice, and Kenshin's well-trained ears couldn't detect the slightest hint of breathing. He found no heartbeat; his master's skin was almost as cold as the frigid air, and his face and neck were stiff, as were his chest and arms; rigidity was settling in his fingers. Hiko was dead. Kenshin'd seen too many deaths in his time to have any doubt about that. The realization left him strangely unfeeling and detached at first, the way one tended to be when under great shock.

During the Bakumatsu, Kenshin'd seen warriors fight on even after receiving what should have been lethal injuries. They fought hard and bravely, having seemingly transcended their mortal bodies, only to fall, when the dust of the battlefield settled down at last, their purpose completed. Maybe it had been thus with Hiko. Having entrusted Kenshin with his last will, there was no reason for him to hang on life anymore. An honor of sort, that Hiko would trust his pupil so.

He buried his master not far from the house where Hiko'd lived for more than thirty years. A heavy fog had settled in the air, thicker than the layer of snow covering the ground. A still tableau, one that could have been called many things. Dry desolation, or when the world wore white. Kenshin planted a single wooden cross upon Hiko's grave, the logs so frozen that he could have cracked them with his bare hands. He remembered when his master first called him Kenshin. Heart of sword, suitable for a swordsman. That time the young Shinta had buried many, men and women, bandits and slavers and slaves. Only one, this time, in a remote area. His master would have appreciated the isolation, even in death. Kenshin was a swordsman no longer, but the name remained with him still. There was now a lump the size of the Shiraito waterfall rising in his throat, and his heart banged against his ribcage the way a monk rang his temple's iron bell. He wanted to cry, but he didn't. Not a sight Hiko Seijuro would have liked.

Kenshin poured all the sake he could find in his defunct master's house on the grave. “Blossoms in spring, the stars in summer, full moon in autumn, and snow in winter,” he quoted. “May you never lack sake in the afterworld. May its sweet taste ever reside with you.”

He hung Hiko's white cloak on the cross, watching it float lazily in the fleeting wind. Hiko's sword he took with him. He gazed up, but couldn't see the sky through the fog. He looked at the grave one last time, and bowed deeply, his head on the same level as his hips.

“Our school's ideals shan't be forgotten,” he said. “Farewell, Hiko Seijuro, last master of the Hiten Mitsurugi Ryu.” With that he turned around, walked away into the white field, never looking back. If anyone could have seen him then, he or she would have seen tears flowing down Kenshin's face, unbidden.

He was wrong about one thing, as it happened. The school would continue, and there would be other masters of it. But he had no way of knowing this; the gods' whims are beyond the ken of mere mortals. As for the cloak, it would be stolen, its fate undocumented, until it reappeared many decades later, but that is another story entirely.

-----

Kyoto was changed, but he could still recognize the city he'd prowled in during the Bakumatsu. He passed the Toji temple, its pagoda lost into the brume. He walked carefully, watching his feet. Innumerable footprints lined up the city's snowy streets, and the soft powder had been compressed into slippery ice. He couldn't see farther than forty feet, so dense was the fog.

He had no trouble finding the boy, once he reached the Ryoanji temple and its rock garden. Kudou-san was a respected woman, well known in the area for her ceramics. Kenshin just had to ask around, and if the wooden sword he carried with him attracted some attention, the times were peaceful enough to allow him to glean Miss Kudou's address.

The mother and her son lived in a comfortable-looking house. The woman had a sweet air about her, if a plain face and figure, and Kenshin wondered briefly how such a woman could attract Hiko's attention. The boy was clearly his mother's son, with his wide chocolate eyes, the small dimple that drew a small v in his chin, his unremarkable aquiline nose, or his straw-thin lips. But there were hints of Hiko, if one looked for them. In the well formed shoulders, in the slight sardonic twist of his eyebrows when he smiled, in the intense glint of his gaze. He had enough of Hiko in him to make Kenshin's heart tighten.

The boy's expression became unbearably bright once Kenshin mentioned a present from his father. “See, mommy, daddy isn't dead after all,” the boy said with a voice that was still hesitating between the musical pipping of a child and the deeper baritone of a grown man.

A sad look passed on the mother's face. A terrible sadness passed in Kenshin's chest. Life's irony was often cruel. But Kenshin reined his emotion in as best he could. Your father, Kenshin said to the boy, is going to a place far away, and won't be back before some time. He left a gift to his son, Kenshin explained, and hoped to visit when he got back. The boy beamed. Kenshin patted the boy's head, smiling, but the strain must have been visible, for when he glanced at the mother, he saw water in her eyes. She knew, without him telling her, with the instinct women had possessed since times immemorial. Better like that, Kenshin thought.

He bade his leave soon after. The boy wanted to keep him for lunch; he wanted to hear more about his father. No doubt his vision of a father was one of a heroic warrior saving the world or some such. Not very far from the reality, and yet so far away. Kenshin declined. He had something he had to do, he said. Which was the absolute truth. He had to go back to the dojo, back to his family, else he broke down.

He passed the Aoiya on his way back. He'd considered visiting there after he went to see Hiko. It would have been pleasant, he'd thought, to visit old friends, Aoshi and Misao and all the others, even if Okina was gone. But he abstained now, not feeling strong enough to dissemble in front of others. Tomoe's cemetery too, he passed, the tombstones all undistinguishable from one another under the carpet of snow, like anonymous soldiers fallen on the battleground. He didn't stop there. He'd said his goodbyes already, long ago.

Kaoru was waiting for him in front of the dojo, when he finally reached Tokyo under the full moon. He didn't know for how long she'd waited. Not long, he suspected. His wife had developed an eerie capacity to tell whenever he was near. Maybe it came from having lived together for so long, an inexplicable pull that linked them to each other. Nowadays, Kenshin often felt bereft when he was separated from his other half for too long, a rare occurence, fortunately. He felt grateful, to have this woman in his life. She was his lifeline, above all things.

“Welcome back,” she said simply.

He smiled then, kissed her lightly on her brow. They went into the dojo, hand in hand.

The snow was melting in the streets outside, and the white was giving way to warmer colors.

-----

It is said that the goddess Izanami once swore to destroy a thousand lives every day. Upon hearing this, her once-husband, the god Izanagi, swore to give life to a thousand and five hundred every day. That night in Tokyo, a woman that had been denied a child for fourteen years finally became pregnant in the arms of her husband's best friend, while a wine merchant, having drunk too much, drowned himself by accident in the Sumida river, before having the time to disown his estranged daughter in favor of his newest mistress. Such tragedy.