All my other stories are on hiatus. Why? This is my latest work, and I want to set my goals on one piece alone. As such, it won’t do any good to ask me to update another story, because I won’t. I have too many other things to worry about, so I’m going to write just one story until it’s complete.

The characters are somewhat OOC, but for logical reasons.

A big thanks to Whiterabbit for helping me with this!

OoOo

Chapter 1- What came Before

“Beauty can hide a cold heart.”

“What?”

There was a faint clack of glass upon glass, and a gruff chuckle followed. It faded away with other noises, of laughs and curses, the gabble of voices and clatter of china nearby. The young man looked up, a perplexed expression passing over his face, black hair scattered about his dark eyes. The other man, older, the unspoken years of life carved in his features, dressed in dark Western clothes laughed again, emptying his flask of sake. The narrow blues of his eyes fixated on his comrade, his lips pulled into a sour sneer, visible only by a dim lamp overhead. “You heard me,” another gulp of alcohol, moistening his mouth, “That which possesses beauty isn’t always good.”

One or two coins were thrown onto the table, rolling to a halt as the eldest stood. His form was shadowed in the hazy orange-yellow light, and his stature was small—but he gave off an aura of fire and brimstone. It was with a jolt of something, a strange realization or fear that the younger realized what a potentially dangerous man stood before him. His mouth twitched then, as if to say something that had died in his throat, before the older male turned, and simply left, dissolving into the miasma of people and smoke.

oOoO

Already the pleasant tingle of sake had overtaken his senses.

The once crisp lines of buildings and passerbys had now blotted into colors, sounds becoming a humming drone in his ears. His prior gait was straight, undaunted, now it was somewhat clumsy, and more than once had he lurched into a wall for support. Even now, while hanging onto a building and trying to still his swimming mind, the man couldn’t believe how far he’d gone. From feared swordsman to outcast drunk in nary ten years.

How the mighty have fallen. Year’s prior something so little as two bottles of liquor wouldn’t have affected him so. Now if one could see him…a glaze covering his eyes and a stagger about his steps, they would have laughed themselves to hell and back.

And now look at his current position. Wifeless, an alcoholic ignored and scorned by fellow townsman, nothing like he once was. Back when the people surrounding him feared him, they took a caution to their words and actions alike, not daring to set off the boy assassin known as Heaven’s Sword…

The old days, he thought, managing to stand upright, yet unsteadily, no enemy dared to cross me…except one. His jaw set tightly together, lips pressed into a thin line at the last thought, ambiguous recollections flooding his consciousness. There were swords…shouting, blood…relief. His muscles relaxed, a placid expression replacing the flashing anger mere seconds prior. Relief indeed, but that purely uplifting emotion was snatched away like so many other things in the last decade. His philosophy, his comrades, his reputation, his wife, and the last shred of dignity he possessed. Gone, nothing left but rotting memories and sake to drown them in.

Something was pounding in his chest as he began walking again. It was a force other than his heart and blood, something he had no name to give to. It was always like that, after those flashbacks, the queer sensation in his body. Even after becoming familiar with emotions….those things, which he cursed and wished to rid of, the man could never put a name on this feeling. He truly didn’t know if he was better off with them, or without them. Many a night would he curse that man’s name, the ex-assassin with as much a feared reputation as he, damning Himura Kenshin for pulling him into this lunacy.

Damning him for having mercy.

His drunken stupor had now lifted, a sickening, black cloud of rage replacing the amiable cover of liquor. It was not far ahead now, the lonesome mansion he inherited not long ago, akin to where his former master lived with all his loyal anarchists. Now however, it was as empty as anything could be. There were most certainly no dedicated followers there, hell bent on a violent revolution of flames and glory. There were no servants to his beck and call, no fancy Western furniture; it was empty and soulless, dark against the gray skies above it.

And like so many nights before, he now stepped into that huge building with not a soul by his side.

Stopping on the tatami mat, he didn’t bother taking off his shoes. There was no use, why bother keeping things clean with no company there? The man’s heart sighed, but not a breath escaped his lips. “Always the same thing.”

His steps were muffled by the mats under his feet, making his way down a narrow, dim hallway, stopping at the foot of a long staircase. He turned his gaze, clear now, yet dull and waxen, up to the door he was so familiar with.

He lived alone, up in that small room, suffocating himself from sanity and happiness. Even under the seductive thrall of expensive wine, the vice grasp of anger was never far behind. It was hard to believe but one person had caused all this, one person had tipped the scale of his balanced life. He would have been more than happy to stay a murderer, devoid of regret and anger, lulled at the sight of flesh being split open by his own sword. At least then he would have been spared the agonies of a regular person, of a human being. He would have been spared so many things.

Ascending the steps with a slow, almost pained pace, he finally reached that small rice paper door, sliding it apart with a creak to walk inside. It was dusk now, the misty primrose light falling through the bulky window at the center, lighting the room. It slid onto the smooth surface of his desk at the far corner, snaking around the wine cupboard opposite, falling about the folded futon, and finally shining upon his form at the doorway. He never hung curtains over that window, afraid that it would only seclude him more than he was already.

Slim hands reaching up, the man unbuttoned his black overcoat, flinging it off with a heavy jerk and letting it crumple to the floor. Now in nothing but a white, collared shirt and trousers, maybe now his mind could relax. The aspect of peace was an often fleeting opportunity. Standing at the wine cupboard, his shaking hand had removed one bottle, shimmering in the twilight. More alcohol to relax him, more liquor to fog his mind and put him in another dreamless sleep…

Seta Soujiro let out a cry of rage and flung the bottle against a wall.

OoOo

How long had it been?

Makimachi Misao opened her eyes, lifting her head. Truly, how long had it been since that day? Weeks, months….years? Then why was she still there in that temple, praying evening after evening for their spirits? Why wasn’t she in a home of her own, taking care of children, a husband? The woman sighed, blowing out the incense, the fragrance still dangling in the air. She found herself again at the shrine to her loved ones, sitting there alone in the quiet darkness, a single candle illuminating her frame.

She had changed so greatly.

Death will do that to people, she thought, change them into another person altogether. And indeed, Makmiachi Misao was no longer the carefree sixteen year old people knew her to be. She was now twenty-six, wiser, subdued, but still a naive child. Naïve in so many ways, wise in others, but still not quite grown up. A “happy mix” as people called it. But she was everything but happy. Who would be in her situation? Who could be?

They were both dead. Her grandfather, the famed to-be Okashira of the Oniwabanshu, Okina, died of old age. It came swiftly, peacefully, as any man should die. He passed with his family surrounding him, warm in his futon, a smile on his old, wrinkled face. They had all mourned so hard, so long, but Misao the most of all. But not anymore. No...she had shut that away, back into the recesses of her mind, the blockade threatening to go to ruin barely five months afterward.

Aoshi’s death was far from peaceful. The day started normal enough, a light carpet of icy snow upon the ground and tree leaves just beginning to thaw out. She had made him his tea, the same, boring routine she was happy to do each day. Each day until she died, serving him like the proper sister should. Misao had never expected it to end so early. The twenty-year-old woman hadn’t even served him green tea each morning for barely four years. She could remember the glass falling from her hands, smashing to the floor, cold breath coming out in shocked little gasps as she looked on.

He had frozen to death meditating. Meditating, trying to find peace, comfort, tranquility…and he had done just that. Shinomori Aoshi was laid to rest not five days after, but she had never attended his funeral. The household was tremendously worried about her, shut up in her room for three months, emerging once a day for food and nothing more. Even when she did come out, she was but a gray wisp of what she once was.

Misao was much the same way after six years, but not nearly so. It took her happiness, her spirit and her heart, to let the grief go and move on with her nothingness life. Devoid of everything she dreamed of, longed to have and love, what was a life like that? Misao picked up her candle, rising to her feet, straightening her white yukata. Her face and body no longer held the visage of a teenager. Her once unruly hair was tamed, falling into place about her head, framing her face, the rest tumbling into a braid at the back. Once bright sea foam pallor, her eyes were now downcast, the sparkle diminished. The cheery lines about her mouth had also vanished, leaving her face with a deeper maturity, yet retaining innocence.

She had grown taller, that much was true. However, it seems some were simply not meant for a true womanly body, and she was one of those people. Misao shook her head, a dull smile lighting her lips for a moment and no more. There was no need to linger upon the past, and she bid the small shrine farewell at last. She stepped outside onto the Aoiya’s patio, gaze falling upon the moon overhead. She had always loved looking at the lunar formation, the glowing ivory waxing the dark night with a glossy white finish around the edges. Misao loved the stars, too, and she could faintly remember a dull memory of Okina pointing the constellations out to her as a young child.

Stars had as much free space as humanly possible to do whatever they wished. To go where they wanted to go, and if possible, love whomever they wanted. Misao had little of these privileges, and even now she was still treated as a little girl afraid to grow up. Perhaps she was afraid, because the responsibilities of an adult were far greater now.

Aoshi just had to die. Misao’s fist curled into a loose knot, her lightly feathered eyebrows furling downward slightly. How dare he leave her like this. Without Okina, without brotherly or fatherly guidance, left with the rest of the Oniwabanshuu to look after and cater to their problems. Already she had gotten an urgent call to help a related ninja clan all the way across Japan and back.

“How am I going to do that…?” Misao whispered to herself, strolling down the smooth, moonlit patio, sliding her thin shoji door open. The woman-girl stopped at the entrance, the candle hurling yellow gold light into the small, futon furnished room.

Indeed, a futon was the sole object in that oftentimes lonely, secluded place she slept in.

Her rage dissolved like the murkiness inside the room. It was, after all, not in her or anyone else’s control over who should live and who should die. Her breath whisked over the candle flame as she stepped inside, letting the pale moonlight seep through the thin rice paper of her door. Misao simply stood there, letting the half-shadowed light seep into and around her being, collecting her last graying thoughts. Her muscles relaxed, her breathing slowed, and those eyelids lifted once again.

One hand slid between the folds of her futon as she knelt, unraveling the plain white mass to the tatami floor. One solitary window let free struggling moonbeams onto it, and a tendril of wind flew inside, delivering a single gift. A fully bloomed cherry blossom settled upon her white, white futon, glowing in the light like a jewelIt was a sign. The woman stared at it for one moment, before she swept it aside, and settled into that lonely single futon.

And like many nights before, her only company would be shapeless dreams and shadows.

oOoOo

Well, there it is. Please, if you liked this, send me a nice word or crit. It’ll certainly encourage me to continue.