“The Vanguard of Madness”

The sun glared back at itself, mirrored in the surface of the laundry water. The cerulean ceiling of the June sky shrunk to a shivering reflection between the clouds of soap bubbles, creating an entire heaven contained in the small wooden washtub. He smiled at it, dipping a finger into the blue surface and watching the calm mirror disrupt in brief concentric mayhem from the tips of his reflected fingers.

“The hand of God,” he mused, watching order quickly restore itself upon his simulated, personal sky. It was funny how peace could reclaim even the most chaotic, and how chaos would eventually awaken in silence of a calm. Things were this way, that they were. The natural cycle of life was evident in all things, and his life was no exception.

Kenshin Himura sighed gently. It was warm for June, but the breeze was still cool as it ran it’s ethereal fingers through his long hair. The cherry trees that clustered at the riverbank had already lost their blossoms and were now bearing young fruit. Life also restored itself after the gray deadness of a passed winter. All around him, the cycle continued. The world changed, people changed, were born and died…while he sat and watched the perfect circle spiral around his unchanging, stonefaced sorrow. His indecision was ignored by the cycle, and as he pondered and waited for peace to come to his heart, the circle spun in its flawless orbit of birth and death. It did not wait for a man who had sentenced men to death under the judgment of a human emperor. The price for power is never paid by the powerful.

He leaned forward, sinking his arm into the sky hued water, it was warmer than the outside air, the fragrance of the detergent indistinguishable in the redolent summer noon. In the shivering heaven that existed in his laundry water, he found himself staring into his own face.

Kenshin Himura did not appreciate his own reflection. Perhaps others were able to see a decent person’s face in his, but he could not. When he saw his own face, he only saw the murderer that had sunk into the legend of the Bakumatsu as some sort of twisted hero. Battousai. He had never felt like a hero. He simply did what he had to do in accordance with the orders in the small black envelopes that had once ruled his life.

When a black envelope arrives, it will rain blood in Kyoto that night.

So it had gone. But Kyoto, too, had evolved and continued. Yet when the man they had called Battousai closed his eyes, even today, he still saw the Bakumatsu. He smelled the cold, coppery scent of blood that stained the stone sidewalks of Kyoto streets. The filthy feel of the humidity on those murderous nights. It had rained often, both blood and water. Those who carried swords were split in two, and he was the Ishin Shishi’s rainmaker. To honor the Emperor. To expel the barbarians. To open the country. To destroy the Shogunate. He would kill to bring peace, he would remain the Battousai, the vanguard of the madness in that restless time. He would kill so the children of the future would not have to die.

Had he brought peace? Peace is not the outcome of war, he knew that now. Peace will create itself after chaos, cherry blossoms would sprout on skeletal gray tree limbs after the frost melts away. The Tokugawa Bakufu had relinguished power to Meiji while he was on a battlefield. Had his actions aided in that eventual result? In rain in Kyoto had forever ceased. Battousai disappeared into the shadows of legend, still haunted by the scent of white plums.

His reflection grimaced at him. The peaceful face of the rurouni did not fool Battousai. After all, they were the same man, and a man can never truly fool himself. The peace he had fought for did not reside in his heart. There was not a morning, an afternoon, an evening that went by that he did not think about Tomoe. It was a useless but undeniable fact. She too, remain unchanged—though the world continued. They were alike that way—the same way they had been alike in sorrow. Though she remained the same: young and beautiful, only because he had made it so by stealing her chance for continuation in the endless, perfect circle. He was stagnant in his enduring search for an answer, yet he did continue. He adapted slowly. He no longer lived inside the Bakumatsu—as some he had recently encountered did. He held no grudges or vows to fulfill. Only his vow to himself—that he would never again take a life. Although…

Kenshin wrung out a white yukata and stood. He gave it a single violent shake, the wet fabric snapping and expelling a glitter of water into the sun saturated afternoon and onto the sparse grass that squeaked beneath his sandals. The wrinkles dropped away. The white yukata, it belonged to Miss Kaoru.

Although he nearly had. He had so easily dropped his vow, the hitokiri inside catching fire when killing was the only way to save another life that had become important that he protect—Kaoru Kamiya’s. Perhaps Jinei was correct after all—a hitokiri is a hitokiri. Even if his intentions were, as before, noble to a point, he was still a killer. He couldn’t ever fool himself into living a day without that yoke around his neck. Perhaps it was better than the cycle of change, of life went on without him or his vow. Perhaps once crowned the vanguard of madness, one never could shrink back to normalcy. Too many dangers had come to this small Tokyo dojo because he had stopped wandering for a time. It had started almost immediately after his arrival and his defeat of the false battousai—first there were less threatening enemies, like Sano. Yet each time he was able to overcome a threat, a new and more dangerous fight materialized on the horizon like vengeful storm clouds. It was becoming more difficult not only to protect himself, but to protect the others. And after the ordeal with Shishio, he had been wondering what it would be like if there was anything worse yet to come. If there was…

Kenshin removed the laundry apron and leaned his folded arms on the edge of the washtub where the little heaven stared gloriously up at him. There it was again. His face, peering over the great pale hills of his reflected arms. His wide indigo eyes, his long, flaming copper hair tied at the nape of his neck. And the scar, of course. It was hard not to notice something like that on someone’s face, much less ignore it on your own. He brought a hand up to it absently, watching his fingers trace his reflection’s cheek. He had always thought that one day, it would fade. Now, 10 years after its carving, he knew it would take a miracle. And Kenshin Himura didn’t believe in miracles.

A dove gray cloud had become lovers with the sun suddenly, and the light in the courtyard had dimmed a shade. Overcome with the same fatigue that the sunlight had suddenly succumbed to, he ventured to lean his back against the front step…just…for a moment. Resting the his sword—a sakaba, on his shoulder, bowing his head. He always said he carried the sakaba because he could not give up the sword, that it was for protection, that he could never kill anyone with the reversed blade sword. He knew right well that he could. His hand slid down the scabbard an inch. Exhaling. Inhaling.

“I don’t need to give my name to a dead man…” A voice from the darkness. A flash of steel. Bodies.

“You…remarkably…made it rain. Rain of blood…” Tomoe’s pale face in the Kyoto night. The scent of white plums.

“I boasted I would never kill a civilian, and look at me…two seconds later and I would have…” Drawing the sword away, muscles still tight with the reflex.

“Will you kill people forever?”

Snow stained scarlet by a woman’s blood.

“I didn’t say I wanted Battousai to stay, I said I wanted the Rurouni…” A young woman standing in a pine paneled practice hall.

“I want your title as the strongest…”

“I am a Rurouni, I will continue my journey.” Fireflies. The shadows.

“Don’t worry about me, this has nothing to do with your vow.”

“I don’t understand you. Not killing people. It’s wrong. The strong survive and the weak die.” A boy’s confused, clench teeth diatribe. Steel. Blood. Fire.

“After all this time, you visited the grave…”

“Welcome home…” A young girl’s peaceful smile.

Hands at his throat. Cloth slipping. Kenshin sprung, the blade whining as it was pulled, his wrist tilting, the blade coming upward and splitting the light. Who now came for him? Kenshin’s eyes opened after the sword was at his assailant’s jugular.

Kaoru Kamiya stared over the drawn blade, the steel reflecting her dark eyes wide with the terror he never wanted to see in her eyes. Terror of him. He never wanted Kaoru to see in his face what he saw in his reflection. A ruthless murderer. His vow again had turned involuntarily to water, and his sword was at another innocent woman’s throat.

The reverse sword fell from his hand with a dull clamor. She stood in front of him, frozen, that hideous fear still in her eyes. In his chest, Kenshin felt something cold clutch at him. His mouth had done dry. The cloth he had felt at his neck, some kind of ligature for strangulation in his mind and reflex…a blue knit blanket.

“I boasted I would never kill a civilian, and look at me…two seconds later and I would have…”

The sky had gone dark, charcoal gray and swollen. So he had fallen asleep. Had he dreamed? He couldn’t remember. But something had triggered that old reflex, that old quick assumption that each touch meant doom. The Battousai’s reflex—although with the learning of the succession technique he had thought…

How many times would God save him from killing an innocent woman coming to cover him with a blanket? Kenshin felt his eyes grow hot. This was unforgivable. Twice now. Twice. Tomoe too, had the same terror in her eyes. But Kaoru…if he had perhaps not been quick enough to come to his senses… He would die if Kaoru met with Tomoe’s fate. Just the momentary horror in her eyes was enough to kill him. And yet, he was too much a coward to bring himself to reveal Tomoe’s memory to her at all. Unforgiveable. He could not find words.

Kenshin closed his eyes, heart cold and hammering.

“Ken..shin…”

Kaoru’s hand lifted toward him, her forehead slightly buckled.

No decent words came. His mouth opened. “Kaoru-dono…I’m…so sorry.” He did not dare ask her forgiveness. His eyes narrowed. He could not bear the shaken expression that he had caused.

Her arms went around his neck. “Kenshin.” Her voice caught in her throat as it muffled against his shoulder.

Such forgiveness? Embraces? He was not worthy of such treatment. His actions did not deserve such acquittal. They were merely the paranoias of a murderer.

Her arms tightened around his blanket adorned neck. “I couldn’t bear to awaken you. I thought you must be really tired to sleep out here while doing laundry…I’m sorry. I should know better than to awaken you like that.”

Forgiveness. Kaoru’s innocence was a miracle in his dark life. He looked upward to the cloud swollen zenith, the girl’s arms still tight about his neck. It was much larger than the small blue one that he had contained in his laundry water earlier, and yet it was the same sky. Only it had changed while he had slept. The circle spun, and the calm became chaos. The blue became black, the warm breeze became a cruel gale. Rain fell. And he too, had changed. He was no longer the vanguard of madness. That name had been washed away with years of wandering. He had never thought about being lost. Those who have nowhere to go cannot be lost. He had never lost himself while exorcising the anger. The guilt. But today, he had felt lost. But he was home. Battousai slept in a dark corner of him, he knew that would always be so. Battousai had changed as well. He believed in a sword that protects, just as Kaoru’s ambitious criticism had stated—not just in the sword that slays. People never did not stay the same. Swords were not needed in this Meiji era, but swords would not go away. He had fought…killed so others would not have to die. To bring peace. It had taken him too long to find the peace he had so vehemently sough, but it had come to him all the same. Serenity, like a sort of snow, settled numbly. The silence of the screaming conscience. And the circle spun on.

*Author’s note. I don’t really know how this turned out. It’s my first Kenshin fic, and I’m not really sure how I feel about it. Comments are welcome.