Rurouni Kenshin Fan Fiction ❯ Of Dreams and Reality ❯ Chapter 1

[ P - Pre-Teen ]

Of Dreams and Reality

Chapter 1

By Blazewing

Disclaimer: Rurouni Kenshin isn’t mine, blah blah blah… I’m just borrowing them for a bit. Don’t sue me! I promise you wouldn’t get very much! ^_^

Author’s Note: This is my first RK fanfic, so go easy on me, please! As always, read & review!

*****

Kenshin started awake, sitting up suddenly in his futon, violet eyes wide and breathing heavy. A moment later he grimaced, hissing slightly in pain as half-healed wounds protested his abrupt movement. He closed his eyes as the pain receded and his breathing returned to normal.

Just a dream. More accurately a nightmare. Sightless blue eyes, once so filled with life, now clouded in death. Crimson blood dripping from cheek and breast to stain the dojo floor a deep red. His own heart shattering, his world falling to pieces around him at the sight…

The redhead took a deep breath, which he released in a long, drawn-out sigh, opening his eyes as he did so. It was over. Kaoru was safe. She was home. Kenshin reminded himself of this yet again, forcing the painful memories aside.

It didn’t work. He knew that as soon as his eyes shut again in another futile attempt at sleep, that terrible image of Kaoru’s lifeless form would come back to haunt him. It had been so since their return to the dojo nearly two weeks ago. That first night after their return following Enishi’s jinchuu, she had stayed at his bedside, watching over him as he slept the sleep of the utterly exhausted. He had been far too tired to dream that night, and her presence nearby had ensured that no dreams would bother him. Since then, Kaoru had slept in her own room; just down the hall, but too distant to keep the nightmares at bay.

The abrupt desire to see her, to prove to himself that reality was not a dream and his nightmare reality, filled him. The need to know that she was indeed safe was too strong to be denied, and he did not question it. Kenshin rolled out of his futon and to his feet in one smooth motion, absentmindedly picking up his sakabatou as he did so. He tucked the sword into the sash of his yukata as he made his way on bare, silent feet to the shoji of his room.

Just outside his room Kenshin paused. He could sense Yahiko sleeping nearby and hear the boy’s snores. He stretched his senses, searching. Kaoru wasn’t in her own room. Kenshin felt a stab of worry. Where is she? He sent his senses out further. If she was within the dojo walls, he should be able to sense her presence.

There she is. She was on the porch by the dojo yard. Why is she out there so late at night?

Kenshin noiselessly made his way through the halls to the outside. At the door leading out, he propped his right shoulder against the doorjamb while he watched the beauty before him.

Kaoru was standing at the edge of the porch, her back to Kenshin, as yet unaware that she was no longer alone. He could just make out her profile from his current position. In the bright moonlight, he could clearly see the peaceful expression on her lovely face, her slender form illuminated against the deeper shadows of the yard. Her arms were loosely clasped about herself as she gazed at the heavens.

Gazing at her, Kenshin felt the growing need to hold her. For so long he had denied both himself and her. He didn’t deserve someone like her. Someone so innocent and pure was too good for someone as bloodstained as him. Yet he knew that without her, his life held no meaning, no purpose. Enishi had proven that beyond a doubt. It was a battle Kenshin was tired of fighting with himself, and one in which he was doomed from the start.

*****

Kaoru watched the stars from her spot on the porch. She had prepared for bed earlier, but had found herself not the least bit tired. So instead of staring at the ceiling waiting for sleep, she had decided to stargaze.

She let her thoughts drift as her eyes wandered the heavens. As usual, thoughts of a certain red-haired rurouni filled her mind. Kaoru sighed softly. Kenshin was home and was unlikely to leave again, at least for a little while. His wounds, received during Enishi’s jinchuu and obviously neglected during at least part of her imprisonment, were finally starting to heal. Kaoru frowned. Kenshin had yet to tell her everything that had happened during those three weeks, and everyone else refused to say anything. Even beating up Yahiko in hopes of getting him to tell her what happened hadn’t worked.

The unexpected appearance of strong arms around her waist and a weight on her left shoulder startled her out of her thoughts. Kaoru gasped at the sudden touch, half turning in surprise to meet warm violet eyes with her own blue ones. “Kenshin?” her soft voice both startled and questioning. Ire replaced surprise. “Don’t do that. You shouldn’t sneak up on people, Kenshin,” she chided.

“Gomen,” he replied, faint amusement lighting his eyes and coloring his voice, “Sessha didn’t mean to frighten you, Kaoru-dono.”

Kaoru relaxed, her anger quickly fading at his apology.

He continued, “What are you doing out here, Kaoru-dono? It is late, that it is.”

“I couldn’t sleep,” she answered. Kaoru shrugged. “I just wasn’t very sleepy. What about you? You should be in bed. You’re still recovering.” Her mild scolding was nothing new. She was always scolding him about something, most recently about how he needed to take things easy while he healed from his injuries. He could usually divert her attention away from her worrying, a fact that annoyed her no end whenever she realized what he’d done. So it came as a mild shock when Kenshin didn’t use his normal evasive tactics.

“I had a nightmare, Kaoru-dono,” came his soft reply. Kaoru’s eyes widened slightly in surprise. It was rare that Kenshin would confess to something like a nightmare. She also noted that his speech patterns had changed and his voice had dropped into a lower timbre, like they always did when he discussed something serious.

She turned in his embrace, slipping her arms around his own waist. Kaoru had longed to feel him hold her, and now that Kenshin finally was, she wasn’t about to let this opportunity pass by. She looked up into his soulful, violet eyes and saw in them a mixture of emotions. Fear, hope, and a deep, all-consuming pain warred within his gaze, along with what she could tell was a powerful need for reassurance. Reassurance for what, she didn’t know, but it was something she desperately wanted to give him, to erase that haunted look from Kenshin’s eyes if nothing else.

“Will you tell me about it?” she asked, her voice still soft but now filled with concern.

Kenshin looked into Kaoru’s eyes for a moment, reading the concern within their blue depths. “Aa,” came his quiet reply after a few heartbeats.

The former hitokiri shifted, pulling away slightly to sit on the porch, bringing Kaoru down to sit next to him. Not once did he relinquish his hold about her waist, and Kaoru wasn’t about to object to it. Once settled, Kenshin began.

“Do you know about what happened after Enishi captured you?”

“No, I don’t,” she answered. “No one would tell me. I asked, but no one would tell me.” Kaoru turned beseeching eyes on Kenshin, wanting, needing to know what had happened to cause him such pain.

Kenshin’s hold tightened a bit in comfort, both for her and for himself. “Iwanbou was not the only puppet Gein created, Kaoru-dono. He made another…” Kenshin struggled to get the words out passed remembered pain, “One of you.”

Kaoru gasped at this, clutching his yukata in surprise. Her own voice was choked with confusion, “Why?”

“Enishi wanted nothing else beside my suffering,” Kenshin answered, his voice remaining low, muted. “He wanted to hurt me, and to do that…” his eyes shut as if to block that terribly memory, “he made me, us, believe that he had killed you.”

“Oh, Kenshin,” Kaoru cried softly, burying her face into his shoulder. The rurouni continued as if he hadn’t heard her, voice laced with a torment he could never forget.

“I found…it…with a cross-scar cut into its cheek, and Enishi’s blade pinning it through the heart to the wall in the dojo.” Kenshin took a deep, shuddering breath. “When I saw…” again his embrace tightened, almost crushing Kaoru to him, “Nothing mattered anymore. The pain…it was too much. I fled. I couldn’t think of anything else except to try and escape the emptiness that filled me when I thought you were gone. For almost two weeks after that night I sat in Rakuninmura, waiting to die…”

“Kenshin, no,” Kaoru whispered, tears streaming down her face, soaking into the cloth of Kenshin’s robe. She turned to him then, eyes shinning with tears for him. Now she knew, knew why the others sometimes watched her with wonder in their gaze, why he had become even more protective of her than before. Easy to see now, too, why Kenshin had been having nightmares lately. She’d heard him tossing and turning late at night, sometimes crying out in his sleep. More than once she’d had to stop herself from going to him, telling herself that he’d let her know what was wrong when he was ready.

Gently, Kenshin’s hand came up to wipe the tears from her cheek. “Gomen nasai, Kaoru. I couldn’t protect you from him…”

“Baka!” Kaoru’s tone became vehement. “He didn’t hurt me!” She grabbed his hand, holding it to her face as he tried to withdraw it. “See? I’m safe. I’m not going anywhere.” Her tone gentled, “I’m here. I’m real. Kenshin, there is nothing for you to feel guilty about.”

“Demo…” he began. She didn’t let him finish.

“No, Kenshin. What’s past is past. If it’s forgiveness that you want from me, you had it from the moment I asked you to stay here with me,” her voice became sorrowful, “I don’t want you to hurt anymore. Onegai.”

His violet eyes softened, the pain in them receding for the moment. “Aa. As long as you’re here with me, I won’t.”

She smiled at him then, happiness shining in her blue eyes. Kaoru released his hand and returned her own to its former position around his waist. Kenshin held her to him, and she reveled in the feel of his arms about her, his chin against her soft hair.

For a long while they remained thus, enjoying each other’s presence. Finally, though, Kenshin loosened his hold on Kaoru and leaned back a bit to look at her.

Almost reluctantly, he spoke. “We should go in now, Kaoru, that we should. It’s starting to get cold out here.”

He didn’t use ‘-dono’! “Hai, Kenshin,” Kaoru agreed aloud.

He stood, helping her to her feet and leading the way back inside, never once releasing her hand. Outside the shoji to her room, Kenshin paused.

Kaoru noticed his hesitation, glancing at the ex-hitokiri with curious eyes. He seemed reluctant, but about what? “Kenshin, nan da?”

*****

The redhead didn’t want to leave her presence again tonight, but he couldn’t think of an excuse to stay with her. At her words, he looked at her, startled out of his thoughts. “It’s nothing, that it is, Kaoru-dono. You should get some sleep, that you should.”

Even in the dim light of the hallway, Kenshin could see the young woman’s frown. He watched as her eyes closed and she turned slightly away from him with a heaving sigh. Now what did I do?

“Fine, then, Kenshin,” she answered him, irritation obvious. “You get some sleep, too, alright?”

“Hai, Kaoru-dono.”

With another sigh, the young kendo instructor opened her shoji and stepped through into the deeper shadows of her bedroom. “Goodnight, Kenshin.”

“Goodnight Kaoru-dono.” The shoji rasped softly shut, and he stood there for several long moments staring at it. On the other side, he could sense Kaoru settling back into bed, her ki warm like a candle’s flame.

Finally, he turned away, moving once more with the stealth he’d perfected long ago on the streets of Kyoto. He snorted softly in amusement at the new direction of his thoughts. Who’d have thought I’d ever use skills learned as an assassin to avoid letting the woman I care about know just how long I was standing outside her door?

With a shake of his head, Kenshin returned to his room. Once there, he paused to glance back the way he’d come, back toward her room. He really didn’t want to be alone with his nightmare’s again, but on the other hand, he couldn’t exactly go running to Kaoru like a child to his mother. He could just imagine her reaction, and the lumps he’d get if he tried. He didn’t need to add to his collection of injuries, thank you very much!

But still… He pushed that thought away. Bad enough his weakness tonight. And the awkwardness he was sure would be there in the morning because of his forwardness.

Kenshin stepped fully into his room and slid the shoji shut behind him. Rather than heading back to his waiting futon, he made instead for the wall opposite the small chest where he kept his clothing. There he settled, back against the wall and sakabatou resting against his left shoulder. In this position he’d be sleeping too lightly to dream, and would probably be more rested come morning than if he slept in his futon with his nightmares for company. Dawn was still a long way off, and a light doze would be better than no sleep at all.









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