Rurouni Kenshin Fan Fiction ❯ Oblivion ❯ Chapter 9

Standard disclaimers apply. Well, I have a few pennies in my sleeve… but that definitely would not be enough to win a law suit that I don't have any hope in winning anyway!!! Be kind! Don't sue me, porfavor! @_@;;

What if some things went wrong from the way Kenshin planned things for the Aoiya's defense while fighting Shishio-and the love of his life being the one to suffer his mistake? Can K&K still triumph over the trials thereafter?

"Oblivion"

Chapter Nine

"W-what are you doing…?"

Close your eyes…

"B-but…"

Just do it, ne?

"…"

Kaoru-chan…

"H-hai-hai…!"

Open you eyes now…

Kaoru began to open her eyes slowly. She blinked several times to adjust her sight around her.

"Where have you taken me? I feel strange… wha-!"

Kaoru's jaw dropped upon letting her eyes feast around the place she was in.

"W-where are we?"

She was inside a room, dimly lit by the sunshine that passes through the thinness of the ricepaper walls. She saw a small altar in the center, with fresh flowers adorned at both sides.

Don't you remember this place?

Kaoru thought for a second.

"No…" she said, shaking her head lightly.

Then feel free to roam around if you must…

Kaoru took a few steps forward. Still unsure of where she would start her 'memory trek', she suddenly felt drawn to a beautiful black monogrammed bow laid on top of a table behind the altar.

Touching the lid and the strange etchings by her fingertips, "What's this…?"

Why don't you open it?

She carefully lifted the lid and was astonished by what she saw.

A shimmering sapphire pendant with fleur-de-lises around it was at the center of the box. The stone shone brilliantly all the more as she took it to her palm as the sun's light glimmered against it. Kaoru gasped at the sparkling beauty of the gem.

"Its so beau-"

"This is for you, Nanako…"

The man presented the pretty lady with a black monogrammed box.

Eyeing the box being offered to her, she stared at the man disdainfully. And with piercing words, she replied. "I thought we had talked about this before? There is no need for you to appear so sweet as a husband for you never were."

Katsuro let in a sharp intake of breath as the words of his wife slowly sank in.

"I'am not giving you this to show-off or anything, Nanako."

Nanako raised a brow. "And what is that, then?"

The man fell quiet. Toying with the lid of the box in hand, he continued. "I know you never did want to marry me…"

"And you know very well why I don't," Nanako interrupted.

"…its because you don't love me…"

"And I never will," she muttered under her breath.

The husband sighed again, "Demo," he said, "I want to give this to you in gratitude…"

Nanako raised one brow again. "Gratitude? For what?"

"For giving me a daughter."

"-tiful." Kaoru's words were cut short by the sudden flash of memory she had just witnessed just by touching the sapphire pendant.

She felt her knees began to buckle, and returning the box from where she had gotten it before she had leaned on the table for support, she thought hard about just what had happened.

"W-what was t-that?"

No answer.

"H-huh?"

She turned her head around to find her 'companion'.

'Oh great. Just great. Now I'm all alone.' she thought.

Slowly regaining her composure, her eyes were fixed to the still opened monogrammed black box.

"What kind of box are you?" she said. "What did you just do to me?"

Sighing before she closed the box, Kaoru heard some voices outside the room.

"H-huh?" She slid the door of the room she was in and stepped out.

"Who goes there?" she called along the corridor. "Hullooo?"

She suddenly felt as if she was being led down the hallway. And she found herself in the main hall.

"Katsuro-san."

"H-huh?" Kaoru surprisingly gaped in terror. A man spoke behind her, and she immediately turned around facing him in shock. "W-who are you!"

The man stepped forward, his facial expression never wavered, as if he did not hear Kaoru's query.

Kaoru stepped back. She began to feel a little frightened. "Oh-kay now… I said, WHO ARE-heyy!" the man stepped up to her at that instant. Waiting for the body of the man to clash with her, Kaoru's eyes bolted open when she felt only a swoosh of wind instead as the man walked directly at her.

"Katsuro-san," the man called again.

Kaoru's eyes were wide in wonder. 'How? Why? What-?' She turned to the man who now she sees with the man she had seen in her vision a while ago.

"I'm dreadfully sorry…" the man started. "I did the best I could…"

Kaoru looked at both of her hands. 'They can't see me?'

The other man only shook his head. "Iie, no apologies, Masuharu-san. Its just her time, perhaps…"

"But…"

"Listen. No matter which way I put it, she's probably happy up there now… wherever she may be. Its what she had always wanted, to finally get away from the hell-marriage she always had pertained to this as…"

"Katsuro… don't say that," the other man interrupted. "I know Nanako had never wanted to leave you… nor your child."

Katsuro nodded. "Aaa, that's right. If there's one thing that can make her stay alive, that's our daughter."

"Speaking of her, where is she?"

"Probably playing outside…"

The two men walked outside to the porch, as Kaoru curiously tagged along, and saw a young girl with a parasol in one hand. She was gleefully throwing a paper balloon with the other free hand she had. Feeling being watched, she stopped and looked at the direction of her father and their family friend.

"She really looks like Nanako-san…"

"H-hai…"

"What will become of her now, Katsuro?"

Katsuro thought deeply for a moment. Shaking his head, he said. "I don't know… she will constantly remind me of her."

"Aaa…"

"Masuharu-san…"

"Hai…?"

"Would you mind watching over my daughter for a while? I'll just t-talk to Nanako for the… last time…"

"Go ahead, my friend."

With that, Katsuro left the other man.

Kaoru decided to follow the one called Katsuro inside the room the other man came out from earlier. She felt her heart beating faster by the moment she had entered the room with Katsuro.

Kaoru couldn't understand the feeling that came over her upon seeing the face of the woman lying on the futon. Her eyes were shut closed. Her chest stable and without movement.

'I-is she dead…?' Kaoru thought.

She glanced at the man standing beside her. Surprised, she could see two teardrops sliding down his cheek; his eyes fixed at the the dead woman's face.

"N-nanako…" he began.

Katsuro dropped to the floor and wept quietly. He reached for Nanako's hand and wept against it. He caresses her pale hand and kissed it all over.

Kaoru's own eyes were beaming with tears. She couldn't understand the sensation she was feeling at this very moment. All she knows is that she had never felt so deprived of anything in her life.

"Tou-san…?" a small voice came calling him from behind.

Kaoru instantly turned around to see the little girl she had seen playing a while ago peering in between the shoji door at her father.

Her eyes were big in wonder as to why her father was kissing the hand of her mother. It was very unlikely for her father to do something like that, for he had always maintained his cool and icy demeanor in front of her mother.

"Tou-san?" she called again. "Doushite?"

Masuharu spoke behind the girl. "C'mon now, Tou-san doesn't want to be disturbed," looking at Katsuro, "Gomen, Katsuro-san…"

Kaoru saw that the girl's father immediately wiped the tears form his eyes. He laid his wife's hand carefully at her side again and summoned his daughter to come near. "Its alright Masuharu… Hime-chan, come."

The little girl playfully skipped alongside her father. She knotted her head upon seeing her mother's closed eyes. She fell quiet upon sitting beside her father. He's always been strict with quietness whenever her mother sleeps. Glancing up to him for the next instructions, her father began to speak-his voice trembling.

"Kiss your mother now, Hime-chan. For this is the last time you will ever see her again…"

Without further questions, the girl bent over carefully and kissed her mother's cheek.

"Let's go," he said as he lifted her blanket a little and covered her up to the face.

The little girl began to ask, "Tou-san… Kaa-san can't breathe…"

Katsuro ignored her musings. "Tou-san…" she tugged on him without looking away from her mother.

The father just held her hand tightly and dragged her lightly outside. Throwing her mother one last glance before her father shut the door close, the little girl cried aloud.

"The g-girl… the little girl…" Kaoru cried silently outside the little girl's mother's room. "I-I can r-remember now…"

Opening the door to the mother's room again, she slowly began to understand the next visions she now sees…

She could see Katsuro crying in the middle of the night clutching at his wife's kimono, and the little girl would just peek quietly from the door.

"I c-can remember now how Tou-san mourned over Kaa-san's death… He had never showed her he loved her, nor she did in return. Their marriage was an a-arranged one, a 'planned' one… that's why all their life they had lived in loathe of each other. And its only through me since I was born that they had managed to try and make the marriage work. Only for me… for my sake…"

"I only have vague memories of Kaa-san… of how she loved me and cared for me since I was a child; I can only remember of how she would read to me some Western stories under a tree shade. Oh how she loves to read! She spends most of her free time in it in case she had tucked me to sleep already. The sapphire… the sapphire on which she never had accepted from Tou-san. It bore Tou-san much grief than any thing else…"

Tears were flowing freely down Kaoru's cheeks. She moaned in displeasure, clutching at her chest due to her ragged breath. She once again re-lived the sad days of her childhood-the memories of her father and mother's discord. Their disagreements, their hate, their conflict… all of them. It was hard going through the same feeling again… but she knows its a part. It's a part of her life she couldn't deny being a big factor to what she might be now. And she tends to continue knowing her life from the beginning.

Wiping the tears from her face, she stood up to her feet as they dragged her to a place all too-familiar to her… the dojo.

Uh-hmm? So what do you think? I know it's a lil cranky and short… hehe! The next chap's rather a longer one, its gonna pay-off, I promise. Please leave me review. Oh well… THANKS SO MUCH! See ya! ^_^