Rurouni Kenshin Fan Fiction ❯ Steps Of Courage ❯ Never Let Go ( Chapter 19 )

Disclaimer: All standard disclaimers apply. Always.

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Chapter 19

The day Kenshin woke up was five days after Naruku had offered her story for Katsu’s column in the newspaper. In the past five days, little had changed. Naruku was still reserved, but not completely blocked off, and everyone was constantly running around, while still finding time to worry for their friend.

Kaoru couldn’t understand it. They expected so much from Kenshin, and always had. They expected him to wake up from life-threatening conditions and go back to how it was. That was another thing. They expected him to remain strong, physically and emotionally. It just wouldn’t be Kenshin if he couldn’t smile like always. Not to say that Kenshin faked it for them. He just covered up the unhappiness when it arrived.

Kaoru couldn’t help but to wonder, how would he be when Kenshin awoke? She was almost angry with herself for thinking so. She shouldn’t care, she should only care that he did wake. But the fact was,Kaoru did care about how he would act. And she couldn’t change that, she knew.

But while Kenshin had been deep in a coma, Kaoru felt that some deep knowledge had been obtained. It was hard to look on the bright side, but Kaoru felt good about the fact that their small community could survive without the Rurouni. It was the first time they had been able to, and she felt somewhat proud.

But things were not as good as they should have been. Naruku was fairly deep in the doldrums. Even while functioning, Naruku seemed to be wasting away. Sometimes she wondered, rather futilely, if she would live to see another day. Even though she knew she was in perfectly good health—her arm was nearly at one hundred percent—she thought maybe she wouldn’t wake up the next morning.

She thought she wouldn’t wake, just because Kenshin wouldn’t.

Kenshin stood up, stepping into a fresh pair of hakama pants that Naruku had fetched from his room.

“You can turn around,” he told Naruku, who sat cross-legged a few feet in front of him, facing the wall.

Naruku turned slowly, her green eyes surveying him with mild fascination. In her lap sat the sakabatou, looking as content as any inanimate object could look. After she realized she had been staring, Naruku held up Kenshin’s sword for him to take. Kenshin leaned down and accepted it. He looked down at Naruku, a serious expression on his face. She hadn’t spoken a word since he had suddenly woken several minutes ago. Why had she been there? Where was everyone else?

“Naruku-dono,” he cleared his throat. It was hard to get it to function again. “How long was I in comatose state?”

Instead of meeting his probing violet gaze, Naruku looked away, plucking absently at her skirt.

“Naruku-dono,” Kenshin said sternly. He knelt down and took her by the shoulders. He raised one hand and pulled her chin toward him, so she was facing him. She obeyed and looked at him solemnly.

“How long was I in a coma?” he asked again, a sense of urgency finding its way into his worn-out voice.

Naruku blinked and wrenched away from him. He grabbed her arm as she was about to get up.

“Naruku!”

She tore herself out of his grasp and scrambled to his feet, turning and leaving the room without saying a word.

He stared forlornly at the spot where she had been sitting, his hand still outstretched when he had grabbed her. He couldn’t understand it. What had made her act that way? She didn’t speak a word to him…and she had looked so delighted when she saw his eyes open, awakening from his slumber.

“Naruku-chan!” Kaoru’s melodious voice drifted into the near-empty room. “I got—” she arrived in the doorway and promptly dropped the tray of food at seeing Kenshin there. “Kenshin!”

Kenshin gathered himself into a more presentable position. “Good evening Kaoru-dono,” he answered placidly.

Kaoru forgot about the broken plates and spilled soup, instead throwing her arms around her dear cousin. “You’re awake!” she cried. “It’s unbelievable! I have to get Megumi…and Yahiko! Sano, too. You don’t know how long we’ve been worried about you, Kenshin! Promise me this won’t happen to you again! Megumi said, and I agree, you have to be more careful about your health…”

Kenshin smiled, feeling comforted amid the amiable chatter that Kaoru provided. He could always count on her to worry over him. Kaoru was not a complicated girl. She didn’t ask for much. Kenshin wished he could be the same to her.

In a matter of minutes, Kenshin had six different people tugging at him and hugging him. All his friends, save for Naruku.

“We should all have a celebratory dinner at the Akabeko! Free of charge!” Tae exclaimed, getting very excited at the prospect.

Kenshin politely peeled her off him, almost afraid of the bouncing, over-exited restaurant hostess. “I might have to take you up on that another day,” he said formidably. “Right now there’s someone I must speak too.”

Everyone froze, and before they could think of anything to say, Kenshin had collected himself and was walking out of the drill hall.

“Wait, Kenshin!” Kaoru cried, running after him rapidly. She looked as though she was ready to run him down.

Kenshin turned, smiling. “I appreciate your concern, Kaoru. I’ll be back shortly. I need to do this.” He needed answers.

“Is it Naruku?” Kaoru asked immediately.

Kenshin nodded. “I was harsh with her when I woke up. I needed answers, and I almost forgot about how she felt. Now, though, I realize I don’t know what she feels.”

Kaoru stood still and took a deep breath. “Well I think I do. She didn’t know how you would act when you awoke. The last she saw of you before you became unconscious, you were on the brink of reverting to the self-sacrificial and cold-hearted manslayer. She hoped you would speak a kind word to her when you awoke. She doesn’t know how it is with you, so perhaps she thought you were still in the mind of the fight. You’re right. You need to talk to her.” Kaoru let him go.

He didn’t mull over it. He didn’t even wonder how he knew what had gone on in his fight.

No matter for what reason Naruku didn’t want to see him, he knew he had to find her. No matter what.

He found her. He didn’t think it would be hard, and it wasn’t. For someone so confused, she was rather predictable, but perhaps only to him.

She was by the lake, practicing Hiten Mitsurugi. He didn’t ask why, simply stationed himself on a nearby rock and perched there, watching as she continued her rapid sword strokes.

Eventually it came to a point where he knew she saw him, and she knew it too. She couldn’t avoid the confrontation any longer. Not like she had avoided the animosity between Enizu and Kenshin before. She had learned.

She sheathed her sword and ambled toward him. Kenshin could tell that she had a feeling of dread, the same feeling he’d had right before he explained he was the Battousai.

When she ran, back then, he thought she hated him. He thought he had killed someone close to her. The funny thing was, Naruku had thought that too. But now Kenshin understood that was not why she had run away. It was to protect him. Or to protect herself from becoming part of a plot against him.

“How did you know?” he asked quietly as she took a seat beside him.

Naruku fiddled with the hilt of her sword, drawing swirls on its surface with her nail. She hardly looked surprised at the question. “I…” she didn’t want to tell him, and he knew it.

Kenshin put a hand on his knee and leaned forward, a thoughtful expression on his face. “Were you afraid?”

“It’s funny…” Naruku began, her first words to him since the fight with Enizu had ended. “Only before Enizu showed his true colors, was I afraid. When it became real…when you began to fight…it wasn’t fear I felt. It was hatred.”

“…for me?” Kenshin wasn’t sure he wanted an answer.

Naruku smiled and placed her hand on top of his, looking at the contrast between them. A swordsman’s calloused fingers against the pale, fragile fingers of a little girl. “Maybe if I had known about your past before I met you, I could’ve hated you. But it didn’t work out that way. I met Himura Kenshin first. I found out about you as you are now. And instead, I could’ve loved you.”

Kenshin drew his hand out from under hers. It wasn’t a hasty action; he moved slowly to not startle her. “You did know about my past. Only, you didn’t know that it was mine. How, then, can you look at it the way you do? How can you not see me from the eyes of someone who hates me?”

She shook her head slowly. “How could I know something without seeing it? Yes, I saw Battousai from the eyes of someone who hated him. But I didn’t hate him. To me, he was just some unobtainable evil, something far away. The idea that I had and the real thing share only a name. I know what Battousai is, now, and I had never known before. He’s a part of you. I can see that from my eyes. Since you began teaching me the Hiten Mitsurugi, I’ve learned more and more about you. Battousai isn’t your evil side. How can he be? He was made out of a young boy’s ideals.”

Kenshin almost smiled. Battousai had always represented a part of him that had to be dealt with. Maybe Naruku was right. Maybe Battousai was a part of him that he needed. His face turned, and his expression became a frown. “How did you know about Tomoe?”

“Enizu knew, of course,” Naruku replied. Kenshin found himself hating the way Enizu’s name sounded in her mouth. She said it easily, and some part of Kenshin wished there was more hatred in her voice.

“He thought he did, anyway. He knew what had happened. But he didn’t know what it was. I did, and that is a secret I kept from him ever since he arrived here. I realized what Tomoe-san really was. To Enizu, she was just inspiration. That’s a secret he kept from me. He was going to use me like Tomoe-san had been used. I didn’t realize,” Naruku continued.

Kenshin was about to answer, but Naruku spoke again, too quickly.

“Enizu doesn’t know about emotions. He knows power and violence. That is it. The only emotion he can ever come to terms with is lust. And that turns to hatred. But he didn’t realize how I could come to love you, and how I could screw everything up. How, the more I came to know you, the closer I was to truly loving you. He thought that if he told me to hate you, I really would.

“Instead, the opposite was true. The more I saw how he burned for your death, the more I saw how I wanted you. Every weakness he revealed in you, I loved you more,” Naruku took no time being bashful and feeling ridiculous over her confession. She knew there was no point. Now she was telling him, but it wasn’t in a way that could let him break her heart. She was telling him to give him information.

“When I learned about your oath, and when I learned about Tomoe through my own eyes, I began to see much more. And so I gave you more of myself. Sorrow, anger, fear, laughter, happiness…pain,” the last word was drawn out; as if Naruku were reflecting on the amount of pain she had endured for these feelings.

“But I got something back. Just enough to know the deepest of your pain and sorrow…and the greatest of your happiness,” Naruku almost burst into half-laughter and half-tears. “And she, Tomoe-san, was both of those.”

Naruku was quiet after that. Neither had anything else to say. Kenshin was thinking her words over. What was she telling him?

Naruku broke the silence, beginning to speak again. Kenshin noticed the slight, frantic nuances in her speech and movement. He wondered if she was fearing the silence between them.

“Maybe to say I love you is being selfish. Maybe if I truly loved you, I would’ve told you about Enizu and what he was planning. I was close, Kenshin, very close. But I just couldn’t. I don’t know why. I couldn’t forsake what I knew was wrong for what I knew was right. Now I have done that, but there is a part of me that drifts from my past to my present. I can’t leave it be. You should know better than I.

“Now, though, I’ve told you nearly everything. And everything I know about you, I only know from myself. That’s all right,” she surprised him by saying. “Now I’ve told you everything, so you have all of me. I don’t know if you want that. I don’t even know if I do. But for my sake, hold onto what you have of me, otherwise I will never be able to return.”

She wasn’t making much sense by that point, and both she and Kenshin knew it. “Return where?” he questioned. He was surprised. As confusing as she sounded, there was not other question he had to ask her.

“Here. Home,” she replied. “I’m leaving. Don’t come after me.”

And that’s when Kenshin noticed the bag hanging from her left shoulder. And the extra layers of clothing she wore. And the way her hair was tied back and covered, out of the way for traveling. But it wasn’t only these changes Kenshin noticed. He looked at her then, for the first time acknowledging who she really was.

She stood up, and Kenshin’s eyes followed the fluid motion. Their hands were entwined as she began to move away.

“Never let go of the part of me you alone hold,” she whispered, as she turned away and dropped his hand. "Never let go."

Kenshin realized the lightness of her voice, and at the very same time, the graveness. His eyes followed the familiar pattern of her skirt, seeing the colors, the shapes. Things he had never noticed before were flying up at him, nuances jumping for attention. His eyes fell on these little things before he blinked and realized the whole picture.

She was leaving. She was running.

His eyes followed her as she ran, the wind whispering behind her. They followed her movements, saw her steps for the first time, echoing endlessly and fading into the night until he could see no more. ~Owari~