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Mirai No Yakusoku

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Disclaimer All rights and privileges to Rurouni Kenshin belong to Nobuhiro Watsuki, Shuiesha, Sony Music Entertainment, and associated parties. The characters of this series are used without his permission for the purpose of entertainment only. This work of fiction is not meant for sale or profit.
This is my first attempt at the art of fanfiction. Please be gentle. Comments are greatly appreciated!!! The title means "Future's Promise" in Japanese. . . . . This is my first attempt at the art of fanfiction. Please be gentle. Comments are greatly appreciated!!! The title means "Future's Promise" in Japanese. . . . .
All the characters that I create belong to me.
Names:
Yuukiko= Brave Child
Kakushin= Core/Heart
Warning: It is not all that happy to begin wi th!! ^_^
Note:
Kakushin's grandfather is 80. His grandfather was Miyoujin Yahiko.
Yoko-chan (ardith@oocities.com)
http://www.oocities.org/Tokyo/1149/
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Mirai No Yakusoku: Part 6

"Kenshin..." The sound of her own voice woke her up. Yuukiko opened her eyes. Her face was wet with tears. Again. She did not know if they were tears of joy or of sadness. Maybe both.

She sighed as she got up to face the day. The sun was not up yet, but she could not bear to go back to sleep. The images from her dreams, her memories, still haunted her.

Kamiya Kaoru. She was Kamiya Kaoru. She had died and left the man she loved more than life behind. Kenshin.

At the cemetery, Kenshin's eyes looked like they had seen too much, suffered too much. This was a man who had loved her. You will be together again, the voice insisted. She said that much to him. It was to give him hope, to give herself hope. She loved him.

The look in his eyes, when she made that promise, the flash of hope.... Yuukiko ached for him. But their love was strong enough to break the barrier of time. If Kaoru was reincarnated, then Kenshin must be, too. All of this wasn't just a dream. It had to be real. I love him.

Yuukiko sighed in frustration. What was she thinking? She had to get ready for school. Whatever was going to happen was in the hands of fate. Philosophizing about past lives was not going to change that.

The time has come. The promise will be fulfilled....

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Miyoujin Kakushin sat in the school library, staring out the window. The day totally reflected his mood. The sky was overcast, ominous. It was as if the sky was going to bust. A storm was coming.

Kakushin sighed, trying to keep his frustration in check. He kept thinking about the dream he had last night. Those dreams seemed so real. The smell of jasmine. That voice.... The love.

Kaoru. In the dreams, Kamiya Kaoru was the one person that he could not live without. But she had been taken from him without any warning. No-not him. Himura Kenshin.

He had been Himura Kenshin in the dreams. He had been an assassin, a peacemaker, a rurouni. He had loved and lost the woman who completed him. I promise you that we will meet again, she whispered that to him last night in his dreams.

Kaoru....

Was he going crazy? They was just a dreams. Weren't they? He sighed again. Maybe he should see his grandfather and talk about this. He had hoped to keep the dreams all to himself, they seemed so private. He was reluctant to share them with anyone else, but this was getting way too weird.

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Kakushin went to home right after school. His grandparent's dojo was in the older part of Tokyo. It looked out of place, but oddly tranquil, so near to the hustle and bustle of the city.

Just the year before, he had been happy and whole. His parents lived in Nagasaki. The year before, he had left to go to America, to study abroad. The year before, everything seemed so different. Then his parents died in a fiery crash when the pilot lost control of the plane going to Tokyo. That night, everything changed. His whole world changed.

Moving into the dojo had been his decision. His parents had left him with enough to be self-sufficient, but he wanted to stay with his grandparents. Kakushin was their last blood relative. And he needed them to be close. After the plane crash took his parents, he needed someone to hold on to. His grandparents accepted him as he was, supporting him in his pain. It was their pain, too. They stepped back, waiting for him to make the move to come back to the world, to start living again.

His parents had been so in love. They glowed when they were together. He was glad that if they had to die, they went together. But he had been hurt and alone. The world he had always known was destroyed. He had needed to work through all of that, to build himself up again from it.

The night his parents died, he began to dream. He dreamt he had been a child, an orphan. Shinta. The images shifted, and they faded as if they were really memories. He witnessed a massacre, but he was saved by a tall man named Hiko. His master. Through the nights after that, he continued to dream out the life of a man named Himura Kenshin. The dreams were vague, blurred memories. He dreamt of war and death. Of a woman and the scent of white plums. There was love and loss in these dreams, but when he woke, the images were disjointed. They are just dreams, he reasoned, but they did not just go away.

For the past year, the dreams continued. In them, years passed. They did not really disturb him until.... Kamiya Kaoru. Her name stuck out in his mind. All the people, all the images... Hers was the one that truly haunted him. He loved her. How could he be in love with a person from the past? How could he be in love with a dream.

"Ojiisan (Grandfather)? Are you in here?" Kakushin entered the practice room of the dojo, closing the wooden door behind him. His grandfather sat in the center of the room meditating.

"Kakushin. Okaeri (welcome home)."

"Sumimasen (excuse me), Ojiisan." Kakushin sat down in front of his grandfather, moving smoothly and silently into the lotus position. His mother had trained him in kendo since he was a child. He was very comfortable in this world.

"What is wrong?" He smiled at his grandson. Lately, he had been looking troubled.

"I..." He could not say it.

"Something is definitely bothering you. Is it a girl?" he asked, wiggling his eyebrows.

"Ojiisan...," Kakushin muttered to himself. His grandfather was a romantic. He wanted his grandson happy.

"Come on. You can tell me."

No I can't. You'll think I'm going crazy.

"Ojiisan. Do you know of a Himura Kenshin?"

"Himura Kenshin...." His grandfather smiled at that name. "He was my grandfather's foster father. Yes. I know of Himura Kenshin."

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"Sagara Yuukiko, what's wrong?" Aya asked playfully. When Yuukiko looked guiltily at her, she frowned. Guilt was not her usual response to Aya's teasing. Her best friend was acting very strangely.

They took shelter from the storm at Aya's family's restaurant. The old fashioned style of it was oddly comforting, reminding Yuukiko of her dreams.

"Aya-chan... Nothing. I- I..."

"Hmmmm. You won't tell me...," she frowned at her best friend. "Yuuki-chan, I'm really hurt."

"Okay. You may think this is weird," she took a breath to fortify herself. Aya was going to think she was crazy. "I've been having weird dreams about a man named Himura Kenshin set in the Meiji Era...."

"Himura Kenshin?" Aya looked shocked.

"Yeah. What's wrong Aya-chan?" That was not the reaction she expected.

"Ano. I had dreams about the Meiji Era, too."

"You did? Why didn't you tell me?" Yuukiko demanded.

"Well, they seemed so private. And I didn't know if you'd think I was going mad. I thought I was going mad...." Makimachi Aya explained, her voice hushed. "Then I met Rui."

"Rui? Our Rui? Rui, your boyfriend?" Yuukiko asked, confused.

Rui and Aya became close very quickly after he came to school. He often seemed distant and cold. He was handsome, but aloof, turning most people off because of that. But once you were a friend, he was there for you. He made Aya so happy.

"Yeah. I wasdreaming I was Makimachi Misao." Yuukiko stared at her best friend. "I was in love with Shinomori Aoshi."

"Misao. Then Rui is...."

"Yeah. Weird, huh? But if you are dreaming about Himura Kenshin, then you must be-"

"Kamiya Kaoru," Yuukiko said hoarsely.

"Yuukiko...." Aya hugged her close. "You aren't going crazy. I guess we are all coming together again. All of us. The circle of time...."

"The promise will be fulfilled," Yuukiko murmured. "Aya, all of this is real, then. All of this really happened in the past? I can't believe it..."

"Yeah." Aya was laughing and crying at the same time. "I guess love never dies."

"No. Maybe soulmates always find each other," Yuukiko smiled. "Aya. It's almost time, then. I will find him."

"Yuukiko...."

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Kakushin stood in front of the dojo in the rain, his hair was getting soaked, but he didn't seem to feel it.

He couldn't believe it. All of it was true. The dreams were really flashes of the past. His grandfather sat and told him all about the man who helped raise his grandfather after he was left an orphan, confirming his memories of the past. His grandfather did not really remember Himura Kenshin. He had been a very young child when he had died. The legendary swordsman had lived a long life. But he had grown up on the stories of him.

The dojo was renamed the Miyoujin Dojo in the early 1900's. The kenjitsu that was taught, his grandfather explained, was a hybrid of the Kamiya Kasshin Ruu and the Hiten Mitsurugi Ryuu.

Kakushin's mother had been a student. It was at the dojo, she met his father.... His grandfather went on and on about the history of the dojo and their family, but Kakushin was not paying attention anymore.

Himura Kenshin really lived. He was really Himura Kenshin, then.

I promise you that we will meet again, a soft voice whispered on the wind. He would find her. It was time.

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