The Illusions That We Hold

There was no one else in the yard as Kenshin drew his sakaba-to and took up his stance. A shift of his hand and the form became heron-in-the-reeds. He shifted his weight to his back foot and let the sword drop, the form becoming river-flows-down-the-mountain. A fly circled his head, but his eyes remained focused directly in front of him.

Tiger-in-the-grass. The blade cut upwards, just behind the fly. Eagle-in-the-sun; the sword flashed between beats of the its wings. Diving-hawk; the sword parted the air in front of the fly's eyes.

They all thought that they knew him. They all thought that they understood the man who walked among them. The softhearted rurouni, who washed the laundry, made the meals, Ayame and Suzame's beloved elder "brother." Wall-of-paper; the fly bounced off of the metal barrier that suddenly blocked its path.

Jin-e, Saitoh, Shishio; they thought that they knew who he was. Even they believed that in his heart he was the rurouni, the gentle wandering samurai. They thought that the hitokiri battousai was buried deep, where only the most extraordinary of circumstances could draw it forth.

Pouncing-tiger. Eagle-in-the-sun. Cat-on-the-fence. Gecko-on-a-hot-rock. The fly bounced back and forth, boxed in by flickering steel.

Once you had let yourself become something like the hitokiri battousai you could never divorce yourself of it. When you became something like that, there were only two ways that you could live with it. Shishio had embraced the hitokiri with all of his being, let it saturate his heart and soul, until the assassin was all that there was.

He himself had walked that path; balancing on the razor's edge between bloodthirsty assassin and conscientious killer. There was very little difference between the two and he had slipped down and walked on both sides of the division. At times, he reveled in the killing, in the sensation of his blade cutting into flesh; other times it was quick, one stroke, gone before the echo of his victim's final heartbeat had faded from their chest.

In the end he had starting falling more and more towards the side of the line that thrilled in the blood and the kill. He who feared no blade began to fear his own reflection in the mirror. In desperation he indulged himself in the traits that he identified most as human. He gave himself to women and lied when he said he loved them. He drank with other men, clapped them on their backs, and lied when he called them friends.

As he had drifted further and further across the line he thrust himself into the actions that he thought human with an energy born of desperation. He vacillated between the two: the walking incarnation of death and he who would give all to be a man. The farther he drifted the more he fought to keep his humanity. He poured more and more energy into maintaining the equilibrium he saw within his soul, and less to keeping his skills honed.

The budo that he lived by then had seemed simple. He would not kill indiscriminately or merely for the sake of bloodshed. He would only fight those loyal to the shogunate. He would never kill an unarmed person. Those whom he called comrades thought that it was a strict code to live by. To him, it was not. Even within the boundaries of those guidelines, he could bathe his sword in blood as often as he desired. Fifteen years old and he found pleasure in the murder of his fellow man. Fifteen years old and he tried to scrub the blood from his hands with the kisses of women who believed the words of love that tripped off of his lips, words that he himself wanted to believe were true. He tried to wash the fear from his soul with the alcohol and laughter of men who believed him when he called them friend, when he himself held no faith in his own words.

Even now with more than ten years behind him, in his mind, he still called it The Mistake. He sometimes imagined that the scar still ached that his cheek still throbbed with pain. He knew it was only an illusion but is was an illusion that helped him keep the hitokiri battousai in check. The illusionary pain was a reminder that the first slash along his face had set him on the road that had nearly led to his dissolution into the hitokiri battousai.

Like the scar itself, Kenshin doubted that the memory of that night would ever fade. The assassin had attacked him first, sliding from the shadows, implement of murder bright in the moonlight. There had been no need for restraint. To show it would have been to accept death, and as he let himself slip into the cold, obdurate persona of his other self, he knew that his role was not to embrace Death, but to assist it in its ministrations. The battles span could have been counted in heartbeats; the would-be killer had fallen in of arc of blood that had coated both himself and her.

The hitokiri battousai was in command then, but she carried no weapon, was not of the shogunate, so the hitokiri calmly sheathed his sword and allowed the other part of him, the part that indulged in women, to admire her.

Even he had seen that at that moment, he stood before a crossroad. He had known with absolute conviction that the next action would set him irrevocably down one of those roads, even though he was ignorant of what either held.

The hitokiri battousai was still in command but he could not harm her; she violated none of his constraints, but nor could he leave her, for his anonymity was sacrosanct. As his other side unabashedly admired her beauty, that was obvious even through a coating of blood, the hitokiri battousai relinquished the decision.

It took him but a second to go through the crossroads. He took her with him demanding her vow of silence in exchange for her safety. She gave more than her word, remaining at his side from then on to show that she would keep it. He had tried to refuse the second vow, but her beauty, her mere presence was a balm to his jeopardized humanity, and so he relented. From that night on his lips did not touch those of any other woman, not even hers. He passed through another crossroads, this time without his knowledge.

In his mind it was summer. The disastrous campaign in Kyoto had forced the Ishinshishi into retreat. It members were scattering to the four winds to recover from their wounds and regain their strength; she went with him. A young married couple won't be as suspicious as a young single male living alone. Kogoro had spoken the words as if it had been the most natural of plans. Even then, Kenshin had suspected that Kogoro had sensed the love growing between the girl and the boy who was the hitokiri battousai. Ishinshishi's leader did not know if his cause would survive the year and probably thought he was doing them a mercy by sending them to a secluded farmhouse where they could live out their lives away from the growing troubles.

He remembered a bridge on a summer's evening, the setting sun as bloody as the streets of Kyoto had been. He was fifteen. She was eighteen. He did not let that stop him from turning to her. Given the circumstances, I do not know to what extent our relationship will become, pretending to live as a married couple. I do not wish it to be a cover up. I would rather have it as…just the two of us.

She had looked out into the sunset for a long while before finally turning to him. For how long?

His hand had left the hilt of his sword then, and as it took hers, for the first time he felt the hitokiri battousai subside and the ebbing spark of his humanity burn brighter.

The world in front of his eye wavered as unexpected tears filled them. Paw-of-the-lazy-tiger went high, missing the fly, the passage of his sword buffeting it, but opening an avenue of escape.

Rage at the unexpected loss of control flooded his mind and his hold upon the hitokiri battousai wavered as it surged within him, attempting to break free of its bondage. He shut his eyes, flushing the tears down his cheeks. He could hear the beat of the fly's wings and his form slide into sparrow-on-the-breeze. He could hear the tiny teng! as the insect struck the blade and bounced off.

As fast as it had slipped, he regained control of himself, forcing the hitokiri battousai back down into the depths.

They spent five months in that farmhouse, away from Kyoto and the bloodshed that surrounded it. If Kogoro had had his way then the two of them probably would have remained there their whole lives, maintaining the facade that they were herbalists who never had any connection with the Ishinshishi, until it would no longer a cover up but the truth. As he thought back, he decided that he might have even been content to live out his years like that.

If a lie is repeated often enough then eventually even the teller will grow to believe it. Over the course of those five months he repeated the lie that he had not enjoyed killing, that he had not been comfortable with the role of the hitokiri battousai. When Iidzuka had come and told him that it was time to return to Kyoto, he had told him that he was content to live as a herbalist and that he had never enjoyed killing. He believed the lie so completely himself that even Iidzuka was convinced that his words were truth and left the two of them in peace.

If Kogoro had had his way, then that would have been the last time the Ishinshishi and Kenshin would have crossed paths. But Kogoro had disappeared in the five months since the Ishinshishi had abandoned Kyoto and whatever wishes he may have held no longer bore any weight upon the world.

Kenshin wondered if he had passed another crossroad the day he sent Iidzuka away, as wolf-at-the-gate again foiled the fly's escape.

Had he ever had a choice, or had fate forced his path, compelling him to follow its own inevitable designs, blocking off any means of escape as surely as he blocked the fly's? He was not sure if he would ever know that question's answer. He was not sure which one if any of the events of those seven months held the title of the Mistake, but he knew that it was one of them. If he had turned aside at any one of those crossroads, if he had recognized each time that he had even been at a crossroads, then it all might have unfolded differently.

When the lie had gained so much strength that he believed the hitokiri battousai forever buried, he pledged his heart to her.

Maybe he had committed the real Mistake all those years ago, when he had buried both the slavers who had owned him and the bandits that had slain them. Maybe he should not have lain carefully selected stones above the mounds where Akane, Sakura, and Kasumi's lay. Maybe the Mistake had been in giving Hiko cause to believe that he should teach the strange young boy the way of Hiten Mitsurugi Ryu.

No, he admitted to himself as he once again cut off the fly's escape. The Mistake was in thinking that the hitokiri battousai could be buried beneath a veneer of humanity.

Sometimes he imagined that the scar still ached, that the cut of the dagger was still fresh across his cold-numbed cheek. When one's skill is near peerless, even when one neglects it for half a year, even when one spends that half a year lying to oneself, trying to convince oneself that such knowledge is no longer necessary, even then, one's skill is still so formidable as to be almost beyond compare.

Iidzuka had betrayed him, betrayed the Ishinshishi, and when the Shogun's men came for him, they took her instead; used her to bait him. He had recognized the crossroads that time but had charged blindly through regardless. All that it had taken was a second, a second to admit the lie: that he had liked the killing, that he had enjoyed the bloodshed. All that it took was that one second, and the hitokiri battousai tore through the paper man that he had spent seven months building.

Because the hitokiri battousai's edge had dulled by half a year of denial, he was wounded; he was deafened, he was blinded, he was frozen. But because he was the hitokiri battousai, he made his enemies pay for their gains with their lives. Because he was the hitokiri battousai, he gained the second scar that crossed the first and made an X upon his cheek. Because he was the hitokiri battousai, he could not be stopped. Because he was the hitokiri battousai, he made the Mistake. Because he was the hitokiri battousai, she died.

He was ready for the tears that time and the fly gained no escape through his distraction. She had been the only one he had ever allowed to touch his scar, her fingers tracing the X that her dagger had made as it had flown from her hands, as he held her in his arms and cried her name. As she grew cold in his arms he was reminded of the first time he had seen her, her features again coated with a layer of blood that failed to hide the beauty underneath. He was sixteen. She was nineteen.

He returned to Kyoto with a new oath: he would again become the hitokiri battousai, but when the new era had begun he would never kill again. He embraced that lie with all of his strength, even as he bathed himself in the blood of all those who pledged themselves to the shogun. So strongly did he hold the lie that when the Tokugawa Shogunate fell, he did drop his sword, he did discard the title of hitokiri battousai and he did walk away from Kyoto.

Kaoru, Sanosuke, Yahiko, Megumi, Saitoh, Jin-e, Shishio, even Hiko believed that the hitokiri battousai was buried deep within him, only rising when the ruthlessness of the blood drenched assassin of old was truly needed. So strong was the lie that even those whom he held as family, those who would be his enemies, even the one man he would call 'master;' they all believed the lie without question, calling him rurouni, entrusting him with their kin, firm in their belief that the hitokiri battousai was far away and deeply buried.

Only once had he returned to Kyoto, to a cemetery where lay the memorial stone with her name on it. He had lain flowers against it, lit incense in her memory and had vowed to return in a year's time, but he wondered if he should keep that vow. As the scented smoke had mixed with the tears forming in his eyes, the hitokiri battousai had raged, demanding release, tearing at the restraints he bound it with. It wanted to drench itself in the blood of others as a surcease to his pain. He had come close to surrendering, closer than he had ever come before and closer than he ever hoped to again. He knew that he could lose himself, lose the pain in bloodshed and slaughter. He could even keep his vows of old and never want for blood. Again the scars had seemed to throb, and the memories that came with the illusionary pain drove the hitokiri battousai back. The incense had not completely burned down when he had bowed respectfully to the stone then turned and left the cemetery without a backwards glance.

So well did he tell the lie that all of his friends, all of his allies, all of his enemies believed the hitokiri battousai to be a distant threat. The only one who had ever seen the lie for what it really was had been a sword maker in Kyoto. When he turned his back on Kyoto and tried to walk away, the old man had been waiting for him on the road, a sheathed sword on his shoulder and a cynical smile on his lips, the sunset burning red behind him. Where are you going without a sword?

He had turned, facing the man who had made the weapons of the Ishinshishi, who by making the implements of death, had steeped his own hands in the blood of their victims. Shatku-dono, I am going to find a way to protect people without killing, he had said, fully embracing the lie.

The sword maker had seen right through his words. Hmph. It sounds impossible. Tell me after you found the secret. You've killed many and more. You can't walk away from it. Life, death, and a sword. That is your only way. The sword maker had let the sheathed sword slide from his shoulder and with a sudden twist of his wrist threw it to him. Take it, even though it is too good for you. The sword maker then turned his back and walked away. Do what you want using this sword. He had called over his shoulder. You'll see how unrealistic you are being. When that sword is broken and you're dream is still the same, then visit me in Kyoto.

He had drawn the sword and seen the light glinting off of an edge that was on the opposite side of the blade that it should have been. The sword maker's laugh as he vanished back into the city had been cynical and bitter. He had obviously expected Kenshin's vows to come to naught within the passing of a week.

As Kenshin once more battered the fly back with heron-in-the-reeds, he thought that more than once all that had kept the hitokiri battousai at bay had been the sword maker's boast. When Jin-e had gloated that the only thing that could save Kaoru's life was his own death, the hitokiri battousai had been a hair's breadth away from plunging the sakaba-to through Jin-e's heart. He would have drenched the blade that had never tasted blood in the black essence of an evil man, one who deserved death, but it would have been no less murder

If he surrendered control to the hitokiri battousai again, Kenshin knew that the rurouni would be gone forever. The part of him that reveled in blood would be the only one left, the paper man that he had spent eleven years building burned to ash and scattered to the winds.

Only the sword maker had seen through the lie and knew the truth for what it was. Only the sword maker knew that the hitokiri battousai was not safely buried far away from the light but was just beneath the surface, fighting Kenshin for control, awaiting the moment when he again could control the sword's path. No one ever suspected that all it would take is a moment's lapse of control and the killer who had stalked Kyoto's streets eleven years ago would be back, the rurouni that they called friend gone forever.

Wolf-at-the-gate became sparrow-in-flight and the fly's wings kept buzzing, it's head not yet realizing that more than half its body was on the other side of the steel blade.

"Kenshin?"

Kenshin's arm slid smoothly up, changing to hound-reaches-for-the-moon. At the top of its arc, he suddenly opened his hand, his sakaba-to flying from his grasp, its spinning blade glinting in the sunlight. "Oro!" he exclaimed feigning surprise. He had heard her coming half a minute ago.

"Kenshin, there you are! I've been looking all over the dojo for you!"

Kenshin scratched the back of his head in embarrassment. "I'm sorry Kaoru-dono. I was practicing and lost track of the time." Eight.

A look of concern suddenly crossed her face. "Kenshin, have you been crying? You have tear tracks beneath your eyes."

"Crying? No, it's just sweat." He smiled reassuringly then ran a hand through his hair, releasing a small spray of sweat to lend credence to his words.

"Well, in any case, lunch is ready, so you'd better hurry or Yahiko and Sanosuke will eat everything."

Six. "Don't worry, I'll be right in."

"And then I still need help doing laundry afterwards. Ayame and Suzame both decided to play in the mud this morning."

Three. "It isn't a problem." Two. "I'll get started on it right after lunch."

"Oorrrooo!" Kenshin cried out as the hilt of his sword struck him in the head.

"Kenshin! Are you all right?" Kaoru exclaimed.

"I'm fine," he said, clutching his head, "don't worry."

"Honestly, you're such a klutz sometimes!" Kaoru said, setting both hands on her hips.

"Sorry, sorry," mumbled Kenshin, picking up his sword and climbing to his feet.

Kaoru gave an exasperated sigh then turned and left the yard, muttering under her breath.

Once she was gone, Kenshin let the hand drop from his head. The hilt had struck him in such a way and in such a place that there was neither pain nor injury. The whole thing had been just an act to maintain his image as the 'the clumsy rurouni.' No doubt Kaoru was still muttering under her breath and Sanosuke and Yahiko were be elbowing each other in the ribs, trying to guess what the silly rurouni had done this time.

With a quick twist of his wrist, Kenshin dug a small hole in the ground with the point of his sword. Using his sandal, he gently scraped the two halves of the fly's corpse into the hole and tapped a layer of dirt down over it. It was a small murder, one of many he had committed to satiate the ever-hungry hitokiri battousai, but every murder, no matter how small, was to be marked and remembered, its weight added to his conscience.

It was important to keep up illusions, to repeat the lie so often that everyone would believe it without question.

Repeat the lie often enough so that even he believed it.

Repeat the lie until one day, it was the truth.