This is a Seissou Hen based fic, with all that this implies. I know this has to be put at the beginning as a VERY important warning. As his time draws to an end, taking care of the wounded in the first Sino-Japanese war and ill himself, Himura Shinta´s mind has changed very much as well, about everything.

Thanks to Margit Ritzka for beta and comments, and apologies to the readers for any possible incorrections.

The Final Journey

(Meiji Year 27) 1894

But contrary to Kenshin's beliefs, many years later, the Meiji government itself implemented a policy of "rich country, strong army" and brought the nation into an era in which the strong ruled. Japan's confusion soon turned to reckless force . . .( RK Volume 17)

Quietly, I step into the dark room. My body is shaken by a shiver as I light a candle and start to search methodically in each one of the shelves, something inside me telling me that I have to hurry.

It's…

…what?

Frozen still, my eyes blink repeatedly, and I become a statue in the very place where I am standing now. The shelves are countless, as well as the things they contain, and I feel the urge to scream, to drop the candle to the floor, to give in to sheer desperation. But it's to no avail.

I have forgotten.

A voice inside me is still yelling that I have to hurry, that somebody is waiting for me, that this is urgent, but I just cannot listen to it anymore. Nearly of their own free will, my legs crumple on the floor just in front of the small table, and my eyes close to take me away from the uncertainty, the impotency, the pain. I feel cradled by darkness, not even my lingering sense of duty enough to prevent me from surrendering to its lure.

Far away, in some distant location, somebody keeps on screaming.

*     *     *     *     *

It would have been merciful, so merciful indeed, if I could have said that all those soldiers reminded me of myself. All those young men sent here to fight and die for their country, for peace, for glory, for whatever.  But I know it's not true, nothing more than an illusion. "I will be honest, this isn't anything else than simple murder", was what I was told when I put my sword to the service of some cause so many years ago. I did not belong to the group who died and suffered for lies, I was made one of those who killed and knew the truth all along since the very first day. Of those who will be passed judgement in Heaven for the fate of the others even if they managed successfully to twist and evade the truth for so many years. I was the one who killed people like them.

Could I have really not known?

My friends, you, say I am an idealist. That I only think about helping people with my sword without ever thinking of the consequences, just following the impulses of my heart. This was the reason why, according to you, I became a hitokiri in the Bakumatsu and was used by people with little scruples and a big ambition. It sounds romantic, as if you all were blind or stupid… and yet, if it turns out that, unbelievably enough, it was true, the blind and the stupid is suddenly me, and not you.

Don't take me wrong. I'm not taking any of the guilt off my shoulders when I say I was a blind idealist. On the contrary, I'm making it greater, heavier, and even more difficult to bear on these weary and sick shoulders, because there's no one blinder than the one who refuses to see. It was hinted to me, I was told, I was shown, and yet I refused to see, since I needed desperately to believe that the world had a solution, and that this solution could be me. To keep that illusion, I wrecked hundreds of lives, and, not happy with this, when it all ended and under the pretence of remorse, I kept my sword and continued experiencing the feeling of absolute power of the man who could defeat all the others even without killing, and save the people in distress. I made sure that I thought I was needed, and based my redemption on the source of my crimes. What a lesson in humility, what a devastating turning-point of my life, when I had to let it slip off my hands! Suddenly helpless, useless, taken away forever from my self-chosen path of atonement, my world broke apart, and ironically enough it had to be the course that I thought would heal me which brought me to the heartbreaking truth.  I, the hitokiri with a sword, the wanderer with a sword, had been in a different world from the people who needed help. Yes, I had lived in my own world caring for myself, for my needs, my ideals, my preferences. I was good with the sword, I liked kenjutsu, so the sword had to be the ultimate way of saving people. I was bothered by nightmares of remorse day and night, so I had to play the hero and let that heal me. While, at the same time, the people who really needed help, in this era and in all the others, were in their own world, still dying in misery and disease, oppressed and thrown away like sacrifices in the wars of powerful people. I could wield a sword, I had mastered the Ama Kakeru Ryu no Hirameki, but when had I learnt how to comfort them and stay all night at their side?

I'm so pathetic….

I know that probably I won't have much more time to truly atone for what I did. Life is that ironic, indeed. You knew it also, and so you encouraged me to make this trip to the continent, though I'm sure you didn't want anything else than to have me at your side. I will never be able to thank you enough for this… I will return to you, I promised, and we will be like one once more, but first I have to be through all this sorrow. I have to watch the young soldiers going to fight with a gleam in their eyes that disappears when they come back, broken, wounded, stained, killed, and they start to realize what this is all about and that they cannot go back. I have to heal them, take care of their wounds, of their broken spirits, for the long days and the longer nights. I have to remember who I was and what I did, how I fought to make possible the coming of an era where the politicians I put in power would be able to send thousands of innocent young men to attack another country and take the plunder for themselves, using their influence and their self-imposed duty of keeping peace in Asia like the gaijin who had threatened to invade us had done.

You see, I'm no idealist anymore. In former times, I would have thought the better of them, and indirectly of myself too. I would have thought that they were going to save Korea, and all that; while now I think the worst. Criminals, that's what they are. They seized power by killing thousands, and now they're using that power to kill thousands more. They're lucky, oh, very lucky indeed, that it's too late for me to hold my sword….

Oh, idealist once more. I'm hopeless, am I not?

In fact, the truth is that, if I was holding my sword, I wouldn't be here now having these thoughts. Maybe that's why Yamagata-san didn't want me to come to take care of the wounded after I told him about my disease…maybe he saw I was no longer the sword-wielding idiot who would invariably say yes to his "wars for the sake of peace".  Impotence, powerlessness, was my answer rather than my punishment. The Kami themselves shattered my body, and in the middle of my pain, I am still their debtor.

*     *     *     *     *

"Himura-san!"

I feel a hand tugging softly at the fabric of my kimono. A voice is calling me away from the darkness, getting more insistent at each passing moment as well as more effective.

"Himura-san! Himura-san, wake up, please!"

"Yes…Yes, oh… yes. Sorry." I mutter, ashamed. Since I was young, so young I cannot even remember what I was before, I had always got up eyes wide open at the slightest hint of a presence coming next to me. Later, when your presence tempered my fierce swordsman instincts, I was at last able to sleep undisturbed, but I was still the first to wake up if there was something amiss. Now, I had fallen asleep when I shouldn't have even stopped to rest, and the man who was trying to wake me up had had to put a considerable effort into calling my conscience back. "I...I don't know what….happened to me. I came here and…"

And I had forgotten…

"What's the matter?" I sigh, regaining my composure as I can, even though he has to help me to get up, and my sight is still dizzy. My arms ache strongly under the dirty bandages, but I leave the urge to change them in the most hidden recess of my mind. There's no time for that now. "Is there any problem?"

"Yes!" The person I can now recognize clearly as one of the army doctors, the youngest of them, looks nervous and about to snap. "He has it again."

"Excuse me…who has what?" I ask, guilty because I suppose I should know. Screams of anguish reach our ears from the background. "I'm sorry", I repeat in a lower tone, nearly a whisper.

"Mukiru Ginzu." He's doing a great effort to stay calm and talk slowly. "He has a fit again."

"Oh…Kami-sama, let's be quick then!" I nearly shout, trying to rush out as quickly as my aching bones allow me. I have remembered now. Mukiru Ginzu is a soldier who had received a bullet injury in the leg and had to be deprived of it before gangrene set in. Now, though his pain should have disappeared, he still wakes up at night suffering from imaginary pangs in his lost leg. When I was going to that room before….oh, I remember, I was searching for the herbs for the sedatives! Oh, where is my head?

I make my entrance in the sickroom, where plenty of young men are lying prostrated on their futon. Each one has different levels of suffering plastered on his face, but they´re all awoken from their more or less comforting dreams by the screams of their companion.

"Leave the room and prepare the sedative for me." I order to the assistant who is helplessly staring at the agonizing man. Oh, all of them are good doctors who have studied foreign techniques and sneer at our old traditions as if they were children's jokes. The expression with which they eyed my archaic concoctions was full of condescendence at first, and I assume they haven't changed their views about that. But they have found that, inexplicably enough, when there's a situation like this one, all their science is useless, and that they need me to calm the fits of the injured.

He's used to dire situations, I heard one of them whisper to another once when they thought I wasn't listening. He fought in the Bakumatsu.

Yes, and never ever cared for the "battlefield leftovers" I thought bitterly to myself then.

"Come here. Ssssh, be quiet.  Everything will be all right." I try to coax the man with my most soothing tone, defying his convulsions and fitful violence to hold him strongly by his shoulders. His eyes are horribly wide, and drops of sweat fill his creased brow, distorted by pain and madness, though he doesn't look to be more than nineteen, maybe twenty years old. Oh, what have they done to you?

"It's bleeding", he whispers hoarsely, and then pushes me away . "It's torn open. Don't touch it!"

"He's delirious", the doctor states, not very helpfully, while deciding whether or not to come to my aid. I motion him back, and get hold of the man again. He fights and claws at me, but I don't care…if there's something in which I'm still stronger than the rest it is the fact that pain does not mean anything to me.

"Make him fucking shut up, will you!" an angry voice comes from the futon in the corner. There are murmurs of agreement, and I wonder for a moment, not for the first time, how they are supposed to get well in such an unhealthy place.

"Listen to me. Your leg is all right now", I continue with my coaxing. "It does not bleed anymore and you will be well in a few days. See, I'm going to give you something that will heal you and put you to rest."

For a moment, his face becomes calmer, and I am beginning to think he is going to give in. As I am handled the concoction by another assistant, though, he rebels and starts to struggle once more, trying to pull the bandages of my chest away.  Oh, here it is, I curse softly to myself. Their favourite pastime.

"Don't touch that." I tell him, concentrating my efforts in pulling his hands away and holding him securely. I was strong once, I remember ruefully. A Mitsurugi master, or something like that…."If you do, you will be infected, and your leg won't get better. But if you drink this you will be fine."

"I... I want to go home…" he surrenders at last, allowing me to position him as I need. Damn. Damn. You don't know how many times I've had to hear that. They want desperately to act brave, but once they're in pain their guard is down, and in the end they're nothing more than frightened.

It tears my heart in two.

"You will go home." I whisper, and I do my utmost efforts to hide the broken edge in my tone. "Have this. You will go home."

The doctor and the two assistants have watched the scene curiously from a distance, and now it's over they come near and congratulate me. I assure them it's nothing and tell them to go get some sleep, since I'm enough to take care of the patients at night and no one is giving serious problems anymore. They look a bit reluctant, especially after how I fell asleep before, but in the end they grudgingly agree. It's better this way. I don't want to have them with me right now…don't know why.

"You need clean bandages." I tell the man who shouted in anger before, forcing myself to smile even if my mood is gloomy. It will get better eventually, I know. To calm a fit is an agony, but taking care of the patients quietly and dutifully is soothing in some kind of way. A woman doctor we knew told me that once.

If I try not to think about why they are here…

"I do not need clean bandages, all I need is sleep. Sleep! Is this so much to ask?"

"A leg can be cut off when it gets infected", I reply blandly, as I get what I need and sitting at his side. "Not a head."

"Or a man's balls? (1)" he asks in a spiteful tone. When he sees the pain in my eyes, though, his pale and drained face gets to blush somehow and he sighs. "Sorry. I…I didn´t mean it. But I´m…I´m sort of fed up with all this. Not with you, but with everybody else. I…I guess I want to go home too."

Again…

I nod, motioning him to bow his head so I can start taking his old bandages off.

"Though it could be healed, your head was severely damaged, and it won't probably stand another scratch. You will go home as well, I'm sure of it."

"What a crap." he hisses. Taking off a set of bandages in such a sensible spot as one's injured head hurts a lot, and I can see he's trying not to cry. "What a fucking crap. They said the Koreans would welcome us, and that the Chinese wouldn't dare to oppose us. And they went and stuck a bullet in my head!"

"It's not in people's nature to surrender easily", I mutter curtly, undoing the last knot and putting the bloodied and filthy linen away. "Besides, Korea was freed a month ago. Now our army is only persecuting the Chinese. They're defending their homes"

"Anyways!" he growls, and I nearly whack myself in the head. Shinta, you said you wouldn't talk like this to the sick anymore. It's not their fault. This only demoralizes them further, and you´re supposed to be here to comfort them, are you not?

"Here. Get back to bed and close your eyes. I'm sure you will sleep better now."

"Thank you." He draws back.

Thank you.

I've heard those two words such a lot of times in those last years that I don't pay them attention anymore, but I recall that there was a time when I felt horror only by hearing them. "He doesn't know who he is thanking", was always the inevitable consideration, and I felt almost as if I was lying just with my very appearance. Now, however, I have learned to accept them with a smile and a nod, as the retribution for my efforts to make the life of others less painful, something which, I must confess it, warms my heart even in the middle of all this.

"You're welcome."

I turn my back on him slowly then, and head for the window to have some fresh air. Everything is quiet for a while, only the irregular breathing of the sleeping ones disturbing the silence. The moon….

It is a full moon. I notice it as I look up and suddenly, as if by some weird miracle..I have my memories back. Such memories….

There was full moon that night. I was sitting outside the dojo alone, a fit shaking my body after my interview with Yamagata, when your touch tore me away from my pain and misery and I turned to face you. Your eyes were smiling, and full of concern at the same time.

"Are you feeling cold?" you asked. I did not answer, too busy with trying to swallow the knot in my throat, but you guessed my thoughts and pulled a shawl over my shoulders. My dear, you have always been so caring…

"I will be waiting for you. Until now, we've been together. And I know… I know you will return, won't you?"

You still kept your smile, but something in your eyes had changed. I saw anxiety in them, and hidden pain. Did you really think…?

"Yes, Kaoru. I promise." I whispered, joining hands with you as we both lifted our faces to gaze at the sky. For a moment, just for a moment, I was about to embrace you and cancel my trip so that we could stay together until the end, only we two and Kenji, but your expression changed once more, and you had to shatter that dangerous moment with the sole force of your encouraging smile.

"Have a good trip."

Kaoru, my love, you don't know how much I miss you. The things of my past, immediate as well as remote, are becoming more and more like hazy shadows at each passing day, confusing themselves in my mind. I do not remember many names any more or many people, and yet, if there is one person I will never forget it's you. Where would I be now if you hadn't understood….If you hadn't allowed me to follow my path. If you hadn't covered up for me the day I momentarily forgot my own son's name…

I sigh deeply, becoming aware for the first moment of the dangerous self-pitying train of my thoughts, and belatedly notice a dull pain in my skin. I must have bled while trying to use my strength to hold the agonizing man, and now it aches. Oh, a famous one I'm at that…I change the bandages of all my patients every day, but I tend to forget absolutely about changing my own. Shaking my head to shatter the last musings, I get up as vigorously as I can and go to fetch some more clean linen.

Yes, my dear I know you would be whacking me in the head if you were here.

Or maybe not, my head adds on its own. Since I had got ill you hadn't whacked me anymore, and you wouldn't have believed me if I had told you….but at first I used to miss it very much.

Oh, again! It's the moon, surely it is…

I pull the long sleeves of my dirty green kimono up, and begin to take the bandages away and inspect the state of my wounds. Just as usual, though I most definitely need a good washing up. Yes, most definitely.

I will not have time for that now, I chide myself getting up. I'd better go and check on the…

Suddenly, though, my thoughts are interrupted by an ugly, raspy and unmistakeable sound, and I stand in alert. Someone…at least one among my patients is coughing.

Ryosemo. I think, remembering successfully (for once in a long time) the name of that young man who always refuses a blanket because he says he feels suffocated. This was probably some kind of side effect; even if he wasn't wounded that badly and would be back on duty soon. I go to fetch my archaic herbs, trying my utmost not to forget about them anymore, and I make enough for two, since, as he is in a sickbed just for a short period of time, and doesn't want to think about himself as a patient like most of the others are, he hates to be taken care of, and would surely protest if I gave him a medicine while I simply watched. Besides, a certain unhealthy amount of pangs in my chest tells me rather dryly that I'm in need of some of this as well, if I don't want to start coughing like him very soon.

"You're coughing", I whisper softly to him, kneeling at his side and presenting the hot cup to him. "Take this. I made some for me, and I thought you would need it too…."

"Oh, you shouldn't have bothered", he cuts me off in an equally soft whisper, but taking it nevertheless. His eyelids look swollen, and I realize, consternated,  that he might have got a fever or something. "But thank you… for what you did for my cousin."

"Cousin?" Cursed failing brain! " I…well, I'm sorry, but...what cousin?"

"Ginzu-kun." he informs me patiently. "You calm all his fits. By the way…"

"Yes?" I urge him, taking a sip of my own cup and checking with the corner of my eye that nobody around us is disturbed by our conversation. Fortunately, they might be injured, but when they fall asleep they really fall asleep. Not many chances of that for them, the poor unfortunates.

"You told him he would go home. Did you mean it?"

"What?" My face is instantly lifted, and, as I look into a pair of hopeful eyes, my heart swells. "But…of course! He will go home, he cannot fight anymore."

He makes an annoyed face.

"Oh, I know about that. 'Yes, you will go home!', and then they leave you here until you catch a fever or get your wounds infected because they don't want the civilians back in Japan to know that people are dying. I meant: are you going to do something so that he arrives home on the next ship?"

"I…" For some time I am dazed, unable to answer, and I have to cover my state by taking another long sip. As he's busy coughing meanwhile, though, he does not notice. "What makes you think I can…?"

"Because you're an important person, are you not?"

Damn gossip.

"If I was an important person…do you think I would be here?" I ask calmly. However, if I had expected that this would settle the issue, I was very wrong.

"Don't play with me! This is serious", he insists, repressing another cough. "The assistants said that you're some hero of the Bakumatsu. That you're Yamagata-kyo's friend. You surely have enough influence to assure that he returns!"

To this, I cannot restrain myself from answering with a hollow laugh. Friends! After what I had told him the last time we met…

I won't let you use me in any other war.

"Hey! What are you laughing about!"

I sigh and calm down, ashamed at my outburst. Besides, if I upset him the others might wake up from the noise.

"It's nothing. Forgive me, please. I will…I will do whatever there is on my hands to have him back home as soon as he can stand the trip, and have him back with your family. But I don't know where you got that I'm someone with special privileges."

"Yet you are, are you not? Who are you?"

My head is strongly shaken in frustration as I look elsewhere. Why can't he just give up?

Why can't I?

I recall how I didn't want anybody to know who I was for a long time. When I fought, I had to keep my identity a secret, and later I was too ashamed of myself to tell anybody who I was. Besides, I could not stand the fear, the hate in their eyes….

And now?

"As you see, I'm Himura Shinta, a very sick man in his forties." I answer idly, if just to make time before he launches his final attack.

"And before?"

"Shadow hitokiri of the Choshuu Ishin Shishi. Surface hitokiri. Himura Battousai.", I mutter, at the same time wondering bitterly how it was that I hadn't forgotten those names as I had so many others of people I cared for and loved. "This is the kind of influence you can expect. Are you happy now?"

Isn't he…oh, no, but I'm wrong. He is staring at me.

"No."

"Yes."

"The one who wielded a legendary sword and used godlike speed to defeat all his enemies? The one who had a cross-shaped scar in his left cheek and red…? Oh!"

"It has almost faded by now", I sigh, showing my cheek to him in the faint light of the candle. "As have I."

"But then…but then you're a hero!" he whistles with childish excitement.  "More than this, a legend! What the hell are you doing in this place, forsaken by all Kami?"

"Atoning for all the innocent lives I took away for the sake of those unworthy people who are attacking other countries and sending you to war now." I say in a strange tone that even I can't define. Then, I get up, feeling his eyes burn holes in my back. "I'll do what I can for you. Don't worry, and try to get some sleep."

I am sincere; I want to do whatever I can for his cousin. Even more, I wasn't planning on letting him rot here, at least if I can do something to avoid it. But this…

I'm suddenly weary. So weary I would collapse right here and sleep. I try to sit down once more and continue inspecting the rashes over my body, but I feel too heavy to be coherent about it. They look so ugly...

It's almost over, my dear. Please, don't worry about me. I don't want to see you worried, never ever.

I love you…

(The End)

Notes:

(1) According to the symptoms of Kenshin´s disease, I have to go with syphilis as the completely more plausible and natural option.  (No, no AIDS at that time, and dermal tuberculosis would have needed an associated mental disease to present the symptoms of dementia that Kenshin offered). And, though it´s not the only way of contagion, this disease is widely known as a sexual disease.