Written: 12 December 2005—19 February 2006
Posted: 19 February 2006, rev. 0
Category: Drama.
Summary: Hiko is bitterly determined not to let memories of his deshi linger in his life—until his stubborn side kicks in. Companion to Missing No-one.
Disclaimer: The characters and story of Rurouni Kenshin are the property of Nobuhiro Watsuki, Shonen Jump, et al. Used without permission. This work is for entertainment only, and no profit is intended.
Notes In Japanese, the word traditionally used for one who wields a sword is not kenkaku, swordsman, but rather the old term hyo-hosha, strategist.
Glossary At end of document.
This story takes place earlier on the same day as Missing No-one. It's Hiko's view of Kenshin's first major holiday away from the swordmaster's mountain home.
So, New Year's tomorrow, and today I clean. Top to bottom, back to front, I clean out all the year's accumulations of dust and events, grit and memories. It's not from any concern with tradition: oh, no, I simply mean to ritually wash every trace of Himura Kenshin's residence from my home. I need no reminders of the baka deshi who turned his back on his master to fling himself into the maelstrom of Bakumatsu, endangering Japan and threatening his own soul.
Now I have no deshi. There is only the last bitter memory of arguing with a hotheaded, arrogant, naïve, boy who threw himself headfirst into a maelstrom of politics and treachery.
Not every enemy wields a blade, not every battle is fought with muscle. Some strategist he'll make, never having learned that.
There is nothing in all the house to speak of the presence of the redhead. Nothing, except the small things set before me on the writing table.
A small stone cylinder.
A feather.
A strand of long red hair.
I have only to put the stone out by the yard fence, burn the hair and feather, and I will be free of the ungrateful fool's presence. I pick up the stone, no longer than my thumb and perhaps half as thick, and roll it slowly in my hand as I remember.
"What are you doing to that lumpy rock, shishou?" he had asked, tilting sideways from his cross-legged seat by the fire to prop his chin on a bent arm.
"Growing sakura blossoms, o my ignorant deshi."
"From a rock? Is this another Hiten Mitsurugi special technique?" he asked. His expression said he didn't know whether to believe me or not, but he wasn't going to fall for it straight off.
"Not really, deshi. It's more of a Kyoto province technique," I said as I continued to tap the crumbly field rock away from the harder, slender cylinder I was interested in. Finally I prised the piece out, and rubbed the end a bit before handing it to him.
" I still don't see how you get sakura—" he started as he took the piece between thumb and forefinger.
"Oh. Oh , it's a golden sakura blossom," he breathed as he finally got a good look at the end of the stone. ;P
"Actually it's sakura ishii. Very typical of Kyoto Province," I told him, watching as he turned it and carefully ran the tip of his forefinger over the stone.
"Next time we go in for supplies we'll take this to Suzuki-san and see if he'll cut some slices and polish them."
Kenshin didn't say anything for several minutes. He seemed content to hold the stone and turn it, examining it minutely in the firelight. Finally he spoke.
"A stone flower. Wow. Shishou, may I. . .oh never mind," he trailed off.
"May you what, deshi?"
"May I keep this one cylinder? I know you probably have some use for all of them but if it's all right I'd like to keep it."
"And what do you have planned for that poor innocent rock?"
"Nothing, really. I just like the idea that even cold, hard rocks can grow beautiful flowers."
"I suppose I can spare it, since there seem to be a good 15 or 20 in the matrix."
He looked up and one of his sweet smiles lit his face.
"Thank you, shishou."
He kept it on the little tansu by his futon, and many nights, I would see him turning it in his fingers, just before he went to sleep, with a bemused look on his face. It was his handling that had polished the end to a soft, golden glow.
Well, that was when I had a deshi. I certainly have no need to be reminded of the ironies of the world. It's the garden for this stone.
I set it aside and pick up the feather. It's from a river kingfisher, a kawasemi.
He was getting better. Not only had he kept his body utterly still for a solid five minutes, or a small forever to a 12-year-old, he'd kept his ki quiet as well. Not hidden, just so well tuned to the small energies of birds and squirrels and butterflies that it seemed just another leaf in the forest, another rabbit in the undergrowth.
He hadn't quite learned how to do that and still extend his awareness, not for any length of time. So I sat and watched, amused, as the boy in the stream and the kingfisher on the branch trained their gazes on one fine, fat trout. I was just wondering to myself who would be the more surpised—the boy, the bird, or the fish—by what would inevitably happen, when happen it did.
Kenshin ducked a swift hand into the water, the kingfisher dove in hard on its trail, and the trout gave a mighty thrash of its tail and soared up in their faces. Boy and bird were upended as the trout collided with Kenshin's nose, he in turn tumbling the kingfisher into the water with a flailing hand. For a moment the pool was an uproar of silver water, the rainbow gleam of fish scales, a soaked red drape of hair, and a thrashing, extremely offended bird, accompanied by various surprised shouts, squawkings, and splats as assorted body parts hit the water none too elegantly.
As the water and the trout slid back into the pool, Kenshin sat, a mildly stunned look on his face, as he processed the change from "upright and mostly dry" to "sitting and completely soaked." He pushed his soaked-flat bangs out of his eyes just as the kingfisher, equally puzzled by going from "diving for fish" to "colliding with human wall" settled himself on a branch, shook out his feathers, and settled in for a good scold.
As the bird continued to give the boy what-for, a brilliant blue feather floated down, no doubt a victim of the watery collision and the vigorous shaking. Kenshin's eyes followed its scalloped loops as it floated closer and closer to his head, finally coming to rest on the tip of his slightly sun-reddened nose.
"Look, master--I didn't get the fish but I caught a piece of sky!" he said, grinning in obvious delight.
"Indeed you did, Ken-ch'en, indeed you did."
Well, it's really only a rather dusty feather, somewhat bedraggled from years of Kenshin dragging its tip across his nose when he was absorbed in thought. It will feed the fire.
I reach out a finger and run it the length of the red strand.
He looked like a rufous dandelion. His hair was just as thick, just as fine and silky, just as puffy and undisciplined. After the little incident with the honey, the queue of his hair, and my tanto, it had been reasonably short.
But it grew.
Quickly.
It sometimes seemed that he'd become a new source of silk fibers. Even—no, especially—after he cleaned, thin little strands of firelight would waft down on the writing desk, drape themselves over a zabuton. curl around the tea canisters. They even came to rest on one's zorii, left in the entry minutes before, when Ken-ch'en had been outside for hours.
I found him once, sitting on the log that faced the front door, staring in what could only be called a downhearted fashion, at a longish coppery strand stretched between his hands.
"Don't be so negative, deshi. Flaunt your differences, don't apologize for them."
"Easy for you to say, Master. You don't have red hair."
"No, I have the other demon feature: blue eyes."
He wore a look of slight surprise when his head came up. He blinked and focused his eyes on mine.
"Oh. You do."
"Oh indeed, baka deshi. You've lived with me how long now? And you never noticed my eye color?"
"No master, it's not that I didn't notice. It's just not something that's all that important"
I crossed my arms and donned my best "stern shishou" frown.
"Observing your own master is not important?"
"No, Master—I mean yes! Yes it is! It's just that's not much of who you are. Or not the important piece, anyway."
"So if my brown-eyed, seeming twin showed up, you would notice something off about your master? Hmmm?"
He was scandalized.
"Master! Of course I'd notice that! I know my own master. It's just, in the general flow of things, your eye color is quite a small part of you. It's not something a person pays much attention to."
I smiled to myself at memories I didn't think Ken-ch'en was quite up to hearing.
"Perhaps a 'person' doesn't, but women—"
I stopped. That went straight to one of those topics I judged him unready for.
The little—for a 12-year-old—redhead was obviously puzzled.
"Women aren't persons?" he asked, wearing that look that said he wasn't quite sure if I was serious.
I snorted.
"Oh, women are most decidedly persons all right, silly deshi."
"Oh. OK."
"Although I suppose you could always ask one to be sure."
He recognized bait. He didn't take it.
His shoulders sagged as his eyes dropped to his feet, and his ki took a dive too.
"Not that it does me any good. Persons or not, they'll still think I have devil-hair."
"Ah, maybe not, deshi" I murmured, gaze roaming over what was going to be a very handsome, if not strong-featured, face.
"They may latch onto. . . other things about you."
"Yeah, my throat, probably."
I swear, there were times the boy was so glum I thought he was one of those Irish mercenaries I'd dealt with now and again in Macao.
"Deshi! Enough! Be glad there's at least one part of you that grows fast!"
Of all things, it worked.
"Hey, that's right," he crowed happily.
"Maybe it's just setting trail for the rest of me."
He gave a quick nod at the red strands in his hands, then jumped to his feet and headed inside. As he passed me, I heard him say "This'll remind me."
So the strands of hair joined the feather and sakura ishii on his tansu. Often after a frustrating day of training, he'd pick up the strand and stretch it between his fingers, and more or less mumble to himself,
"You can't always tell when you're growing."
But so much for times past.
Time to look to the future. I gather up stone, feather, and strand, turning toward the fire pit to burn the latter two. The times are past, the boy is gone, and I'll be rid of these sweet and embittering memories.
And then it hits me. These are indeed the last traces of Himura Kenshin, the boy I raised: if I destroy them, I will be surrendering my deshi to the oni the Shenshin-gumi made of him.
I'm damned if I will. They took my deshi. They took the future of Hiten Mitsurugi Ryuu. They took his ideals, his youth, his spirit. They destroyed his life, and my hopes. They will not cause the final loss of that sweet, strong spirit. They will not own the only memory of him.
Not while I breathe, not while I can remember him as I guided him to be. No matter how much pain it may bring me, I will not surrender him to the careless drive of the Imperialists.
I sit back down. Carefully, I fit the quill of the feather into a groove on the side of the stone. I wrap those fiery strands gently, slowly, around the feather and stone, drawing the running end back through the last few turns to fasten it.
For a moment, I hold in my hand not a stone, not a feather, not a strand of hair, but a boy's spirit; one who could see flowers in stone, hold the sky in a feather, believe that there was always unknown good to be discovered.
I hold Himura Kenshin the wondering child in my hands, not Battousai the Hitokiri.
The bundle rests now on our household altar. Battousai's legend may haunt a thousand men, but Ken-ch'en's spirit is safe with the elders of our house.
Now I can grieve his loss.
Owari
Glossary
Ken-ch'en—Hiko's nickname for his pupil, playing on the boy's name, Kenshin, and the diminutive suffix -chan.
Tanto—Japanese long fighting knife. About the size of a small Bowie, but with a katana-shaped blade.
Zabuton—flat, largish square floor cushion
Zorii—typical Japanese thong sandals