Genre

Rating

Spoiler Level

Puzzles

by Calger459 ::: 06.Jan.2004

Kaoru’s shocked, profoundly confused voice seemed as loud as cannon fire in the small, intimate garden behind the Kamiya dojo. “Your brother?”

For a heartbeat, Kenshin was silent. There was a new energy gathering about him now, a determined strength. Megumi, even with her lack of warrior’s skills, could feel it, and when he finally spoke, it was in a voice unlike any she’d ever heard from him before. Soft and mild as always, but now laced with a tension and pain that caused her to stiffen in unconscious response. It was strange how matter-of-fact he sounded, as if he were merely explaining the rules to a simple children’s game. Which could only mean that whatever he was about to say was going to shatter the relative peace they’d all enjoyed this past month since the return from Kyoto. She could see it in his pale exhausted face, and in his haunted, miserable eyes. “More accurately, my brother-in-law. The brother of Himura Tomoe, the wife I killed with my own hands.”

For an instant, Megumi’s thoughts were thrown into confusion. On the surface they were simple words, yet they had been delivered with an almost clinical detachment completely at odds with the content of the statement. She found her breath starting to quicken, and unbidden words spoken mere weeks earlier rose into her conscious memory, speaking far too loudly to be ignored.

“Ken-san.”  Megumi was suddenly furious at this woman for leaving Ken-san, for causing him such pain.  “Ken-san, maybe this isn’t such a good idea.  What if she-I know it’s not my place to say this-but maybe she won’t want to see you.  And surely she’s married by now, and-“

“She married long ago,” said Kenshin, still with an odd tone in his voice.  “Sessha…knows her husband well.”

Of course…it was so obvious. How could I have been so blind? With those words, Kenshin had been giving her the answer, granted in his own enigmatic way. Looking at him now, she felt as if all the pieces of a very large and particularly frustrating puzzle were finally falling into place. The picture it revealed was terrifying, but it explained so many things. Answered so many of the questions she’d been unwilling to pose to him directly. Everyone else in the garden had the duel questions of why? and how? written clearly on their stunned faces, but for the doctor the answer was perfectly clear.

I understand now, everything from Kyoto. Oh Ken-san. She remembered the conversation where she’d grown angry with him for daring to sympathize with Shishio. Unable to understand his feelings, she’d declared furiously that only a monster would murder the one he loved. She would never forget the look of stark horror on his face caused by her words. At the time she’d wondered what she’d said to affect him in such a striking way. She realized now what a fool she’d been.

“Sessha…knows her husband well.”

How could I not have seen…

“As you can see, I went to visit a grave and-”

…what lay before my eyes? At every turn Kenshin had left clues, keys to the truth, for those with the wits to see them for what they were. And with that small epiphany came another, much more significant realization for Megumi. Kenshin was not the kind of man to carelessly leave secrets lying about. Though he hardly had the skills of deception which defined onmitsu like the Oniwabanshu, his mind was nevertheless quick, sharp, and endlessly observant. The only person he’d shown all the clues to had been Megumi. He had revealed them to her, and to her alone. Why?

Was it because of who I am? Of what I’ve been through? Even if it were, Megumi reflected with a slight bitterness, she’d still allowed herself to be fooled. Not for a moment had she even entertained the possibility that the “husband” he’d spoken of had been none other than himself. That the “unforgivable” thing he’d done had been to take the life of his own wife, whom he’d obviously loved a great deal. Oh yes, thought Megumi, the reasons why he’d kept this information from them were all too obvious. After all, how exactly did a person go about bringing up a topic like that in casual conversation? Especially a person as reticent as Himura Kenshin.

Megumi looked at the man she cared so deeply for, taking in the haunted, miserable expression on his face. His demeanor was absolutely impenetrable. He looked like a man being led to the gallows, and as he drew breath to continue his story, to explain exactly why this Yukishiro Enishi had it out for them all, she saw his mask of detachment slip just fraction. In that instant his beautiful violet eyes, witness to more horrors than any human being should ever have to see, shimmered with agonized tears. But with the next blink they were gone, and Megumi wondered if she had imagined them. “It began in the Bakumatsu, the story of the hatred behind this scar . . .”

As the tragic history of Hitokiri Battousai unfolded that late summer afternoon, the fragmented puzzle that had fascinated her so intensely in Kyoto faded into insignificance, replaced by a new, even more terrifying enigma. One that held the promise of an uncertain and tragic future for them all…

Owari