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Descent into Madness: Chapter 14

by Conspirator

It was now the third week of May, and there was a tension in the air. Everyone in Kyoto could feel it—the merchants, the laborers, the children, the soldiers. They could all sense that something was going to happen—they just didn’t know what or when. Seven new men had arrived to be stationed at the inn, heightening the feeling of imminency there. Okami would have loved to have Kenshin’s help in the kitchen now, especially before breakfast when things were busiest, but the black envelopes were coming faster now—two and sometimes three a day. He was hardly there except to sleep.

So it was that several days passed before Iizuka could arrange a meeting between Kenshin and Katagai. Kenshin was dead tired, but he dragged himself down to Okami’s private room off the kitchen nonetheless to get some things off his chest.

"Good to see you, Himura," the older man said, "although I must say you look worn out!"

"I’m tired, that’s all," Kenshin responded. Well, now that he was here, he wasn’t quite sure what he was going to say.

"Iizuka tells me you need to discuss something with Katsura and me," Katagai prompted.

With great effort, Kenshin pulled his mind together. "Katagai-san, " he finally said, "I… it’s just… Katagai-san, I need to know why I’m doing the work I’m doing—and don’t give me that ‘very existence is a threat to the new era’ crap!"

A lesser man might have shown surprise at this outburst, but Katagai didn’t flinch, didn’t twitch a muscle. He took it all in stride as he answered.

"You know that the Shogunate depends on a whole foundation of people and institutions," the commander started. "They’re people like the munitions suppliers, of course, but also their commodities suppliers, their tax collectors, their judges, their harbor masters—the list goes on and on. Without that foundation, the Shogunate collapses. You are the tool that’s chipping away at that foundation. Piece by piece by piece, we have taken it apart until now the Shogunate is nothing but a house of cards ready to topple. It’s hollow. They know it, and now the entire country knows it. It’s already led to some sweeping reforms in the government, and it’s enabled us to form an alliance with some of the other rebel provinces. None of this would have happened if it hadn’t been for you."

He stopped to gauge the reaction this information had on Kenshin; he saw none.

"Things are now at a very delicate stage," Katagai continued. "Some of the other Chousu leaders in particular are not satisfied with the pace of change. They’re pushing for more radical moves. We are trying to prevent them. I know I can count on your discretion not to mention this to anyone."

Kenshin nodded.

"Himura," he went on, "I know the job we gave you is difficult. Hell, I wasn’t in favor of asking you to do it in the first place! You look about as worn out as anyone I’ve ever seen. If you think you need to take a break, just say so."

‘Yes! Yes!’ Kenshin desperately wanted to say. Instead, he said, "No, I gave my word to Katsura-san last fall. I can’t go back on it."

Katagai nodded. Then he asked, "Are things all right between you and the Yukishiro woman?"

"Not you, too!" Kenshin said through gritted teeth.

Katagai chuckled quietly. "What I mean is, I know you weren’t happy about having to share your room with her, although Okami-san keeps thanking the gods that the woman ended up here, in her kitchen. She says you were sleeping out in the hall and in a shed somewhere."

"I’m sleeping in my room now," Kenshin said. "In a corner!" he added hastily.

"We’ve checked up on her, of course…."—Kenshin looked up in surprise—"….and we’re fairly confident that she’s not our traitor…"

"Traitor?!" He hadn’t considered that possibility!

"…but we still haven’t figured out who the traitor is," Katagai finished. "Be careful, Himura—watch your back. These are dangerous times for us."

"I’ll be careful," Kenshin promised. "And… thank you for the information."

"By the way, Himura," Katagai called after him as he left, "have you given any thought to getting some new clothes? Those look like they’re about to disintegrate!"

Right—that’s just what he wanted to do right now, to go visit that old witch Junko, the seamstress. He was tired, he was irritable, he was on edge—probably just the right mood to tangle with her, actually. He went up to his room and checked his supply of cash. His needs were so few that he had spent hardly any of his pay over the months, so he had more than enough to buy a new gi and hakama. He took what he needed and trudged out to the old hag’s shop.

When he reached her doorstep, he took a deep breath and steeled himself for the onslaught he knew was coming. She did not disappoint him.

"Well, look what the cat dragged in!" Junko cackled, eyeing his tattered clothing. Time had not changed her one whit. "If it isn’t the shrimpy red-head, although I’ll admit you’ve grown just a tiny bit!"

Kenshin glared at her. "Junko-san, I am not here to discuss my height," he said in a voice that was so cold, so dangerous, that even Junko took notice. "I need a new blue gi and a gray hakama, and that is all."

"Well…! I…!" She kept her mouth shut as she scuttled around looking for her tape measure. As she approached with it, he stuck his arms out as he had the first time she had measured him so many months before. When she finished measuring his arms, back, and waist, he spread his legs apart so that she could measure the inseam. Not a word passed between them.

When she was done, Junko said in a most business-like way, "These will be ready in two days. I will send the bill. Good day!"

Kenshin nodded and left. As he shut the door, he broke into a grin and did a little jig. He had done it—he had rendered the old crone speechless! He felt as victorious as if he had just defeated an entire squad of Bakufu soldiers! He’d have to tell Okami about this victory, but first he needed to sleep, and that’s exactly what he did when he got back.

He couldn’t sleep in his room, though. It had started to drizzle on his way back from the seamstress, and Tomoe, who had been out tending Okami’s small herb garden, was now in his room sweeping and cleaning, so Kenshin went back downstairs to find a place to nap. The shed tended to leak, so that wasn’t a good choice, but there was a nice little nook in the common room across from the dining room. He settled himself against a table that was piled high with books and enjoyed the breeze coming from the window. Soon, he was fast asleep.

As often was the case when he napped, his sleep was dreamless. Suddenly, though, he felt something around his arms and neck. Chains, his sleeping mind warned him! He was under attack by the assassin! He shot up from where he sat on the floor. In an instant, he had his sword drawn and positioned against the throat of his attacker—except it wasn’t an attacker.

"Tomoe-san!"

Kenshin’s eyes went wide as he realized who was before him. A fear of his own power swept over him, causing him to push her away as he himself backed up quickly to the other side of the room. What had he done!

"I’m so sorry… so sorry!" Kenshin cried out, panting from the panic that was overtaking him. "I bragged I’d never kill a civilian, and now look at me! If you had come any closer, I would have…." He didn’t even want to think what would have happened!

He looked down and saw her blue shawl on the floor. He picked it up, staring at it as if he had never seen a shawl before.

"It’s chilly out, and you were sleeping so close to the window…" Tomoe said hesitantly as she picked herself up from where she had fallen. "I didn’t want you to catch cold."

"Catch cold…?" He shook his head, trying desperately to comprehend what was going on. ‘She was covering me with her shawl?’ he thought incredulously.

The books that had been on the table were now all over the floor, so the two of them started picking them up. Tomoe looked at him as she did so, a pity starting to well up in her heart. Over the past many days she had seen both sides of this strange boy—the fierce assassin, but also the shy, kind boy who hated to kill. Katsura had talked to her the other night while Kenshin was out. He had explained about the ‘extreme justice’ the Chousu were undertaking, had told her that Kenshin’s role was to mete out that justice. She had been horrified—they were asking a boy do the killing they would not do themselves! She barely knew Kenshin, but already she had seen the toll it was taking on him—the nightmares, the shame, the unbearably sad look in his eyes. She had her reasons for hating the feared Hitokiri Battousai—reasons she had only shared once in Kyoto, and now she wasn’t sure she should have—but she found she could not hate the boy whom these men had turned into a hitokiri. She had resolved after that talk to help him cope in any way she could.

"Will you kill people for the rest of your life?" Tomoe asked cautiously as she picked up some more books. "Perhaps you should find a place where you could live in peace, where you wouldn’t have to sleep with a sword in your hands."

"I’ve slept with a sword since I was a child," Kenshin said as he retrieved his top from under a book. "I’ve seen too many people killed not to be careful."

"So this is how you will live your life?" she pressed.

"That’s what’s been given to me," he answered simply. "Besides, I won’t live for long."

He went to hand back her shawl and was surprised to see a shocked expression on her face.

"I’m a killer, remember?" he said as he sat down once again by the window. "You wouldn’t want to have anything to do with that."

Tomoe walked over to him and laid the shawl across his lap.

"Let me stay here awhile," she said softly. "You need a sheath, to hold back your madness."

Now it was Kenshin’s turn to look shocked. He fingered the shawl as he tried to read what was in her eyes. She wanted to help him? Was that what he saw?

He stared at her for several seconds, then said, "I thought about my answer, you know—whether I would have killed you if you had had a sword." He stopped for a moment before continuing. "The answer is no—I wouldn’t kill you. Whatever happened, I could never do that to you. Not to you… never."

Their eyes now locked, an understanding of sorts passing between them—they both knew then that they would help each other deal with what the world had thrust upon them.

Life for Kenshin now seemed to change in small, subtle ways. When he returned from an assignment, he was no longer surprised when Tomoe met him in the washroom off the kitchen—somehow she could tell when he was there and would bring him a clean change of clothes and an offer to wash his dirty ones. He, in return, carried the water buckets and did other heavy chores for her whenever he could. He would never seek her out on his own to talk, but he had to admit he looked forward to their chance encounters in the hallway or the kitchen, when they would exchange a pleasant word or two. He couldn’t quite understand it, but she seemed to accept him even though she knew what he was and what he had to do.

And what he had to do, of course, never stopped. In fact, as June approached, the black envelopes came even faster, if that was possible, and once again he had the feeling that he was being watched by someone trying to mask their ki. This time he sensed it not just during the day, but sometimes even after completing an assignment. As usual, when he sensed it he would take evasive action so that whoever it was could not follow him back to the inn, but the fact that they seemed to know where to find him even at night made him more cautious than ever.

It was the second day of June when everything came to a head. He had just finished an assignment in a hilly, residential area of town, and Iizuka and his men had just arrived to take care of the aftermath, when suddenly he sensed the presence of four strong battle ki’s. He barely had time to call Iizuka’s name in warning when the men appeared, wearing the trademark white and blue of the Shinsengumi.

"Battousai, die!" they shouted.

Kenshin had already started running in the opposite direction by the time they yelled. He started up a long flight of stairs that flanked one of the hillsides in an attempt to separate the men from each other. As soon as he sensed that only one man was behind him, he turned and launched an attack that broke the man’s sword and sliced him in half. As he finished the lethal swing, he turned again and thrust his sword into the next man’s abdomen. A third man came flying at him, but Kenshin had already started running back down the stairs; he used his momentum to cleave the man in two. The last attacker now came running up the stairs so fast he couldn’t stop himself in time; Kenshin turned and swung, cutting him in half across his back. Then he rushed back down the stairs and towards the alleys he knew would lead him to safety.

"Hey, are you all right?" Iizuka yelled as he caught up with him briefly. "Ambushed again, and by the Shinsengumi this time! There are spies among us for sure!" Then he took off in the opposite direction from Kenshin.

Kenshin ran until he was as far away from the stairs as he could get. Even as he ran, he could hear behind him the sound of more Shinsengumi arriving at the scene, and he had no intention of being found by a whole squad. When he finally got far enough away, he allowed himself to stop and catch his breath and think.

Shinsengumi! Was that who had been following him recently? How could they have known where to find him tonight? For he was sure they knew exactly where and when he would be at those stairs. It was an out-of-the-way spot, certainly not a place the Shinsengumi would just casually happen to be passing at this time of night. When he finally made it back to the inn, he found he was more grateful than ever for Tomoe’s calm presence in the washroom as he cleaned up from the night’s exertions.

The next day, Iizuka told him the Shinsengumi attack on him was not the only thing that had happened the previous night—they had also captured the second-in-command of one of the other Chousu leaders.

"There’s some kind of big meeting being planned, and Furutaka knows all the details," Iizuka told him in a panicked voice. "They say he didn’t actually know where the meeting’s supposed to be held, but he knows everything else! They’ll torture him for sure to get the information. We don’t even have any idea where he’s being held! The clan’s in an uproar. I’m telling you, kid, things are getting really bad!"

Then he held out a black envelope.

"Just one?" Kenshin asked sarcastically.

"You’d better take a look at this one," Iizuka said ominously. Kenshin opened the envelope and stared at the contents.

"But this man, Hagiwara—he’s Chousu, isn’t he?" Kenshin asked.

"There was only one other person besides Miyabe-san who knew where Furutaka was going last night," Iizuka replied. "Him."

A long silence ensued as Kenshin absorbed the implications of this information. "Then this is the traitor," he finally said.

"Except that doesn’t explain the two ambushes against you," Iizuka said. "Only Miyabe-san knows your identity, not this guy or even Furutaka."

Kenshin had never been asked to kill a member of the Ishin Shishi before. He started to feel almost sick.

"You see the handwriting on that letter?" Iizuka said as he watched Kenshin’s reaction to the name marked for death. "It’s Katsura’s. This comes from the top. It must be done."

The paper crackled as Kenshin suddenly crushed it in his hand. The cold eyes of the killer had returned, causing Iizuka to shiver despite the warmth of the day.

"One more thing," Iizuka said as Kenshin started to walk away. "Katsura wants to meet with you. Not here, though—too dangerous. You’re to meet him tomorrow morning at the safe house near the Nishiki-koji market, at 10 a.m. You know what to say to get admitted to the house, right?"

Kenshin’s only answer was a curt nod as he strode away. His mind was in a whirl. An Ishin Shishi—he was to kill one of their own! He couldn’t quite come to terms with it. And this Furutaka—would he tell what he knew under torture? What would happen if he did? He walked through the inn in stony silence, not even acknowledging Tomoe as he passed her. The meadow! He needed to go to the meadow to sort out his thoughts!

Once he got there, though, his mind became a blank except for one thought—he was commanded to kill one of their own. He mechanically started going through the kata, but his concentration was off. A traitor. What kind of man would turn on his own comrades? He started his kata again, this time with a kind of fury. A man who would turn his back on what he believed! His swings became even more fierce. A man who valued his own hide more than the ideals of peace and justice! By the time he was done, he no longer had any hesitations about the task set before him. This man would die for betraying the cause!

The task itself would be daunting. The only information he had was that his target would be at Miyabe’s headquarters at dinnertime, but that meant the man would be surrounded by other Ishin Shishi. If this had been a Bakufu target, that wouldn’t have mattered—if he had to kill the people around his target to eliminate witnesses, so be it. This time, though, he would be dealing with his own people, and he would not kill other Ishin Shishi fighters just because they had the misfortune to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. He decided that a different tactic was called for—he would track this man as he went about his business this evening until an opening showed itself. Only then would he attack.

It wasn’t the first time that Kenshin mentally thanked Hiko for the hours and hours he had forced Kenshin to learn the patience and stealth of a hunter. His own inn had been in a state of heightened security over the past week, and so was Miyabe’s. So, it was with great difficulty that Kenshin finally found an opportunity to jump quietly to the roof without being seen by the men patrolling the perimeter of the inn. He flattened himself near two adjoining gables, from where he could see both the front and back gates. Then he waited. And waited. And waited. His muscles were starting to complain after more than an hour of waiting, but he dared not budge. Finally, after nearly two hours, he saw his target leave with three other men. He let them walk about a block before carefully crawling to the edge of the roof and lightly hopping over to the roof of the next building. From there he ran from roof to roof as he followed the four men. Then it was wait some more as the group went into a bar. After another forty-five minutes, the men emerged, three of them heading back to the inn and his target heading in a different direction.

Kenshin continued to track the man, hoping he would enter a street that was empty of pedestrians, but instead the man stuck to the main thoroughfares before entering a small building at an army barracks. So, Hagiwara was a traitor after all, Kenshin thought. He didn’t dare risk getting too close to the building, since it was crawling with Bakufu soldiers, so he slipped down from the roof he was on and ran down some side alleys until he was near a lone maple not far from the back of the building. He lightly jumped up into the branches and, as luck would have it, found he had a good view into the building itself through an open window. There was Hagiwara, deep in conversation with a high-ranking Bakufu soldier. They were gesticulating wildly, clearly having a heated discussion.

Then he saw a shoji slide open and a man in shackles brought in. The man was wearing Chousu blue, and he looked half-dead. It was Furutaka; Kenshin recognized him from a gambling visit he and Yoshida had paid to Miyabe’s inn long ago. Furutaka was obviously in extreme pain, but when he saw his former comrade before him, he lifted his head and spat with all his might. His jailer promptly gave him a hard chop to the back of the neck, bringing Furutaka to his knees. Kenshin’s target then moved forward to kick Furutaka in the stomach, laughing as he did so. As the jailer dragged Furutaka away, his target resumed his heated discussion with the Bakufu soldier. From the gestures, it looked like the man was expecting to be paid, but when he finally left, he was empty-handed and clearly angry.

Kenshin was about to jump down from the tree and continue following the man, but someone else beat him to it, someone in the shadows wearing white and blue. In the end, it wasn’t Kenshin who delivered heaven’s justice this time—it was the Shinsengumi. Kenshin watched with a kind of detached, professional curiosity as the Shinsengumi fighter efficiently beheaded the traitor. A tad slow and a bit sloppy by Kenshin’s standards, perhaps, but efficient nonetheless, Kenshin noted clinically. The fighter then cocked his head to the side as if sensing something in the air. Kenshin held his breath—he had already exerted every fiber of his being to mask his considerably angry ki. The seconds ticked by, each feeling like an eternity, before the fighter finally took a last look around and then left, holding the traitor’s head in his hand like a trophy.

Well! This had never happened before, a target being assassinated for him by the enemy! Kenshin wasn’t sure whether to be happy or disappointed. Happy of course—one less victim to haunt him; but disappointed as well, for he had known for a long time that a part of him enjoyed the physical thrill of wielding a sword in battle. That thrill had been denied him tonight. He briefly gave thought to trying to break into the building and get Furutaka out, but the man was too badly injured to move fast enough for an escape. He therefore reluctantly left to go back to the inn.

As he made his way back, he realized he almost felt light-hearted. His mission had been accomplished, but he had merely been a spectator. How good it felt not to take a life! By the time he got back, he realized he felt relieved by the whole chain of events, as if a burden had been taken off his shoulders. When Tomoe joined him in the washroom off the kitchen as usual, he smiled at her as if he had received the strangest gift.

"I didn’t have to kill tonight!" he told her in amazement. And that, to him, was indeed a marvelous gift.