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For This Dojo's Honor: Part 6

by DQBunny ::: 07.Jun.2004

Himura Kenshin dearly loved his wife. Kaoru meant the world to him. She pulled him from the last dregs of the depression he'd fallen into after Tomoe's death and showed him that he really was worth something. She accepted him - imperfections and all. Whenever he could, he thanked the gods for someone like her.

But with love came a weakness. Kenshin knew he could never spar her - not in the way she'd want him to spar her. Yes, he agreed to fight her, but the practice yesterday only proved his reservations about agreeing to spar with her in the first place. He worried too much about her well-being. He'd slapped her wrists with the shinai, but that was even harder than he wanted to. She'd doubled over and held her wrist and guilt flooded him. He'd sworn to protect her, and even though rationally, he knew he wouldn't fail in this by sparring her, his heart thought otherwise.

It only proved that he did the right thing the day before, when he swallowed every bit of pride that he had and cabled the Aoiya to have Misao seek out Hiko Seijuro. He didn't think that there was anything on the planet that would have forced him to see out his master's help after begging to learn the Hiten Mitsurugi Ryu ougi.

Life had a funny way of turning around and kicking you in the ass, he thought wryly. But the abuse he put up with from Hiko would be worth the ultimate price - saving Kamiya Kasshin Ryu. If Kaoru couldn't make it through the fight and they were forced to close down the dojo...he couldn't imagine what it would do to her.

But, he thought as he yanked down the page off the calendar and stared at the date, they only had four days to go until the match. Kenshin learned a long time ago not to expect any miracles, but if anyone could help Kaoru break through in that short amount of time, it would be his master. If Hiko couldn't do it... Kenshin sighed. He had to be crazy for even asking.

-----

Kenshin wasn't the only one convinced that he was crazy.

Crammed into a seat that could barely contain him, Hiko Seijuro scowled at the scenery racing by him outside the window of the train car. During one of his stops at the Aoiya after the battle with Shishio, Sagura Sanosuke proceeded to inform him about the evils of trains.

"They're no good!" the former fighter for hire told him. "They're just like those camera things, wanting to suck the soul out of you."

"What makes you think I have a soul to be sucked out?" Hiko asked him with an amused grin.

"Keh! Trust me, you all think Shishio would bring Japan to its knees. You're missing the real enemy here! Get rid of these iron carriages and these cameras and we'll all be better off."

He wouldn't admit it, but he liked Sano, from what little he'd seen of him. He had a point, especially now that he was experiencing this bit of technology for himself. Then again, the girl sitting in the seat across from him, chattering as fast as the moving countryside, didn't help matters either.

As much as he liked Sanosuke, it was Kamiya Kaoru intrigued him.

If Kenshin had mentioned anyone else in his telegram, he'd drag his former student's ass up to Kyoko and give him a thrashing he'd never forget. His baka deshi might know the ougi, but he needed to remember his place. Hiko smirked. He would have to remind him of this - frequently - while he was in Edo. No, he corrected himself, Tokyo now.

Choosing to master Hiten Mitsurugi Ryu usually involved leading a solitary life. It wasn't a skill that was passed from father to son, but rather from disciple to disciple. After all, what woman would want to stay with a man, knowing he would be killed by the succession technique when he chose to pass it on. Hiko only knew of one of the Hiten Mitsurugi Ryu students that chose to marry knowing this - his own master. The glare of shocked horror that his master's wife gave him when he bore his master back to his home following the passing of the ougi convinced him that marriage would be nowhere in his future.

Of course, his baka deshi hadn't listened. He'd gone and gotten himself married not once, but twice.

Hiko didn't have much of an opinion about Yukishiro Tomoe. He'd observed them from a distance, when they both were convinced that he would never have a place in their lives. He knew of the vague circumstances surrounding her life and death, that Kenshin failed to visit her grave for ten years following her death. He'd killed her by his own hand, Kenshin told him.

"If you get into some unnecessary quarrel, I'm not helping you this time," the words he told Kenshin half a year earlier came back to him. He smirked once more. So much for those. Then again, he'd sworn he'd never have anything to do with his baka deshi again at one point. He needed to watch out, else people would think him a soft man.

But while he regarded Tomoe with indifference, Kaoru fascinated him - as much as any woman could.

No woman ever followed a Hiten student that he knew of, not in the manner that she followed Kenshin. When that student of hers and the Oniwabanshu ninja that befriended them kicked in his door and he saw her standing there, trembling slightly but eyes steady, he felt a respect for her that he normally didn't give the female gender.

He'd gotten to know her better in the month following the battle with Shishio, as Kenshin healed and the city recovered. He put her to the test one day, after she took the time out to practice. He caught her outside of the Aoiya, dressed in her training clothes, and told her what learning the ougi involved.

He remembered her eyes growing wide and she scanned his large body. Then, she shook her head and smiled.

"I don't imagine Kenshin ever killing you, Hiko-san," she informed him. "You're too big and besides, he has his vow."

"It's not that," he replied, not pointing out that his baka deshi obviously used the ougi against him successfully once before. "It's the nature of the swordsmanship. Your student there, Yahiko, he wants to be like him, right? Say my baka deshi chooses to make him his student. Don't say a word yet," he added as Kaoru opened her mouth to protest. "Should my baka deshi choose to teach your baka deshi the style and should your deshi want to use a regular sword, he will kill Kenshin when he learns the ougi. How can you bear that, knowing that one day, your husband's student will make you a widow?"

"But I'm trying to teach Yahiko about katsujin-ken, the sword that gives life. He wouldn't kill Kenshin, not even to learn the ougi."

"Didn't this fight with Shishio teach you anything?"

"It taught me that in the end, katsujin-ken can be used effectively. You even used it yourself, Hiko-san, when you fought Fuji and reversed your blade. Even though Kenshin trained in satsujin-ken, he believes in it."

"But, putting all of that aside, if none of this was ever a factor, could you live with Kenshin as his wife, knowing that he would be killed one day?"

He recalled Kaoru placing her arms on her legs, thinking this over. Then she turned to him with a smile.

"Life is uncertain, Hiko-san. I learned that when my father was killed in the war last year. I understand how much of a tradition that swordsmanship is. I realize that the only way to inherit a style is to defeat the previous master, usually involving his death. So, if I knew this, and knew that one day Kenshin's student could kill him, I would still choose to be with him."

Kaoru leaned back, resting her back against one of the support posts. "Megumi-san told me that Kenshin's body is wearing down, that one day he will no longer be able to use Hiten Mitsurugi Ryu effectively. I know Kenshin. He would do whatever he can to protect people, and one day that will most likely kill him. But until that day comes, I want to be there for him. I want him to smile as often as he can. When he is gone, I want to carry his work on for him - even if it's just teaching people how to protect themselves. Should it be by his own student's hand, how can I be angry at either of them?"

"But you know," she added, "I don't think that will happen. This is the Meiji era now and peace will prevail, no matter what. Shishio's death just proved this. Time chose to let Kenshin win and to have peace triumph over chaos."

"You have as very naieve perception of life, Kamiya Kaoru." Hiko took a sip of the sake he held and mulled over her words. "It would be interesting to see this be put to the test."

"Huh?"

He smiled at her confusion. "Have you ever have something that you would fight to defend?"

"Kenshin, of course!"

"Yes, of course. But, you've supported him. But, what about a fight that you could truly call your own?"

Kaoru thought it over for a moment. "Well, the false Battousai incident, I suppose. That's when I met Kenshin. A man named Hiruma Gohei was calling himself Battousai and using Kamiya Kasshin Ryu to kill people. It ruined the school's name."

"That's how you met Kenshin, yes?"

"He saved me."

"So, it really wasn't your own fight, was it? My baka deshi was an idiot like he always is and made it his, right?"

"But I could have..."

"You can't hide from the truth. You've never had to fully stand on your own."

Kaoru stilled.

With those words, he'd left her to seek out Kenshin, who had finally chosen to visit Tomoe's grave.

But, he'd also tossed another comment at her as he walked off.

"Should the time come when you're forced to stand on your own, let me know. I'd like to see exactly what swordsmanship in the Meiji Era has become." To see if a slip of a girl could really hold her own in a man's world, using her ideaology of peace and protection and a wooden shinai to drive her point home, he added silently.

He wanted to see if the woman his baka deshi had chosen, who had the strength to accept the burdens that came with the Hiten Mitsurugi school, could win a fight without help from anyone else. And somewhere deep inside, he rooted for her.

"You haven't listened to a word I said this entire trip, have you?"

Hiko turned his iciest glare on his traveling companion. "It would be hard not to ignore you. Surely the nickname, "Weasel Girl" was a mistake. You chatter like a chipmunk."

"Why you!" Machimaki Misao brandished a full set of kunai and tossed them at Hiko, the weapons neatly hitting in a pattern that outlined him.

He uncorked the bottle of sake he brought with him and took a long pull off of it. "You'll have to pay for the cushion, you know. I'm surprised you were allowed to bring those on."

"Oh, and like you pitching a fit when you tried to bring on your sake wasn't mature?"

"I was merely putting them in their place. A man shouldn't be deprived of his sake or be forced to drink the inferior crap that is sold to the masses."

As Misao launched into another rant, Hiko turned his gaze to the window once more. They were starting to pass into Tokyo and he winced at how much the city had grown, even in the years since he last wandered here. He would definitely have to make his baka deshi pay for this...repeatedly.