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Heart, Sword, and Song: Chapter 3 - No More

by JaneDrew

Himura Kenshin, no longer hitokiri, left his swords behind him on the fields of Toba Fushimi.

How long had he been waiting for this day? He honestly wasn't sure. Since the day he had stated his intentions to leave after the Ishin Shishi had won, and to never kill again? Since he had lived with Tomoe in a small hut in Otsu and learned what it meant to live a peaceful life, the kind of life he had fought to establish for others but never hoped for for himself?

Or even before that, on the day when he had first learned what it was to draw his sword and use it to kill another human being?

And, now that this day was here, what was he supposed to do?

No more questions, please.
No more tests.

He had promised Tomoe that, after the fighting was over, he would put down his sword. He had vowed that he would never kill again. Never. No matter what. He held to that now with iron resolve, as determined to fulfill his vow as he had been to use his sword to carve out a new era of peace in Japan.

And he was tired. Five years of bloodshed, five years of being a sword striking from the shadows, or slashing his way across the battlefield...

Comes the day you say, 'What for?'
Please.. no more.

He knew that the fighting was not entirely over, that Katsura had wished him to stay even as he gave Himura permission to go his own way. But the Shogunate had fallen, the Meiji era had risen, and with that, he considered his promise to Katsura fulfilled.

Now the Hitokiri Battousai could finally disappear back into the shadows, never to return.

We disappoint, we disappear, we die, but we don't.

He knew that many of his comrades were looking forward to positions of power in the new government. For some of them, there was a genuine desire to help, to make the ideals of the Ishin Shishi a reality. For others...

They disappoint in turn, I fear,
Forgive, though, they won't.

Kenshin shook his head, sharply. He had never wanted power, never craved it as some had. He was — had been! — a hitokiri, working alone, reluctantly attending meetings as a bodyguard, but never taking active part. Now, even though part of him worried about the potential for the abuse of power within the new government, he knew that it was not where he belonged.

'I will not be a watchdog for the new regime. I have no role in building things; I.... All that I can do is... destroy... Not protect. I wasn't able to...'

He clenched his fists, hard, and closed his eyes, breathing deeply in an attempt to gain some measure of calm. The smell of the battlefield hung heavy in the air, intruding on his thoughts.

And always the same question, buzzing in his brain: 'What am I supposed to do now, with no skills but killing, no trade but death?'

And always, he had no answer.

No more riddles.
No more jests.
No more curses you can't undo, left by fathers you never knew.
No more quests.

Sitting with his wife's body, seeing how peaceful her face was, he had told her that he would continue to live. That her suffering was over, but his was just beginning. And it was true. Sometimes, at night, he would wake up with a shock, pain slashing at his heart like a sword blow, eyes wide and staring at a snow- and blood-filled scene that only he could see.

There were days when remembering his promise, remembering that he had made a vow for after the Ishin Shishi had finally won, was all that kept him alive. Alive in spite of the pain, accepting it as his due, as no more than he deserved for the things that he'd done.

No more feelings. Time to shut the door.
Just.. No more.

And now he was free to fulfill that vow, he had no idea where to start. For the first time in his life, he was completely free to decide what he was going to do... where he was going to go.

'Not Kyoto.' Kenshin thought with determination. 'I can't go to Kyoto... too many people there who might recognize me, too much potential for trouble, and... and... I can't.. I can't visit... I can't. Not to Kyoto.'

However, saying "Not Kyoto" left an awful lot of room to manuever, and he struggled with it, with the feeling of being cast adrift.

Could he do it, just head off over the horizon, with no destination in mind, with no one ordering him, or sending him, or asking him to go someplace?

Running away, let's do it.
Free from the ties that bind.
No more despair, or burdens to bear,
Out there in the yonder.

He turned the idea over in his mind. To wander. To leave his title on the battlefield with his swords and be nothing more than a young man learning how to live in this new era...

Could he do it?

Running away, go to it.
Where did you have in mind?

His life had been filled with terrible purpose for the past five years; what could be more opposed to the carefully-calculated actions of a hitokiri than aimless wandering?

Have to take care.. unless there's a 'where',
You'll only be wandering blind.
Just more questions.. different kind.

And no matter where he went, he should be able to see how people were living in this new era he had helped to create, to find a way to help them.

Without killing....

Could he do it? Could he be a help to anybody, not as a hitokiri, but simply as himself, as unworthy as he was?

And who was he, now that he was no longer Battousai? Could he even say that....

Where are we to go?
Where are we ever to go?

Kenshin pulled his mind away from his musings, and turned again to the question of where he should go first.

'Not where there's still fighting. Not where there's the possibility that they could recognize me and drag me back into this life... No! I will not kill again. I will not. They cannot make me return to that. I will not allow it.'

But his thoughts were tinged with a kind of desperation. Could he really, honestly say that he could see people suffering, that he could see fighting and bloodshed, and hold himself back? Giving up his swords had been partially symbolic and partially something like self-preservation. The instincts to strike out, to defend, to protect... they were so engrained that he knew it would take very little to call them forth. Carrying a sword was tantamount to laying himself open to breaking the promises he had made to himself, to her. There was no way that he could see that he could do it. No matter how defenseless it left him, no matter how much more likely it made it that he wouldn't survive very long out on the road....

Compared to being able to keep his vow, his own life meant very little to him.

Running away, we'll do it.
Why sit around, resigned?
Trouble is, son, the farther you run,
The more you feel undefined

So. Not Kyoto, and not anywhere where there was still fighting. Someplace where he could being to piece together who he was going to be after five years of bearing a name that meant nothing but bloodshed and swift, merciless death. Someplace where he could begin the process of clamping down on his instincts, of turning himself into someone other than a killer.

Which brought him back to his earlier question, to the fear that simmered beneath the surface of his thoughts: What if I will never be anything but a hitokiri, until the day I die? What if I can never be anything else, can never get away from being Battousai?

What if I can never escape from the shadows that threaten to devour me?

Even now, he knew that his ghosts would always remain, that there were those who would seek him out, if they could find him. That knowledge was another factor in his decision to disappear. The vow that he had made bound him to live on; he could not throw his life away, no matter how justly his death might be sought. And he knew himself well enough to know that anybody who sought his death might well find their own, might awaken his survival instincts in ways that they would regret.

For what you have left undone, and more,
What you've left behind.

Sighing slightly, Kenshin clasped the strap of the pack that he carried over his shoulder and turned towards the closest road that would lead him away from the Ishin Shishi camps.

He had chosen to leave his training and join the Ishin Shishi out of a desire to stop the suffering he had seen in the world around him. What had become of him afterwards... the things that he had done in the name of bringing about a better world.... that was his responsibility, his guilt, his burden to bear. And he would bear it, carrying it on his shoulders into this new Meiji era.

It would remain with him, engraved in his heart and on his face, the sign of his greatest failure, and also the sign of what would inspire him to live on and do his best to help those he encountered as he wandered alone and tried to find a way to live with who he was and who he wanted to be.

We disappoint, we leave a mess, we die, but we don't.

We disappoint in turn, I guess. Forget, though, we won't....