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The Choshu Chronicles: Chapter Twenty-Three

by Omasu Oniwabanshi ::: 2005

Kenshin knelt in front of the small bundle of items tied up in a cloth around a conical straw hat. Shunme had ordered his belongings from the inn in Yamaguchi Castletown to be brought to Shimonoseki.

Kenshin and Shunme were joining Nakamura and Takahata in the chamber assigned to the bodyguards in Katsura's merchant friend's mansion. Nakamura and Takahata were being given a much-deserved night off, and were already gone from the room when Shunme told Kenshin to go wash and change.

His bathing and changing done at the bathhouse in the garden, Kenshin returned to find that Shunme was already on duty with Katsura. He set his dirty clothing down, and forced himself to untie the cloth that the innkeeper had used to wrap his things in. He knew what he'd find.

There it was, right on top. Tomoe's scarf. He forced himself to touch it. The pale lavender material was soft, yet strongly woven. It was a good scarf, still useable. The scarf had been washed so the bloodstains were long gone.

It was the only thing he'd taken with him when he'd left the home he'd shared with her, consigning both their house, and her body, to the flames.

He clenched the fabric gently between his fingers. She'd been the only good in his life when he was the hitokiri battousai. It didn't matter that she'd been used by the Bakufu to weaken him; all that mattered was her.

She was the calm stillness in his heart, the memory his weary mind returned to when it needed rest from the horrors around him, despite the fact that the memory came with a price.

He'd killed her.

Love and sorrow. Red petals falling on white snow. Tomoe.

Kenshin drew in a breath and set the scarf back on top of his other few belongings, and retied the bundle. He couldn't afford to feel this. Not now, not in the midst of Choshu's war for survival. He stood and went to go find Shunme.

o-o-o

The party was raucous. From the amount of noise coming from inside, Kenshin figured that Shunme must be celebrating as well. Takasugi, Ryoma, Katsura, and the merchant were all inside, along with a few of Takasugi's men, so Kenshin wasn't too concerned that Shunme was enjoying himself rather than simply guarding.

Despite Shunme's best efforts to include him in the party, Kenshin preferred to patrol outside, though it wasn't much quieter. It seemed as if the whole city was celebrating the victory over the Bakufu troops. By the sound of it, there were at least three other parties going on in the private homes down the street. When he concentrated, he could isolate the noise of each celebration and pinpoint which houses had parties going on.

Pedestrians passed the front gate every few minutes, most of them drunk and singing victory songs. Takasugi left one of his men at the gate to dissuade them from wandering in, so Kenshin was making a circular patrol of the grounds.

Firecrackers, imported from China, were going off in the back garden of a house nearby. Kenshin tried to block out the sounds, as they reminded him too much of gunfire.

"Hey, Kenshin." It was Shunme's voice.

The older samurai was on the porch, waiting for him as he rounded the corner of the mansion.

"Yes?"

"We're running out of sake inside. I'm off to get some more. You want to take inside guard duty until I get back?"

"Of course."

"I won't be long." Shunme jumped off the porch and ran lightly across the yard to the gate. Dodging around Takasugi's soldier with a quick joke, he was out the gate and out of sight in seconds, running with considerable control for someone who'd been at a drinking party.

Kenshin walked through the open door partition, shut it behind him, slipped out of his zori sandals, and made his way down the hall to the reception room at the back of the house.

At the doorway, he saw that an older maidservant had just exited. She knelt in the hallway, and reached into the room to retrieve a black lacquer tray, shaped like a small table. She set it down in the passageway, and pulled the door partition shut behind her. Then she grasped the tray and rose to her feet.

Kenshin passed her in the passageway and saw that the tray contained empty dishes and sake jugs. A lot of sake jugs.

He opened the partition and stepped into the room. His eyes automatically scanned the room for possible threats, sizing up each man as a possible opponent, though he knew they were all friends.

Katsura, Takasugi, and Ryoma were clustered at the far end, Ryoma half lying, half sitting, laughing uproariously, obviously drunk. The merchant who owned the house lay in a stupor by the open window partition across the room.

Takasugi was cross-legged, smiling sardonically at whatever it was Ryoma had said. Even Katsura, seated with his back once again to the toko-no-ma alcove with the cat drawing in it, was laughing, his cheeks and eyes flushed.

At the other side of the room, Takasugi's men were even worse for wear, falling over and trying to finish each other's sentences.

Kenshin moved inside, shutting the partition behind him, and quietly sat with his back to the wall by the door, setting his sword parallel to his legs at his left side, for ease of drawing it should he need to.

Katsura's eyes registered Kenshin's presence, and blinked, but quickly went back to listening to Ryoma's story. Takasugi looked like he was barely holding on to consciousness by force of will, his eyes glittering with the effort. From the room next door the constant twanging of a moon guitar and the boom of a drum showed that the merchant had thoughtfully provided music for the party before passing out.

Kenshin tried to tune out the noise and keep his eyes on the people. He didn't know Takasugi's men personally so he mainly focused on them, keeping their hands in sight at all times.

A shadow fell against the frame of the window partition. Kenshin grabbed his sword, rose to his feet and began to cross the room. There was a furious burst of fireworks from the garden a few houses down.

Ryoma sat up as Katsura and Takasugi turned their heads toward the open window partition, to look at the bright lights winking in the sky.

As they did, Kenshin's brain separated another burst of sound from the blast of the fireworks just as a sharp tug came on his kimono sleeve.

Bullet.

Kenshin immediately looked at where the trajectory led, and saw a hole in the tatami mat where the bullet's flight ended. It was right where Ryoma had just been.

Bending his knees, Kenshin used the coiled strength in his legs to launch himself at Ryoma, hitting the man in the chest and carrying him flat to the floor as another two gunshots rang out, the bullets passing over his back and head to smack two more holes into the wall by the toko-no-ma alcove.

By now, Katsura realized something was wrong. He ducked, instincts developed during his years of hiding out from the Shinsengumi in Kyoto reasserting themselves. Takasugi was already flat on the floor, his body recognizing the sound of gunshots before his mind did. Takasugi's soldiers were cursing and struggling to their feet.

Kenshin saw the shadow at the window pull back. Gripping his sword's sheath, he pushed himself upright and off of a winded Ryoma, and ran at the window.

The open square was large enough, so he crossed his arms in front of his face and launched through it, hitting the ground in a roll. The back garden sported a red flowering shrub directly behind that particular window, and Kenshin hit it head on, the pliant branches easing and softening his landing. The smell of mashed vegetation filled his nostrils as he rolled on impact.

In seconds he was on his feet, glancing around. A dark figure was disappearing over the back fence. Kenshin followed, pulling himself over the barrier one handed, his other hand gripping his sheath. Master Hiko's cardinal rule had been, never lose your sword.

A man, dressed in black hakama and gi style top, was disappearing around the corner at the end of the next row of houses. There was something familiar about the way he moved.

Kenshin ran afterward. He caught up to the man at the next crossroads. The would-be assassin had chosen a dead end and was doubling back.

Kenshin drew his sword as he ran, and made it to the center of the crossroads just as the man came up to it.

Fireworks burst above in the sky, the light splashing down on the crossroads, revealing the face of the man Kenshin had been chasing.

It was Nakamura.