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Recovery: Chapter 2 - Reunion at the Shirobeko

by Haku Baikou ::: 26.Feb.2003

“Hiko Seijuro?” she repeated.

“Hiko Seijuro the Thirteenth,” he clarified.

The name meant absolutely nothing to Megumi. After a moment, the man seemed to finally realize that. His frown deepened.

“I’m Kenshin’s former master.”

“Oh, you were his teacher then.”

“Yes.”

“And you’re the one who prepared him for the battle with Shishio?”

“Yes. Thanks to my training, his Hiten Mitsurugi technique is nearly as perfect as my own.” Hiko crossed his arms and looked out the open window, slight hint of a smirk about his lips.

Megumi arched an eyebrow, not quite believing the smug display. She had not known what to expect in Kenshin’s teacher. Whatever kind of person she’d imagined, she had thought he’d be more…polite. She countered with a question.

“I take it you’re going to stay and help, Hiko-san?”

“No, I’m going to stay and supervise.”

Arrogant bastard! Megumi closed her eyes briefly. Temper would be of no use now. On any other day, she would have flashed her most silvery Fox Lady smile and let loose a few venomous barbs. However, she was in no mood for games today. Her patient’s condition was too urgent for immature taunting sessions.

“Suit yourself,” she shrugged, and trying her best to ignore the imposing man, continued with her work.

She took the sterilized washcloths and carefully bathed Ken-san from head to toe, allowing his skin to dry from the late afternoon breeze rather than using a dry towel. The air would help cool his temperature more quickly. His fever was her greatest immediate concern.

Megumi pulled one of her travel bags closer, and Hiko Seijuro watched with bemused interest as she set up her jars and containers. She had brought a small fortune of herbs and powders with her from Tokyo. Rokai for the burns on Ken-san’s chest. Seiyo-otogiriso for pain. A multitude of other concoctions with exotic foreign names like man-tien-hsing to help with wound healing and daruharidra for fever. She took a small jug of one particular mix from her bags. It was the same precious salve she had given to Kaoru to give to Kenshin. It was a derivative of one of Gensai-sensei’s formulas which she had supplemented with ingredients from her own family’s recipes.

She methodically worked the salve into Ken-san’s wounds. Throughout her ministrations, the rurouni’s face remained distressingly unreactive. Not a flinch, not a flicker of movement. Even when she cleaned the bite marks and squeezed pus from them, Ken-san was too far gone to feel anything. The more she worked, the more worried she became.

“He’s too still, isn’t he,” Hiko said, startling her out of her grim thoughts. The swordsman’s concerns apparently mirrored her own.

“Yes, he is,” she agreed.

“What are you doing now?” he asked when she took a small knife and began cutting the stitches in Ken-san’s side.

“I’m opening this up,” she answered him, glad to answer an academic question, to have something to take her mind off the despair that gnawed at the corners of her mind. “There’s a pocket of infection under the surface that has to be let out. It can’t heal well otherwise.”

“But the wound’s already started to heal.”

“Yes, at the surface, but underneath it’s not. Trust me, I’ve seen it happen all too often. The infection festers under here, see? And then it spreads to the blood. We can’t have that happen, so I’m going to cut the wound open again.”

“You’re… you’re what?”

In response, Megumi slid the small knife down the line of the wound, re-opening it. A small river of pus and blood gushed from the opening into a small bowl she held underneath. When the flow stopped, she handed the bowl over to the swordsman who sat looking at it, his face tinged slightly green. It was Megumi’s turn to smirk. All too often she’d seen battle-hardened warriors cringe at the site of infected wounds. Fresh blood they could handle. A bowl of pus, they could not.

“I think I’d better leave the wound open. Let it heal from the bottom on up so no more pockets of infection form,” she continued. “She took one of the sterilized cloths and dipped it in water and one of her salves. She then pressed it against the open wound in Ken-san’s side.

“Hiko-san, would you mind lending a hand, please?” she asked, glad to see that the swordsman had lost some of his haughty coldness and was now freely helping her as he supported Ken-san’s head and lifted him by the shoulders. Megumi was then able to wrap clean bandages around Ken-san’s waist. She noted that despite his gruff manners, HIko moved very gently when handling Ken-san, taking care not to touch the rurouni’s wounds.

“I must admit, woman,” said Hiko thoughtfully as they worked, “You’re a far more competent physician than you look.”

Megumi bit her lip and decided to take his statement as a sincere compliment. “Thank you.”

He looked out the window. “The sun is setting. Your friends will be back soon.”

He seemed a completely different person than the man she’d just met an hour ago. Megumi took a chance and decided to ask a slightly more personal question.

“Why, are you really here, Hiko-san? Why—if you don’t mind me asking—aren’t you helping with repairs at the Aoyia like the others?”

He narrowed his eyes, as if considering whether or not to answer her. Megumi had not thought it a particularly rude question, but this man seemed to be exceptionally careful in considering how much information he should share. His unwillingness to divulge was so very much like a certain red head she knew…. Or was it the other way around, considering who was the teacher, and who was the pupil.

Megumi finished the last of Ken-san’s bandages, and settled the yukata around his shoulders. Hiko lowered the small rurouni back down on the futon. The large man stared down at Kenshin for a long time, unspeaking as Megumi began to clean up her work area.

“Because I have more reason to worry,” he said. “Kenshin was eight years-old when I found him.” Hiko spoke slowly, as if each word were an effort. “But in all the ways that matter, I consider him … my son.”

Megumi stopped what she was doing. This was not the kind of answer she’d expected. She wasn’t sure where it was leading, but Megumi had the feeling she was witnessing a rare occurrence. If Kenshin truly had learned some of his traits from this Hiko-san, then she suspected this man would keep his thoughts close to himself the way Ken-san often did. Megumi was willing to bet Hiko rarely confided in others as he was doing now. Megumi didn’t know why he chose to talk to her, of all people, but she kept silent, not wanting to interrupt the moment.

“I know Death, Megumi-sensei,” he said matter of factly. “I’m familiar with it in all its forms. I know when it’s near, when it threatens. I see its shadow over the face of my apprentice, and the sight chills my blood.”

The cadence of his voice had changed completely, thought Megumi. And she suddenly drew in a breath as she came to an understanding about Hiko Seijuro the Thirteenth.

Arrogance, to this man, was what a rurouni’s silly antics were to Kenshin. Hiko’s arrogance was a shield, a front to present to the rest of the world, a wall to hide a deeper pain.

“Okina knows what I speak of,” he continued. “So does Shinomori, to a degree. But the young ones, innocents who barely remember the Bakumatsu. They have no idea. They look at my apprentice with idealistic hope, secure in the knowledge that he’s the strongest, that he’s invincible. They truly believe that his recovery is merely a matter of time, and that he’ll simply get better if given the opportunity to rest.”

He frowned, and absently brushed at a stray strand of Kenshin’s hair.

“Baka deshi….” His soft tone belied the meaning of those words. “…A father ought never bury his son, Megumi-sensei. It should be the other way around.”

He blinked, as if suddenly realizing he’s spoken too much. He cleared his throat.

A hint of the smug smile returned. “But now that I’ve seen you work, Megumi-sensei, I think I can feel a bit of that idealistic hope myself.”

“But I don’t know if I’ll succeed,” admitted Megumi.

“You will.”

“How can you know?”

“Because I, Hiko Seijuro the Thirteenth, have said so,” he said simply. “I’m a master at judging talent. And you, I have decided, have more than an average amount of it.”

“Oh, is that so?” she said, adopting a lighter tone herself, consciously willing hope into her own spirit.

“I’m never wrong.” He said it deadpan.

Megumi couldn’t help chuckling.

And stopped suddenly, at a new sound she heard from down the street. Megumi hurried to the window and looked down at the market below.

The sudden swell of emotion within her caught her off guard even though she’d expected to feel joy. Perhaps it was the unusual sensation of looking down at the world from the height of a second story window. Or perhaps not. Truth was, she’d missed them all in the past few weeks, not just Kens-san.

Her vision blurred as she saw the familiar figures coming down the street. Rooster head. Ponytail with indigo ribbon. And yes, even the short spiky haired boy amid the group of strangers who she assumed were the members of the Oniwabanshu.

“We may as well go downstairs,” Hiko said, placid arrogant expression back in place. “My baka deshi isn’t going anywhere, and you’ve done all you can for him today.”

Megumi nodded and headed down the stairs. Sae was already opening the front door as Megumi made it to the bottom of the steps. Her friends froze in the doorway for a moment when they saw her. And then, as if floodgates had been let open….

“Megumi! You’re here!” yelled Yahiko, with the lack of inhibition typical for his age. He flung himself at her and threw his small arms about her waist. She laughed, the tears threatening to overwhelm her again as she hugged the boy tightly back. She turned at a touch on her arm and saw Kaoru, eyes wide, grinning, and likewise crying. And finally, she was trapped in a rough one-armed embrace as Sagara Sanosuke, the big wonderful idiot, growled an enthusiastic “Fox Lady!” and squeezed, crushing her against the other two.

She hadn’t laughed like this in a long time. Not since they’d all left her those many weeks ago.

And as she glanced upstairs to the door of the room where Kenshin slept, she heard Hiko’s words echoing in her head once more: “They look at my apprentice with idealistic hope, secure in the knowledge that he’s the strongest, that he’s invincible.”

Surrounded by her friends, and with Hiko’s belief in her abilities… Maybe Takani Megumi could share in that hope for the rurouni. Yes, maybe she could believe in him too.