|
|
Part 1: Homecomingsby: K. C. "Kaoru-Sensei" Hulsman
(*Author's Note: The timeline for this fan-fiction takes place after the Kyoto Hen. However, since the manga has not been finished I write this fic based on the following assumptions: that none of the characters herein have been killed or have any altering physicalities (is that a word?), or have decided to move or change professions. This is a fanfiction, all characters (at least the ones you recognize) are Watsuki's creation. So let's honor him with a moment of silence for these great stories and characters........ OK, now on to the fic! As always I love feedback, comments, and criticism, and if there are any mistakes please point them out! Flames I simply ignore.)
It's been quiet, even somewhat lonely...., Aoshi mused as he left the temple for the day. His eyes strayed silently to a certain corner of the temple where Misao had been prone to lay things for him to find as he left. Sometimes it was an umbrella, a jacket, or some food. It all had depended on what particular thing she felt Aoshi had been neglecting.
Aoshi walked past the place, not really noting how the subconscious part of him was disappointed at not finding something there, as he walked down the smooth worn stone steps of the temple.
"Aoshi," her warm soft voice had called out from the summer darkness of the Aoiya's gardens.
"Hai," he replied both answering and questioning her. She had been giving him a wide berth of late, leaving him to his meditations. And in all the weeks he had gone to the temple, he had never found her waiting for him before.
"I... I wanted to tell you goodbye."
She hopped down out of the dappled moonbathed shadows of her favorite tree's limb, into a patch of glowing moonlight, the light reflecting in her eyes mirrored from the patient waters of the koi pond.
"Goodbye?"
"Hai... I'm leaving, I don't know when I'll be back."
"But why?"
For a moment her head ducked down and her forehead creased in thought. Her eyes were distant and unseeing. With a gentle smile upon her face, as the mirthful breeze tugged playfully with her braid, she glanced back up with stark determination yet a sense of peace in her eyes.
"To finish my training. Okina won't finish it, and you... you won't, or so I surmised. Was I wrong?"
"Iie, you were right. I won't train you, you don't need to finish your training."
"Iie, I do. My training as it is can only serve as a liability, as leader I need to have my skills honed. I... wait Aoshi-sama... here me out. I know Okina and you feel that my current level of training is sufficient. That this era is a time for peace, and it is. But so long as remnants of the old era remain, and people are opposed to this peaceful era the need for my training to be completed is still there. I'm not what either of you think I am, not really anyhow... I'm going... I know this decision is right for me." With that her piercing eyes freed him from her depths, and as she looked away a soft sigh escaped her lips. " I parted with Okina in a fight, and I don't want to with you."
Aoshi looked into her eyes, he could see sadness dwelling there, but also such a calmness as well, a real calmness from the soul. Their eyes locked as they gazed at one another.
"I may not agree with your decision, but I won't hinder you either."
Misao's face reflected so many emotions in that one brief instant, surprise and joy, a bittersweet sadness, and with a slight smile hiding in the corner of her lips she closed the distance between them and hugged him. Tight.
"You better take care of yourself and the other's when I'm gone, or when I get back I'll pin your rear to a tree and use you for target practice."
She smirked up at him as she let him go and winked as she picked up her bag and begin walking out of the Aoiya.
"Hai. Goodbye Misao, Ki o tsuketene."
Misao smiled to herself and yelled back at him.
"Goodbye you old oaf! Tell that old fart Okina, I love him, and I forgive him for being an ass."
Aoshi's eyebrows rose slightly is surprise to hear those words from her mouth, but somehow it did not surprise him. Much. He followed her with his eyes until she turned the corner and was out of sight, and for a while afterwards he stood there looking at the spot where she had disappeared.
* * * * * * *
It had been well over a year and close to two. She had managed to send brief messages to them as she traveled, but never once did she have a return address. Months had passed since they had last heard from her. In her absence the usually jubilant Aoiya was subdued. Everyone missed her.
Misao where are you? When are you coming home?
Thoughts like these had plagued Aoshi's mind for quite some time now, with every passing day he became more worried, he went to the temple to meditate to try to clear his mind but ultimately thoughts of her sneaked in. Soft tendrils of her hair tickled his hand as he recalled the way he had brushed her hair on occasion when she was smaller. Her bubbly laugh seemed to echo hauntingly through the corridors of the Aoiya. At the temple he saw phantoms of her from the corner of his eyes skipping down the temple path. The sky, the water were reminders for whenever he saw blue all he saw were her eyes.
Aoshi had obsessed enough before in his life to recognize the symptoms, and not knowing where Misao was, was slowly tearing him and the rest of the Oniwabanshuu apart.
* * * * * * *
The usually merry atmosphere of the Aoiya had been somber, and customers felt that and began to come to the Aoiya less and less. Aoshi, his mask as always in place, had borne quite a bit of pounding lately, from various members yelling at him for not caring about Misao, the words had hurt, but letting the mask fall scared him more. So the mask remained in place, as he let the worries eat at him. He would have gladly left to look for her, but no one truly knew where to look for her. Okina had sent out word among the Oniwabanshuu network to try to find Misao from the location of where she was when she sent the last letter.
Sometimes he wondered why he stayed at the Aoiya, he truly felt like a stranger, a shade, like he did not belong. Somewhere deep inside of him his subconscious knew the answer why... because Misao was home to him. Yet he stayed, partially because he had no real place to go to, and partial because of the promise he had made to her. Dutifully, like a loyal dog, he returned home from the temple sliding the mask firmly into place. Every step from the temple to the Aoiya was another brick raised.
His troubled steps halted as he stepped on flesh, distant eyes focused as he looked at what had broken his thoughts.
"Gomensai, I did not see you there..."
The young girl looked up, her braid falling into view with a tear at his heart.
"It's okay... with all this mess, it's quite easy too."
Mess? He looked up and around him, and saw a crowd encircling a group of combatants. Street fights were a fairly common occurrence, and he never stayed to watch. That's odd. He thought as he noticed the group of women and children on the side crying. He noted the swelling and the beginning to purple bruises, fresh bruises on their faces. His gaze shifted back to the fighters.
There were three ugly brutes of men surrounding a smaller figure cloaked in a hooded midnight blue manto. The three men spread out around the other person, who merely stood there unmoving, not even looking at them.
"Listen asshole, those are my employees, without my kindness they'd be dead without a roof over their head, and no body is going to tell me how to treat them!" The leader screamed staring intensely at the manto enshrouded person.
He waited but got no response, "FINE, then let me teach you a lesson for interferring!"
He nodded his head at his two comrades who pulled an assortment of knives and clubs out as they rushed to attack. The person in the middle still did not move, nor look at them."it's just not right-"
"-that poor person"
"-it's gonna be a slaughter!"
The crowd murmured around them.
Aoshi narrowed his eyes, and saw what no one else could see. He could feel the person's kenki, and knew them to be a fighter, better than the street trash for sure.
At the last moment, the person ducked down, and swept at the one attacker's feet knocking them down. Quickly, the lone fighter punched upwards in a succession of quick punches at the other attacker's loins, abdomen, throat, and nose. Then the lone fighter used a elbow while pivoting their foot, their knee contacting with the opponents face. The hulking man went crashing to the ground hitting it hard enough to put him in a daze.
The leader snarled viciously as he swiped out with his knife, and dashed in quick only to be blocked by a series of kunai, four per hand, wielded in such a way that they became a shield, a way to parry, a way to attack, and disarm.
The mysterious figure attacked with a kick he knew so well, with a kick he had trained Hannya with, and he realized just who the figure was with such a rushing sense of joy to his heart. Yet the mask did not crack. He merely concentrated on the fight.
In a very efficient movement, with the slightest twist of one of those knives she disarmed the leader. Then, with a combination of her knuai and her distinctive kenpo style, she hurled him into his compatriot who she had swept the ground out from underneath him earlier .
Growing tired of the match and these imbeciles, the figure threw her kunai pinning them to the ground. Each of the men had a knife come so close it must have shaved their crotches. The figure did not even bother addressing the men on the ground, but in a gruff ,almost masculine sounding, voice she addressed the group of huddled women and children. "If you stay with this scum, those bruises will be the best you'll ever get from them. If you want something more, there is a Christian church that will take you in and educate you, give you food, shelter, and clothes. They will treat you well until you can stand on your own feet. You need not be a Christian to partake of their kindness. You can try to live on your own, or return to these beasts. The choice is yours."
The figure walked past the men and slipped into the crowd to disappear as the police waded through to see what was the commotion.
I'm going to lose her, Aoshi panicked before he realized he was not thinking. She's finally home, he thought with a smile in his heart if not on his lips. Of course, the first place she would go to would be the Aoiya!
Aoshi skirted the crowd and took several alleyways until he was around the mess. He hurryied his steps slightly as he tried to catch up with her. Then he saw her waiting for him, leaning up against a wall after he had turned a corner.
"Hi Aoshi," she grinned at him smirking.
"How did you...."
She laughed merrily, "Gee, how many 6 foot tall Japanese men are there in Kyoto. You stuck out like a sore thumb in that crowd."
"I guess I am obvious..."
"You can be," she whispered as she closed the distance between him hugging him. "I missed you."
He looked down at the top of her head against his chest, and slowly his arms curled around her briefly returning the hug. "We all missed you." His words were the simple truth. The warmth of her was like some dream come true, yet even now the mask was in place.
"Good," she smiled up at him as she stepped back and then her face was covered in a frown. "Do I want to know just how mad Okina is with me? And the others for not sending any sort of message recently?"
He looked at her with such seriousness, "No."
"Oh boy," she moaned, "I just knew it!"
She sighed wearily, surprised at just how tired she felt, just how much she had missed home and her family. Aoshi heard that sigh and felt a pang of sympathy for her.
"Well I'm sure after a half hour or so of yelling things will simmer down to a full blown party welcoming you back."
Misao visibly shrinked, longing for nothing more than some food, a good hot soak, and bed.
"You know, in my absence, you've lightened up some," she looked up at him with a questioning eyebrow, "have you been smiling when I wasn't around?"
He looked her in the eye and actually sighed. "Looks like I'm going to be bombarded with all the bad jokes you've accumulated on your travels."
Misao grinned ferally from ear to ear like a cheshire cat. "Yep! And my Sensei was quite fond of bad puns...."
"Maybe I should convince Okina it would be better that you were dead then to suffer through those puns..." he said completely straight faced.
"Hey," she mocked punched him, "I could just go leave again...."
"Iie, it's time for your homecoming, and for what it's worth, it seems your decision was the right one. Not only have your techniques been fined and honed, and your training completed, you're still the same Misao."
Those words were the closest Aoshi ever came to praising anyone. They warmed Misao's heart so utterly, that for the most fleeting of moments a mist of happiness hung in her eyes, but with a willful blink she winked at him. "Of course, there's only one me!"
"And it's a good thing too."
Misao chose not to answer that, but merely stuck her tongue out at him and the two walked back to the Aoiya in a companionable silence.
* * * * * * *
He's changed, and for the better. His mask is still there, but it's crumbling, and even though he may still look all gloomy and brooming, his words are spoken a bit lighter. I can see the sense of peace he has now in his eyes. He needed to center himself again, and I had been a distraction. I had to make myself worthy of him, and worthy of myself. Strong enough so that he can rely on me. Hmmmm ...
* * * * * * *
Aoshi glanced over at Misao and noted she had grown a bit, but it was something more than that. She's matured... on all levels. She's a woman now, all grown and capable of standing on her own, yet the old spunk and weasel of a girl I knew is still there... and her fighting... she's reached her full fighting potential. She still lacks experience, but she would be able to last at least for a while against even me. It's amazing... I never knew... I never guessed what had laid within that earnest, playful, loving child.
* * * * * * *
The two were lost in thoughts as they pondered the changes in each other. The high sun blazed in the sky marking the dinner hour. Misao began skipping slightly as she walked earnestly looking forward to the reunion. When she was only a block away from the Aoiya, she left Aoshi in the dust as she sprinted forth laughingly, and pinned Okina and the others to the walls of the restaurant with her kunai, which were reinforced by the pining of her enthusiastic, hugging arms.
"TADAIMA!"
Glad I had the foresight to do this, otherwise Okina would hug me unconscious like he usually does.... she thought to herself with a giggle.
"JUST WHAT THE HELL WERE YOU THINKING NOT AT LEAST DROPPING US A NOTE!"
"I wasn't," she replied smiling sweetly.
"MISAO..." Okina's bellows were eerie, especially so since he had unpinned himself from her kunai when no one was looking and proceeded to give her one of his back breaking hugs. Misao's eyes bulged out in her head as she passed out crumbling to the floor.
The others looked at Okina with huge sweatdrops forming, "Jiya... why must you always do that?!"
Okina began to get out the sake and the party decorations, as Misao tried to peel herself off the floor, gave up, and thought I just want my bed.......
The look was not lost on Aoshi.
"Okina, save the party for the morrow, I think Misao would much rather get some sleep, it is late and she has been traveling."
Misao smiled gratefully at Aoshi, and Okina stroked his beard thoughtfully.
"Very well, I can plan out the party with the extra time! HOHOhoohho!!!!" He cackled as he left the room. The rest of the Oniwabanshuu decided that they better get their rest to survive tomorrow and with goodnights and warm hugs to Misao, left for their own beds.
Misao sighed... "I don't know what's scarier, him yelling at me, or him planning a party for me."
Aoshi looked at her with a seamless façade. "Come, I'm sure you need your rest, and a bath, and you'll definitely need your rest to survive the party Okina has in store for you."
Misao moaned as she got up, and then frowned as she looked down at the dishes. She bent over to pick them up and felt Aoshi's gentle hand on her arm.
"Go, I'll take care of it."
Misao smiled gratefully, "Arigatou Aoshi-sama!"
With that Misao hopped to her feet and skipped wearily, but light of heart, off to the bath.
Aoshi looked after her, Amazing, how much she makes a difference to this place., he thought as he picked up the dishes and cleaned them.
Then as was his want he walked through the Aoiya checking on everything, and last but not least past Misao's room only to hear the soft sounds of her sleepy breathing. He closed his eyes moved in a way he didn't understand. She's home.
End Part 1
To be continued...