Okay, I'm looking for a good prereader! It would help if you had ICQ too, 
and of course a good knowledge of Rurouni Kenshin. That means up to current 
in the manga tankoubans (1-24), or have seen most of the TV series, and know 
something of the Revenge Arc, even if you haven't actualy read it... I don't 
have ANY of the Shounen Jumps, so I can't ask for that. (but it would be 
helpful! ^_^)

     Once again, if you missed the other chapters they can be found at:

http://nabiki.newberry.edu/nichan/fanfition/anlhp.html

     I need C&C people! At this point, I'll even take flames, if they have 
corrections! (whether they curse my exsistence or tell me I'm an idiot 
doesn't matter ^_^)

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Nicky Townsend
battou1028@aol.com
battousai@licensedtokill.com

     Disclaimer: Obviously, I am not so brilliant as to think up wonderful 
characters like those in Rurouni Kenshin. That honor goes to Wasuki Nobuhiro 
alone. I also have no musical talent, so also obviously, I didn't write the 
song, "A New Life" That goes entirely to the two brilliant minds that make up 
the Pet Shop Boys.  

     Additional Thanks go to Todd Hill, who is my dear friend. His wonderful 
Ranma fanfic "Careful Destiny" is a large part of the inspiration for this 
story. 

     Spoiler warning! There is a mention of something from Revenge Arch in 
here, but I made it pretty ambiguous. You might catch it, you might not. Just 
so you know.

"All my instincts, they return,
And the Grand Fa�ade, so soon will burn,
Without a noise, and without my pride,
I reach out from the inside�"

Your Eyes, Peter Gabriel


A New Life, Part 10

(quick note: things between * * were in italics in the original MS Word 
document, and in the HTMLed version on my web page.) 

     "Nicky, I don't know what to do!" Kevin threw his hands up. "If she 
decides never to talk to me again, doesn't it ruin everything?"

     Nicky was silent, staring darkly at Kevin's bedspread. "Yes it does. 
But�" Nicky paused again, shifting in her perch at the foot of Kevin's bed. 
"I have a feeling that this is God just messing with us. It likes to watch us 
suffer�That's what it does for fun. But I don't think that it would end 
everything so quickly. It enjoys torturing you too much for this to be the 
end."

     Kevin only nodded, not quite sure of what to make of what Nicky had 
said. It was very upsetting to know that you were a cosmic chew-toy. But most 
of all he kept seeing Kaori's eyes as she had looked up at him, and said "And 
what if I don't want to hear it?" There had been no forgiveness there, 
absolutely no interest in listening to his side at all.    

     It had been a long time since he'd felt like this. Depression was 
settling inside him, taking away the feeling, his chest feeling more and more 
hollow as the minutes passed. Now it had developed to a cavernous emptiness. 
He felt like his ceiling looked; starkly white, blank, and lifeless. He 
rolled over, from his back to his side, and looked absently at his hand where 
it lay beside his head on the pillow, and thought that his hand looked like 
something foreign all of a sudden, the way his fingers curled reminding him 
strangely of a dead insect.

     Nicky eyed Kevin's increasingly blank expression with fright. He was 
retreating inside himself, locking his pain inside, where it could do the 
most damage. She did the only thing she could think of. Grabbing him by the 
front of his T-shirt, she hauled him up to a sitting a position, and cuffed 
him sharply across the cheekbone. His blank, dull, purple eyes, cleared for a 
moment, and the clouded again. Fear settled in the pit of Nicky's stomach. 
He's giving up, she thought, and he hasn't even really started his fight yet!

     She slapped him again, much harder this time, and shook him roughly. 
"Listen to me. If you want to lay here like a worthless piece of trash, then 
go ahead. But relinquish me of my duties. If your not even willing to keep 
trying, then my job is finished. You can waste the rest of your time here in 
this life, and think of what you've done wrong, and how everything has been a 
horrible mistake!"

     "Or," She said shaking him again, roughly enough to give him whiplash. 
"Or, you can try to fix your mistake! You were telling me that everyday, 
Kaori is becoming more like Kaoru. Maybe Kaori wouldn't have listened to you, 
but Kaoru would! She would! Kaoru would stay mad for a while, but eventually 
she would listen. So are you gonna sit here and let me shake you like a dead 
fish or are you going to do something?"

     He was completely ignoring her now. He dangled from the inside of his 
shirt, Nicky's hold ready to tear the shirt at any second. Disgustedly, she 
let him flop back on his bed. "I'm going to tell you a story. Whether you 
listen or not is up to you."

     Nicky took a deep breath and paused for a minute. She couldn't be sure, 
but she thought she might have gotten his attention. "I wasn't always a 
Heavenly Guide, you know. I was human once too. But it was a very long time 
ago, so long that I have no idea what country I lived in, because the name I 
had for it is lost to time." 

     "I married a man who was the head of our clan. For some reason he'd 
fallen in love with me from afar. My father and he arranged the marriage. I 
hated them both for not asking me."

     "But I did as my father wished. I married into the ruling family of our 
clan. My husband was never anything but kind to me, but because of the 
circumstances behind our wedding, I refused him everytime."

     "Eventually, my husband's kindness and consideration for my wishes won 
me over and so we lived happily for a few months. That was when the 
neighboring clan decided they wanted out farmland, and war broke out, and he 
had to leave to fight. The war was a long one; both our clans were fairly 
large."

     "Many months, I think, somewhere over half a year later, I received news 
that my husband had been killed in the war. Without any hesitation what so 
ever, I threw myself from the highest spire of our home. I died instantly 
when I hit the hard rocky earth, my neck snapped almost double."

     "That was the first time I met God. It informed me that committing 
suicide had severely impaired my chances for a happy incarnation, and killed 
any chance I would have had at meeting my husband again in a future life. So 
it cut me a deal. If I guided tortured souls like myself, and helped them 
find what they were looking for, I could eventually see him again."

     As Nicky spoke, Kevin's eyes slowly cleared and at first, it was only 
sounds to him. However if he listened harder the sounds separated into 
distinct words and the words made up an interesting story. By the time she 
had finished talking he was actually mildly curious of the outcome. Nicky had 
finished and been silent for quite a while when Kevin finally spoke up. "�Did 
you ever see him again?"

     Nicky hid her eyes, and from what he could see of the other half of her 
face, her mouth was hard and the small muscles in her jaw stood out, as she 
clenched her teeth together. "Yes. I did. But something God had never told me 
was that no matter how hard I tried he would never been mine again. He 
already had a soul mate. I was assigned as his guide to help him find her 
again, and it was very painful at first; I almost refused to do it. But in 
the end I agreed because I still loved him, even after so many hundreds of 
years. So now I just look forward to my penance ending so I can be 
reincarnated and live a normal life again. I'm tired of helping people 
achieve their goals, and not being able to achieve mine. But this is my last 
assignment, and then my time in Purgatory is over."

      Kevin's eyes were wide a saucers as he looked at Nicky, and she could 
only shake her head at the pole-axed expression Kevin wore.  "Thought being a 
Heavenly Guide was a reward did you? Now are you going to be stupid like me, 
and give up, and spend the rest of not just your life but your entire cosmic 
existence making up for a mistake that could have easily been avoided? I'll 
let you think on that. I can only materialize for so long, and I'm starting 
to get tired�."

      Instead of Nicky's normal happy puff of smoke, she devolved, particles 
of her materialized body falling all over the carpet, and then further 
desolating until nothing was left of her physical body at all.

     Kevin watched the particles melt into the carpet, confusion running a 
merry race through his head. Now he wasn't sure what to do at all. Nicky's 
chastisement almost made him feel as if he had no -right- to be depressed. 
Momentarily he bristled at that thought, though eventually a more sensible 
voice, a remainder of who he used to be, spoke up. 

*She's right, you know.*

     He shook his head wearily. What had giving up ever gotten him before? 
Last time, he'd sat completely desolate for so long that birds could have 
nested in his hair, and he wouldn't have noticed�If it hadn't been for Aoshi 
discovering the truth, he probably would have sat there until he died. In 
fact, he had fully planned to do that. 

     It had been pathetic, really. But hadn't he just almost relapsed into 
that state? In a way this was just as painful. Death may be final, but there 
often isn't a choice. It wasn't as if Kaoru had asked for that whole thing to 
happen. But this time�This time, it had been her decision; she had told him, 
"And what if I don't want to hear it?" 

     Nothing, nothing had hurt more then that. Knowing that although she was 
still there, and no matter how much he reached out for her, that she would 
only draw away, not caring. If she ended up choosing never to speak to him 
again, it was almost as final as death, and just as painful, because it was 
something he had done that had driven her away.

    And even worse, there was nothing he could do about it. If or when she 
ever wanted to listen, it had to be entirely her choice. It would be 
completely on her terms, because he had lost all negotiation rights. 
Overwhelming tides of helplessness swept through him. He couldn't just sit 
here like a lump. If he had to wait, he would wait, but he needed something 
to do while he was waiting.


~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~


     Nicky felt herself rematerialize, and as her body reformed itself, she 
looked around. The Heavenly Throne Room. 

     She was almost completely formed again, when a vicious slap met with her 
cheek, knocking her witless to highly polished tiles of the Throne Room 
floor. An absolutely livid omnipotent being stood over her, it's chest 
heaving in bearly surpressed rage, fingers curled to look like claws.

      "Insolent wench! I can not -believe- you told him that! You know that's 
against policy! You blatantly defied me, and even worse you don't seem to 
care!" The being continued to seethe, seeing that nothing it said was having 
and effect on Nicky.
 
     Slowly picking herself of the floor, Nicky straitened up, and squared 
her shoulders. "Your Majesty; he didn't realize who I was talking about. He 
would have said something to me if he had." Nicky had developed the ablity 
over time to look God strait in the eye as she spoke to it. She knew this 
annoyed it to no end; so few people could do it without soiling a perfectly 
good pair of undies beyond repair.  

     The cosmic entity eyed Nicky, in a way she would almost think of wary. 
It looked her up and down, and then finally spoke. "Do NOT let it happen 
again. Next time it will not be Purgatory; it will be Hell. And it will be 
permanent."

     "However," the being continued "I'll have to admit that the show has 
gotten pretty interesting! As a Heavenly Guide you've always been horrible, 
but perhaps it will comfort you to know that you've always been a good source 
of entertainment! Anyway," The being snapped it fingers three times, in a 'Z' 
shaped motion, "Poof! Be gone!" And with that, Nicky found herself once again 
banished to earth; her particles purposely scattered to the four winds. It 
would take her hours to be able to rematerialize again�


~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ 


     Kevin busily shoved all his dark non-dry cleaning required clothing into 
the washing machine. Laundry just wasn't what it used to be. All he had to do 
was turn it on, dump his clothing and some detergent into it, and poof! A 
half-hour later, your clothing is clean again. The dryer held the same 
concept; it took all the fun out of it. 

     He closed the washing machine, and the lid made its customary metallic 
thud. After Nicky had left, he'd taken a quick shower, and tied his hair back 
while it was still wet. He didn't feel like blow drying it, so he left a few 
wispy bits of his bangs fall forward and then covered his head with a purple 
bandana, his ponytail falling out the back. Right now, he still felt about an 
inch tall, and when one feels like that, one cannot stand to wear something 
that is the least bit restraining. Kevin was no exception. He wore a huge 
pair of Kik Wear brand raver jeans, and a ratty white T-shirt that said 
"Heaven Sent" in pink cursive letters across the front. 

     Kevin heaved a great sigh, and sunk down against the hallway wall, knees 
pulled up to his chest. He needed to have a plan. A strategy. Even a stupid 
sceme. Something to take his mind off the situation. He didn't actually have 
to follow said plan, strategy or stupid scheme; he just needed to be thinking 
about it to keep his mind occupied. 

     He'd learned that situations were never as hopeless as they seemed; they 
were often more hopeless then they seemed, or not hopeless at all. Kevin 
sincerely hoped that this was not as hopeless at it seemed. He heaved himself 
off the ground, and turned to go back up his room to get another load of 
laundry together. Remembering suddenly that his parents weren't home, he 
popped one of the CDs they most hated into his player and turned it up loud, 
and "Ophelia" by Tear Garden echoed through the house.

      He quickly filled another basket with clothing and headed downstairs to 
the laundry room again to drop it off. The torrent of synthesizers and drum 
machines mixed with deep soothing British voices fit his mood perfectly. It 
had been awhile since he'd been in the correct state of mind to enjoy Gothic 
music.

     He remembered Sam saying something about Kevin having been a dancer; and 
he found himself doing just that. Prancing though his house, his movements 
matching the weirdness of the song as it changed for melodic vocals to 
mechanically filtered noise, his steps holding the grace of a ballet dancer.
 
     He swept into the house's large linoleum tiled entry hall. The slick 
floor allowed him the space he needed to work out his emotions; this style of 
dancing had always been good for that. He bobbed and spun, somehow not quite 
following the beat, but not the voice either, and yet still melding with the 
mournful tone of the song.

     After an interlude of stillness the song picked back up again; he kicked 
one leg out in front of him, and then crooked it again in such away that the 
quick movement turned him 180 degrees. The song slowed to a close and with 
one leg planted behind the other for balance, he leaned backwards so far that 
his fingers nearly dangled against the floor, his back bowed almost to a 
bridge. Still bowed, he let his arms circle back up till they were strait 
into the air, and as slowly as he could manage, he straitened up, leaving his 
head tilted back until the very last moment, and the snapping it level 
again.**

     Silence filled the house as the song ended. Through the silence the 
sound of one person applauding echoed through the empty house. Kevin's eyes 
snapped open, and suddenly he realized that he didn't know when they had 
drifted closed. He looked around, finding Kaori standing in the doorway to 
his house, her eyes wide with wonder. He took a few deep breaths to steady 
himself. "Um�" he ventured. "How long have you been watching me?"

     Kaori shook her head dumbly for a moment, but finally replied, "Not very 
long. I rang the bell 5 or 6 times, and you couldn't hear me. I figured it 
wasn't your parents listening to music that loud, so�." She looked at her 
feet, and dug one toe into the linoleum tile nervously.   

     "So�" Kevin trailed off. "Well, come in then, don't just stand there." 
Kevin offered a weak smile which faltered and fell away after bearly a 
moment. He gestured briefly for her to follow him up the stairs.

     As they entered what Kaori thought must be Kevin's room, he immediately 
turned off his stereo. She looked around absently, noting the posters on his 
wall; rock bands she'd never heard of. His bookselves were full of books she 
would probably never care to read. It became obvious to her in that moment 
how different Kevin truly was from what she had thought; but not personality 
wise. He seemed to be interested in everything. His books went from classic 
and modern English literature and Horror, Psychology and Anthropology, 
liberally spiced by books on every different religion she's ever heard of, 
and some she hadn't.

     Kevin motioned for her to sit on his bed, while he sank gracefully down 
into a cross-legged position on the floor. They stared blankly at each other, 
neither having any idea what to say to the other. Eventually Kevin just 
looked at the ground; he certainly hoped that she hadn't come just to stare 
at him.

     Some uncomfortable moments later, Kaori cleared her throat and broke the 
silence. "I�" she began tentatively, but not quite managing to get the words 
out. Kevin looked up at her hoping; she read the message clearly off his 
face, and gained courage from it. "I came to say I'm sorry. I didn't listen 
to you, and I should have. Sam came to the school and explained things to 
me�and I guess�I probably would have done the same thing."

     Kaori closed her eyes for a moment. Kevin looked horrible, just like Sam 
had said. However, when she had walked in, and he was dancing, he'd seemed 
completely blissfully lost in the music, and she almost felt�bad� for making 
him come back to reality. She opened he eyes, wondering how Kevin was going 
to react. 

     Large lavender eyes peered up at her from the floor, glowing in blissful 
happiness, and a wide grin full of teeth was her answer. 

     Kevin silenced his brain's need to think, as he bounded off the floor 
and scooped Kaori up in his arms in a hug. Kaori yelped loudly, and he 
quickly set her back down. He took both of her hands in each of his, pressed 
his forehead against hers, their noses touching lightly.

      "I'm sorry too." Kevin whispered rubbing their noses together a little. 
"For not telling you anything, I mean. I guess I should have, although, I 
don't know how I would have gone about it�" Kaori put her index finger to his 
lips, silencing him. 

     "Sssh. It's okay. There are a lot of things about me you don't know. I 
mean, everyone has secrets right? There are reasons for a person not to tell 
everything about them." A huge feeling of D�j� Vu flooded through Kaori, one 
so strong that it tore her away from reality.

     Kevin watched Kaori's face momentarily go blank. Mindless words fell out 
of her mouth, echoes from another time: 

      *"You mean, you don't know anything about me�and it's okay?"*

      *"There are reasons for a wanderer to be wandering, right?"*

     Kevin shook her gently. "Hey, are you okay?" 

     Her eyes refocused and cleared almost instantly, but there was a touch 
of fear hidden in their azure depths. "Yeah. I don't know what came over me."

     Kevin pulled her tighter against him, and looked into her eyes, wishing 
that he could read her exact thoughts as easily as he could read her 
emotions. He was worried about her. But what she had said�

     He still remembered that day so vividly. It had been a landmark in his 
life. Someone who accepted him for who he was, no questions asked. Nicky was 
right; Kaoru seemed to be coming back.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Notes:

** My description of the Gothic style of dance can do it no justice. It took 
me nearly four years to perfect. It's a very emotional style of 
interprational dance. For those of you who have no idea what I'm talking 
about; and perhaps Miyu-chan is the only person who will have seen it before; 
I suggest that you get decked out, put on some dark red lipstick, rat your 
hair, and go to Gothic club just to watch. Thanks go to Miyu-chan for letting 
me listen to and tape the Tear Garden CD I ordered for her. It inspired that 
whole section. 

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~