Intro:
This is my first RK fanfic (waits for stampeding crowd to run away
screaming). However, it's not my first fic. I've done several EVA fics
before (waits for stampeding crowd to run away screaming :), so I'm not
completely new to this activity.
Notes:
The fic uses a stream of consciousness style; so it's not chronologically
ordered. There is also some ambiguous pronoun usage (which is intentional),
in regards to two characters.
If anyone picks up any descrepancies with the facts from the series, please
let me know.
There is sexual content, sort of. Nowhere near lemon, or even lime for that
matter.
Abstract:
Megumi reflects on a string of connected events and ideas.
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I don't know why I remember it now. It's an interesting consideration, that
I should think this way. But when I reflect on it, perhaps it's not - to me
at least.
Men. Bastards all. Everyone of them. Worthless to the core. Without the
ability to care, or any sort of trustworthiness about them.
I'm lying. I generalize too freely. I don't know why I do that. Perhaps to
protect myself. From what? Quite simple, from me. The most dangerous enemy
I possess. Myself. And my stupidity in believing that I be open with any of
them. They are blind, unable to see what we thrust before their view.
Unwilling to be aware as they should be.
It doesn't really matter who they are or where they come from, ultimately,
they boil down to blind children, unable to comprehend the things that are
so clear to the rest of us. All of them.
I'm being general again. Why not? Do I not have the right to hate those
who've used me so? A slave, a tag along, a servant, an object to desire or
hate? A singular track mind produces a singular creation. I am, in the end,
merely what it is that they want to turn me into. But then that would
indicate that there is something of me in the beginning to them. Is there?
Do I possess something of myself away from them, or from anyone else for
that matter? Isn't there anything that is specifically me?
My medical skills - my parent's. My body, my mother's reborn in a new form.
I had always been told how much I looked like her when she was my age. My
father's way of life lives on in me as well.
Nothing new from the beginning. Merely a collection of influences and events
waiting for the next addition to make me something else - maybe something
that someone will want to take and change to their own purposes. Maybe
something that someone will want to accept as it is.
Maybe not.
Who are they? The ones that I see in the varied lights I view with? There
are precious few that have mattered.
Sano.
Kenshin.
....
Aoshi.
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Kanryu never was a man. I didn't consider him to have been a human being.
He was shit with legs, walking about, composed of nothing but what he owned.
There was nothing to him at all to denote a person worth respecting, or
even acknowledging, as a person. But that came with his job I suppose. You
can't spare your humanity when you feeding off the lives of others like some
leech impersonating a man.
Kaoru once asked me if I was treated badly while I was in his employ.
Bad?
Define the word.
Tell me what "badly" means in relative terms, and perhaps I can give an
appropriate response.
I was not hurt - often at least. He would only hit me once in a while, when
he was angry mostly. When he hadn't made a good deal somewhere, and
sometimes when he had made a good deal that didn't live up to his
expectations. I'll say this for the worm, he had high expectations - of
performance at least, nothing else. He couldn't care less what was wrong or
not, he was too busy making himself rich and/or powerful.
I've often wondered if his money made him feel secure. Obviously not.
Otherwise, why would he have hired the Oniwabanshu if he had already felt
secure? Killers aren't the kind of people that you keep around just for
window-dressing.
I had heard later of what he did that night. I suppose that the ninja team
was a security measure. An expendable one at that. Not merely replaceable,
but disposable as well.
There are so many disposable people in this world. I sometimes wonder if I
am one of them. But the use others have gained from me in the past would
seem to indicate that they need me, to some extent. But then again, once
they have no more use for me, they don't care for what happens to me at all.
It should be expected, we only use an object as it is intended, and only to
the limits of its functionality.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
But then, what of Kenshin? The swordsman who won't kill. A ridiculous
premise, stupid in the extreme. Paradoxical, absurd.
Praiseworthy.
Worth copying.
If only there were more like him, willing to be so absurd. Willing to go
against what is expected of them and break free of this patterned and
pre-cut world. Everyone with a station, and everyone to their station.
Rigidly divided so, it's no wonder that men will kill to escape the control
other have put on them. It's no wonder that people fight for what they think
will gain them the most.
Kenshin. He left his master to pursue a dream, and found a terror instead.
He traded the innocence of his youth and the purity of his form for a
corrupted prize, one that has made a place that doesn't tolerate him - even
though he helped bring it about.
Ironic. That is the best word for him. A man, but not a man. Sometimes I
look at him and see only a child. But the smile he wears is a mask, one
that can never be removed, for the protection of those he now loves.
He's loved before, and it brought him only loss. His inability, or should I
say unwillingness, to allow himself to feel for her comes from this. And
myself? I am only part of his redemption. Another soul that he has saved,
to count against all those he doomed. Ridiculous to believe that I am
anything else to him, despite my displays.
They are for Kaoru mainly. I know she can't stand it, but I can't stand
her. Such a little girl, hiding behind that exterior of strength. No
doubt, she has great strength, but of the limbs and body, and not of the
heart. Inside, she is vulnerable, because she hasn't been hurt by this
world enough to learn not to love or be loved.
And I hope that she never does learn that lesson.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
The display over Kenshin is mainly for Kaoru. I do it some for myself as
well of course. I owe him my life. Not merely my life though, I owe him my
new life. Kanryu had given me a life, but it was not one that I think any
would be grateful for, nor should they be. An existence of use and usury.
Creating poisons for those who wanted to die away from the world, unable to
muster the courage to truly end themselves.
A courage I nearly had.
But he stopped me.
It would have been a mistake. I would have died with this debt on my head.
Not merely the debt of those that I had harmed through my actions, but the
debt of the Oniwabanshu, not that I truly owed them anything (did I?). And
the debt of Kenshin and Kaoru and Yahiko and him. They had put themselves
at risk for me, to save me, to prolong this life I had. But rather than
dragging out a worthless life, they gave me a new one. One where I could
repay the debts I had accumulated over the past years. Kenshin had killed
with his skill, and now he saved. I could do the same. Had I ended myself,
then everything they had given me, were giving me, and could give me, would
have been eternally wasted. And in death I would have increased my debt to
them.
But he was the one that stopped it from happening. He grabbed the blade
with his bare hands. Foolish boy. How stupid was that of him. He could have
grabbed my arm, or my wrist. And yet, he grabs the blade. Perhaps its
because he knew where the true danger lay. He knew that I was not so
willing to kill myself as I made out. Stopping me was not the problem.
Stopping the problem, that cold debt of death that I had made, that was the
aim. And he did. And Kenshin did. They all did. And so now I owe them
all.
Not that they hang it over my head. The sword above my head is not hanging
by the hair of my own good behavior, its there because of their goodwill. A
strand that will never break, unless I sever it myself. Knowing that, I know
that I can continue. Having others who care for me in ways other than my
use.
So how do they care for me?
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The display is mainly for Kaoru. And to be honest, it is for myself as well.
But it is for Kenshin as well. To show him that he need but ask. But the
question will never pass his lips. The ones chapped by cold and killing, so
close to the sign that many know him by - the sigil of his loss.
Those lips will never part for the request that will never come, not to be
followed by the kiss that will never be. A situation composed entirely of
negative aspects. And yet I smile and play my games.
And in return, he plays his games. He plays innocent, knowing better. He
plays the fool. He trips over things, let's himself be taken advantage of,
let's those who could not on their best day lay a hand on him strike him
repeatedly. It is the repentance that he bears for his crimes. It is the
way that he thinks he will make up for the lives he took away.
So then what is my game?
What am I playing for?
Attention - I will never get from him. Not as I want. Love, affection, even
an acceptably uncaring lust - will never come to pass. Only caring, that
caring for my safety and happiness.
But that is merely attention from him. Kaoru? She stands there and fumes,
but will do no more to stop me. She doesn't play into my trap of taking
what has already been devoted to her, because she is either blind to it, or
doesn't want to see. She has her own reasons; I will not question her. But
when she fights back, that shows me she has hope yet.
For myself then? What for myself? What prize do I gain in winning my game?
A hunt is nothing but the quarry itself. Some hunt money, love, vengeance.
So what am I hunting?
----------------------------------------------------------------------
The display is mainly for Kaoru. But those who think themselves observant
will take note of the other display I make. They would say that it is a
cover for my true feelings, and his. Perhaps so. Building on the thesis,
they find then that my display with Kenshin may be a parallel, or may have
even grown out of, my display with him. I did meet them both at the same
time didn't I?
Who does it matter to? Not me. I could care less for him. He is a boy. He
acts like a boy, speaks like a boy, and plays games like a boy. An eternal
child.
Not true. That's just the facade he holds up. The lifestyle of the punk,
the no good, the worthless, the bandit. An attractive one to say the least.
It is a rare occasion that he walks through the streets and doesn't
attract the attention of some watery-eyed little girl. But that's all that
he attracts. The image only works for him in so far as it also limits him.
Should he approach someone of better standing, more respectability - someone
like myself - then he would instantly loss his game.
Perhaps this is why. This is the only acceptable field of battle that we
can wage our little war. The only court that others would think is proper
for us to play in together. Some would laugh at the pairing. A doctor and
a man who is constantly in need of bandaging - a marriage of convenience.
Others would think badly of it - the associations with such a socially
useful person with such a socially useless one. But they perhaps do not
know his past.
What greater social use do someone have then to fight for what they believe
in? And what greater commitment to that same thing than to be willing to
die for it? His name is not his own. He took it from the man he felt
closest to as a child.
But sometimes I think it was wrong of Sagara to have accepted such young
boys into his service, regardless of the circumstances. There are some
things that children should not be exposed to, and I don't just mean the
violence. I mean the fanaticism, the belief in the self and its ideas over
all others, even those who may share the same ideas. That deadly devotion
is all that they will learn, and often to a cause that they cannot believe
in themselves. A cause that they don't understand, unable to see the far
reaching consequences of following the idea to its execution.
So when I see him, he is another child of the battlefield. One who was used
by the last age as it died, used to fight for it. It has become the age
that controls the acts of men, time becomes the tyrant. The preservation of
the system is paramount, let it live if all else die - even those who it
should benefit, even to the last man. What good is a belief that kills all
sides, leaving no one to believe in it? A god, one made by man for his own
subservience.
But there are some that are able to see their mistakes. They act in
paradox, unable to achieve their goals any other way. For the sensible way
is the way of the established, the entrenched, the enrooted. Only the ones
not attached can act outside of the constraints. Only the rootless, the
homeless, the wandering.
Ruroni.
Bandit.
Ninja?
----------------------------------------------------------------------
When I first saw him, I didn't know what to think. He was just another
person associated with Kanryu, so what was there to think about him but evil
things. He was an evil man, a killer, probably without remorse. The best of
the worst - Kanryu only accepted the greatest servant to further his ends.
Perhaps I should take that as a compliment.
He was as nearly older than me than I was of him - the now him. But this
one had something definite to prove. He believed in something, and aimed to
bring its end about.
Another child of the battlefield. Such a young leader, no doubt it twisted
what was left of his youth.
He was accompanied by demons. The beings were not men as I could see them.
They were killing machines, constructed, maintained, and used solely to
deprive others of life - for whatever end the deaths may serve. In this
case, they had become Kanryu's bodyguards. It was around the time of some
increased activity in Kanryu's dealings. It was also around the time of the
discovery of the new way to make the drug. Perhaps he feared that someone
else would kill him for the secret.
But there seemed to be something else as well. Kanryu would not merely have
himself protected, he had his investments protected as well. When he went
out, the masked one would follow. The others would be set to patrol the
grounds. And him, he would be my shadow the day through. No motion I made
escaped his ice cold eyes. The eyes of someone who believed in nothing, or
believed too much in something.
Astounding that I can remember it so easily now. When it first began, I
could not stand it at all. No matter where I went, he would be there. If he
didn't follow me, then he led. Even if I didn't seen him, he saw me. No
where in the house was beyond his senses it seemed. He could hear me
walking around a back room from the front entrance. He could see me in a
window from beyond the limits of the land that Kanryu owned. The hound
probably could have tracked me merely by my perfume.
But as much as I hated him for his impositions on me, I wondered at his
determination. Something drove this boy.
Perhaps it is wrong to call him a boy. But I loath calling him a man,
though I don't fully understand why.
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Sometimes I look at Kenshin and Kaoru. I wonder if they will ever be
willing to open themselves to the danger of caring. Kenshin has lost
before, so his is the pain of knowing. Kaoru has never had, hers is the
pain of not. Two different pains, and yet they incapacitate them both
equally.
Sano? He just doesn't yet know how to be serious. He won't learn too soon at
the rate he's going either.
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(end first half)
Ketheres Elyion
The EVA Sage
http://www.geocities.com/Tokyo/Fuji/3082/index.html
Evangelion Components RPG
http://www.geocities.com/Tokyo/Field/5701/index.html (homepage)
http://clubs.yahoo.com/clubs/evangelioncomponentsrpg (club page)
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