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Prolouge
The evening I returned to Tokyo, I was overwhelmed by the changes within the city. Open air shops that had once barely scraped by were now flourishing, their wares no longer being kept in wooden crates by their stalls, but in small storage sheds and back rooms. I absently thought, "Boy, it's tougher to scare up a free meal now...." before realizing that I tried not to do that sort of thing anymore. It's quite strange, really, I am almost considered a respectable gentleman in some parts of the world. I don't go to those places anymore, they cramp my style.
It was strange to see myself back here, Sagara Sanosuke, wanderer, fighter, part time peacemaker, full time troublemaker, with all the changes and differences apparent for the first time to me. I could never figure out why, but I always considered this place my home, ever since meeting Kenshin and Kaoru oh so long ago.... It was strange for another reason, as well. People were slowly showing more signs of the English and the French influence, kimono's were rare, geta were giving way to western style shoes, and suits seemed to be in fashion more often than not. Though, even with all the modernization, and the constant stares from more "civilized" people, I still wear a simple white dogi, red headband, and my personal crusade on my back. Easier to clean, more comfortable to wear, and on top of that, easier to get blood stains out of after a fight than a suit... Ten year's worth of memories, road travel, aches, and old sore muscles complained quietly about the chill breeze that had sprung up from off the bay because of my attire, I had an appointment to keep, one that had waited more than eleven years years, and for me, wouldn't wait a moment more.
*****
Walking within the cemetary ground's was something that I have avidly avoided, if at all possible. Reminicing on the dead is not something that I like to do, if I can help it. I figure the dead have their own problems to deal with, and having to put up with me will just annoy the ancestors more than I already have. As I pass, I nod politely to the respectable old man burning incense at the grave of his departed wife, bowing respectfully to the stone as I pass it by, then quietly move down the row towards my destination. I take note of the grey slate stones as I pass them by, their kanji speaking of the people enshrined within. I nearly miss their marker, small and silent among the surrounding stones as it is. Hardly rich in life, they couldn't afford much, but the simple word's seemed to bring back a flood of memories like a torrent of the tides. "Himura Shinta" and "Himura Kaoru" carved carefully by one of the local stonesmiths, no doubt one of the many that Kenshin... Shinta had helped at one time or another through the many years. Stepping down quietly, I brush aside some of the leave's that collect in places like this, the burnt umber ruffled to life by my intrusion upon their stony resting ground. Placing several osenko into the small pot provided, I face the stone directly for the first time before I begin to tell my tale.
"Hey Jou-chan, Kenshin. It's been a long time since I stuck you in that boat coming home, but, I don't regret that I did. Took all my money, and my best haggling skills to get you to Tokyo, you know that Kenshin. Scared the bejesus out of an old friend, but he willingly took you, plus a small fee, of course. For what it is worth to you, I am glad that you finally found your peace, Kenshin. It may have taken war, death, redemption, pain, and a hell of a lot of heartache, but you did it. I wish I could have realized how bad it really was for you, then. I would have helped more than I did..." I glance down at my right hand, still bandaged to protect it from the crushing forces that I use when I fight. Still, after all these years, four parallel scars peeking out between the cream-colored bandages, memories of orange fur, teeth, claws and blood. But then again, I owed you a great deal, didn't I? Sano shifted his eyes up, catching the early morning light in his salt and pepper hair before shuddering, and, settling back down, continued.
"I know that I haven't visited you for ten years, and for that, I am sorry. I needed to find my own way, and my own truth before I could come back to face the reality of you two. I still don't know if my truth is the one that I sought in the beginning, but I know that I found it, finally, and I thought you should be the first ones to find out. You know, you were right Kenshin, the truth will always hurt. Sometimes it's drenched in pain, sometimes in blood, but it always seems to end up redeeming us, in the end, if we let it. I guess I just like pain enough that it took me that much longer to get it through my head." I chuckle lightly, still thinking of our first real duel. "You, the calm sea, and me, the raging rocks. You accepted my pain, then. Up until a while ago, I could never understand why. Now, though, I do. So, here is the proof that my Zanza could never show you, Kenshin."
"I figure that I better start at the beginning for you to realize the end, huh. Or maybe, the middle is where to start, cause that's where we seperated, all those years ago. I hope it doesn't take ten years, though... I still need to go and find a certain fox to prove a point or three to..." Settling down quietly into a favored cross-legged position, I begin the tale of how I grew up.....
To Be Continued.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
osenko: n. (form) incense
Zanza: n. a large blade used by the calvery in the late 1400's. They were considered to large and unweildy for most swordsman, and had fallen out of favor by the early 1500's.
Note: It is also Sanosuke's name he held for many years as as a hired gangster.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Authors Ranting:
I'm often asked "what is the point behind a fight." I always think of Sano when I get asked that question, and that's prolly why I am writing this fanfiction. He always seemed to be nearly out of control, his furance never quenched, his power just over the horizon. I can identify with the man, and I feel he needed a story all his own, though it will never be manga, I hope that this becomes one of those possible "what if" fic's.
It was never intended to be posted to anything other than friends and relatives, but, due to some thoughtful and well written *kapowies* and *mutilates* I decided to post it. Chapter One and Two should be up soon, they are the only ones that are fleshed out enough to post at the moment. With that, I hope you enjoyed reading this fanfiction.
Jeremy Bennett
P.S. people I should thank for this fictions creation? I'll have a complete list sometime before I die.
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Remember and Renew: Chapter 1
Tsubame had traveled this road many times in her young life. She always took the same route to and from work. The second left from the Kamiya dojo, then right onto the bridge overlooking the canal, then another left leading to the main road by the cemetary where Kenshin and Kaoru were laid to rest all those years ago, then on to work. She kept a habit to always keep her head down for her short trip, until she reached the cemetery, where she would briefly look over to the right to make sure that the grave stone for the Himuras was clean and well kept. If not, she would quietly slip inside, give proper respects, and clean the headstone of any collected leaves or dead flowers before continuing on. This always made her late for work, but Tae was an understand mistress, and never complained about her quietly slipping into the resturant five or ten minutes late on occasion. Though, she had not been working for the last few days, she had left the dojo early, expecting to make her cleaning effort at the gravesite, then on to work on time. Stopping by the side of the street, with the carriages and people flowing around her like the human river that downtown Tokyo produced in the morning, she noted with shocked recognition the slightly greying man with the red bandana sitting cross legged at the foot of the stone edifice....
*****
"Well, where does our story end and mine begin, guys? Was it after Shishio? Enishi? I really don't know, anymore. For two years(find out proper timeline...) we traveled as friends down a road, a blurry and unkept road of redemption, pain, love, friendship, and anger towards a future we thought would be better than the past we were leaving behind. We faced it, together, you, me, Yahiko, Meg..., all of us. We fought more battles in those times than I think I ever had my entire life before that summer we met. Sure, I had FIGHTS and brawls before, small and unimportant stuff that I forgot five minutes later, but... I guess I could consider you guys my family, and this my home. Back then, I was so wrapped up needing to prove my strength and my pain against everyone and everything. Blinding striking in the dark at the people who had hurt my own stubborn pride. Though, looking back, those were always about me, my father, my aborted childhood, everything was always reacting, my own need to control my destiny before everything else, and anyone who gets in my way be damned. You both changed that for me. Kenshin, you cracked the hell out of my head that first battle we had. I'd never met anyone who respected my own dreams, and my own pain, more than you, while at the same time not giving his own dreams up in the face of that anger, or my stupid pride. Jou-chan, you too, with your quiet, shy smiles, your constant love of everyone, and your vibrance, you kept us all together, I think. Kenshin may have been the forge for our motley crew, but you, more than anything else, were the smith that helped keep us together when we were fighting for the people who COULDN'T fight back. Even when Enishi had... killed.... you, and destroyed Kenshin, your work, your craft, kept us all together, everyone except me, that is. I was so angry, then. I had found a family, only to have it taken away, with me completely unable to do anything about it. So. I ran. For that, I applogize. I was a stubborn, stupid bastard then, just as much as I am now... In the end, it worked out, I know, but... it still... well.. you know. I think that, more than anything else, is why I left. I needed to find my answers for myself, and to make my own answers to the questions that I could never reveal, even to myself.
*****
Tsubame slipped quietly along the narrow lane of the cemetery, moving with the simple quiet skill she had mastered so young to avoid the rough bastards she had to call master for so long. She approached behind him, never keeping her eyes on him for more than a second, her soft soles making barely a whisper. Quite without warning, Sano seemed to heave a sigh, bow his head for a moment, and shake off some evening chill, though it was barely the crack of the morning. Then, he settled back down and then began his story, quiet, sad, and completely without the Sano bravado that she had known all those years ago. She settled nearby to listen She didn't normally eavesdrop, but damnit, she WANTED to know what Sano would say. She settled down behind one of the nearby stones, her skirt ruffling quietly in the still early morning air. She didn't have to wait long, as Sano began his tale.
*****
"When I left that day, looking back from that small little dingy boat, it's wooden hull rotted nearly all the way through, its filth, I thought 'Yes, this is for the best. They HAVE their dreams, their lives, and their loves sorted out. They will be fine.' I saw all of you standing there, bright colorful. The yellows in Jo-chan's kimono offset by the fiery blaze of her cheeks, the sleek black curve of Kenshins saya at sash, his scar standing out to the testament of his own answer, and it was all slipping into the past for me, even then. Even after five minutes, I saw not my past with you guys, but a future, freedom, moving across my eyes like the fires of the sun on the waters. I almost wish I would have stayed."
"The boat was unremarkable, a trading ship by the name of the Flowering Sakura. One of my old friends, Shin, had put me in contact with the captain, convincing him that there was no better worker this side of Hokkaido. Thinking Shin right, and me stupid, the captain, a Sato Shuchi, had put me to work nearly the second that I was on board. It was terrible work. Slopping decks, cleaning the hold, lugging one hundred pound kegs of water around to the other ship mates to give them THEIR water, without getting any myself until I was slogging off the bottom of the barrels, its dingy water tasting of brine and scum. My bed was a straw matress and rough old timber pillow that had been used last sometime before the Bakametsu for the horses, I think. Anyway, we were three days out to sea, traveling east towards China with a full load of silk and iron for trade, when I found the stow away rifling through my rucksack. Thinking one of the ships mates had taken to thieving the new crewmembers for everything they owned, I snuck up in the dim light's of the cabin to show the nasty little shit what pain WAS. Then I noticed it was a kid. A SMALL kid. She couldn't have been more than 10 or 11 at the time, wafer thin, brown still pools for eyes glancing everywhere for any sign of trouble, a dirty thin yakuta her only garment, without any tabi or geta on her feet. She had gotten into my precious rations of dried beef and was trying to shove five chunks into her mouth while at the same time trying to find convient locations to put most of my other pesonal goods for a getaway. Quickly moving up on the little vermin, I kept myself carefully out of sight until her back was turned away, then stepped into the light filtering down from thet checkerboard grill above.
"OI! WHAT IN KAMI'S NAME DO YOU THINK YOU ARE DOING?!" I belted out at her. Spinning around like quicksilver, she was nearly past me and across the deck before I had time to stop her. Grabbing her around the waist before she could throw herself into one of the shadows cast by the huge shapes of the cargo, I put my hand over her mouth, and wrapped my other around her waist while trying to keep her quiet enough that she didn't draw any more attention than she had already.
I was surprised when she somehow got one of my fingers in her mouth and bit down as hard as she could. Yelling out a curse for every kami that ever put teeth in people's mouths, I pulled the injured and bleeding digit of my right hand free of the little mongrel's mouth before she got another pound of flesh. I continued to curse under my breath while my little friend fought and flailed around. She seemed quite unhappy that I had not completely let go of her when she bit down, so she proceeded to start flailing and kicking at my knees and thighs blindly in an attempt to finish the painful job her sharp little teeth had started. As one of her legs came back to try to knock whatever children I might eventually have somewhere into the upper atmostphere, I quickly pushed her forward, and, added by the angular momentum of her leg, watched with great pleasure as she did a complete aerial flip into what accounted for my bedding. Crashing down with an audible THUMP on the top of one of my best sake glasses, the snarlish little thing cursed in a very strange tounge before warily stepping up and wincing in pain while still keeping an eye on me.
"Who you are?" She said in badly broken japanese.
"Hurt," I replied sharply.
"Good," she cried before running forward with a shard of sake cup, intending, no doubt, to try to put it through some vital part of me.
Whipping quickly to the side, I grabbed her off wrist in one hand before pivoting it behind her back, and drawing it up to just below her shoulder blades. Dropping the white and red shard in pain, she quickly dropped to her knees, me sitting behind her back, one hand dropped by her side in defeat, the other still help firmly between her shoulder blades by my light grip.
"Now," I drew my breath out quickly, then exhaled, "Why you rutting through my sack?"
"None of yours, roosterhead!" Was the quick reply after some judicious arm pressure.
"Well, it IS my damn business if its my sack, right???" I idly noted the fact that everyone thinks I look like a chicken before easing the pressure off her arm slighly. It was grinding alarmingly, and I didn't wanna SNAP her little arm off.
"Didn't have your name on it, now did it?"
"Don't matter. Come on, we are going to see what our captain will do with you." I quickly grabbed her around her waist before yanking her up into and under arm carry and moving toward the open hatch.
"No, nononononononononoNOOOOO" was the continued cry as I brought her out into the late afternoon sunlight.
To Be Continued
Authors Notes:
I've already had emails about this, so I am going to just come right out and say it plain. Sano and Megumi will not marry in this fiction. Period. *backs away from rake and shovel wielding fangirls* Seriously, though I kinda enjoy the banter as a couple, and the chance they might get laid from each other sometime, I just don't think they make that good of a couple. Sano is, was, and will always be, a wanderer. Megumi couldn't live with a man like that, imho. Anyway. that was the only direct question that I had regarding the fiction at this time, so, without further wait, I finish off this authors notes.
Jeremy Bennett
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-- Desc: rnr3.txt
Chapter 2
Sano re-adjusted his position on the ground, noting that he should have done the smart thing and brought a pillow to sit down on before settling back in to continue his story. Sighing quietly to himself, he noted an odd tingling in the base of his skull, and deciding that it could be dealt with later, continued on with his story.
*****
The air smelled of bad wood, tinged slightly with the acrid odor of the crew and their various morning tribulations, the storm that they had pass through the day before still making the sky above look dark and menacing compared to the small craft chopping through the waves. From below decks, the sounds of a struggle were briefly heard, followed by the very eloquent and varied sounds of cursing and breaking things. Suddenly, Sanosuke broke through the open doors of the hold harrying a grey bundle under one arm and nursing the finger of his other hand. Stopping quickly to glare at one of the officers that had gone to investigate the commotion, he dropped what was revealed to be a young girl on the polished deck before calling out for the captain.
"Yo, Captain-san, I found a rodent below decks, whadda want me to do with it?" Sano yelled out loud enough for the no doubt hung over captain to get rattled over.
"What in kami's name you bellering about you idiot?" Came the captain highly annoyed response as he staggered out of his cabin, half dressed and obviously hurting from the little "drinking game" he and several officers had the night before. "Same thing we do with all rat's, skin em and eat... oh... that kinda rat." Noting the age, and the gender of our little guest, the captain came to a quick conclusion on the matter.
"Throw her overboard, or give her to me so I can." The captain slyly said, an odd and familar gleam in his eye.
"Nope, can't do that for ya, sorry." I quickly fired back, making sure not to take my eyes off him, the challenge plain in my tone that he was NOT going to do what I thought he was going to do to that little girl so long as I had breath.
The captain, thinking that I was still just a stupid uncivilized crook running from the law responded in a tone that set my blood boiling. "She is an obvious stow away, on MY ship, and I will, and can, do what I want. Got it, or do you wanna go overboard WITH her? If not, Give. Her. Here."
"Like I said, buddy, not gonna give her up to you. Got it? As for throwing ME over the side with her, well, I don't think that words quite describe what I would do to your overy-ripe melon of a head if you try the way that my fists can." With that, I grabbed one of the oak deck rails and gently squeezed it, the heavy sound of splintering wood crashing over the stunned crew like so many waves.
The captain, facing a slightly bigger shark than he was used to, quickly backed down in the face of the imminent pain that I was threatening, and muttered under his breath, "Fine, but you need to take care of the little brat, and she gets half your rations!" before scuttling back into his quarters to brood. I quickly made eye contact with the group of cowed sailors remaining after my little impromtu re-evaluation of the humanity on the ship before grabbing my now young and stunned charge under my arm again and traipsing(?) back below decks.
*****
"Okay. The Rules. One. No hitting," I explained to her after stopping her third attempt to strike me with random things lying around the hold.
"Two, you share my food, you help with my chores, got it?" I sidestepped to avoid a half hearted lunge with a wooden hook, quickly grabbing her wrists and forcing her to look at me.
"Three, and this is the most import...." I cut myself off after getting a god look at her hands for the first time that night. The left one looked fine, smooth and clean like a child's should. But the right was covered in blood, in fact, was bleeding freely from a long gash along the middle pads of her fingers. She must have done that when she grabbed that shard of pottery, I thought. Coming to a quick desicion, I grabbed her around her waist, threw her over my shoulder, and carried her over to one of the kegs of fresh water and alcohol that the ship carried for long sea voyages.
"Put your hands in this basin, and clean them up," I commanded.
"No, you're not gonna make me!" Boy some people were stubborn.
"Look, you little... shorty.... if you don't put your hands in there to clean them up, I'm gonna push your HEAD in there until you stop arguing." Obviously something in my expression broke through the shell of bullishness the girl had, and she slowly dipped her hands into the water.....
*****
"Trust me Kenshin, had I known the trouble that little girl was gonna get me in, I would have never, ever gotten involved in her life. I later found out that her name was Chisai, and to how she got on board, I still have no clue. All I knew at that point, I was getting less rations, less sleep, more annoyed, and deeper in shit than I really needed to be. You two know me best.. what ususally happens when I get cranky? Yup, the crew found out the next morning....."
*****
Tsubame, still quietly evesdropping on Sanosuke, had a hard time controlling the urge to laugh. The little girl he described reminded her so much of Yahiko at that age it was all she could do to contain her amusement. She dimly realized that she was going to be quite late for work today, but quickly sqaushed the idea behind a wall of determination to find out what had happened to Sano over the last ten years. Other than the occasion, brief letter or post card, he had been a complete blank in the minds of his friends. Finally, here, he was baring his story, though he didn't know anyone was listening in. Though, by looking at the gathering clouds overhead, she could tell that it was going to rain soon. Coming to a descion, Tsubame quickly stood up and coughed gently to get Sano's attention....
To be Continued.
Authors Notes:
Pre readers are reqested. Drop line to bio_nic80@yahoo.com
Jeremy Bennett
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