From: Nicholas Leifker <nwl9354@fox.tamu.edu>
Subject: [Kenshin][FanFic] Absolution


Leifker Presents...

Absolution

A work of Rurouni Kenshin fanfiction by Nicholas Leifker

Rurouni Kenshin created by Watsuki Nobuhiro.  All rights reserved.  I
ask that you not do anything with any part of this work without
permission. 

*********************************************************************

     I feel the sea of black in my hands, the silken strands touched
with the scent of cherry blossom.  Your skin feels so soft beneath my
calloused fingertips, the lean muscle beneath trembling at my touch. 
You're cold, I can feel it; I bring you in closer to my chest, the
soft thumping of your heartbeat echoing against my own, and pull the
covers over us.  

     And nowhere, not on your hands nor in your heart, can I smell
the stench of death.  

     Even after all this time, you are still a wonder to me.  You
have a strength that I cannot fathom, one bought without the rivers
of blood I swam.  Your eyes still shine with the innocents; you've
never known what it is to kill.  

     I move my hands closer to my face, and the stench comes back. 
Blood and excrement make for poor cologne, and I wallowed in it like
it was water.  Hundreds died at my hands, whether they were innocent
or not, and it still hasn't washed off after all this time.  

     I still remember my first kill like it was yesterday.  The
revolution was just starting to flame, and, in my arrogance, I chose
to throw my lot against the Shogun.  To those ends, I had been asked
to kill a minor official in the district, along with anyone defending
him.  Killing the guard had been the easiest thing in the world;
three strokes of the blade had been enough.  The hard part was
watching him die.  The man looked down at his innards for a moment
with the horrible shock that they were his own, and with the
knowledge that he would never see his loved ones again.  He then
looked back at me, still a boy by most respects, with a simple 'Why?'
burned in his eyes.  

     I didn't get any sleep that night.  

     As time and bodies passed, the horror faded.  Killing became as
natural as breathing.  If the Ishin Shishi asked me to destroy, it
was destroyed.  I never wavered from my duty.  I killed anyone in my
way, regardless of age or gender.  If a child happened to walk in the
room at the time, it would mean that child's death.  There could be
no witnesses, no regrets... no soul.  I even welcomed the numb
feeling that developed inside of me; it allowed me to do my duty.  

     My first taste of redemption, as with my final, came in a
woman's arms - and, along with it, the knowledge of the monster I had
become.  I don't like to think about the end, when Tomoe... when I... 
I spent the next few years trying to wash the blood from my hands - 
blood that would come back to me every night once I closed my eyes.  

     You stir in my arms, and I move my hands back around you.  I
strain my ears, and hear Yahiko's gentle snoring.  The smell of death
fades, to be replaced by another scent, one far more pleasing.  I
nuzzle my face into your hair, to catch the scent of cherry blossoms.

     Perhaps this is why I love you so much.  With you in my arms, I
don't smell the blood, don't hear the screams of the dead echoing in
my ears.  There is reconciliation in your presence, as I find out
that I am more than death, more than some wraith sent by the Kami.  

     In your presence, I know what love is, and what I was placed on
this earth for.  With you next to me, I pass beyond death... and
become life.  

     Here, now, I am complete.

*********************************************************************

Thanks to all those who helped me with this one.

Nicholas Leifker
nwl9354@unix.tamu.edu
http://people.tamu.edu/~nwl9354
May 22, 1998