The Bakufu fighter towered over him, a human mountain. He was bare-chested except for an ill-fitting antique domaru and hadn’t even drawn his sword. He reached for the diminutive swordsman with a paw the size of the smaller man’s head.
Battousai reacted without thinking: Ryuu-Sou-Sen. His blade flashed upward. The massive hand flew off into the mud; blood sprayed over him. The giant dropped to his knees, clutching his bleeding wrist.
“Finish it, Battousai!” he snarled. “You’ve won, you Ishin Shishi,” the huge man went on. “It’s all over. And this new era of yours… it’ll be all guns – no skill, no soul. I don’t want to see it! Let me die here – by the hand of the strongest! Finish me!”
Battousai shook his head. “I’m sorry. I don’t want to kill any more than I have to. Live, live in the new age.”
“It’s not enough that you Ishin Shishi stole my honor?” the warrior raged. “You’d even steal my death? Battousai!”
Hitokiri Battousai turned and walked away.
He looked around. Most of the fighting seemed to be over; it didn’t look like there was anything left for him to do. Kenshin Himura stuck his sword in the ground, dropped the empty saya beside it, and walked away without a backward glance.
“So you’re leaving the Shishi, Himura.”
He turned. Shakku Arai was watching him.
“After this it will be nothing but a selfish fight,” he told the swordsmith. “I have Katsura-san’s permission. From now on, I intend to search out a way of protecting those who live in this new era – without killing.”
Shakku snorted. “If there is such a way, I’d like to know it too. You can’t just run away from all the lives you’ve taken after so long. If you live by the sword, die by it. That’s the only path for a swordsman.” He threw something to Kenshin. The younger man caught it, by reflex, his hand closed around – a saya?
“A goodbye present,” Shakku went on. “It can’t hurt, though it’s probably too good for you. Try being a swordsman for a while with that on your hip – you’ll find out just how deeply you believe your own words.”
Kenshin pulled the blade a few sun out of the saya, just enough to see its quality – it was superb workmanship, as he would expect from Shakku Arai, but… a reverse-edge blade?
“When this one breaks, if you still believe that weak joke of yours, come back to Kyoto and see me.”
As Kenshin walked away from the battlefield, cold rain began to fall. It washed the blood from the dead who lay on the field, high-ranking retainer and impoverished ronin, Kiheitai and Shinsengumi alike, all entered into their own new era of absolute equality. It turned the field to mud, soaking into fallen banners and obscuring their emblems, the aoi crest of the Tokugawa and the new chrysanthemum of the Imperial forces. It fell from the heavens as if the kami themselves were weeping – weeping for the men who had died this day, and weeping for the era that had died with them in this place called Tobafushimi.
Achoo! Achoo! A-choo! A-CHOO!
Kenshin pulled his sodden haori closer about him and wished he’d thought to spend a few zeni on a straw raincoat before leaving the city. I’d better find some shelter soon, or I’m going to get sick. How can I atone for my sins by dying of a cold?
He didn’t really know this area very well, and wasn’t sure how far it was to the next town. No one seemed to live out this way; he could see no lights, no houses. No, wait, there was something – in the gloom it looked like… a temple gate?
That was good. Most Buddhist sects were hospitable to travelers; he could get warm and dry, and the food, while simple and vegetarian, would at least be hot and filling. He stepped inside the gate, anticipating his welcome…
“Oro?”
There should have been light in the sanctuary. He should have heard chanting, smelled incense, burning lamps and cooking fires, sensed the focused ki of monks at prayer.
Nothing. Darkness, silence, wind and icy rain.
The place was deserted. It had been deserted for years. Most of the outbuildings were roofless shells that leaned at crazy angles – those that still had four intact walls. Only the main hall appeared to be reasonably intact, though its door was half off.
Yare yare, at least I might find a dry corner out of the wind.
Inside the building seemed pitch-black, even after the deepening dusk outside. He moved forward cautiously, alert for obstacles or rotting floorboards, and felt his way along the wall until he found a corner that seemed relatively free of drafts. The floor was bare and seemed fairly clean; tatami or leaf litter would be warmer, but would likely contain unwanted company.
He sneezed again. Dust, he told himself – though he was very much afraid he was coming down with a cold after all. Rain scoured against the wall behind him, and somewhere a shutter banged in the wind.
But he wasn’t likely to find any better shelter. So he sat on the bare floor, with his back to the wall and his new sword leaning against his shoulder. A reverse-edge blade. I wonder what Shakku had in mind with a gift like that. Can I fight, can I protect people, and not kill? Is such a thing even possible? His eyes closed, and he fell into an uneasy sleep.
He wasn’t sure what woke him, perhaps the whispering noises that sounded like he was in the center of a crowd, even though he could sense no human presence. Wait, he was in the middle of a crowd! Dim, half-seen shapes, glowing a sickly greenish-white, danced and capered all around him in a mad procession. The lantern-bearer had lank, white hair and the head of a fish. A mole-headed official appeared to read from a proclamation. A winged creature had the head and tusks of a boar crowned with an oiran’s elaborate headdress, and its gorgeously embroidered kimono covered an emaciated and misshapen body. Lumpy black shapes wearing what looked like foreigners’ hats pranced about brandishing sakaki branches like Shinto priests.
Am I dead? he wondered.
There were more, and more sinister. Creatures with three eyes and the heads of pigs waved rakes at him. More three-eyed beings, black, with the long whiskers of catfish, twanged bowstrings. In the tradition-bound Imperial court, twanging bowstrings was a rite of exorcism. Do ghosts exorcise humans from their court? Is this hell? Am I to be judged?
Thunder rocked the building and lightning flared, nearly blinding eyes accustomed to dark. In the brief glare a terrifying figure loomed nearby, armed and menacing, its features twisted in a fierce scowl. Other figures crowded behind it, misshapen forms, awaiting their leader’s signal to attack.
Reflexively, Kenshin gripped his saya. Then he relaxed, slumped in resignation. I wanted to live, to atone for my sins – but if I am to be judged now, then I will accept my punishment.
“There you are, Battousai! Now you can finish what you started!”
Kenshin looked up. A shadow loomed over him; he couldn’t make out its form or face distinctly.
“How can I be a swordsman without my right hand?” the shape demanded. “Don’t make me live in this no-honor world like a damned cripple! Kill me!”
That man, from before… “No,” he replied. “I’m done with killing.”
“Do you really think that people will be able to live peacefully in this new era?” Three more men appeared, blood flowing from their wounds. The first men I killed… that time… “Weren’t we people? What about our peaceful lives?”
“You are a murderer,” said a man in a mountain-bordered blue haori. “The code of the Shinsengumi is Aku Soku Zan – kill evil instantly. Such as you cannot be allowed to live.”
Kenshin bowed his head. “If killing this unworthy one will help you find peace, then strike.”
“We wanted you to live so you could protect people, Shinta.” Akane, Kasumi and Sakura stood before him, their wounds bleeding. “Not to become a killer.”
“Can you atone for your sins as long as you carry a sword?” asked a portly figure in a government official’s flat cap.
A sword is a weapon. Shishou’s sardonic words echoed in his head. Kenjutsu is the art of killing. Whatever pretty words you use to describe it, that is its true nature.
“I never liked fighting, but I was going to be married,” said a young man who carried a houzuki in a pot. “To protect the happiness of the girl I loved, I was willing to kill.”
Who…? Then Kenshin remembered. His hand went up to his face to touch his scar. The shoshidai’s retainer… he hadn’t been a very good swordsman, but Kenshin had never seen such determination. But then he’d been engaged to a very remarkable girl…
As if summoned by his thought, she stood before him. He hadn’t feared the demonic apparitions, hadn’t feared the ghosts of the men he had slain… but her sad, calm gaze terrified him. Tomoe…
She said nothing, just stared at him with that sad expression, her presence a silent accusation.
No matter what the circumstances, I won’t kill you ever… not you… ever… Those words, turned to such a tragic lie. I’ll make sure to protect your happiness… He hadn’t protected her happiness. He had stolen her life with his own sword, his own hands. Tomoe… sessha…I will always be unworthy…
ACHOO!
Kenshin blinked. The demonic court and accusing ghosts were gone. He was alone in what looked like the temple’s worship hall, neglected and abandoned to the elements for many years. Pale light filtered in through holes in the roof and walls. The hulking shadow was merely a statue of Fudo, the god of fire. Splotches of color writhed in fantastic shapes on the walls. A closer look revealed the remains of paintings, probably of the torments of hell – though it was hard to make out details under the disfiguring fungal growth. A little imagination could twist the forms into a fish-headed lantern-bearer, a mole in an official’s robes, a tusked boar in the elaborate headdress of an oiran.
And there were molds that glowed in the dark…
Feeling a little foolish, Kenshin picked up his new reverse-edge sword and stepped outside. The storm had ended and the sun was shining brightly. A slight breeze reminded him that his clothing was still damp.
Achoo!
And I definitely have a cold. He glanced northward, toward Kyoto. Back in the city, there would be dry clothes, hot food, medicine… companionship and celebration before his former comrades began the long work of turning Japan into a modern nation. In the other direction was nothing but uncertainty: life as a wanderer, looking for a way to protect people with his sword.
He turned his steps south and west, into an unknown future.
NOTES, EXPLANATIONS ETC.
One of my reference books mentions that Ishin and Bakufu forces fought outside Kyoto on the third day of 1868. Presumably this refers to Tobafushimi – and presumably the calendar used is lunar, not Western. Lacking any contemporary accounts of the battle, I’ve made up the weather – it’s a time of year when filthy weather is only to be expected, after all.
I found the original of this story in Ancient Tales and Folklore of Japan by Richard Gordon Smith, a collection first published in 1908. The original traveler was a 15th century priest who sheltered in an abandoned temple on the road to Fushimi and found it full of roistering spooks. Word of the haunting spread, and when the artist Mitsunobu heard the tale, he went to the temple looking for inspiration for a picture he wanted to paint. He spent the night at the temple, but saw no ghosts. In the morning he found that the walls were covered with pictures of the most fantastic spooks imaginable – the result of cracks in the walls, fungus, and mildew! He sketched what he saw, and the result was a famous painting of the Hyakkiyakou – Procession of a Hundred Ghosts.
Sneeze once, people are speaking well of you. Sneeze twice, people are speaking ill of you. Sneeze three times, someone loves you. Sneeze four times, you’re catching a cold.