Ryouga Hibiki had absolutely no idea where he was, only that he was in some kind of weird forest. Again. At least this one didn’t have giant animals in it. And it was snowing. That was a mixed blessing. Snow is, after all, cold water, so he was in some danger of changing. But if he could keep bundled up and it didn’t snow too hard, being able to see his footsteps would make it harder for him to go around in circles and he’d be able to find his way out sooner. I want to see Akane-san and snuggle under the kotatsu with her…
It was getting dark. If he didn’t find a way out of these woods he’d have to find a place to set up his tent. He really, really wanted to find someone he could ask for directions, but the forest was silent and deserted. Then he saw a flash of color, moving through the trees.
I’m in luck! Somebody I can ask!
The color he had seen was someone’s hair, red as sunset, red as Ranma’s when he was a girl. In fact, since he had no idea where he was and knew very few redheads, for a crazy instant he thought the newcomer was Ranma – though the hair was different, longer and worn in a high ponytail instead of Ranma’s characteristic braid. Then he got closer and saw that the person wasn’t a girl at all, but a boy, short and slender, maybe a little younger than himself, dressed in kimono and hakama and carrying a sword…
Some idiot like Kunou? No, wait, that's no bokken, it's a real katana … he’s wearing daisho!? Maybe somebody’s making a movie… I haven’t seen any sign of a film crew. He’d stumbled into movie locations once or twice; they were regular beehives, with lights and trucks and noise and milling people. The forest was silent, felt empty. I can see him but I can’t sense him. That’s weird, he moves like a fighter. I ought to be able to feel his ki. And the way he’s walking, he’s as silent as a ninja.
“Hi!” he shouted. “Excuse me! Can you tell me the way…”
The boy gave no sign of having heard. Ryouga’s voice seemed to drop like a stone into the silence of the forest, leaving not even ripples.
Well that was embarrassing. Maybe if I follow him…
The red-haired boy continued to walk silently, deeper into the forest. Ryouga kept him in sight as well as he could, trying to stay hidden in the trees. By now his curiosity was thoroughly aroused. He wanted to know who the strange boy was, why he was dressed in the style of over a century ago, so many things. So when he spotted a movement in the trees behind the boy…
“Abunai!” he yelled, just as a big man, masked and wearing black, jumped down and attacked the boy from behind. The kid whirled, but not quite fast enough. Blood sprayed, and the boy held his left arm like he was wounded.
I don’t get it. They’re fighting for real… but I can’t hear a thing and there’s no battle auras. It’s like I’m watching a movie.
The boy and the big man faced each other. There was no sound, but it looked like the man was talking, maybe taunting his opponent. Ryouga could see the boy’s expression change to a feral snarl. His right hand went to the hilt of his katana, and…
In a single movement, almost too fast for the eye to follow, the sword flashed out of its sheath and slashed across the big man’s chest! Iai-jutsu? That kid’s no Kunou… he’s GOOD! The black-clad man went down, his chest gashed. There was another confrontation Ryouga couldn’t hear… it looked like the boy wanted some kind of information. The ninja grinned and shot some kind of a dart into the boy’s right shoulder. The boy pulled it out… it looked like he was shouting something… then that lightning blade whipped out again and… both the ninja’s hands went flying into the air in a spray of blood!
Oh man. That’s…
To Ryouga’s amazement, the ninja got up and ran deeper into the forest. The red-haired boy followed.
Ryouga knew he should get out of there. Those two were either psychotic or had some quarrel that made his rivalry with Ranma look like a pair of kittens play-fighting. For his own safety he should run away. He should find a policeman and report what was going on. He should… but he couldn’t. There was something, some deep agony he had seen in the redhead’s feral amber eyes… he couldn’t make himself do anything but follow.
He hadn’t gone very far when the redhead came pounding past him as though all the furies of hell were on his tail. It looked as though he was picked up by some tremendous force and flung into the air; a fierce wind gusted along the path; and then all was still.
Huh? Explosion? I didn’t hear or feel anything.
A big, burly man, his massive jaw showing the blue shadow of beard, barred the redhaired kid’s path. This adversary carried a great long-handled axe, and looked like he knew how to use it.
The guy’s in trouble, Ryouga thought. In all these trees he loses his mobility and most of his speed advantage. And he’s acting like he can’t hear. Plus the cold’s got to be eating into him.
There was another of those brief, silent exchanges (like watching a movie with the sound off) and then the axe-fighter was in motion, swinging his weapon in a spinning blur, and the air was full of splinters and chunks chopped off the snow-covered, tangled trees.
Out of the confusion of flying wood, a hideous masked demon appeared and skewered the redhead’s shoulder, just as a tree trunk smashed into his chest. The kid didn’t miss a beat, though, he went in low on the axeman and the big guy went down, both legs severed at the knee. Ryouga fought down nausea… yet there was no smell of blood, any more than there was sound. Nothing but silent, pure snow…
The redhaired kid was in trouble, though. He’d dropped his sword when he sliced off the axeman’s legs, and the demon was coming. But the boy pinned the demon’s hand to a tree with his wakizashi. Another of those silent exchanges, and the demon pulled free and was gone.
With his last strength, the dying axeman brought his fist down on something in the ground, and there was another explosion, this one accompanied by a bright flash! When it cleared, the kid was still on his feet… but from the way he moved, it looked like he was blind as Mousse… He stumbled through the trees, and Ryouga followed.
There was a little house, and in front of it stood a man. Gray-haired, bearded, very muscular. He looked every centimeter the experienced fighter – and he was fresh, while the kid was in bad shape. Even with his amazing strength and speed, he was wounded in several places, had lost a lot of blood, was cold, couldn’t see, couldn’t hear… but those golden eyes were blazing brighter than ever. Ryouga wondered why he couldn’t sense the guy’s ki; it had to be strong enough to set the trees on fire!
The kid charged, and the old man knocked him back on his ass. He took a slash across the chest in the exchange but it didn’t seem to be all that bad. The geezer was simply playing with the kid, hitting him all over and darting away so even that flash-quick sword couldn’t retaliate. The redhead was starting to lose his grip on his weapon…
He seemed to realize it too. His mouth open in a soundless battlecry, he charged in for one last all-out attack…
Oh no! Ryouga saw what the kid didn’t, the girl who ran out of the hut with a tanto in her hand and threw herself in between the fighters. Even if the boy had seen her, he was moving too fast to stop or turn… his blade came down on her as well as the old man. The tanto flew out of her hand and left a long slash across the kid’s cheek, at right angles to the scar that already marked it.
His rage turned to horror, the redhaired boy gathered the dying girl in his arms. Her hand came up, touched his wounded cheek, and then fell limply at her side. And the boy’s scream rang through the trees in soundless echoes…
Ryouga still couldn’t tear his eyes away, even though the strange boy’s grief was too private to watch. After a long time simply kneeling there, holding the girl’s body, he rose and carried the limp form away through the silent trees.
She was… his Akane…
They were gone. There was only the snow, and that unearthly silence. No blood. No dead old man. No footprints. He wanted to cry, to weep the tears the redhaired boy hadn’t been able to shed. He couldn’t move, couldn’t even put his feelings into words. He just knelt there, weeping silently, in the falling snow…
“You saw it. Oh gods, you saw it and I didn’t! That is SO UNFAIR!!!” He rocked as a kick nearly knocked him over.
“Oi, whaddidya do that for!?” he demanded. If this is Ranma in another of his damn disguises…
But this didn’t look like Ranma, even in a dark wig. She wasn’t as curvy, for one thing. And Ranma always tried to play up to him, but this girl was hopping mad, maybe even madder than Akane when she cooked.
“I ran all the way just because it’s today and it’s snowing, I wanted to be able to tell Baachan that I saw it, even just at the end, but you, some nobody out of NOWHERE who doesn’t even have any IDEA what it’s about…!”
“What… what was that? I thought I saw…”
“The ghosts of the Kekkai,” the strange girl told him in a matter-of-fact tone. She was really cute, or would have been if she wasn’t scowling. Short dark hair, crystal-blue eyes, wearing leggings and a short coat and fur-trimmed boots. Knew her kempo, too, if the power of that kick was any indication.
Ryouga rubbed at his nose.
“It’s the anniversary of when it happened. And if the conditions are right – that mostly means if it’s snowing – you’re supposed to be able to see it all play back, like a movie. Baachan’s talked to some people who’ve seen it, so I came out to see if I could. I guess I was a little late.”
“It happened? What happened? That redhaired boy killed people…”
She sighed. “What Baachan told me is he was a hitokiri for the Ishin Shishi, back in the Bakumatsu. And these ninja were on the Bakufu side and they kidnapped his wife or something, only he killed her trying to rescue her. If you want to hear the whole story you’d better come see Baachan, she’s the one who knows it.”
“If you could just tell me the way to Nerima…”
“Oh, come on! The Shin-Aoiya’s got the best food in Kyoto, and you look hungry! Come on, cheer up, it’s not the end of the world and I’m not mad any more.” She held out her hand. “I’m sorry I kicked you. My name’s Misato. Misato Shinomori.”
“I’m Ryouga Hibiki.”
At least it’s a way out of this nightmare woods. He followed her.
She chattered like a swarm of magpies; the words flew past him without alighting. “My family’s run the Shin-Aoiya ever since the beginning of the Meiji era. It’s the Shin-Aoiya on account of the original Aoiya got wrecked in some riot, back during the Bakumatsu I think. Baachan’s the one that knows all about that stuff, she tells great stories. It’s lots more fun than doing history at school, I think there must be a special university course that teaches teachers how to be boooo-ring. Hey, Hibiki, where are you going? The Shin-Aoiya’s this way!! HIBIKIIII!!”
NOTES, EXPLANATIONS ETC.
This is another lost-Ryouga story like Signpost. I couldn’t resist getting Ryouga lost in the Kekkai Forest… There’s a type of haunting where a traumatic event plays back like a movie under the right conditions, even if not all the participants died then. The deaths of the Yaminobu, and of Tomoe, might very well be such an event, especially in a weird place like the Kekkai…
This is based purely on the Kenshin manga. I hadn’t seen all the OAVs when I wrote this and prefer the manga continuity anyway, and I deliberately didn’t pay a lot of attention to the translations. After all, Ryouga has absolutely no idea what he’s seeing, so I wanted to take the sights at face value.
Misato, of course, has some of her history garbled… but then for most of her life she’s been too busy talking nineteen-to-the-minute to pay very much attention. I wrote her as sort of ¾ Misao and ¼ Sana…