Chapter 167: Remembrances 5--Madness

If I had been carrying a sword that night, would you have-- (Kenshin is sitting alone in his room, staring out the window.)

Kenshin (thinking): That was two weeks ago.

(Tomoe opens the door, broom in hand.)

Tomoe: I'm going to clean this room. Please leave for a while.

Kenshin: I don't remember asking you to clean it.

Tomoe: Okami asked me to.

In the midst of all this confusion, Yukishiro Tomoe has settled in with us. Kenshin (as he's getting down from the windowsill): What's this notebook?

Tomoe: That's my diary. Don't read it, please.

Kenshin: (As if I would!) (thinking): She really has settled in.

Tomoe (tucking the notebook inside her obi): Just to be sure.

(Kenshin storms out. In the hallway, he runs into Iizuka.)

Iizuka: Hey, Himura!

Kenshin: Iizuka.

Iizuka: Why the long face? You have a fight with Tomoe?

(Kenshin, with dark Battousai eyes, reaches for his sword.)

Iizuka: Okay, okay! What's eating you? Jeez.

Kenshin: Did you want something?

(Iizuka holds up a black envelope.)

Iizuka: It's tonight. Take care of it.

When the black envelope is sent, it means it will rain blood in the Kyoto night. Only the single-minded repetition of Heaven's justice... (Later that night. Kenshin comes in and washes his hands; Tomoe watches him.)

Tomoe: Do you intend to keep killing like this?

(Kenshin doesn't answer.)

(The next day. Katsura, Iizuka and Katakai are sitting in a teashop, looking to passers-by like three strangers.)

Iizuka: Her way of speaking, her bearing, the way she's accustomed to live, even her taste in food--she's not from the capital. Since she can read and write, she's probably the daughter of a samurai family in Kantou. We have no evidence that she's tried to contact anyone. She's very unlikely to be our spy. She probably got into some trouble at home and ran off. A stray cat, just trying to stay off the streets.

Katsura: It's still an interim report. Too soon for conclusions. What's her effect on Himura?

Iizuka: ... Not bad. It's just...

Katsura: Just what?

Iizuka: Lately his sword has been a little dull. That's what his inspectors say, anyway...

(That night. Tomoe is doing some sewing in her room when there is a knock on the door.)

Tomoe: Come in.

Katsura (entering): It's late; I'm sorry to disturb you.

Tomoe: If you're looking for Himura, he's out for the night.

Katsura: I know. I'm his superior. I know all of his movements.

(A little later.)

Tomoe: Madness?

Katsura: When I was young, Takasugi and I and many of our friends studied under a master of Shouka Sonjuu ... Yoshida Shouin. He was executed in the Ansei no Taigoku. He once said that we are destroying an era of Tokugawa rule that drove men to madness. If we are to build a new age, we must let ourselves go mad now. To be mad enough not to turn away from our extreme justice. That is the driving force of the Choushuu faction. Himura is the vanguard of this mad justice. He is fulfilling the harshest of roles.

Tomoe: And so? You're telling me this because you want me to "fulfill a role"?

Katsura: I'm not telling you to do anything. I just want to you understand what we're doing here.

(He leaves the room. Tomoe looks thoughtful a moment; then she gets up and begins writing in her diary.)

(Downstairs, Kenshin has returned, and is washing his hands.)

(Late afternoon of the next day.)

Okami: Good work. You've done enough for today.

Tomoe: Thank you.

(She goes back to her room to find Kenshin asleep at the windowsill.)

Tomoe (thinking): To go mad enough not to hate this justice, for the sake of the new age ... The vanguard of mad justice. But ... when I look at him sleeping like that ... he's just a boy, not even of age yet...

(She picks up her shawl and reaches out to spread it over him. He wakes all at once and has his sword to her throat before she can move. They stay frozen for a moment. Then he pushes her away.)

Kenshin: ... I'm sorry ... I bragged that I would never kill a civilian and now look at me ... If you had come any closer I would have--

(Tomoe lays her shawl down across his lap.)

Tomoe: Let me stay here a while. Now you need a sheath, to hold back your madness...

(Kenshin's fingers close around the silk.)

Kenshin: I thought about my answer. Whether I would have killed you, if you had had a sword. The answer is no. I wouldn't kill you. Whatever happened, I could never do that to you. Not to you ... Never.