Title: Black Cat
Author: Divertimento
E-mail:
ellene_j@...
Source: PMK
Main character(s): Okita, Suzu, Tetsu
Archived on the website: Yes.
General Rating: PG
Warning: For morbid fans who cant get enough of Souji deathfics
Disclaimer: (If you are using characterizations drawn from a copyrighted source (such as anime, manga, film, books), you must acknowledge you do not hold the copyright. If your story is based on an original idea with original characters, give yourself at least a little protection from potential plagiarism by stating you own the rights to your original ideas and characters.)
As usual, the link to the fic is as given:
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/2605022/1/
We know the infamous legend of the black cat. Here's yet another take on why Souji did what he did. Probably the darkest of my PMK fics, the others would be much lighter...
BLACK CAT
You tried to control yourself. All the iron discipline of determined survival told you what to do close your eyes, breathe deeply, shut out the angry thoughts, remember only survival. It had been practiced before in so many everyday affairs. Apparent contentment, apparent uproarious pranks were surface ripples, creating no real disturbances, no disturbance in depth. You grew to know how
But sometimes the discipline does not, cannot, work. The fury, the agony builds up until it bursts all controls, and you are defenceless against all the rushing, blood-surging, damaging emotions which sweep through you and will eventually destroy you.
Souji remained quite rigid. The black cat, all too aware of his agitation, looked at him and yawned and tried to settle beside him. It gave no outward sign of any triumph it might be feeling. Could he plead? Could he lower himself to plead with this vile creature?
Innocent, he said. Nothing. He has done nothing. Leave him alone. Souji stopped and tried to get his breath, he could not. It had left him.
The creature said: A pity, Mibu-wolf, that I will never let Tetsu live the way he wishes to. It will be too easy to kill him. Oh! When I am done with him, he would probably be begging me to kill him. Now, wouldnt that be lovely?
Stop! The cat was getting off the bed. Ill not live another day. You know that. Ill never live another day. Ive been looking forward to this so long
I dont want your life, filthy wolf, The creature came back, rubbing its sinuous body against his arm. Yours is worth even less than Tetsus. And you should close you window on such a fine day. We dont want more of your Tokugawa filth in this beautiful new era, do we?
He gasped, swallowed, took in air just in time. Kondou-san
Hijikata-san
The battles
Theyre winning. I know. I know. Ive seen the plans. How could I be wrong?
Youre wrong, wolf, and Kondou Isamis dead. I personally made sure his head was hung where no one could miss it. And Ill see you rot in this room before I forget how Sensei was murdered in cold blood.
Then the hatred was plain on both sides, on that of the normally spirited, humorous, contented man, on that of the wispy ball of black fur hissing on the bed.
Personally! Souji said in a new soft voice; he passed a shaky hand over his face and laughed.
The cat stood very still, the hairs on its back bristling. Soujis laughter was cold, and his voice was all at once oddly different, soft and sibilant but with a new force behind it.
Personally! The voice continued, laughing. Poor Suzu-kun! You should have tormented me personally when you had the chance. Instead, the voice choked and spat to get the words out, you wasted all those years on someone who had no part in this. How do you feel, Suzu-kun? How do you feel now?
His life may be far spent, but Souji had sight enough to perceive that for the moment his puny shot was stinging. Although he was going down, he would continue firing to the end. That shot had told. And one last shot remained.
How do you feel? All alone in the world. No one trusts you and everyone hates you, Souji stroked the smooth black coat; the cat twisted and bared its fangs but the vicelike grip remained. After all these years, you lose your only chance to avenge your sensei... His hands tightened on the supple back.
The cat dug its claws into the bony arms of the former Shinsengumi captain, now a shivering, smelly, shrivelled mess. He was a pitiable sight, twisting and choking, his lips blue, some last flush of blood in his cheeks, eyes wild and maddened by grief. The unearthly wail was deafening: for a moment Souji thought it was the cat. Then he realised that it was limp in his hands, its body twisted at an impossible angle.
The slam of the flimsy screen door shook the room and the bird in the cage by the window twittered in fright. Souji sank back in his futon. Someone removed the broken carcass and gently cleaned his mutilated arms. Was it his sister? He thought he heard Tetsus voice, but he couldnt be sure.
And in Kyoto, Suzu walked slowly through the house, with no expression on his face but something in his mien which made servants shrink away from him as he passed.
He had killed his viper. He had given it, he knew, a mortal wound. But as he took his foot from its neck it had turned and bitten him in the heel. And the venom it had left behind was working. He went into his room and lounged in his favourite rug. Not for the first time in his life he felt ill and unsure of himself. The spread of the poison was slow but steady.
It might be that he would die of it. It might be that others would die of it. He did not know and only time would reveal the extent of the poison
He sat by Souji many hours that day. They did not talk much, for Souji was delirious. Often he forgot where he was, and sometimes he whispered of his childhood. For the first time, Tetsu saw into his heart, although only through such short phrases as these:
I am not a child I am stronger than you can ever be. And he said, Dont beat me I will be more careful next time, I will not spill the tea again
Hijikata-san, I promise I will never cry again. Never
My name is Soujiro, not Souji. Stop calling me that
I am the only son of the Okita family of Shirakawa
I am not a girl
And he said again and again, Father Mother Ane-ue, and I know very well that I am cursed with this gift and should not be born.
When he said this Tetsu took his hand and held it a hand calloused by years of training, cold and stiff as if it were already dead. Now that no one would see him, he turned his back to the screen door and cried bitter tears.
In spite of his years of living on the temple grounds, Souji had little convinced belief in a future life, so he clung to this one with a rare tenacity, trying to marshal the last ebbing forces and see perhaps tomorrow. With imminent death one never looked far ahead. The marathon horizons of youth and ideals narrowed and shortened into the hurdles of illness. If he could see tomorrow he would have made the next objective. Control was everything; quiet the heart, regulate the breathing, relax the mind. Forget the anger, ignore the grief, concentrate on only one thing, the necessity of the next breath, of simple survival.
But this time he had gone too far. The shock of the disclosure, the overwhelming fury which had possessed him, had in a few minutes consumed the last fuel in his wasted body. This was not faintness; he knew it was something more. It would not do to be taken ill now, for in a few moments Kondou-san would be here to take him to the ceremony. There would be some feasting later on, and a few bottles of sake. He must subdue the nervous stomach, though Sannan had said it was normal. After all, how many, even within the ranks of the samurai, achieved Menkyo Kaiden at the age of seventeen? He must get up. He tried to move his legs and could not. The sensation had gone out of them. He gritted his teeth and moved a hand. That at least was still his.
A corpse was in the room. That sick-pungent smell of warm blood. He had seen so many such. Whose was this? They had all looked so composed but so small in death. They had fallen about him all these years.
Yes, he was filthy, infinitely filthy, thats why he was obsessed with cleanliness. No song is purer than that sung in the depths of hell. Souji wondered if the complicating factor was not much more basic. If he was alienated from his home, his surroundings, his family, he was also a stranger in his own body. Shame walked with him from early on: it would have been better if he had not been born at all. And he thought again and again: Father Mother Ane-ue where are you now?
He lifted his hand up to his eyes and wiped the mist and the corpse away. The warm sunlight flooded into the room, the life-giving sunlight that had no life to give back to him. The gentle scented breeze, the shadow of moving leaves, the flutter of birds, these might all have helped him at another time. Five more days until he was twenty-one, and they were disappointed that he had not turned out more manly. Someone, too, another captain, had jokingly told him that even the women of Shimabara had more balls than him. But that wasnt what Hijikata-san had said. Hijikata-san had said many beautiful things. But why wouldnt he let him shave his head?
Death came like a rising tide, inch by inch, putting his body to sleep. Soon there was no stomach, then there was no breathing left. He did not gasp for breath for he no longer needed air. For the last time, seeing its approaching extinction, his brain came clear again. What had he said? Where is Hijikaya-san? He needed to be warned about Suzu. He had not meant to betray Tetsu. What had he said?
His head was sinking sideways on the futon. Someone straightened it. For a moment that was better. But then the light began to go, the warm, milk yellow sunlight of spring. The beamed ceiling smeared and blurred. He could not close his mouth: he had tried to and failed. His tongue stopped. But one hand still slowly moved. Another pair of hands nudged up to it and enveloped it in a gentle grasp. The sensation made its way from his fingers to his brain. It was the last feeling left. The fingers moved a moment in the warm hands. Hold me, hold, they said. Then quietly, peacefully at the last, submissively, beaten by a stronger will than his own, his eyes opened and he left the world behind.
And a gentle breeze lifted the curtains and told that a current of air had passed.
The End
Any comments on the above? Yes? No? Anyone found the last part confusing? It is supposed to be confusing: the reader is supposed to be as muddled as poor Souji. I would find other alternatives to writing such death scenes refreshing, so do send me ideas, or even better, write them and publish on ff.net. I know Souji is supposedly very close to Toshi, but Toshi wasnt there when he died, period. The big question is why.
The fic turned out quite different from what it was first conceived to be. It was supposed to end at the first part. But it went on and on.
And on and on
Why? Well
I am telling the story backwards and Black Cat is just the start. Better to have some form of organisation. I will probably end it at 1862. Yes. Thats the title of the last story. 1862. Erm.
Please review if you reading this, all 127 of you. The number is quite constant, I realise. I think it is because of the small number of fics in PMK. Everyone reads everything, but there are so few reviews!
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