The Ghost on the Porch

Chapter 1: The definition of a ghost

Kamiya Kaoru returned home one evening from teaching at another dojo and found the hitokiri Battousai sitting on her porch.

At first she thought it was just a dejected-looking Kenshin, sitting slumped against the wall with his sword propped against his shoulder and his head tipped forward.

"Kenshin!" she exclaimed in greeting, and was both aggravated and alarmed to receive no response. Then she noticed his navy-blue gi, the wrist guards on his hands, and the unfamiliar position of the ponytail, way too high on the back of his head. She swallowed, eyes wide. If this wasn't Kenshin, then who...?

Drawing the shinai that had been slung across her back, she marched up to him. "Hello?" she asked, scowling. "Excuse me. I'm the assistant master of this dojo. Can I help you?" Even as she spoke she realized she knew who he was. It was Kenshin, but it wasn't. The face was younger, the body tighter, slightly more compact. And his left cheek was blank, smooth and white as paper.

Somewhere in the back of her mind, Kaoru knew that this was all impossible. Battousai couldn't be here, not with Kenshin probably right inside, making dinner in the kitchen. Scrunching up her face in determination, she swept past the hunched figure and into the house.

"I'm home," she announced loudly.

"Welcome back," Kenshin's voice replied, which caused Kaoru's eyes a brief flutter of relief. "Dinner is almost ready. Yahiko, Sanosuke and Megumi-dono are here as well."

"Oh good," Kaoru said, entering the kitchen and setting down the satchel that contained her kendo armor. "Then maybe they can help you get your ghost off the porch."

She said it as if asking him to bring in the laundry or reminding him to close a door he'd left open somewhere. Yahiko reacted with severe disbelief, and Kenshin paused, looking confused.

"Ghost?" Sano asked gruffly, stealing a rice ball and ignoring Megumi's attempt to swat his hand in punishment. "Did you say ghost?"

"That's what I said," Kaoru confirmed, frowning. "Go take a look for yourself. Blue gi, no scar, red hair up like this-" she raised both hands to her own ponytail and tugged the sides near the base, tightening it and emphasizing its location on her head. "-If it's not Kenshin's ghost then I don't know what it is."

"You're talking nonsense, Jou-chan," Sano said with his mouth full of rice. "Kenshin's still alive. He can't have a ghost."

Kenshin sighed. "Let's go see," he offered, and led the way back out. Exactly when he reached visual range of his former self, he froze, and exactly as Kaoru had expected, he looked like he'd seen a ghost.

"No way!" Yahiko's eyes bulged. "Kenshin, is that really you? Like, from back then?"

Megumi covered her mouth with her hand.

"What the hell kind of trick is this?" Sano demanded, instantly furious.

"See? Now do you believe me?" Kaoru asked. She put her hands on her hips. "I got home from teaching and he was just sitting here!"

"This is bad!" Sano's voice rose in volume, expressing terror. "Is it magic? Demons? Sorcery? Are we dead?"

"Calm down," Megumi ordered. "Magic isn't real and none of us are dead. Right, Ken-san?"

Kenshin blinked a few times, looking back and forth at the faces of his friends. "I don't know," he answered at last.

Sano clenched his teeth and his fists, and glared at the silent figure. "Oi! You, kid! Fake Kenshin! Who the hell are you?"

Battousai didn't respond, which Sano took as an insult, and decided to answer with fearful violence.
He growled and drew back his fist, which Kenshin grabbed hold of just in time.

"Wait Sano! Don't attack. It might be dangerous."

"What are we going to do?" Yahiko asked in fascination.

"Mou," Kaoru pouted, annoyed. "Well we can't just leave him on the porch all night. Ahem." She stepped around Kenshin and Sano and bent forward at the waist, addressing the little hitokiri. "Excuse me. Battousai-san. If you're staying the night you should come inside."

"Are you crazy?!" Sano gasped, and then jumped backwards as the ghost stood up.

Slowly, almost unconsciously, the ghost tucked his katana into his belt, nodded faintly to Kaoru, and proceeded into the house.

Everyone on the porch let out a breath.

"Wow. Okay, Wow," Sano said. "This is way too creepy and weird for me. I must have eaten some seriously messed up mushrooms today. I'm out." He headed for the gate. "Megumi, you coming?"

"I'll stay," Megumi said thoughtfully, looking at Kaoru. "If that's all right? This is interesting."

Kaoru shrugged. "Stay as long as you like," she offered. "Help us figure out if our guest is flesh and blood or not."

"You're being really chill about this," Yahiko commented, eyes narrowing at his kendo instructor in suspicion. "Doesn't it freak you out that the hitokiri Battousai is in your house?"

"Not really." Kaoru smiled. "He's lived here for a whole year already, after all."

Kenshin looked worried. "But, Kaoru-dono, he's... it doesn't make sense for him to be here as a completely different person."

"Yeah, no kidding!" Yahiko agreed. "Kaoru, you're crazy!"

"Actually, I'm hungry," Kaoru declared. "Let's eat before it gets cold."

Just inside the doorway, Battousai was standing quietly, as if waiting to be told where to go next. He glanced at Kaoru, eyes completely listless, yet the fact that he seemed to acknowledge her presence at all made Kenshin's skin prickle. "This way," Kaoru said, and the ghost followed her. She indicated a place on the tatami. "Sit."

Wordlessly, he pulled his katana from his belt again and sat, placing the weapon on the floor beside him.

Kaoru looked around at the other members of her family. "Ah, Everyone? Dinner," she reminded them, and they trouped to the kitchen, returning with food. Once they had all settled into their usual places, Kaoru set a bowl of rice in front of her new guest. "Your hand," she directed, and obediently he held it out. Kaoru pressed a pair of chopsticks into his palm, and he mumbled something faintly in response.

His voice—it was his voice, soft and barely audible, but there was no mistake.

"You sound so much younger," Kaoru marveled, looking at Kenshin.

"That's because I was much younger," Kenshin reminded them all.

"Ken-san, any idea how this version of yourself, from the past, might have wound up with us today in the present?" Megumi asked, and Kenshin shook his head.

"Like maybe it was time-travel?" Yahiko wondered aloud. "Yo, Battousai!"

The ghost bristled, Kenshin winced a bit, and Yahiko scrambled to correct himself. "I mean, uh, sorry, Battousai-san, can you tell us how you got here? Do you know what year it is?"

Ignoring the questions, the young hitokiri began to eat his meal.

"Stop pestering him," Kaoru insisted, picking up her own bowl of rice. "However he got here, he's welcome to stay as long as he wants, so everyone please be nice to him."

"Aah, Kaoru-dono," Kenshin attempted to protest, but was cut off by the echo of his own voice.

"Kaoru-dono," the ghost said a split second after Kenshin had said it. Kaoru felt a little heat rise to her cheeks, hearing her name said back-to-back by both voices like that.

"Yes?"

Battousai inclined his head again. "I'm grateful." Eyes staring down at nothing, he resumed eating.

Kenshin's shoulders slumped a little in relief. This strange replica of his former self didn't seem intent on killing anyone at the moment, thank goodness.

"Eat," Kaoru encouraged, as they all awkwardly remembered the meal in front of them.

"It's incredible," Megumi observed. "Unless we're all hallucinating, this is an eating, breathing, speaking person from the past."

Yahiko's eyes were round as saucers. "Does this mean he's seeing his future? Is that dangerous? Will he go back to the Bakumatsu and know things that he shouldn't know?"

"Surely it can't hurt him to at least know that he lives through it," Kaoru mused. "See?" she turned to Battousai and then pointed to Kenshin. "That's you! No matter what you were facing back then, you survive and wind up with good friends who love you. Understand?"

Battousai ignored her, slowly and mechanically feeding himself.

Kenshin shook his head. "I don't think he's from the past."

All eyes turned to him, except for Battousai's. "So? Where do you think he's from?" Yahiko asked.

Kenshin studied the ghost. "I still don't know," he said carefully. "But it's like he... like that part of me split off into its own body."

Yahiko began talking with his mouth full. "Are you saying Battousai got loose from your brain and just popped into existence? Ha! That's even crazier than the time travel idea!"

"Got loose?" with a worried frown, Kaoru considered what Yahiko had said. "But Kenshin, does that mean Battousai is, is gone? From inside your head?"

"I wouldn't say gone," Kenshin said, smiling a little with his eyes as a preemptive apology. "After all, he is right there. In obvious ways he's more here than ever, but he's not where he's supposed to be."

"And where is that?" Megumi asked.

"I want to say, 'inside my memory,' but all my memories of him are still in place. That isn't where he's missing from." Kenshin's expression turned solemn. "So I guess I have to say, inside my soul."

Battousai sighed, as if slightly bored by the conversation. As everyone turned their attention back to him, he set down his empty bowl.

"I'm tired," he muttered.

"Oh," Kaoru immediately stood up. "Of course—that's no problem at all. Just come this way-" she started leading the young hitokiri down the hall, hesitating for a second about just where to put him for the night. "Ah, here," she said brightly. "Sleep in Kenshin's room."

Yahiko whirled to Kenshin. "Is that ok?" he asked conspiratorially.

"It... it is Kaoru-dono's house," Kenshin reminded him.

"Make yourself at home," Kaoru was babbling warmly. "I'll get you some extra blankets, oh, and a clean yukata. Just wait one minute!" She bounded away on her mission of hospitality.

Yahiko was perturbed. "Just seems extra creepy, if you're both gonna be in the same room together all night." He blanched. "What if he tries something? Like, what if he takes over your brain, and makes you his mind-controlled slave, or, or just goes berserk and kills you in your sleep?"

Kenshin gave another wan smile. "I don't think he's here to kill anyone."

"You don't think?" Megumi questioned. "Can't you tell for sure?"

"Actually, no," Kenshin admitted. "I can still sense his feelings and probably predict his moves, but I can't feel him with absolute certainty like before. And, it is worrisome that I can't control him anymore."

Megumi pressed for clarification. "In that case, shouldn't we be running for our lives?"

"Not that running would do us any good," Yahiko commented darkly. "Considering his god-like speed and all."

Kenshin shook his head. "No, no...aah, how to explain? I didn't kill anyone randomly or on a whim; they were all targets picked for me by someone else. If he'd been sent to kill any of us here, he would have just gotten it over with."

This explanation did little to ease Megumi and Yahiko's apprehension, but it did make one thing clear: Battousai in the past was Kenshin, while Battousai in the present was him: the strange sullen boy that Kaoru had just escorted down the hall.

"Getting back to the subject of your soul," Megumi prompted, still trying to wrap her brain around the facts. "Parts of souls don't just 'split off' and corporealize. That's unheard of."

Yahiko looked up thoughtfully. "Would it be like... like an imaginary friend suddenly turning real?"

"I think souls and imaginations are different," Kenshin said kindly. "Souls are already real."

"I agree, Ken-san. Souls are very real. But for the soul of a person to...to materialize, corporealize, separate from the body it belongs to..." Megumi turned very white. "Forgive me, I'm not saying I believe in any such thing, but, that's the definition of a ghost."

"Mou," Kaoru said, returning to the room. "I told you he was a ghost."

"But Kenshin's still alive!" Yahiko protested. "How can it be a ghost if he's alive? And how can it be a ghost if it eats and talks? And aren't ghosts supposed to have no feet?"

Kaoru shrugged. "Just think about it. Battousai was already only barely connected to Kenshin anymore, being all repressed and hardly ever having a reason to come near the surface. If a ghost is a soul wandering outside its body, what better soul to do that than Battousai's? Why couldn't he just drift out into the world?"

"Because," Yahiko struggled to argue. "Because, because—because where did his clothes come from? And where'd the rice go, that he ate? It makes no sense!"

"I've heard stories of ghosts lifting and moving things," Megumi mused. "And sometimes, the ghost is solid enough to touch and be mistaken for a real person. It's all only stories and superstitions, but..."

"Stories and superstitions have to come from somewhere!" Kaoru exclaimed. "I think we should all just come to terms with it: we've got a regular old ghost story on our hands—the Haunting of the Kamiya Dojo!"

"Yeesh, sounds like she's ready to star in the play about it," Yahiko griped.

Kaoru made a face at him, then turned to Kenshin for approval. "What do you say, Kenshin?"

Kenshin looked confused. "There's going to be a play?"

"No, idiot!" Kaoru huffed as Yahiko snickered. "What do you say about your ghost? Do you accept the explanation that he just detached from your body and went wandering out?"

"My only concern is, um..." Kenshin hunched his shoulders and looked up at her sheepishly. "If Battousai can do that, what's to prevent the rest of my soul from drifting out the same way?"

"Because you're using that part, stupid!" Kaoru glared at him in exasperation. "Don't you get it? You, Kenshin, have plenty of a soul left in there to live off of. The part of your soul that's really you is stuck in your body until you die. Or at least it better stay in there, or I will personally become a famous ghost hunter and track that soul down and stuff it back in you."

"Gross Kaoru, ugh! I'm going to have nightmares," Yahiko complained.

"Shut up," Kaoru dismissed him. "This lecture's for Kenshin. Because I want you to be very aware of the importance of keeping your soul safely inside your body from now on."

"I—I'll try my best?" Kenshin offered, to placate her.

"Good." Kaoru ignored it as Yahiko rolled his eyes.

to be continued!