Dedicated to my favorite “Rurouni Kenshin” character, Soujiro, and all the fans and authors who’ve made his journey their own.

Our Soujiros

By Karen (karenjade@shaw.ca)

He was the smiling assassin

The happy little killer

With the empty eyes

And the empty smile

We wondered about him

He was as much in our thoughts as he was in our Kenshin’s

And, like our Kenshins, we wondered

Who is hiding behind that smile?

We found out soon enough

He showed us his world

A world where pain and fear were a way of life

A world where life was never fair

A world where the strong survived and the weak died

We stood by his side as he was thrown out of the house and cruel words, and a sake bottle, were thrown at him

We stayed with him, even when he was not allowed back inside that warm house.

We would rather be outside in the cold with him, then with them, anyway

We walked with him and helped him back up onto his feet when he collapsed from the strain of his chores

We gently washed the cuts and bruises on his young face with a cool washcloth

And we shielded him as he stared, terrified, at our Shishios, who were preparing to kill him

Like our Kasumes, Sakuras and Akanes did for our Kenshins

We begged “Please spare this child!”

And when they came for him

Striking him down with a shovel

Wanting to slice him with a sword

We cried for him to get up, to run

No matter what, we wanted this child to live

We guided him safely under the porch

And when they came for him again, it was us who unsheathed the wakizashi

“In the end, only the fittest survive in this world”

It was our hands which guided him as he screamed the words we, like our Shishios, would never let him forget

“If you are strong you live. If you are weak you die”

After it was done, we were still by his side

We smiled with him

We raised our heads and let the rain fall onto our faces

And, though we denied it, we cried with him too

We screamed out in pain and confusion with him

And after the battle was over, when he lay on the floor, defeated

We, like our Yumis, cradled his head in our laps

We advised him to leave, to start a new life

We were happy to see him finally break free

Yet, deep down, we were saddened to see him go

What would become of him?

But we really needn’t have worried

There he was again, smiling and munching cheerfully on a dumpling

“Don’t worry about me”, he assured us. “It’s a beautiful day and I’m heading north”

He smiled at us. “It’s time I found some true answers of my own”

Though we smiled back at him as he started on his journey, we couldn’t help but shake our heads in bittersweet disappointment

After all, we had wanted to go with him

Well, why couldn’t we go with him then?

So we followed him on his journey, his quest for his own truth

We followed him back into his past

Through the pain and misery of his childhood

We answered the question of his absent parents, and his only half explained origins

We found different ways to connect him to our Okitas

We even showed him what his life could have been like had he met our Kenshins or Hikos instead of our Shishios that night

We followed him into the present

Where he stood obediantly by the side of our Shishios

Playfully teased our Yumis

Laughed with our Kamataris

And found a fellow sufferer in our Anjis

We followed him into the future

We had him rescue sick, injured or lost animals

We gave him abused and neglected, or orphaned, children to care for

We even made our Saitohs see our Okitas in him

We wanted to teach and show him what he had known in his heart all along

But sometimes we would want him to be the villain

We would make him give in to his madness

Never allow him to let go of what the past, and what our Shishios, had taught him

Other times we wanted to turn him into a romantic hero

So we paired him with our Misaos, and even our Kaorus, Ayames and Kamataris

We even paired him with our own creations

We gave him to happy families and good homes

We took him to inns restaurants and farms in search of his own truth

We even guided him back to our Kenshins and the others at the Kamiya Dojo

We had him find a home there, become part of their family

Sometimes he wouldn’t stay for very long though

Sometimes he’d say “No, not this one. Not now. Not yet”

So we would continue to drive him onward

The smiling wanderer

Still haunted by his memories

Still searching for his own truth

But, never the less

No matter which direction we had him go

No matter what road we had him chose

We stayed right with him

Because when he finally found his own real truth

We knew we would find ours as well

“Rurouni Kenshin” is a copyrite of Watsuki Nobuhiro and the many companies associated with the manga, anime, OAVs and CDs.