#kenshin...never felt closure for ten years.

[scarbladed-archive]

IN THE SNOW, WHAT FORM DID YOUR PAIN TAKE? / kenshin + winter . 

Kenshin is known for a lot of things, his air-tight control and seamless weaving of how others unless of  highly perceptive skills, perceive him by his actions. To many and most he is the bumbling, silly wanderer who has no desire for battle, a desire that is true. To others, he is the infamous and eternally branded  Hitokiri Battōsai of the Ishin Shishi, feared as a legend, a menace, and a ruthless assassin / swordsman who held no emotions only killed - and the survivors of the families he’s taken members from can speak for it. 

But there are times when this lapse in control can vaguely, very slight, become visible.  A prominent time with Kenshin can be remotely called distracted is during his time in the winter season, due to very personal reasons. The main reason is until the arc of Jinchū in the manga, we have no idea that this complex, highly enigmatic man was married and held that title of ‘husband’ during a winter season . 

This ended, as you know, with the death of his wife by his hands, despite it being accidental and her saving him from death. 

It resulted in Tomoe Himura bleeding out quickly in his arms in the snow, finishing the iconic cross-shaped scar that identifies Kenshin. While it was a marriage originally meant for pretenses, Kenshin genuinely proposed to Tomoe to make it ‘real’ and didn’t want it ‘for show’, and genuinely loved his wife, as she loved him. 

They were too young, and the odds against them too high. Many factors played into what many would say was an inevitable tragedy for them both, Kenshin, the killer of her fiance, Tomoe, the instigator for Kenshin’s near-death in the Forest of Barriers as a spy for the vengeance she no longer felt after spending time and knowing who Kenshin was and could become, and what he was becoming. 

He admitted that he began to found his ideals based on the time spent with her in the countryside of Otsu Village, realizing that all ‘one man could do was save the people in front of him one by one ‘ and that he would ‘find a way to save others without killing after the war’ thus already founding his principles he’d carry post-Bakumatsu and for the rest of his life.

Still, Tomoe’s death was a crippling and final blow to him ever wanting to believe in the methods of ‘Satsujin-ken :the sword that takes life’ as being necessary ever again.  

Which he had already begun to believe while spending time with her and the children, the people who required the medicine he gave under the pretense of a doctor / healer, and realizing he had taken her happiness. 

All the while sacrificing  his own long ago to build a future where innocents like her could be happy while discarding   his future     only dealt the cold reality of the black and white world he believed in entering the war at a premature age.

A world when training with his Master, Hiko - the world would never be that way again.

Despite Kenshin inevitably moving on into the future of the era he helped create, the Meiji, with his second wife, Kaoru Kamiya and his friends, the Kenshingumi, the winter holds a melancholy taste to it that until the acts of the  Jinchū Arc that Kenshin finally begins to open up about his past with Tomoe, and the love shared, the love that will always remain in his heart while having ample room of equal measure, for his future, his beloved Kaoru, no less loved. 

‘ What did you say to Tomoe-san? ‘  ‘ The same as Kaoru-dono. Thank you, Sorry, and Goodbye --  --- shall we be going now ? ‘ 

Despite all this, and Kenshin’s growth of moving on from the past is paramount to him as a character and his own happiness, most of the series the winter time will have him display these symptoms : 

Distance, becoming distracted in doing his dojo chores to the point where someone will have to physically touch him.

Melancholy, Kenshin undoubtedly suffers to personally, in my opinion, from both PTSD and Depression and arguably Anxiety ( fear of losing his loved ones / his control ) and will find himself going back to that snowy day while maintaining an entirely cool and quiet demeanor that, as usual, to his pain and blessing, betrays nothing. 

Alone-time. Be it leaving the dojo for the woods or nature, or just sitting by himself.

 Kenshin still, to a degree, carries the purple shawl of his wife Tomoe as a scarf, in my headcanon, until he puts it somewhere safe after moving on from her and into the future, with Kaoru - but he’ll be found wearing it and keeping it near, for warmth purposes and simply to find comfort and equal measures pain in the realization that he can no longer smell his deceased wife’s perfume. 

Specific and more repetitive nightmares of his first wife’s death - her face, unsmiling at him as he stares at her covered in the injury he accidentally dealt her without intending it.

Clumsiness. Genuine clumsiness. Kenshin will at times find himself almost burning a meal, which alarms everyone but quickly deflects to the point where his friends, his family, know better than to press him on it.

Daily visits to local shrines to the kami, seeking avid comfort and unworthy ‘forgiveness’ from his wife who is buried in Kyoto, and apologizing that this time of year and obvious reasons, he cannot visit her where she lays buried. Tomoe is associated with the iris, and he often is seen laying it in a bucket at her grave, and the inn-keep in Tsukiohen remarks an iris looks lovely ‘even in a rain of blood’. His mind will flit to irises. 

This also occurs while Kenshin is developing feelings for Kaoru and before meeting her, it’s arguably could be a reason it takes him such a long time to act on those feelings out of fear of it repeating itself and feelings of unworthiness because of the horrific tragedies that happened in the winter time. 

Kaoru is not loved out of guilt - Kenshin’s love for her is pure and limitless, but so is his desire to continue, since losing Tomoe at fifteen, to grieve her appropriately, having never found closure until the final arc of the series from Tomoe herself. 

‘As long as you are smiling,  the me that is smiling inside you will be smiling too. ‘ 

So yes, winter is a painful time for Kenshin, and it isn’t until much later that he can come to grips with it, with the help of his newfound family, and his future in his second wife, Kaoru Himura - and move on and still hold that spot for Tomoe in his heart while never forgetting her - but proceeding into the new era with hope, not despair, as she wanted for him.

tl;dr: PERSONALS PLEASE DON’T REBLOG WITHOUT PERMISSION .