My Soujiro Fanfiction

This page collects my fanfiction about Soujiro's adventures after the end of the Kyoto Arc; I am far from finished writing the story I envision, and more is being added regularly. This all takes place after Rurouni Kenshin's Kyoto Arc, and thus it *Contains Major Spoilers through Episode 62* and will probably be difficult to understand without knowledge of the same.

These stories form a single continuity (although most do work as stand-alones), which is intended to eventually have four major "arcs," each one named for a season (This is why the stories' titles don't change along with the seasonal color schemes of the rest of the site; the stories always wear the colors of the seasons they are associated with---Oh, and the seasons run backward, too. At least they're in some kind of order. ^_^;). The stories are posted below, in chronological order.

You can also see the collected illustrations for these stories, which is a separate sort of subordinate page to my general Soujiro Fan-Art.

So please, read and enjoy!
And if you want to know right where you stand, look below the stories for my "Statement of Canon."

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Winter is the season of cold and silence, but holds within it the promise of Spring. The stories of the Winter Arc deal mostly with Soujiro's solitary wanderings as he searches for his own truth and melts the ice from his heart.
This season is the most episodic, and while the Winter stories occasionally reference each other, they can all act as stand-alones.

I never thought I'd write about pre-episode-56 Soujiro, but here it is. This short, rather morbid vignette takes place about two years before Rurouni Kenshin's Kyoto arc. Shishio and Soujiro have... what passes for a tender moment with them.

"How much does it cost?"
This story takes place only one month after the events of Rurouni Kenshin episode 56, and Soujiro finds himself facing a challenge altogether new to him, and for which he stands woefully unprepared: everyday life.

"Welcome Home"
For a long time, this was the only Soujiro fanfic posted here, the story of Soujiro returning to his childhood home to (as one reviewer on Fanfiction.net so eloquently put it) make peace with his past in the search for his future.

"It isn't Over"
In Soujiro's wanderings, he runs into a stranger---but this stranger knows him all too well, and Soujiro finds that leaving his past behind is not even as simple a choice as he had thought.

"Firelight in Winter"
As Soujiro continues his lone journey, the cold and solitude of deep Winter prove more dangerous than any opponent in battle, but it is within that vulnerability and defeat that he discovers the truth he has been searching for.

"The End of Winter"
As winter is ending, Soujiro encounters emotions more intense than he has known in years: joy, anger... and another one that threatens to overwhelm him completely.

Autumn is the time when the green leaves of the year wither, fall, and break underfoot. In the Autumn Arc, Soujiro finds a flowering of warmth, but it lasts only a moment before he falls into the gravest trial he will ever face.
This season is very much a single chain of events, and the Autumn stories are meant to be read as chapters, each leading into the next.

~ Part One ~ Part Two ~ Part Three ~ Part Four ~ Part Five ~
~ Part Six (Conclusion) ~
Soujiro's wanderings come to an end as he finds love and belonging, but his past still lurks behind him and seizes his moment of happiness and rest to catch up to him. Concerned about his loved ones while fleeing the police, Soujiro seeks help from some familiar faces, but in the end, he's the one who has to choose. Go back to running, always alone, or pursue this new dream even into the lion's mouth?

"To Turn Red"
Soujiro comes to Kyoto, and this homecoming, like that at his childhood home, is a chance to put old demons to rest, but new ones are lurking, perhaps even more horrible than those of his past. Assured of a compromise, he comes to make an agreement with the government he once fought against, but it turns out to be a devil's bargain.

"Please leave it to me"
Soujiro has been forced to kill again, and his now-open heart is overwhelmed by shame and guilt as he must act against everything he has come to believe in. As every option before him seems too horrible to face, he discovers that he has a route of escape---but it might be the most horrible possibility of all.

~ Part One ~ Part Two ~
Desperately searching for help and comfort, Soujiro returns to his home in Yokohama, but he cannot escape the horror of his situation, and is isolated from those he loves by an impenetrable wall of secrecy and false pretense. Meanwhile, Kenshin finds a clue to Soujiro's fate and travels to Kyoto in search of him, but instead finds scattered pieces of the dark picture he left behind.

"Unspeakable"
A quiet month passes at Sumidaya, giving Soujiro a much-needed rest, but everyone there still feels the tension of his dark secret, and when the government calls on him again, they give him an opponent "more on his level." Not having waged a serious battle in over a year, Soujiro must struggle to decide whether he can survive the encounter---and whether he wants to.

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Statement of Canon

The "canon" used in my Soujiro fanfiction---that is, the set of events that is assumed to have occurred and on which these stories are founded---is the Rurouni Kenshin TV episodes through the end of the Kyoto Arc (episode 62). The TV series after that (including the Shimabara/Christian, Black Knights/Divine Medicine, and Fusui arcs) is not canonical to my fanfiction, nor is the Rurouni Kenshin movie, the Revenge Arc of the manga, or the "Reflection" OVA---I don't have anything against the Revenge Arc, only that I haven't been able to read it in detail, and I haven't seen "Reflection" at all, nor do I plan to. The original "Trust" and "Betrayal" OVA set in the Bakumatsu is basically canonical (Kenshin's corresponding flashback in the manga is probably closer, being closer in tone to the TV series upon which I base my fanfiction), but I don't think it will come into play in more than a general way.

It's also worth noting here that for quite a long time, the only version of RK I had was the Hecto/Shinsengumi fansubbed version, and I've only recently gotten parts of the official Anime Works subs. There are some discrepancies between them, so if you notice any nits, it might be because that was how my fansubs would have it, and over the years I did get rather attached to those fansubs, so at times I will continue to side with them over the Anime Works version, and you may actually see a mishmash of the two (if you pay extremely close attention to details like that).

Finally, I've finessed some of the characters' ages. I ran into some stats online which I constructed a paradigm around, but then I got into the official stats and the year in which RK takes place and added it up, and a good deal of the cast turned up being two years younger than I thought (which really messed with my head in certain cases). Then, I recalled lines in the episodes that supported my previous assupmtions and at that point I just threw up my hands and said "To hell with it!" Nobody's ages are being altered outside of that range, but I'm just putting them where they look right and where they support the story ideas I have. In particular, Soujiro is about a year older in these stories than the official stats would have him. According to them, he would be sixteen during the Kyoto Arc, and I made him seventeen, turning eighteen later that year.

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Rurouni Kenshin, Seta Soujiro, Himura-san, Shishio-san, and other related copyrights and trademarks are the property of Watsuki Nobuhiro, Jump Comics, Sony, and other releasing companies. I am using them in a not-for-profit manner and without permission, in the spirit of transformative fair use.