His wife, on the other hand - managed to live long. Perhaps too long. He thinks she perhaps might have preferred to die while she could still recognize her children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren, if she had been offered the choice... But her sprit-form did take on the shape of a young girl when she finally did pass away in that sterile room filled with machinery, and she did smile at him and hold up her hands to be swung around before she ran off into the shiny mists, so maybe, things did turn out alright for her in the end, after all.
And so he is a wanderer once more.
It is not that he doesn't have descendents - far from it, in fact. Grandchildren, great-grandchildren, great-great-grandchildren...
If only...
If only, so many of them were not...
...Ahhh, well. He is but one sprit here, and it's not like he could live his descendents lives for them, either, but...
He wonders, though, sometimes. Was it his fault, after all, somehow?
Just why did so many of his descendents have to turn out so - wrong, anyhow?
Oh, in most of the cases, it wasn't anything very - noticeable. Perhaps a minor tendency to be vicious towards underlings or anybody perceived as weaker then them, or a marked lack of warm feelings, directed towards family or otherwise, or maybe something like a minor tendency to go after anything they wanted regardless of the harm it could cause others or themselves for that matter, or -
And those were the ones that, more often then not, managed to be successful in society - at least financially, if perhaps not so much in their personal lives.
Like a certain great-grandson - or was that great-great-grandson? - who had seemed to have a fair amount of potential till he'd pretty much managed to betray everybody he'd grown up with, including the girl he'd promised to marry and his best friend, in his bid for a 'good marriage' and the power and money associated with that.
Some will sell their hearts and lives for power, he did know that, but -
The Wolf of Mibu, who has also - not passed on - for reasons only known to himself (if anybody), had given him a look very much like a certain son of him had that day, and had remarked that it was the man's own heart and life, after all, no matter who he happened to be descended from, and he should be the one to decide whether those things were for sale or not, and what price to put on it if they were.
Which was probably true.
It had still hurt, to see the harm that that one had caused, though...
The spirit sighed yet again, then, into the aether.
Those were the minor monsters - more like ill-trained and misbehaving dogs, actually, as the Miburo had sneeringly commented once...
And then were the ones that - didn't bear thinking about.
...No, no, enough of that. It wasn't like all his descendents were people who wouldn't have been worthy to scrub the floors of the Kamiya Dojo, after all...
Far from it.
And there were the descendents of his friends and comrades, who often were more fun to look at then his own blood, sadly enough...
And it wasn't like he was actually looking for a Heir, anyway, descendant or not.
The Hiten Mitsurugi-ryuu's time had come and gone, in his humble opinion, and nothing had happened to make him change his mind on that point yet.
And if he was to wander this world till the end of time because of his refusal to pass on the torch...
So be it, then.
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(Posted Thu, 22 Mar 2007 13:58)
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らんま1/2 © Rumiko Takahashi
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