Red on White
Chapter One
Her Pale Yukata
Ten years old.
It was into the Meiji Era already.
But the fighting never stopped. And didn't seem to want to.
She hugged the pillar.
Crying. Silently.
Her pale yukata was stained with blood.
The blood of her mother.
Her mother had shielded her from the assassin's deadly blow.
With her own body.
The katana had pierced her mother's body.
As well as scratched her own.
A trickle of fresh blood stained her abdomen.
As the rain fell without ceasing.
She stumbled out into the darkness, her small feet carrying her away.
Away from the bloodied corpses.
Away from the carnage.
Away from home.
-xxx-
Seta Soujiro had fought Himura Kenshin.
Fought, and lost.
Now, he was in search of answers.
Answers to life's questions.
Which was the best way?
The question he had asked Himura.
The question that had remained unanswered.
He bought some dried octopus from a peasant woman, and ate them as he walked along.
He had a long way to go.
Since he was nowhere near getting his question answered.
But he was happy.
Happier.
At least, now he didn't have to fight.
And no one would die because of him.
-xxx-
She was tired.
She had just been running for a long way.
Running, for the joy of it.
For the freedom.
She panted. As she wiped the sweat off her brow.
A woman running like that for no reason to behold was not proper.
But she hardly cared.
She never gave a thought to propriety since she began her life as a wanderer.
When she was just ten.
She saw a scene ahead that was not unusual.
For her, at least.
A few man surrounding another figure, whose small build made it difficult to tell from a distance whether the person was male or female.
She ran ahead, hand on sword hilt.
-xxx-
"I don't wish to fight."
Soujiro's voice was a calm one amid the loud roars of the agitated robbers.
They jeered at him. Taunted him.
Because they wanted to exert power.
Weaklings.
They wanted him to do the very thing he said he wouldn't do.
Just because he had said it.
Soujiro's face remained impassive.
No, not the smiling face he had put on for the sake of himself in the past.
Just expressionless.
Even when someone else came to his defence.
-xxx-
"Move away."
The words were cold. Hard. Unfeeling. Filled with authority.
And they came from a short, lithe figure.
A girl.
A woman.
Whatever.
The robbers hardly gave her a second look.
Even though they saw the sword.
She drew it.
The long, sleek katana.
"Move away."
She didn't want to kill them. Or hurt them.
Intimidation worked wonders, as she knew from experience.
Unfortunately, it didn't' this time.
She lunged.
The robbers scattered.
But the man they were taunting had come forward.
To defend them.
With his own body.
She stopped three inches short of his chest.
The blade was held there.
The man with the boyish face said, "Don't do anything you would regret later. Even if they were thugs."
She remembered her yukata.
The pale yukata.
Stained with blood.
That would never be washed off.
She shuddered.
And sheathed the katana.
-xxx-
*Standard Disclaimers Apply*

Author's Notes:
My first Soujiro fic! Thanks for reading thus far, and I promise you that there'll be more chapters...meanwhile, go read my other fics...looking forward to hearing your comments through the reviews... :)