Hey, minna! Lara's started yet ANOTHER fic! Okay, when you dive into this, you're gonna think it's one of those 'college fics' with a boring plotline and it's all about getting Kenshin and Kaoru together, but… IT"S NOT! Here's the real summary:

            Kamiya Kaoru is a Keeper of something sacred and special, something with the power to destroy the world. But someone wants it, someone powerful and ancient. Where can one hide from Chaos? The past, of course! And with Chronos on their sides, Kaoru, Kenshin, Megumi, Sano, Aoshi, Misao, Soujiro, and Yahiko can't lose… can they? Set in the year 2067, this story is gonna be soo twisted. ^_^
BUT: R&R, or this will just be a one shot! Please? Flame if you wanna, just leave me something!

            The wind blew in her raven hair, playing with her lovely features and making her eyes dance with delight. Her voice hummed an old tune from the late fifties and it was happy to reside on her lips. She half-walked, half-skipped down the sidewalk of the Ginza[1] district, bright lights and billboards jumping out at her. Longingly, her eyes roamed the windows of the stores, their high-fashion clothes making her body ache with the desire of them. Gucci, Armani, and Prada called out to the ultimate Queen of the shopaholics.

            "Hmph." She sighed, looking down at her school uniform. Her blue pleated skirt brushed against her knees and her sailor's top made her young eighteen-year-old breasts look flat as the ground she walked on. "I thought when you got in college, you didn't have to wear these silly things." She breathed to herself.

            "Hey, Kaoru-Dono!" someone shouted from the throngs of people around her. She looked around for the owner of the voice, the only person it could be, but couldn't find him.

            "Where are you?" Kaoru placed her hands on her hips and stopped on the sidewalk, thoroughly annoyed. Suddenly, a red-haired young adult, some 20 years old, sprung up in front of her. He was short in stature, yet taller than Kaoru, but thin and kind of lanky in a weird sort of masculine kawai way.

            Her good friend smiled at her in an indecipherable way, brushing away his bangs from his face and beaming. He panted as if he had been running a long distance to catch up with her and two heavy college textbooks hung heavily at his side. Kaoru took note of the titles, Arguments on Energy Quanta from Early 20th Century Chemists and Thomas Kyd's Spanish Tragedy and Elizabethan Women. 'Why can't I have half his brain?' Kaoru thought, speaking to the imaginary deity inside her head. 'Just half, he'd still make the best marks in the class!'

            "Kaoru-Dono, I meant to tell you…"

            'Why won't he drop the formalities,' Kaoru thought, 'He's known me all of my life, my childhood, my adolescence, you think by now he would have gotten over his little distance problem.' But even as Kaoru thought these words, she knew she was wrong. Kenshin had resolved to stay estranged from her and she had resolved to break his defense shield. It was a constant struggle with little progress.

            "Kaoru-Dono, are you listening to me?" Kenshin waved his hand in front of Kaoru's eyes, her blank stare centering back on him with an obvious abruptness.

            "Yeah, I was listening… just not actively."

            "Right… I just wanted to wish you happy birthday."

            "Oh! I thought you'd forgotten!" Kaoru's face lit up like fireworks as she stared into Kenshin's deep orbs.

            "How could I have forgotten? Every other day you would tell me 'Kenshin, guess what happens in 34 days…Kenshin, guess what happens in 18 days…" He chided her as he poked her with his fingers. She snickered a bit.

            "Hey!" She yelled half-heartedly with a smile on her face, pushing him away from her playfully. Then, there was silence, but a nice comfortable silence. After a few minutes, Kaoru pointed to the sidewalk ahead of her. "Going my way?" she questioned.

            Kenshin nodded. "So what are you doing for your eighteenth birthday?"

            "I think the family's getting together for dinner tonight. You know, another excuse for a bunch of people to get a free meal. Wanna come?"

            It was almost possible to see the hairs on Kenshin's neck bristle. "Rain check?" he began, trying not to offend his friend.

            Kaoru knew just what he was thinking. Kenshin wasn't very good in social situations, especially not with her boisterous, loud, large family. They were quite intimidating, and quite rich. Money almost always made Kenshin feel uneasy, he hadn't come in contact with much ever since his parents died when he was fifteen. "Don't worry about it. If I could take a rain check, I would too…"

            He nodded, some of his red hair slipping out from his ponytail and covering his eyes. Kaoru stopped and brushed it away from his face, just like a mother might do to a small child. He smiled warmly at her nursing affections for him. "Well, save a night for me… I want to take you out to dinner. It's not every day that my best friend turns eighteen."

            "Great, can't wait!" Again, there was a lapse in the conversation. "You'll never guess what happened this morning, Kenshin."

            "I'm not keen on guessing. Why don't you just tell me?"

            "You know, you could humor a girl on her birthday." Kaoru pouted, but it seemed to be getting her nowhere so she delved into her story. "When I woke up this morning, mom was sitting on the edge of my bed watching me sleep."

            "Creepy."

            "That's not the weirdest part of it. I asked her what she was doing and she took my hand, like this," She grabbed Kenshin's hand and stopped in the middle of the sidewalk, turning to face him.

"and she said, 'today is the day you have been preparing for all your life, O Keeper of Keepers. When you arrive home tonight you will have something special waiting for you.' Well, it's driven me mad all day, what this special thing is. What do you suppose it is?"

            "Probably some fancy car." Kenshin tried his best to disguise the bite in his voice. He had always been just a bit jealous of Kaoru; her nice house, her big family, her corporate shark CEO father. Obviously, he hadn't disguised his feelings enough. Kaoru threw his hand down and began walking away from him, clutching her books to her chest and resisting the urge to yell at him.

            "Hey, Kaoru-Dono!" He yelled after her and held his hand up in her direction, but she didn't answer. She continued marching ahead, her steps hitting the concrete hard and definitively.

            "Why… that… horrible man!" she breathed to herself as she approached her massive house right outside the Ginza district. The heart of the city was just a few blocks away, yet it felt like one was

stepping back many years in time. Modeled after an old Buddhist retreat, it sat atop a hill surrounded by ancient trees. The house had originally been the site of a dojo and many stone steps led up towards a heavy iron gate with huge knockers. Directly inside the gate were a courtyard, fountain, and a wooden door leading into the main house. "What right does he think he has, classifying me like that! I ought to march back down there and tell him…" her thoughts broke off sharply halfway up the steps. She had caught sight of something…no, someone lurking behind a tree off to her right.

            He was older than anything Kaoru had ever seen, object or living. His bony hands were clasped around the trunk of the tree and his white beard dragged the forest floor. A large, heavy, golden watch hung around his neck and seemed to weigh his head down a great deal. He appeared to be wearing, as Kaoru later explained it, a cloak made of stars.

            "Hey, you!" Kaoru pointed at the old man. "Don't you know this is private pro-" but she stopped short, because upon closer inspection, no one was there at all. Kaoru rubbed her eyes with shock and shook her head, swearing up and down that she would never eat school cafeteria food again. With that, she continued up the steps to her house where she could just hear the faint cacophony of her entire family having a massive party in her honor…without her.


[1] Shopping district in Tokyo, think Rodeo Drive of the East

Well, Minna, that's it for chapter1! If you want the next chapter, review! Flame if you must, just leave me something! 'till next time!
Lara