A/N: Lol. I finally decided to start writing this. I finished the outline for this story years ago, but never got around to writing it. Hope you guys like it! v ; /

Disclaimer: I do not own any thing belonging to the franchise of Rurouni Kenshin or any of its affiliates. I'm only borrowing the characters for the use of constructing a story.

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Prologue

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Shinta was too young to understand.

Yet he did. He understood what was not meant for children to know. He was ridiculed by others for being slow, the village idiot; even as his mother and father told him he was not. But even then, he knew that he had been sold into slavery. Not that it was much of an oddity. After all, orphaned children would be too much trouble to feed, so why not sell them off for profit and help feed the village's other children?

However, he did not run away. Shinta knew that it was easy. Jump off the cart while it was moving, perhaps injuring his body with a few scrapes, and start running towards the trees. The time it would take for the slavers to stop the carts, he would have been long gone.

Shinta didn't do that though. He was conscious of the possibility, but the slavers had treated him more kindly than he had ever been treated in the past year after his family's death. The women had taken a liking in the small, almost fragile red head. They had taken him in, and in the end, they died for him.

So when they died, he was sad. An overwhelming feeling like the day his older brother finally succumbed to the plague long after his mother and father had. He had been left alone once again.

However, he did not intend to die like them. He kept his brother's last words close to his heart, gripping onto it. Do not die. Even someone as gentle and weak as a kitten would one day grow into a fierce creature.

Thinking he was easy prey, the bandits surrounded him, interested in his girly features. Their leers had sent fear down Shinta's spine, their hunger evident. However, he kept his heart steadfast, like his name, and used his tiny hands to grip the wakazashi of the nearest man with the strength of a farmer's child. The first one fell without knowledge of what had happened to him, his throat slit like the way his father would slice meat on a cutting board. Red spurted out, like a freshly cut fish belly, splattering on to Shinta's face.

It was warm.

Quick to realize what had happened, the bandits moved away, pulling out their blades. They shouted at each other and at the boy, broadcasting their anger. Yet Shinta didn't hear it, for something strange overtook him. The sight of red, red blood…

The other men fell also, but not by Shinta's blood coated blade. It was instant, the land covered in a rain of blood from all the men. As they crashed against the earth like broken dolls, the boy saw a massive figure in blinding white.

Thus Shinta's life passed on, from his family's hands to the slavers, and now, finally to his teacher.

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Ever since she had arrived at the main house, she had been ostracized. Her mother and father had died only a few years ago, forcing her to live with various relatives before the main family had finally taken her in. For publicity's sake, they had taken the daughter of a noble man and whore woman as an act of kindness. However, life for Kaoru was little more than inhuman slavery. Though in public, they were amiable to her; behind closed doors was only a world of darkness, pain, and fear.

The darkness was her friend. The family never liked darkness, especially the head. He feared it with complete and utter abandon. Thus it was believed to be punishment when a child of the family is banned to the dark rooms of the mansion, cell-like compartments with now windows other than a mouse hole and a shoji door. However, it had never been punishment for Kaoru, who realized quickly that all people within the mansion feared the dark to some degree, allowing her to escape, if only for a little bit, the harrowing abuse of the family.

The day's chores had been finished with minimal punishment. Kaoru had become quite skilled at avoiding attention and fading into the background, finishing the drudgery given to her by the servants and keeping silent. Once night fell and there was no more work, she quickly exiled herself to her tiny cell.

Curling up against a corner, Kaoru began to imagine. She always did this, to escape. She imagined with the imagination of a child, creating a world where there was no pain or fear. In that world Kaoru wasn't the daughter of a noble and a slave. In her imaginary world, Kaoru was a samurai. She would be honorable, kind, and strong, no longer fearing the snap of split bamboo. Instead, her blade would slice the split bamboo in half, preventing it from being used on anyone ever again. As a samurai, she would no longer be looked down upon by those of a higher class.

Days would pass like this, days upon days upon days. Kaoru no longer thought in weeks or months. The days blended into gray memories, the imagined world the only land full of colors.

However, one day, Kaoru stopped for a moment too long.

If it hadn't been then, it would have been then, it would've been later. The sons of the main head had been practicing with real swords that day, showing off their skills, with each boy attempting to outdo the other. Mesmerized by the gleam of beautifully tempered steel, Kaoru stopped for too long, unaware that her presence had been noticed until one of the sons grabbed the back of her worn kimono. The laughed, poking fun at her tiny figure, insulting her blood linage. To them, she was the daughter of a whore, not the daughter of their uncle. And thus she would receive her due as one.

Kaoru remembered thinking that it was a shame for those beautiful blades to be used by such people. And thus they were turned upon her, like ravaging savages, for she would play dummy to the sons' naked blades.

That day, Kaoru learned of something more important than safety. She learned survival. The sight of the blades had unleashed a terrifying monster from within the child, extinguishing the candle flames of the young sons like a dark tsunami.

For on that day, Kaoru learned of death, terrible, beautiful death.

And thus she ran, ran, ran, a hunted beast. Kaoru ran until she had lost herself. She ran for weeks, months perhaps, she had long forgotten about time. It seemed that she would die, having survival instincts or not. And like an accepting beast, she sat against a tree, awaiting death.

Fatigue consumed her, darkening her vision until the last thing she saw was a bright, bright red.

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