"To each generation a slayer is born. One girl in all the world, a chosen one. One born with the strength and skill to hunt the vampires. She is the slayer."
It was early morning now, dawn peaking over the rooftops of Tokyo which had not so long ago been Edo in this new Meiji era in which Himura Kenshin was ten years a wanderer and two days a boarder of the Kamiya dojo. He supposed that this, his very recent residence in the Kamiya dojo, did not negate his wandering status.
He had inhabited places longer since the bakumatsu had ended, there had been weeks spent in inns, in remote villages, sometimes entire winters had been spent trapped on one side of the mountains or another. However, he had always still been a wanderer then, always cautioned that when the wind began to blow he would go with it.
Of course, very few were sorry to see the back of him.
Stay too long and one way or another his past would come to him, that or it would linger over his shoulders like a dark shawl, that name Battousai like a whisper that given enough time even the deaf could hear. Then all the kabuki dancing, the playing of the fool, his polite smiles and outdated humbling speech that came so naturally after ten years could not save him.
Of course, there was also the small fact that he did not want it to save him, not truly.
He had made it a point to tell Kamiya Kaoru, assistant master of the strange, naïve, and idealistic Kamiya Kasshin Ryu, much the same. That he could leave at any time, but he had also said an even greater and more damning truth, that he was tired of wandering.
Ten years, ten years and all the country crossed there and back again with old enemies in every corner and a reversed blade sword, ten years of a promise to a wife he himself had killed, and here in Tokyo the road forward had suddenly seemed bleak and unbearable.
He'd known then, standing next to the open shoji door, half turned towards the gate that would lead him back into the city, that he could not move forward. Not when she had shouted at him, surrounded by the groaning bodies of men he'd put down so easily and would have killed had the blade of his sword not been reversed, "You idiot! I don't want the Battousai to stay, I'm asking Himura Kenshin, the wanderer to stay!"
He didn't know if it was simply because of how long it had been and how truly tired he was, he didn't know if it was that odd glimpse of peace he'd had doing her laundry and cooking in her kitchen, he didn't even know if it was her easy and infectious grin or the fire in her blue eyes when she'd accosted him in an alley screaming Battousai like some avenging spirit…
He'd only known that for now, for that very second, he could no longer be a wanderer.
Now, sitting in the kitchen in the early morning dawn with Miss Kaoru, staring across at her as she attempted not to fidget under his blank stare, and it was oddly enough still true. He thought of the road, of the fact that it was early morning and if he left now he could most certainly reach a destination beyond Tokyo, and yet the very thought of walking out that door was somehow unbearable.
Unbearable even though he was Battousai the manslayer who brought death with him wherever he went, but more, unbearable even when Miss Kamiya Kaoru was… Not what he had thought.
She was blushing now, hands alternating between holding her cup of tea in a death grip and tapping her fingers against it anxiously. She alternated between looking him in the eye and looking somewhere past his shoulder, chewing on her lip as she did so. She was so… open, he wondered if she knew how rare that was, not simply to show everything on her face but to show her very soul.
Only a glance was needed and Kenshin fully believed that he could see every thought in her head.
She was certain he was going to stand up, come to his senses, and walk straight out the door with his few belongings stored in the pack he'd come in with and the reversed blade strapped to his waist. She desperately wished that he would not but was certain that he would. More, when he did, she would be alone again, an orphan, now one without students, and most importantly it would mean that even Battousai the manslayer found her to be despicable.
And staring at her, this odd and terribly young kenjutsu master, who desperately sought the approval and acceptance not of the Battousai but the humble wanderer the Battousai had become, he knew that he could never find her despicable.
Finally, after five minutes of truly tense silence, her temper reached its limit and she lifted her head, those dark blue eyes burning the same way they had when she'd struck down with her bokken, and asked, "Well, aren't you going to say anything, Kenshin?!"
"Oro," he said, sheepishly smiling and rubbing the back of his head, "I find that I'm at a bit of a loss for words, that I am."
By the look on her face, one part mulish one part fearful and two parts bordering on enraged, she did not appreciate that answer.
She looked nothing like Tomoe.
He didn't know why he thought that then, of all the things he could be thinking it certainly wasn't anything worth considering. Especially since every thought of Tomoe was still tinged with bitterness and despair. However, all the same, the thought stuck, and he found himself looking at her again, reiterating that she truly looked nothing like Tomoe.
The long dark hair, the pale skin, and he supposed they might look similar enough. However, Kaoru was far too vivacious, too determined, and though she'd no doubt hate to hear him say it a little too masculine to be anything like Tomoe. Yet, he didn't think she suffered for it, no all of it simply made her Kamiya Kaoru and that much more wonderful.
Another odd thought was that she didn't have to be like Tomoe to be beautiful.
"Kenshin," She said through gritted teeth, and by the death grip on her tea again it looked as if she was using all her rather impressive will power to avoid throwing it at his head.
Which… eyeing it warily he suddenly realized that having heavy objects thrown at him by Kaoru would hurt far more than he would have normally expected. Of course, perhaps he should have expected it. Suddenly, sitting here, he found himself looking back over the past few days with a far more critical eye.
He wouldn't call himself particularly self-involved and at the very least he would not say that he was unobservant, however, he now found himself thinking that there were quite a few clues that in retrospect were rather embarrassing for him not to have caught. He'd like to blame the incident of the false Battousai, of having a young woman leaping at him from the shadows with a wooden stick, declaring vengeance for the honor of her father's dojo but that felt like far too easy of an excuse.
Besides, he'd even thought at the time that it had hurt far more than it should have. On seeing her come for him, on noticing it was a wooden blade clearly not meant to kill, he'd decided to instead play the fool and convince her that the Battousai was someone far more menacing than someone like him. Except it had hurt, days later his shoulder still featured a putrid green stripe, the kind he hadn't seen since training on a mountain with Shishou. Sure, he had been expecting it to sting, she hadn't looked untrained, but the truth was she was a woman and hadn't been coming at him with the speed to strike him with that kind of power.
The blow had sent him flying back into some poor vender's boxes, leaving him truly dazed and in a rather vulnerable position if she had intended to kill him, and he'd found him looking up into her rather surprised and then apologetic features as she'd declared for herself that she'd gotten his identity mixed up and he clearly wasn't the Battousai after all.
Which… Well, he wasn't certain how he felt about that. On the one hand he supposed he was flattered as he certainly didn't wish to look like the Battousai, on the other hand, he'd like to think he was not quite so dainty looking as to be dismissed out of hand as possibly being the Battousai. Especially, he thought, since he really was the legendary manslayer.
That had been the first sign.
The second sign had come later in the dojo, when Gohei and his men had come for her. Kenshin had tracked them back, intending to defend what little honor his name possessed and more importantly protect Miss Kaoru, but he had found her looking across at them with that bokken looking entirely unafraid against men three times her size.
Not simply unafraid either, but with an oddly familiar confidence about her, the kind that Kenshin recognized in himself as well as Shishou. That quiet air of determination, of self-assurance, that she knew her own strength and that it would always surpass her opponent's.
He had acted before she had a chance, taking out the men from under her feet and striking down judgement upon Gohei's left hand, and she'd stared at him in stunned gratitude and reoffered her home to him which he had… accepted.
Not, of course, without her playfully punching him in the face and threatening to do so again if ever thought about peeking at her in the bath again. That had been the third sign. He could have ducked, should have ducked, and two seconds later as he was sprawled on the floor with blood gushing out of the nose which could be broken, he wished he had ducked.
He'd commented that she had more of a right hook than he'd expected, and thought to himself that he should beware, in the future, any of Kamiya Kaoru's casual acts of violence. More, that he was very glad that she was a pacifist swordsman, even if he couldn't quite bring himself to believe in the teachings of her father's school.
The point was that Kamiya Kaoru, rather like himself, was far stronger than she looked. However, unlike himself, she truly was far stronger than Kenshin believed she had any right to be. When Kenshin used his speed or his strength, you knew it, suddenly you could no longer see the Battousai and when his blade met yours bruises would cover your body. You could tell when a blow was going to become devastating, and Kenshin found it was the same with any opponent he faced. With Miss Kaoru, she looked as if she was simply taking a stroll through the town and just happened to throw you into a wall by accidentally tapping your shoulder.
Kamiya Kaoru hit like Shishou without the benefit of being an overly tall and muscular man subsisting on nothing but sake and swordplay.
She'd also had some truly bizarre house rules.
After she'd set up a room for him, inside the house this time instead of locked in her store shed, and explained that he had the use of the dojo any time she wasn't teaching a class, she'd sat him down at the table in the kitchen and, flushing with embarrassment, laid down the rules of the house.
She'd taken a deep measured breath, and despite wearing a women's kimono instead of the battle gear of the alleyway or even her practice hakima and gi she looked as if she was preparing for battle as she'd said, "First, never invite anyone into the house."
He'd stared, blinked slightly, but by the look in her eyes she was deathly serious. They looked… Not like his eyes, never like the Battousai's eyes, but there was something dark and damning in them which all but dared him to disagree.
Still, he couldn't help but let loose a rather dumbfounded, "Oro?"
"I know it's—" she cut herself off, swallowed, and started again with cheeks now burning as bright as his hair, "It's rude, I know, but even if you know them just start walking inside the gate or wait for them to come in themselves. If they come in after you, then it's fine, but never actually say you're inviting them into the house or the dojo, even if you know them."
He blinked again then, slowly, pointed to himself and noted, "But, Miss Kaoru, you invited this unworthy one into your house, that you did."
She shook her head vigorously, "No, Kenshin, you took me back here, I didn't actually say I invited you in. Well, I mean, not until the next morning, and then it was daylight so it—"
She cut herself off again, looked down at her fingers before looking back up, "I guess, if it's during the day, and they're not using a parasol, or wearing some kind of dark hood or hat, and aren't on fire, then you can invite them in."
Kenshin could almost feel his head tilting to the side as he stared at her, trying to put together what he was seeing and hearing and just what he'd gotten himself into, "Miss Kaoru, forgive me, but do you often find people on fire outside of your door?"
She laughed, as if this was a particularly witty joke of his, and he'd found himself smiling despite himself at the very sound of it.
Along with never inviting anyone into the house (unless it was during the day and they weren't on fire) he was also told not to remove the copious amount of ofuda she had lined in her room (and then his, as he was now a welcome guest who had to be protected from the evil spirits and "Don't question it Kenshin, I don't ask you pointed questions, do I?! The assistant master of the Kamiya Kasshin Ryu is not taking questions!") and that if he saw anyone very strange looking coming by, he was to find her and tell her as soon as he could, especially if they said they were looking for Kamiya Kaoru or else the slayer.
He'd opened his mouth to dumbly repeat himself and ask if she often found strange people coming to her door looking for her or a slayer, but then closed it with the irony that he had not thought to give her the same warning. That if he truly intended to stay here for a long period of time then it was inevitable that someone would come looking for the hitokiri Battousai.
Kamiya Kaoru, he'd reasoned then, was extremely superstitious and perhaps a touch paranoid. Now, given the fact that she had gladly allowed him into her home and asked no questions of his past, and that she seemed so open and caring, he wasn't quite sure how she managed this. He'd just decided to take it with a shrug and be glad, perhaps even flattered, that she'd bent her rules for the manslaying demon of Kyoto.
And she'd looked at him with such…
Not only that she wanted him here, but as if she was truly grateful for his presence, for his companionship and his acceptance of her as she had so easily accepted him.
And he had thought that so strange, that she would think that he was in a position to judge those around him. That his opinion mattered to her and mattered so deeply.
Then, that night she had not gone to sleep. After dinner they'd talked, sat in the kitchen, and stared at one another watching as the candles burned low. At first, he had been content simply to stare across at her, to mark and remember every detail of her for reasons even he couldn't quite define, but then the hours had burned on and he'd realized that they were both waiting for the other to leave.
Kenshin was an insomniac by nature and nightmare, Kyoto had no pity for sleeping fools and neither had the years of wandering, futons were generally quite foreign to him and most nights were spent sleeping crouched against a wall with the reversed blade between his legs. That, and something in him had wanted to wait until Miss Kaoru was settled and sleeping before he could allow himself to drift briefly into oblivion.
However, Kaoru, as the hours wore on, was looking at him with increasing desperation and disbelief as she realized that he wasn't going anywhere. More, for whatever reason, she herself could not go to sleep until he did.
Finally, he said softly, "Miss Kaoru, I believe you need sleep, that you do. You said you had lessons to teach in the morning at your neighbor's dojo."
The Kamiya Kasshin Ryu had not been revitalized overnight, after the apprehension of Gohei and the clearing of her name none of her students had returned, and bleakly Kenshin thought that none of them would. This was an age without samurai and as such kendo was now a luxury that few saw the purpose of.
And a school taught by a woman, however talented and worthy that woman…
"Well," Kaoru said hesitantly, "Don't you need sleep, Kenshin? It probably was a long walk to Tokyo."
"Indeed it was," Kenshin agreed lightly, and it truly had been, longer perhaps than Miss Kaoru could ever imagine, "However, I would feel better if… If Miss Kaoru was settled first, that I would."
She stared at him blandly, as if he had just said the thing she knew he was going to but desperately hoped he would not, and then said, "Well, I would feel better if Himura Kenshin, my honored guest, was settled. What kind of a host would I be if I didn't make sure you were comfortable?"
"Oh, that is not necessary, Miss Kaoru," he said holding up his hands in defense, because if she was waiting for him to go and lie on a futon she was likely to be waiting another ten years at least.
"On the contrary, Kenshin, it's very necessary and the least I can do as assistant master of the Kamiya Kasshin Ryu," she said, now apparently more at ease with her argument, which led Kenshin to believe that something far deeper than hospitality was at play here.
"Miss Kaoru, if we keep arguing who should retire first, we will be here all night, that we will," Kenshin said, now feeling a little desperate himself as he realized that Kamiya Kaoru was just stubborn enough to sit here and wait until dawn to see which of them would break.
He didn't know if it was mortifying or not that he expected it to be him.
"Then I guess we will," she said simply, smiling across at him with that bright and easy smile, undaunted by the exhausted shadows beneath her eyes.
Staring at her face, her pale expression and how tired she seemed to look, with a gentle smile he took pity on her and said, "Well, I suppose I have been tired, that I have. Thank you again, Miss Kaoru, for your hospitality."
And she'd smiled back, slowly, first in surprise then genuine fondness, "Yes, thank you, Kenshin."
He'd disappeared from her sight, leaned against the wall, and feigned sleep when she passed by around a half an hour later. She'd paused outside his door, standing with an intensity to her ki which made it seem as if she was listening to every noise he made, and then quickly made her way outside of the house and over the walls into the streets of Tokyo in a single bound.
Which, of course, had not been very hospitable of her.
He did not expect her to go to the authorities with his name, and indeed, as he followed as a shadow behind her she didn't walk in that direction. Instead, armed once again in dark battle gear that would not have been out of place in Kyoto and a bokken, she made her way with confidence to the outer limits of the city where the dead were buried.
There she walked for hours, through one cemetery then the next, with a very confused and somewhat alarmed Kenshin following behind as she inspected graves. She did not touch any, did not disturb the flowers left behind by loved ones, simply looked over each one and slowly but surely made her way through looking as if she was prepared for an attack at any moment.
He'd found himself thinking as he observed her that Kamiya Kaoru was very strong, very superstitious, overly paranoid, and apparently enjoyed walking through cemeteries at night.
Then, before he could approach her or else return to the dojo, the dead had risen from their graves wearing the faces of demons only to turn into dust as Miss Kaoru had unflinchingly drove her wooden sword through their hearts in a kotetsu that might have Hajime Saitou envious.
And Kenshin could stick to the shadows no longer, had stumbled out in front of her with his jaw open and her gaping at him in alarm, shame, and mortification, and then had chosen to handle his confusion by moving onward, turning her back to him, and continuing on her way while he followed doggedly behind. Which, after dispatching three more of the resurrected demonic dust-men, had at dawn brought them back to the dojo and to Miss Kaoru's kitchen where they now tried to talk about what happened like civilized people.
Except neither Kenshin nor Miss Kaoru were talking.
"Kenshin," she repeated, desperation threading through her voice as she said his name. When he didn't answer she sighed, closed her eyes, and appeared to come some conclusion, "I suppose you'll be leaving, then."
"No, of course not," the words slipped out of his mouth and she looked up to stare at him in disbelief as well as hope, "That is to say, I could wander again at any time, that I could, but that time is not… It is not now, Miss Kaoru."
Her smile was slow this time, unsure at first, and then returning to that unwavering grin which had greeted him when he'd agreed to stay with her at least for a little while. When he'd first seen that smile he'd thought that his heart might stop.
"Thank you, Kenshin," she said, tears gathering at the corners of her eyes as she bowed her head towards him, "That is, I, um, I'm glad."
The question of Himura Kenshin's immediate future safely out of the way they once again stared across at each other, in a slightly more bearable silence. However, soon enough the unsaid questions and answers began to make this new silence rather uncomfortable as well.
"Forgive me, Miss Kaoru—"
"Kenshin, you have to understand that I—"
Both blinked at the other, Kaoru's eyes blue and wide and without any guile at all. With a small, sheepish smile, Kenshin relented, "Oro, Miss Kaoru, you should go first."
"No, no, Kenshin, you should go first," she said, equally as flustered as himself, "I… I honestly don't know where to start."
Finally, her grip on the cup proved too much, and it shattered in her hands, tea sloshing onto her numb and bleeding fingertips. Both, for a moment, looked down at the broken pieces as well as her blood staining them. Then Kenshin was on his feet and rushing to the kitchen, that he had perhaps too much familiarity with given that it had only been a few days, as he found bandages to wrap her hands, "You should be more careful, that you should, Miss Kaoru."
She just nodded dumbly up at him, a spark of something that might be wonder in her eyes, and flushing he found himself looking back down at the cup. That… That should not have shattered simply from the force of her fingertips.
"Just how strong are you, Miss Kaoru?" he found himself asking as he took a seat across from her.
She hesitated for a moment, looking across at him and seeming to judge him for all he was worth, then slowly said, "Stronger than anyone, I think."
Kenshin somehow didn't doubt that he was included in this anyone, that Shishou was as well, but she did not say it with bravado or any hint of arrogance. Instead a small spark of defiance, as if she was waiting for him to laugh at her.
The strongest it was… That was a complicated thing to claim.
The hitokiri Battousai was said to be the strongest of the imperialists, perhaps the strongest swordsman in Kyoto if not Japan at the time, however he had not been without competition or his brushes with death. Had any one of the Shinsengumi been a little faster, a little luckier, then perhaps it would be Okita Souji or Hajime Saitou who would be bearing that title instead of him.
Still, certainly, he would agree that she was far stronger than he had ever expected her to be.
"I wasn't always this strong, or this fast," she said with hesitation, now fidgeting with the edge of her bandage, "I was, well, I was assistant master and my father's best student, but I was—"
She stopped, paused, and then the pause became longer as she lost whatever words she was going to say and let them drift from her.
"But you were…" Kenshin prompted for her, willing her to look him in the eye and say whatever it was she needed to say.
"Have you ever heard of the slayer?" she asked abruptly, and before he could open his mouth she cut him off, "Not a manslayer, not a hitokiri, but the slayer. A… slayer of demons."
The Battousai, he thought, was often called the demon of Kyoto if only because there were none who could slay him.
"No," he said quietly, his mind unwillingly drawn back to the bloody revolution of so many years ago, but Kaoru did not seem to notice as she breathed out, apparently hoping beyond hope that he had heard of this other kind of slayer.
She straightened herself with all the dignity she could muster after a night with no sleep, rolling her shoulders back and holding her head high as she declared, "Well, I'm something called the slayer, one girl in all the world who has the strength and skill to hunt the vampires."
"The vampires?"
"The, um, dead people you saw today," Kaoru said, flushing once again and now fraying the edge of her bandage, "Rise from the dead, have those nice yellow cat eyes and deformed faces, drink blood, have no souls, turn into dust when impaled through the heart. Those are vampires."
Kenshin reached out to stop her, took her hands in his, and couldn't help but notice how warm they were and how easily they fit in his.
"So, that's what I do, slay vampires," Kaoru said slowly, with more confidence than she likely felt, before this crumpled and she turned back to babbling, "I mean, when I'm not running the dojo or teaching elsewhere I… I slay vampires and demons."
And at this the silence returned, this time his thoughts less baffled and surreal and more contemplative and perhaps with an edge of darkness to them. She truly believed in her father's philosophy, he knew she did, not simply by her words but by her actions. She had used a bokken against him in that alleyway, a bokken against Gohei, and had refused to draw a blade when the men intent on raping her and burning down her dojo had come for her. Hers was a sword that would protect, the sword of defense, and Kenshin wished with all his heart that the world could become a place where that was a reality.
However, by her own admission and by her own actions she slayed these vampires, who had worn the faces and bodies of the dead.
"Kenshin," she said quietly as if she could see every thought running through his mind and had thought them often herself, "They're not human, not anymore, vampires… It's a demon inside of them, they have the human memories, the human bodies, but it's not them anymore. And that demon will destroy everything it touches, everything it once loved, and I can't just slow it down or change its mind…"
And he found, as she looked at him in desperation, that he had to believe her. He at least had to believe that she believed it, had some very good reason to believe it, because her soul was untainted by hypocrisy. Even now she was still this brightly burning sun in human form that he dared not look at too closely yet could not look away from.
So, he could only smile, squeeze her hands gently in his, and say, "Tomorrow, you should take me with you, that you should."
Shortly after her father had left for the war, but before he had died, Kamiya Kaoru had discovered her destiny. It had been a very quiet morning, a still summer's day in the dojo, and she had been practicing before her father's students would arrive (her students now that her father was no longer in Tokyo).
She had been going through familiar kata, the exercises that barely took a thought anymore so long she'd been practicing the Kamiya Kasshin Ryu, and then it had happened. Suddenly she'd stepped forward and there had been strength, ki, and speed she had never imagined within herself. She struck down through the air with a cry and it was faster than her blade had ever been, faster she knew than her father's had ever been, and she'd stared down at it in wonder even as her hand trembled.
It was as if there was a lever somewhere inside her soul, or perhaps a dam, and it had been there so long that she had never noticed it until just then the water had broken free and created a lake in the soul of what had once been Kamiya Kaoru.
The gaijin, Wilson Arthur, the watcher from England, wouldn't come until a week later, having been held up at sea and at the port in Yokohama. Perhaps it was easier that way, as a week later and Kaoru had had time to reflect and realize that she had truly changed, when he'd put thickly accented words to it she'd been willing to believe it.
Kamiya Kaoru was the vampire slayer, one girl in all the world with the strength and skill to hunt the vampires and the demons, inheriting her abilities only through the death of her predecessor as her successor would inherit them upon Kamiya Kaoru's demise.
Now, two years later with her father dead and the strange gaijin mentor dead alongside him, and Kaoru was still assistant master of her father's style and still the vampire slayer. Only…
Only she was well and terribly aware that she had very little idea of what she was doing and was more grateful than Kenshin would ever know that he was walking alongside her. It'd been nearly a week now, Kaoru still had no students and there were certainly still vampires, but she did have Kenshin.
She glanced at him, watching as he hesitantly smiled back, that soft and fond expression she was most likely growing entirely too attached to. Mr. Wilson had said many things, many of them she hadn't agreed with, and in her heart she knew that her own stubbornness had undoubtedly had a hand in his death.
He had said that vampires were soulless abominations and demons, that no matter what they looked like they were no longer human and there was no recourse but death. Kaoru hadn't believed that then, hadn't believed it until it was far too late. He had also cautioned her against attachment.
"Kamiya-sama," he'd said, because she'd suddenly become revered on becoming the slayer, honored far more than she ever would be even for being a swords master, "When your father returns from the wars, if he returns from the wars, you must leave this place. A slayer is only slowed down, weakened, by her attachments and creating ties to the living only give them more places to strike you."
Of course, she'd immediately thrown her tea cup at his head and told him to get out of her house, that even if her honorable father wasn't here she was still assistant master of his school and didn't need advice from rat-faced Englishmen who clearly had no idea what they were talking about.
"How do you expect to explain this to him, Kamiya-sama?" he'd asked giving her a rather penetrating glance from behind his glasses, "Your duties will not end when he returns, and he is bound to notice you sneaking out of the dojo every night. More, what will you do when they come for him, all your enemies who wish to lash out at the slayer?"
"I'll do what I have to!" Kaoru had screamed, standing up and slamming the shoji door in his face while she'd walked towards the dojo to train and release all the bitter anxieties and feelings and desperate missing of her father.
It'd all been moot point, she supposed, as a year later she'd received the letter that her father was dead. More, by that time Mr. Wilson was long since dead as well, she'd only known him for a few weeks (long enough for him to unpack his strange books and scrolls in her store shed, teach her about vampires, crucifixes, and ofuda) and then it was just Kaoru.
Kaoru shook her thoughts away, focusing instead on the graveyard and the restless, unnatural, ki of the demonic undead. She wouldn't say she liked vampire hunting, she often found it daunting and sometimes would despair that this would be the rest of her life, but at the very least it was distracting.
"Something on your mind, Miss Kaoru?"
Kaoru glanced towards Kenshin again, this time his features twisting into one of concern, he had often looked concerned these past few days. Fond, concerned, bewildered, and uncertain which Kaoru supposed he had every right to. Still, he had stayed, even after watching her shove her sword through the hearts of demons who had once been men, he had stayed.
He was…
If she hadn't met him in daylight, hadn't seen him walk in the sun for days now, hadn't seen his warm and gentle smile and calm demeanor she might have been convinced he was a vampire.
His ragged clothes, his status as a wanderer, his strange humble and outdated mode of speaking as if he belonged to the Warring States era, his foreign features, his overwhelming ki, his strength and speed and ability with a sword… Even before someone had gone and truly named him hitokiri Battousai she had thought that he could have been a demon.
She hadn't told him, she wasn't sure he'd understand yet, Kenshin after all hadn't seen that many vampires yet and not that many vampires in action. Lately all Kaoru had time for was to roam the cemetaries and nip the problem in the bud, more, it was better for Kenshin to see it this way.
Here it was clear exactly what a vampire was and what it wanted, in the red light district and the gambling halls it would be…
Well, it was always a bit more complicated there and Kaoru had the feeling that Kenshin might not appreciate the realities of Kaoru's task. Or, perhaps, Kaoru was afraid that he would not appreciate the realities of her task, that he would leave…
"Miss Kaoru," he prompted once again, more insistent this time, and she started.
"Sorry, lost in my thoughts again," she said sheepishly, "It's almost peaceful sometimes, you know, if you discount the vampires."
His fond and kind smile returned, "I do not believe I could discount the vampires, Miss Kaoru, that I could not."
Kaoru couldn't either, but then, she stood by her words. She would look out sometimes past the cemeteries at the cool night air, at the sakura trees or the fresh snowfall, and she would wonder how a world so beautiful could be infested by demons.
She'd gone over the realities of vampires with him that first day, their strengths and their weaknesses. They retained the memory and muscle memory of their mortal counterparts (and Kaoru loathed when the vampires went and turned former samurai), retained their bodies, but their soul disappeared and whatever moral conscience they had was long gone. You, in effect, would be long gone, it was a demon driving your body then.
"There are many human men, Miss Kaoru, that people would say do not possess souls," Kenshin had responded, and there had been something dark and haunted in his eyes, making them that strange lighter color that was almost not purple at all but a pale blue.
"I am not saying that men are incapable of evil, Kenshin," Kaoru said, "Or that vampires are incapable of things like… devotion, but there is a fundamental difference between even the worst of mankind and a vampire, and that is the human soul."
It had taken her time to learn that herself, time and death and guilt, but at this point she knew that every vampire she let roam free (even if it were wearing the face of a child) then she was condemning another to death. More, she was dishonoring the victim of the vampire, by letting the thing that wore its face steal its body as a puppet.
Kenshin didn't understand, and part of her was glad, because she missed the days when she hadn't understood either. He was right, she hadn't seen the wars her father had been through, had not seen the bakumatsu for herself, but she had seen death and despair and things that she had once never been capable of imagining.
Yet, her sword was still the sword that would protect life.
"So, a demon cannot enter your house if you do not invite him, Miss Kaoru?"
Kaoru looked over at Kenshin in this present moment, watching as his eyes lingered on her face, making small talk and yet not making small talk instead trying to understand the world she lived in. Slowly, carefully, Kaoru nodded.
"Vampires, yes, but there are many kinds of demons," Kaoru said, hesitating as she admitted, "I… don't know many of them myself, there was a man from England, Mr. Wilson, who knew about thousands and thousands of demons, but I only have his books now and I can only read a few of them. Vampires are different though. Demons don't think they're real demons, but generally they are considered… worse. They have a demon's strength and hunger but with mankind's intelligence and cunning as well as a human disguise. Except they have very extreme weaknesses."
Kaoru listed them off as they walked, "They're weak to religious symbols, like ofuda, crucifixes, or any kind of holy water. They have a strong abhorrence to garlic. They can't be seen in a reflective surface. They're stronger than men but not typically as strong as other kinds of demons. If you strike a stake through their heart or decapitate them you can kill them, but this is the only way to easily kill them. And, they can't enter a home dwelling without permission."
"And that is why you do not invite strangers to your house," Kenshin concluded for her and Kaoru nodded, guiltily, as it had been…
She had always been the kind of person who opened her house, her dojo, to anyone. It had been hard to learn to distrust anyone who lingered at night or twilight outside of her doorstep. She felt like a part of her had grown bitter and cold, though she supposed not cold enough to have thrown out Kenshin.
"Not just strangers," Kaoru said slowly, "Theoretically, anyone can become a vampire, and while I can tell if someone's a vampire or not I…"
"You are not sure that I can, that you are not," Kenshin finished for her and Kaoru, rather awkwardly shrugged.
"Well, you probably could," because if there was one thing she had picked up on in the few days he had been living in her dojo,it was that he was tremendously skilled, not simply with the sword, but in sensing ki he rivaled if not surpassed her even with her slayer abilities coming into play. She had no doubt that given enough of these excursions he would be able to easily pick up who was a demon and who was not.
And it was…
She hadn't realized how desperately she'd wanted to meet someone like him, someone who could come with her, who if not could understand she could trust to hold his own blade and fight off the monsters. Kenshin could not become a vampire because that meant the vampires would have to defeat him where all the enemies of the imperialists had not managed it.
She could trust Kenshin, not only to guard her back during these walks in the cemeteries, but to stay alive and remain wonderfully Kenshin.
And he would never know how grateful she was for that.
At that moment she felt it, felt him turn in time with her, but as the dojo had been his domain this was hers and she vaulted over his shoulders only to drive her sword through the vampire's heart. She stood there then, feeling the breeze flutter through her hair and kimono, staring down at the clothing and pile of dust that made up all that was left of the vampire.
Kenshin, she knew, was staring silently at her back.
What did he see when he looked at her?
What did he see on all the other nights she had taken him out here to the cemeteries, in the mornings when they returned to the dojo and he watched her practice her father's style of kenjutsu (which as he had promised was never enough to slay or kill, not enough against the vampires and had to be blasphemously adjusted into a hodge podge of assassination techniques to fend off the demons), or when they walked into town together with her in brightly colored kimonos that she pretended suited her.
She wasn't sure she wanted to know and yet she desperately did. Maybe it was because he was the first, the only, one to know since Mr. Wilson. Maybe it was because he himself was a slayer of men and so at least could say he understood even if he could not pardon her for what she was. Or, maybe it was simply because he was Himura Kenshin, and no one had ever been Himura Kenshin before.
Either way she stood with a forced stoicism, ready for this to be the moment he let voice his fear or his disgust. However, he did neither, instead softly he said, "Miss Kaoru, the night will not last forever, that it won't. We should move to the next cemetery."
She turned back to him, grinning in relief as well as happiness, because it was true. No one ever had been Himura Kenshin before.
Author's Note: I'm sorry, I really should not be starting stories (especially the kind that have the liability to spiral desperately out of control) but there were no Buffy the Vampire Slayer crossovers with Rurouni Kenshin and this simply would not do. Also, KaoruxKenshin is my gospel and I must preach even if no one is willing to listen.
Now, with this out of my system for now, I'll probably come back to it much much later unless you all are dying for more and return to more regularly scheduled fanfiction. I have no one to blame but myself.
Thanks for reading, reviews are appreciated.
Disclaimer: I don't own Buffy the Vampire Slayer or Ruroni Kenshin