My first fanfiction of 2006! Yay!

DISCLAIMER: DON'T OWN IT. WOULD LIKE TO, OF COURSE, BUT I'D ALSO LIKE A PONY AND IT JUST AIN'T GONNA HAPPEN...

This is just a little character ficlet I came up with on a whim whilst reading the Jinchuu Arc...

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Kaoru is eight years old. She stands and watches as the boys cross 'swords' and laugh together, so far away across the courtyard. Her gi is scuffed and dirty, the hakama torn at the knees. They don't let her play anymore.

Silently, sternly, her father stands beside her. When he's here she feels impossibly small. When he speaks, she feels shame and pride all at once and it's so confusing,

"One day," He whispers, "You will have to be stronger."

Shame and pride, mixed in there with determination and fear. She has to be stronger.

And, as her father walks away, she tells herself she will be. In time.

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Eleven years old. The earth is wet from all the efforts of the springtime, and she feels unsteady on soft ground. The shinai is held firmly in both hands, and all around her the trees rustle and whisper. An audience in waiting.

Swiftly, unsurely, her body moves the way it's been trained to. She hears her father's instructions over and over, until the greens and pinks of the forest blur into one swirling mass of light and sound.

This time, she tells herself, it will be perfect.

But it isn't.

When her foot slips in the mud she falls, feeling wet and cold all over. There is dirt in her long, dark hair and she just wants to lie there and cry.

People always say she has her mother's hair, and so she keeps it long and hopes that one day she'll be as pretty as the woman she remembers.

And maybe then things will be perfect.

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Fourteen years old this time. Her father lights a candle and favors her with a rare, open smile. For her birthday. There is a fairly large package sitting on the old, unpolished wooden table, and she feels the early twinges of excitement.

He hands her the package, still smiling. The box is light and she tears it open. The wrapping is delicate, covered with sakura blossom prints, and she throws them to the wind.

Patience, her father sometimes says, is a thing she'll learn with time.

And age. Because everything comes with age, just like this. She holds up her brand new weapon to the light, watching the reflections of the candle dance across the shiny wood. It feels expensive, and she wonders, for a moment, just how long it'll take for it to become worn like everything else in this house.

Behind the smile she can see, suddenly, all the lines and creases in her father's face that weren't there before.

Placed in her hands she begins to grasp now, clearer than before, the age and responsibility handed down to her in this simple birthday present.

Briefly, she closes her eyes and wonders what birthdays are like for normal girls.

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Seventeen years old, but only just. It's springtime again. She stands out in the courtyard, listening intently as her duties are heaped upon her. Dressed in the neat, pressed gi and hakama of an assistant instructor, she is ready at last.

Or so her father says anyway, and she beams with pride when he does; standing there with his hat in hand, and wearing the most serious expression she's ever seen.

And part of her knows then, realizes that surely, obviously he's too old for war. Part of her sees clearly the way he carries all his belongings like a man prepared to die.

But that's impossible. Because he's so strong, and in their parting hug she still feels so impossibly small.

So her father turns finally, heading down the old beaten road and out of sight, she looks up into the sky and smiles.

As always, the morning sun is bright, warm and alive, and just ever so slightly out of reach.

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Well, there you have it. I like to think I managed to portray Kaoru's character fairly accurately here...but I'd still like to hear what you reader-people think .