Disclaimer: Rurouni Kenshin © Nobuhiro Watsuki, Sony Entertainment, Shueisha, ADV, Shounen Jump, Fuji-TV, SME Visual Works and Media Blasters. This story is made for the sole purpose of entertainment and is not being used for sale or gain in money.

Heart of the Sunrise
Chapter 1

Everything was going as planned. The sun was high in the sky and no clouds were present as far as the eye could see. They were making good speed, the waves crashing almost rhythmically against the ship's bow; they would be arriving earlier than when they had expected to reach port. But he had already planned that, of course.

It didn't matter that a few months ago his emotional stability was a mess and that he nearly starved himself to death, unable to find the will to keep on living. He was back to his normal self in no time; just as planned. Not killing Battousai wasn't part of his plan, however...

Involuntarily, he passed a hand through his prematurely white hair and flipped through another page of the book he was holding as he stood on the deck, leaning on the railing. He couldn't help but make a mental count of every sailor who walked past him. He had no need for doing it, but his mind still insisted on doing so. By the time an hour had passed, he was aware of at least seven different crew members on the ship.

He moved away from the rail when water from the waves started to sprinkle overboard. He walked across the deck without lifting his eyes from the book. Accidentally, he bumped against one tall, burly sailor carrying a load of ropes, consequently making the sailor drop majority of his cargo. Not even eyeing the sailor, who was giving him a fine amount of looks and glares, he kept on walking.

"'ey, mister-san," the european sailors seemed to have a fun time making jokes with the japanese way of speech. "Whaddya think yer doin', walkin' 'round asif ye own this ship an' all." Taking a couple of steps to reach the white-haired man, the sailor was getting more irritated by the second. "Ye stinkin' Japanese are stupid. No wonder ye were killin' yerselves in th' war."

Suddenly, the white-haired man stopped, and so did the sailor. The tall sailor was grinning to himself, glad to have provoked the other man. But as the white-haired man cast a wayward glance over his shoulder at the approaching sailor, his expression changed to that of confusion. And then his face paled as he locked his eyes on the white-haired man's glare. "I could buy this filthy ship and several more if I please."

Regaining his composure, the sailor spat to the side and walked away as he muttered in his native tongue, barely mumbling an apology for whichever reason.

Even as the taller man walked away, his eyes did not stop from glaring at the back of the sailor's head. Thinking nothing of it, he quickly returned his gaze to the book's old and yellow pages. Before walking down the stairs to the captain's study, he flipped the page and flinched in displeasure. He had flipped at the page hard, maybe too hard; the page was barely hanging on to the strings that kept the pages together.

He lifted his sight from the book and placing the page, carefully, back to place, closed the book. With firm steps he walked to the captain's study, and without even knocking, entered. The young captain of the ship was sleeping on his chair with his feet on top of the wood table. Maps, ink, parchments, and several feathered pens laid scattered carelessly on a side of the table. "Charles," the white-haired man called, closing the distance between himself and the desk, and with a loud 'bam!' he slammed the table.

The dozing man suddenly woke, alarmed. His eyes searched about the study and stopped on the white-haired man. "Ah, it's you again." With a quick movement, he was already standing and checking on a watch. "We'll be arriving in half an hour. Please don't disturb me like this any further." He gave a side glance at the man in his study and grinned to himself. "But you're a very important asset to my father's company, so if there's anything you'd be in need of, don't hesitate to ask for it."

Amused by the man's statement, he shot back. "It's quite pathetic that you europeans depend on my financial help," looking around the study, he finished, "which was acquired with means as dirty as this old ship." Ignoring the captain's sudden repetitive eye twitch, he put away the book on the inside of his jacket. "Please refrain from slowing down; I have an agenda to fulfill before the day is over." With nothing more than a nod of acknowledgement, he left the study. The captain was twitching at the comment and slammed his fist on the table.

As the captain had said, they made port in a bit less than thirty minutes. After arranging his papers, paying the captain, and grabbing his things, he was already walking down to the port. Their destination, the Izu Islands, was the perfect location for him to stay at. After serving the Chinese Mafia as their boss for ten years and suddenly dissapearing, taking with him a good amount of money, and nearly killing the man who would succeed him in position, he was a fairly wanted man. Not to mention that the Japanese police was looking for him too, for destroying several sites and killing innocent civilians in Tokyo.

He couldn't help but wonder if the Europeans were looking for him too. He had, after all, made several deals with them which backfired despite favorable appearances.

Why the Izu Islands? He would have been better off going to the west, to seek success in the western nations. But that would have been too obvious, and even though the european culture was of interest to him, he had no desire to leave his homeland. Returning to Shanghai would be like wanting a death wish, and he could not remain in Japan's main islands for long before he was found by the police, not to mention that he lived there.

But the Izu Islands... were perfect. A small population and pretty much ignored by the western influences. If he recalled well, a couple of those islands were used to exile criminals, and it would favor him if there were still some roaming about. Aside from the criminals that were exiled there, the islands were peaceful. There was no need for the police to involve themselves in those islands.

The real Japan that he loved still remained there. There was no way anyone would think he would go to such an uncivilized place.

He had arrived to Oshima, the biggest of the islands, but that was not his destination. He browsed through the small boats anchored at the beach. He did not notice a man sitting on one of them until he spoke. "Where could you be willing to head for, old man?" Suddenly seeing his face, and realizing that he was younger than himself, he quickly took back his words. "Ah, forgive me. Your white hair had me fooled for a second."

The white-haired man couldn't help but notice the accent in his voice. Inspecting the boat the man was sitting on and taking a good look at the man, he finally replied, "To Mikurajima, though I'm afraid I have no way to transport myself there. I was wondering if one of the natives of these islands would be willing to take me there," seeing as the man silently became distracted with a passing fly, he coughed a couple of times to grasp back the attention. "Of course, for such services one would be paid nicely."

Without a word of warning, the man jumped out of the boat and started to push it into the sea, making the youth have to step back to not be pushed along with the boat. "Aye, aye! Hop on fast," the man called, waving his arm. "It's barely noon, so if we hurry we might arrive at Nijima before sundown."

It wasn't long before they could no longer see the white sand of the Oshima beach. The white-haired man looked back and then up ahead, where land was still not viewable. The man was rowing gently but firmly against the small waves going against the boat. Fifteen minutes had passed but they hadn't said a word to one another. The man was, however, whistling a song to himself. "Say," the man began, "what does a fella like you have to do in an island like Mikurajima? It is far away from the great cities."

He couldn't help but feel curious about the younger man's odd looks. He looked very foreign to him, yet had a feel of being very cult in a way. "You some sort of government guy?"

"You seem slightly scared," fixing his glasses back with his index finger, he looked thoroughly at the older man, "wouldn't it have fitted you better to ask such things before telling me to hop in the boat?"

The other man nearly burst out in a loud laugh, but he refrained from doing so. "Nay son," he crossed one leg and continued rowing, "I can tell when one has good intentions or not. I'm no fool, no matter what you think. Go on, answer my question. I know you're evading it on purpose."

He was getting more and more amused with this man. He was certainly going to have a good time if most people from the Izu Islands were like him. "Why would I answer a question, when I don't even know the name of the one who asks it?"

"The name's Ringo," the man replied, looking to his back and barely spotting a bit of land, "and that over there is Toshima, though you can barely see a bit of land if you have good eyes." Turning back to the younger man, he asked, "And do I have the honor of knowing your name?"

He squinted hard to see the piece of land the older man had said to have seen. He could see nothing; it was all blue ahead for him. He could not tell if he was being made fun of. "Yukishiro. Yukishiro Enishi."

"Hm, in that case, it's a pleasure to meet you, Yukishiro-san," Ringo cracked a small grin and stopped rowing. Enishi stared as the older man looked for something at the side of the boat. "And if you don't mind me asking," he continued, holding up two paddles to Enishi, "I would like you to help me row this thing. I believe you're a very busy man and would like to get to your destination as quickly as possible." Once Enishi grabbed the paddles, and looked at him in confusion, Ringo began to row again.

"Whenever you're ready."

And so Yukishiro Enishi began to row the boat along with the old man. It wasn't but ten minutes later when he could finally see some of the land that belonged to Toshima while he heard the older man, Ringo, tell him jokes of yore. Which, actually, he had no interest in and focused on repeating to himself a couple of lines from the book he was reading earlier that day.

A/N: Hey guys! Hope you've enjoyed this first chapter. I'm very excited about this and have a lot of prosperous ideas for this story. So please, look forward to it! Thank you for reading. :)