I don't own Kino no Tabi or Kino's Journey is you prefer.

Kino was traveling along a lone dirt road, when a thought struck her. This place is awfully familiar. A lot of roads looked the same but if felt like she had been here before.

"What's wrong Kino?" asked a childish voice beneath her. Kino shook her head, "Have we been here before?" She waited for an answer but seemed like Hermes was just thinking, or maybe stalling. She couldn't think of why he would though. "This is the place where you first drove me." he said.

It suddenly hit her. This was her country, the land of adults. Suddenly her breath seemed to run out, she couldn't do this. This wasn't a pleasant village. She wouldn't go back.

She clutched the brake sharply and ended up turning the handle. "What are you doing Kino!" shouted Hermes as he turned on his side and slip across the dirt rode.

Neither of them noticed a buggy approaching them. It was by sheer coincidence that Shizu, Ti and Riku were going in the same direction as them.

Shizu noticed the accident immediately but didn't recognize the who was driving. He parked closely and jumped out. The motorrad had fallen on top of it's rider's leg. It was a young lady, laying face down.

He pulled the motorrad up off her and bent down to help her up. She groaned as he turned her over. As soon as he saw her face he knew who it was. He hadn't seen Kino in a while. There was a long cut above her left eye, close to her hair line.

The white shirt she had been wearing and black vest had been torn and there were spots of blood along her shoulder, where she had hit the ground. "Are you alright, Kino?" As he said this, her eyes started to flutter. "Huh?" she started. Her eyes were unfocused, like she didn't know what was going on.

He wrapped the worst of her wounds and decided to take her off the road.

He started to help her up, but had failed to notice the injury on her leg. "I can't." said Kino, falling back to the ground. He put one of his arms under her knees and other around her shoulders. "Don't worry. There's a country not far from here. I'm sure that they have a hospital or a doctor."

She started to push him away as he lifted her up. "Kino, what are-" "Don't!" she said suddenly. "That country is evil. I won't go back there. I can't."

He had never seen her like this. Well that wasn't really fair, he didn't know her that well. But the few times he did see her, she seemed so composed. This was a panic that he never thought he would see on her face. It was probably because of the injury that she was acting this way. Normally she seemed like the type of person to think things out.

"Fine, I won't take you to that country but I am going to try to bandage your wounds." he said. She seemed to calm down a little at that.

She had said that she wouldn't go back. He wanted to ask her about what had happened in this country last time but she was clearly too upset for that. She closed her eyes, and it looked like she was going to sleep again.

He carried her over to the buggy and sat her in the back seat. He didn't figured that after he got her settled he could come back for the motorrad. He drove over to a good camping spot just off the road and parked. Ti set up the fire while he laid Kino down on the blanket he had bought for Ti.

He used his medical kit to fix up her leg first and then took care of the cut on her face. He was thankful that he had enough sense to get some extra supplies at the last country he had been in.

That was easy enough but she still had cuts along her shoulder and back that needed to be taken care of. That meant that he was going to have to remove her shirt. It wasn't like he was going to try to take advantage of her or anything. It was just that he had always thought of himself as sort of a gentleman.

He took a deep breath and started anyway. While he was doing this, Ti had gone off exploring somewhere.

He was halfway through dressing her wounds when something he feared would happen actually did. He had taken off her shirt and had her laying on her stomach to clean out her wounds when she woke up.

"What?" she said, trying to get up. He quickly removed his hands, "I'm bandaging you wounds. You got into an accident." She nodded and sat upright. He turned his head away while she used her arms to cover her chest. "Thank you. I shouldn't have reacted the way I did. That country is not a place you would want to live."

She turned away and let him finish. He was definitely more embarrassed then she was at her nudity. "I'm sorry," he said, still trying to look away while treating her at the same time. "there was no way that I could save you shirt. I have a sweater that you can have."

"Thank you...again." she said. There was a moment of silence between them. She turned to face him, "Where is Hermes, my motorrad?" He shook his head, "I didn't bring him with me. I thought that you needed help right away and so I left him."

He felt bad. She had such a look of loss on her face that he couldn't help it. Just as he was going to offer to go back to get it she spoke, "I need to go get him."

He stood, took out a sweater and tossed it next to her. "Rest. I'll get it. I know where it is." He left before she could object. As he was leaving Riku came over and set next to her. She seemed to really like that dog.

The motorrad was easy to find and he didn't have very much trouble loading it into the buggy. When he returned to his camp, he found Ti showing Kino what she had found in the forest. Kino was talking about other things that she could find in the forest and how to tell which mushrooms were poison.

That evening Shizu cooked for the four of them. Ti was sitting silently on one side of the fire and Kino was petting Riku on the other. When he served them others he sat between the girls. "Kino," he started but he hesitated for a moment.

She was looking at him expectedly. He wasn't really good at things like this. He cleared his throat. "Would you consider traveling with us? Our goals seemed to be the same and It would be nice to have the company."

Kino looked down at her food and smiled sadly. "Thank you for everything that you have done for me but I don't think that I will do that. Hermes is my only companion, the only one I need. I think it would be best is we went our separate ways in the morning."

"Will you be able to ride?" he asked. He had concerned about that with her leg in the condition it was in.

"It doesn't matter." she answered, "I'll figure it out."

He wanted to help but if she said that she was going to be fine then there was nothing that he could do. He really wanted to travel with her but he guessed that that something that would never happen.