A/N: So, in order for this story to work I'm going to be playing around with Kaoru's back-story a lot. All of the characters are still going to think she is the canon age but I'm going to make her significantly older. She will need to have been old enough to fight in the Bakumatsu, but she only joined the fighting towards the end of it. Also, the death of her father will have happened during the Bakumatsu, but this will be common knowledge. They'll all assume she was raised as a child by Dr. Gensai (they're not the most inquisitive lot). Also, she only started training people in her father's style about two years before Kenshin showed up, before that she was a recluse.

Disclaimer: My name is not Nobuhiro Watsuki … I'm not even Japanese.


Chapter One

Kaoru lay on her futon staring at the ceiling. She hadn't had that nightmare in a while. Silently, Kaoru blessed the fact that she never cried out in her sleep; she didn't want to worry anyone, didn't want to worry Kenshin. Kenshin, she sighed and turned onto her side. Meeting him had been a godsend. After living on her own for so long after the war, she had given up on happiness. She had tried to busy herself with teaching her fathers' sword technique for the past few years, but she had been slowly dying on the inside. Having him as a friend and having people back in her life had kept her sane when she had so long ago resigned herself to loneliness.

Kenshin. His own struggle with the past had touched her in a way no one else possibly could. He alone understood how she felt; he was the only one of their friends burdened with as many deaths as she was. His hands were as stained as hers and his ragged, torn spirit soothed something in herself that relished knowing someone as troubled as she.

But he was too good for her. She almost laughed as she thought of the irony of their situation. He saw himself as too stained, too bloody to love and be loved by her. She wasn't stupid; she knew quite well what was keeping him from initiating a relationship. He thought she was too pure, too untouched to be with him. She did laugh then, a sad deprecating laugh. He could admit to his past. He had the courage to face it, to own up to it, to share with her the truth. She lived a lie. She pretended to be someone she wasn't, or at least someone she hadn't been in a long time. She pretended to be happy and innocent because she was terrified he would leave if he knew the truth, terrified that they would all leave if they knew who she really was, what she was capable of. She was a coward and she didn't deserve their love or their trust.

The sword that protects. What a joke. She was the biggest hypocrite, preaching a sword that doesn't kill, a sword that saves lives. And they all admired her for it. She wanted so desperately for it to be true, she wanted to help people, but she knew what swords were really for. They were meant for killing, she had seen it so often, had done it so much that it was hard to see it as anything other than a tool for death.

Yahiko. How disappointed he would be if he knew the truth, how jaded. She couldn't let that happen to him, she couldn't let him become like her. That was the real reason she had accepted him as a student. She had seen into his soul, seen what the world had made him. He was just like her after her father's death; she knew what would happen to him if he was left to fend for himself. She couldn't stand to let anyone else take that road. And so she had sheltered him, found a purpose in him and he had wormed his way past her defenses and into her heart.

Her heart. Did she even have one left? If she did it must be so small and weak, buried beneath all the faces of the people whose lives she had ended. She saw them when she closed her eyes. Every blink brought back a face, a person who had died at her hand. Every single one had been cruelly committed to her memory. She couldn't forget one if she tried. They were all there, tattooed into her eyelids, burned into her brain and she could never escape from them for long.

Giving up on sleep she judged the time and slowly edged out her ki to see what was happening. Yahiko was sleeping; she could feel the contentment radiating from his room, though she didn't need his ki to tell her that, she could hear his snores announcing each sleepy breath. Sano had left after dinner and was probably passed out drunk somewhere or walking the docks looking for a fight. Kenshin, she could feel propped up against his wall sleeping lightly. Despite trying, she knew he had a hard time sleeping on his futon. It made him edgy and he slept badly if he did it too much. Sitting up abruptly, she felt something move at the edge of her senses.

It wasn't terribly threatening, but it was strong and unwelcomed. She was surprised Kenshin hadn't immediately woken up. She stood without making a sound and loosened the floorboard next to her bed with her magic. Taking out her old katana she slid her shoji open, unsheathing her sword as she moved. She padded soundlessly to the yard and surveyed her surroundings. Not a leaf was out of place on the ground, nothing was disturbed but she sensed something off. She took a step off the porch to get a better look at the yard and that was when she saw it.

A small wooden box lay on the ground by the laundry basin. The presence she had felt was gone now, but she was still cautious as she walked towards it. She carefully lifted the lid and paused feeling her anger and fear rising in equal parts. Inside the box was a simple scrap of cloth. The cloth was dyed blue and had a symbol on it, a Sakura blossom inside a flame. That was her symbol, the one she had been known by during the Bakumatsu. Someone was calling her out after all these years. She let the magic well up inside her and set the cloth on fire without a thought. It, along with the box, was reduced to nothing but ash in the next minute. Back in her room, she stowed her sword below the floorboard and resealed it. Sleep wouldn't return tonight, or tomorrow for sure. Kaoru padded back to the porch and sat down. Glaring at the horizon she sat and watched as the sun rose up announcing another day.


Housekeeping notes: Yes, I am obsessed with making normal female characters magical. Hopefully you won't see too many similarities to Witchy Woman; Kaoru and Bella are very different women and live in different time periods. I know Kaoru sounds super depressing right now, but nightmares tend to do that to people. Don't worry, neither I nor the brooding will affect too much of her raccoon-like personality.

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