Disclaimer: I don't own anything and I really hate doing this disclaimer thing.

Chapter 2

They all knelt around a table drinking hot tea that Kaoru had just served them. They were all silent as they took the first sip. Sanosuke spit his out, and Kaoru sharply turned to look at him.

"What?! It's hot!" he exclaimed putting his cup down on the table.

"Yeah well no one else thinks it's too hot!" She said still watching him.

"Well you made mine hot on purpose then!" He was about ready to smack a hoe, or at least that's what he thought she was.

"Please do not fight when we have company, it isn't very polite," Kenshin tried to talk to them, but they kept fighting. He turned to Rika, "I'm very sorry, they are like children, that they are."

"Are you guy's lovers or something?" Rika asked and they all looked at her.

"Who do you mean?" Sanosuke asked letting go of Kaoru's hair.

"You two, you seem comfortable fighting in front of people, so you must be lovers or married even, are those your kids that were outside. Neither of you look old enough to be the boys parents though. Do you fight in front of your children too, or is it just strangers?"

Sanosuke pouted folding his arms and looking straight at the wall behind Kenshin. Kaoru blushed and turned her head to look at Kenshin. Kenshin just looked like he was trying to hold back fits of laughter, but his eyes were wide open.

"What did I just hit a touchy subject? Do you guys regret getting married?" She tried to make the situation better. "Okay…well anyways let's get on with the news I have." Still no one changed what they were doing. "Okay look I'm sorry, my parents would never fight in front of me either but I could hear them. It's okay that's how all relationships are you can't expect it to be a vacation until you die. I've never been in a relationship myself but that's just because I'm not ready. Also Kenshin I see you want to laugh or say some gay remark, its okay homosexuality is no problem with me. My uncle's are gay, yeah both of them." Rika just kept digging herself into a deeper and deeper hole. She tried to make it better, but that was not one of her strong points, talking was defiantly her worst talent.

Now Sanosuke burst out laughing, "You think Kenshin is homosexual! Why do you say that?" He finally was the first person to look at her.

"I don't know the way he talks, and how he is so calm, the fact that he is trying so hard not to dig into yours and Kaoru's relationship."

"Okay listen me and Kaoru are far from being in any relationship, I don't even consider her a friend. Kenshin's not gay, actually we all believe these two have something going on between them that they like to keep secret," Sanosuke cleared up seeing that Rika did not and would probably never get it straight unless they told her.

Now Rika was blushing, "Oh I'm really sorry if I made you all uncomfortable. I'm not very smart when it comes to figuring people out. And I always just seem to keep talking and can't stop myself." She pulled her mouth wide across her face and gave them apologetic eyes.

"If anyone's homosexual its Sanosuke, I've never seen him with a woman," Kaoru commented quickly.

"Hey! I have women, they may only like my sex, but still I've got them," Sanosuke said looking at Rika trying to defend himself.

"So you only sleep with prostitutes and geishas?" Rika stated blankly looking back over at him as he jerked his head away.

Now Kenshin and Kaoru started to laugh, but quickly stopped when Sanosuke glared at them both in the eyes at the same time. (A/N: Didn't write Saving Silverman)

"Anyway, my name is Rika Minamino and I am from the year 2008, I am 22 years old and I live in modern day Edo which is now Tokyo. Yes, it is now the capitol of Japan. My friend Kagome has this magical well in the back of the old shrine she lives in. When she jumps into it she says she goes all the way back to the Feudal era, so I tried, and I ended up here." Rika said as slowly as she could, she didn't really want to tell them anymore. How do you explain mass devastation to a group of people and then tell them they cannot stop it or even try?

"Are you serious? So if I jumped into this well would I go to your time?" Sanosuke asked.

"I'm not sure I didn't go to the same time as Kagome, she says she has made friends with demons! I wanted to meet them, but I guess I'm not as special as her."

"So that's why you were running to that well?" Sanosuke was putting pieces together.

"Yeah, but it's an active well right now. When I came up into it I was almost drowning," she said.

"How did you get out that well is very deep?" Kenshin looked at her.

"Well the bucket was dropped down into it so I used the rope and used it to climb up the walls," she said simply.

"So you are strong, would you say?" Sanosuke looked at her almost probingly.

She knitted her eyebrows together and looked back at him. "Yes, I would say so," she said sarcastically. "What is wrong with you? Are you dumb or something? Obviously, if I can pull myself up and out a well with only a rope and my body, I'm strong."

"Hey don't insult me! I am not stupid, I was just asking because whatever this horrible thing is you can help us," Sanosuke tried to defend his question.

"FUCK NO! I am not helping and if I tell you what it is then you won't be able to do anything. I'm not screwing up my future and risking not even being born just so you guys have the upper hand. No, if you are so smart figure it out on your own." She smacked her hands on the table and stood up.

"What! You said you were going to tell us!" Sanosuke also stood up. All of a sudden the boy slid the door open and looked at them all. "Yahiko what is it? We are in the middle of something."

"You guys aren't letting me in on anything anymore! I'm part of this team too, you can't just ignore me!" Yahiko shouted looking like he was ready to cry.

"Yahiko, how do you know what we are talking about?" Kenshin eyed him suspiciously.

"I uh just assumed since you were talking behind a closed door," he tried to cover up his eavesdropping.

"Like hell that's how you knew, get out of here kid." Sanosuke tried to shove him back outside and shut the door.

"Am I allowed in on this?" another man asked as he grabbed the door and held it open so Sanosuke couldn't close it.

"Aoshi, what the fuck do you want?" Sanosuke asked still trying to shut the door.

"Well I came to see my good friend Kenshin but, I will wait until you are all done talking," he glanced at Rika before bowing and taking Yahiko as they left to go back in the yard.

"Who was that?" Rika asked liking the way that man was built. 'Maybe I am ready for a relationship, if it was with him.'

"That's our friend Aoshi, he was once part of the people trying to over throw the new government, but now he helps us overthrow the over-throwers," Kaoru explained as best she could.

"He's very cute, how does a girl get in good with that guy?" Rika asked looking at Kaoru as she sat back down this time cross legged and not on her knees.

"I don't know," Kaoru blushed avoiding Kenshin's gaze. Rika just laughed when she saw the curious look he was giving her.

"Don't change the subject, you have to tell us. Or at least tell us what is going to happen," Sanosuke said argumentively as he also knelt back at the table.

"Well I guess I can tell you what is going to happen but I can't tell you who or when," she decided. "Well there is a huge massacre involving a bunch of innocent people and a organized groups of people and then there is a fire that results and kills more people and burns down half of Edo and most of the emperors castle."

"Okay now tell us who and when and we will let you go home," Sanosuke said getting all eager to try and stop this disaster.

"No I said I couldn't, you have to figure that out all by yourself," Rika said as she took another sip of her now okay warmth tea, it was really hot before, but she didn't want to insult Kaoru.

"Okay so tell me," he tried to pry it out of her, he's not very good at prying.

"No! Now I'm leaving," she got up and walked out of the room. As she walked out she spotted Aoshi sitting under a shaded tree watching Yahiko who was practicing and trying to burn of steam at the same time. The two girls were now gone, and she couldn't hear them. She wanted to leave but she remembered when she was telling them about the well that it was full of water. She didn't think she would be able to get back unless she touched the bottom and she wasn't about to try just diving down there. When she had come up she couldn't touch the bottom she even tried to sink herself just to find the bottom and go back but she hadn't touched it before she ran out of breath. 'Great now I am going to be stuck here until I can figure out how to dry that damn thing up.' Kagome had told her it was dried up when she had gone back, how had it of become active again after so long of being empty? She heard Sanosuke shout after her as she kept walking, she could at least go and try.

She walked on normally trying to remember where it was, she heard Sanosuke shout after her as she walked and his voice never got farther away. 'Damn why won't he just leave me alone?' Finally he caught up to her and was walking right next to her.

'Geez she walks fast,' Sanosuke thought as he caught up to her. Where was she trying to go? Home, like hell she wasn't. "I won't let you go home," he said looking at her as she walked on not even glancing at him. "Rika stop ignoring me!" he stopped walking to stomp his foot, but she didn't. He stood and watched her small figure keep walking. Her brunette hair down past her shoulders but not very long, he could see it sticking to her neck as she sweat walking in the heat. She finally stopped and he watched as she flipped all her hair forward and dropped her head, she didn't this quick motion and before he knew it she flipped her hair back and it was all gather in one mass on top of her head. He began to run again and catch up to her. She was so short and small how did she get so far ahead of him so quickly.

When he got next to her again he realized she was taking 3 steps for every 1 he took, she didn't look like she was walking fast. "How short are you?" he asked knowing that even though he was taller then the average Japanese man she was shorter then most Japanese women. She looked different from Japanese women too. Her face was small and oval and very thin. Her nose came to a round point it wasn't flat rounded like most people. Her skin was a lighter color and very fair with out make up. She almost looked American, then it clicked she was American. That explained the temper and the strong will to be just as good and smart as a man. But she said her friends name was Kagome; she lived in Japan, but never picked up Japanese customs?

"How long have you lived in Japan? I mean in your time of course?" he asked assuming she had only lived there for a few years.

She finally stopped searching around and looked at him, "How do you know that I'm not Japanese?"

"Um…because you look American or European, you speak Japanese well though, so you must be living here for at least few years."

"Well lets see I'm 22 now and I was adopted when I was 8 so you count how many years that is," she said not wanting to do the math.

"You were adopted from America to Japan?" he almost laughed no one adopted over seas.

"My time is very different from this one, Japan becomes just as if not more successful as America. The economy is a lot better then Americas, well not Americas now but Americas in my time," Rika said as she began to look around again.

"Do you even know where you are going?" he asked studying her facial features more, trying to mesmerize her bone structure.

"Yes of course I know where I am going," Rika looked up at him then looked back down, "No I don't remember seeing any of this. I can't even place where I am if I were in modern Edo. Every thing is so different, even the streets."

"Well good, now you cannot go back, because I don't want you to go," he said trying not to sound so…so…struck by her. 'god I am an idiot, she should go back. She doesn't belong here, she belongs there with they're American adopting modern day people. I wonder how different it actually is, I can't imagine it much more different. I'm sure the fastest way to get around is train, what else could they use? Automobiles, ha, that's a dead science they are to expensive for ordinary. Maybe they have French toilets; I've seen pictures of those in the newspaper. Why have outhouses inside? It would stink up your house. No! She can't go back; I want to know how different it is.'

Rika sat down on the closest rock and looked out over the green grass and the forest that seemed to almost surround them. It was so peaceful here Sanosuke sat down on the ground next to her. He couldn't imagine any of this being gone; Edo would never be as big as their capitol of Kyoto.

"How different is the future?" he finally asked, maybe she would be willing to answer all the questions he had.

"Very different, all this around us is gone, replaced by buildings that are 50 stories tall, the only grass you see are in small designated parks and the play grounds at the schools. Or all around the castle, he is lucky to be surrounded by all of nature and not in the heart of Tokyo. I can imagine this is what it looks like when he looks out his windows every morning. Just surround by it for miles on all sides. His castle is just on the outside of the business sector of Tokyo they are first separated by a river then all the forest which his castle is right in the middle of." She knew it would be impossible to explain it to him, if he ever saw modern Tokyo he would be lost and feel like he wasn't even in Japan anymore.

"There are so many sectors in Tokyo, Business, Residential, Industrial, Central, West side, East side, South central, North central, the emperor's castle, Downtown, and so many more. I myself have never seen most of Tokyo, you mostly stay where you live and where you work or go to school. There are so many houses they are all smashed together. Most people don't even live in houses, we have tons of buildings that have miniature houses in them called apartments, there can be as many as 100 little houses in building." She looked over at him and he was listening intently, he seemed very interested and almost like he wanted to see it, but she knew that he would hate it. Hate the technology, the pollution, the cars, the crowded streets, the tons and tons of stores and factories. If he thought the market was crowded then Tokyo would not be the place for him.

"Do they still have trains?" He asked innocently, he wanted to know exactly what she was talking about, it sounded so different, but he couldn't picture it. He wanted to see it for his self.

"Well, yes but they are only used to carry goods from one city to another and they aren't really used as often, we have big uh…they have cars right now don't they?"

"Cars? You mean automobiles? Does everybody have one?" he couldn't believe it how could anyone afford those things? Only the extremely rich could buy those, surely she didn't mean the poor or middle class had them.

"Yeah well have you ever seen one?" She giggled as she looked at the astonished expression he had on his face.

"Yeah like one, do poor people have them?"

"Well yeah, they have these things called trucks. They are basically these really really big fronts of cars with a big long box attached to the back and it carries things all around the island of Japan. And if you wanted to send something from Japan to England all you have to do is pay a couple of yen and they put it on an aero plane and it gets to England within a day. Mostly in the larger cities like Tokyo and Kyoto they have trains that carry people, but they are underground and are called subways. So many people take the subway to get to work that they shove about 7 thousand people into a few cars. I never take the subway people die from being suffocated in the cramped area." She stopped for a moment and closed her eyes and looked as if she was remembering something very painful. She began to talk again but very slowly, "The people who watch people get on and off just take people and push and push more and more people into one car to get the doors shut, most times the doors don't even shut all the way, a lot of time you hear of those doors opening while the train is in the tunnel and people fall out and die."

"That sounds really horrible, why do they do that?" He wondered why anyone would ever endanger anyone else's life.

"They have so many people that need to get to work; they kind of have to do it. Tokyo is set up so that the industrial district and business district is on the completely opposite of the city and it is to far to walk so they have to take the subway, and there is so much traffic with the cars it is impossible to drive to work."

"Is Tokyo really that big? I thought it seemed big now!" he said almost in shock, he looked out to the forest he could imagine it just being gone replaced by huge towering buildings on all sides.

"Tokyo is so big it just kind of runs into Yokohama, Chiba, and even Urawa. Technically I live in Yokohama near the castle, and the sea port."

"So we still use ships as transportation?" he was confused if they had changed so much and packages could uses these things called aero planes to get to England in one day why did people have to travel by ships? How big were these aero planes?

"Ha, no not for people, they use planes too. Unless you were on a cruse, but we still use ships to transport heavy metals and trash, most ships at the port are fishing ships, they bring back so many fish that we can feed our country for years and other countries. You really want to hear about all this stuff? Compared to this view right here, Tokyo is such a horrible place."

"It sounds very different, even when you describe stuff to me I can't picture them," he confessed to her, she had managed to confuse him. He laid back on the dirt, they probably didn't have dirt in Tokyo either. "Do they have dirt?" he just asked as he thought of it.

"Well actually we dumped most of the sand in the ocean and made our own island and put an airport on it, which is where all the planes land and people get on and off. I hate being on a plane. I remember how scary it was when I first came to Japan, I was on one all by myself for the first time. It was loud but then quite at the same time, and then when you land you just feel your whole body pulling at you in all directions but it also seems like you are floating in your seat. You feel like just dropping your head to the floor, but you can't all the pressure makes your head feel like its floating. Oh god it is so horrible," she slid down off the rock and sat up against it. "I really like this place, right here, so beautiful and natural."

"This is one of my favorite spots to come and sit actually," he confessed. He always came here to take a nap or work out. It was close to the city but still almost always vacant. There was a little pond just down a little ways beyond the tree that some kids would go and fish.

"Well thank you for sharing your spot with me," she said stretching her back against the roundness of the rock. Yawning she flew her arms out to stretch before folding them back in her lap. This would be a great place to take naps.

"You know if you left, it sounds like you wouldn't be able to find any kind of place like this anywhere on the all of Japan," he said trying to convince her to stay and help them. Persuasion came easy to him when he wasn't even trying.

Rika started laughing even though her eyes were closed and she was close to falling asleep. "You make it so easy for me to just say I will never go back to that mess, I never realized it was such a mess before you made me explain it all. Was that your plan?" She yawned again trying so hard not to doze off.

"No, but it worked didn't it?" he sat up and looked at her realizing she was already asleep. He sighed and laid back down and decided to take a nap himself.

a/n: alright 8 pages in word. Well I know it was probably really boring at the end. But I've always wanted to explain the future to someone and have everyone else understand I guess lol. It was fun to write! oh yeah that random line means that it switched from her point of view to his, if you were wondering.