Pairing: Kenshin x Kaoru, Kenshin x Tomoe

Rating: T for now, but it's rated M for future situations.

Genre: AU/AR, Romance, Fantasy, Adventure, Drama, Humour

Warning: Slow-building, English isn't my first language, some bad words, a little violence (not much), perhaps some OCCness peeking through.

Notes: I started this story ages ago and have been posting it on my LJ. I was going to wait until the story was complete until I posted it here, but I need some encouragement to keep on writing due to the dry spell I find myself in. So, I hope you will like this :)

Also, I apologise for taking so long to update on here! I got distracted by real life, as it were. Anyway, I'd like to thank all my reviewers! Your support means a lot, I'm sorry if I've forgotten to reply to some of you. It sucks that you can't see who you've replied to and who are still left unreplied :( Oh well! Know that you all have my gratitude! :D Enough babble...

Enjoy!

On the Wrong Track

Chapter 4.

"Are you this early every day sir?" Kaoru asked, trying to sound genuinely curious as she handed Himura his morning paper after a polite greeting. "I barely have time to unpack the papers before you're here!"

The red-head laughed, tucking the paper under his arms and winking. "Please, no need to call me sir, boy. My name is Himura Kenshin. But yes, I am always up and about at this time."

Kaoru fought a blush at his amused, almost playful attitude; mentally arguing that she was supposed to be a kid, and a kid wasn't supposed to react like this to his friendly behavior. She covered up her discomfort with a grin, clasping her hands behind her back and rolling up on her heels while she peered up at the older man with wide, innocent eyes.

"Pleased to meet you, then, Himura-san! I am Abe Kenji!" she replied to his unspoken question, knowing it would be suspicious not to return the favor of introduction. She just hoped he wouldn't look into it, but knowing what she did about him, it was a lost cause. The slight spark of interest in his violet eyes told her all she needed to come to that conclusion.

"The pleasure is all mine, Kenji-kun!" he said, a smile tugging at his lips and she cursed the man for his appeal. "Oh, and that reminds me…I ran into your sister yesterday, at a café. I didn't catch her name, she seemed to be quite in a hurry…"

Well, she mused, that sure wasn't subtle in the least. But, she gathered, to a kid the age she appeared it probably wouldn't appear suspicious at all. Especially not with the aura of trust he possessed with those eyes and that damned smile. She was probably biased as well, knowing the true nature of this man. He would let nothing escape him. Briefly, she wondered what he would think should he find out how much she actually knew of him. Facts aside, she was known to be a good judge of character (with a few exception, she admitted, before she had been faced with the many faces of trust and betrayal) and felt confident enough to form personal opinions about this man despite the obvious distance between them.

"Oh, you've met Mai?" she exclaimed after making a point of blinking confusedly, almost giving in to the urge to roll her eyes at the smug tilt of his lips.

"Ah, yes, Miss Mai," he confirmed, nodding. "She was quite the charming young lady. It is good of you to look after her, Kenji-kun."

She didn't bother concealing her blush this time around, because really, it didn't matter who she was at the moment; either way she had been praised and it left her with a strangely pleased feeling to hear it come from him, of all people. She suspected it had something to do with the unfortunate attraction she harbored, but to be fair, could she really be blamed? The man was gorgeous.

"Oh, I wouldn't call her charming," she blurted out before she could stop herself. Realizing that her usual response to compliments had slipped through, she quickly covered it up with a fond smile that she hoped looked brotherly and not as femininely demure as it felt. "She has a tendency to get into trouble, so I am quite happy to be around to prevent it sir. Who knows what she'd get herself into otherwise?"

This caused him to chuckle, for she was sure she sounded arrogant and prideful in the amusing way only little brothers could. She guessed it helped to think about Sano during times like these.

"Indeed," he agreed with a smile and she bit her lip to prevent releasing a sigh of relief. "I am sure you are doing a great job as well!"

Honestly? I don't think so, Himura-san, she thought with a slight pang of helplessness that she quickly suppressed. The way things were, she had not done a good job with keeping either of the Abe siblings out of trouble with this man. Then again, as long as it wasn't her, the game wasn't lost yet.

"Well, I'll have to get going," Himura continued before she could reply with more than a smile. Flicking her cap's screen with his fingers, he winked and turned to leave. "Good bye, Kenji-kun!"

Momentarily immobile, frozen in place in fear of the cap falling off at his careless gesture, Kaoru barely had time to return his farewell before he disappeared in the increasing morning crowd.

Well, that was…interesting.

Securing her cap, she resumed her new morning job with renewed vigor and hoped the rest of the day would be less nerve-racking. Considering what she had planned, it was sadly quite unlikely.

oOo

Later that morning, Kaoru was found grinning excitedly as she slipped past a group of Officers conversing in the hallway, catching enough words to guess at the topic. Apparently something was wrong with the doughnuts, and the new coffee machine donated by the University made the beverage awfully wishy-washy and bitter.

(The Invention mages were fond of experimenting with magic and its uses – especially the students – and sometimes, they came up with pretty decent devices. However, the result wasn't always guaranteed to be useable, or anything else ending with –able for that matter.)

Dressed up in the strict uniform of a Sergeant in the ranks of the Law Enforcement Guild, Kaoru blended in quite easily, because there were a lot of Sergeants. This Guild, like many other of its kind, reasoned there had to be someone doing the yelling. Preferably a lot of them, since it would benefit Discipline (a notion you encountered frequently thorough history). Kaoru herself was quite unaware of her familiarity with its practice, but both Sano and Yahiko would be willing to elaborate.

"Excuse me, sirs," she snapped at another group of Officer taking up too much space, sounding every bit of Uniformed Woman that she, currently, was. They snapped to attention and before she could express her need, they made way for her and warily watched as she strode past with long, confident strides. Only a few more twists and turns, and she would be in the area where Himura Kenshin worked. Yesterday, she had contemplated to wait a day or two before infiltrating his Guild after her hasty exit in the café but had decided against it. Things were moving slowly as it was, and she really needed the money.

As she roamed the corridors, she made sure to keep an eye open for any possible suspects. Because, really, who'd said Himura needed to leave work in order to be with his mistress?

She'd heard men liked a girl in uniform, after all.

oOo

So, maybe working for the Law wasn't all it was cracked up to be, Himura Kenshin begrudgingly admitted as he stared at the piles of papers covering every inch of his desk.

But he was needed here, wasn't he? Who else would be around to make sure mistakes weren't repeated? Few had lived through the Revolution; even less seemed to remember the darker side to it, instead preferring to focus on the glorified victory. He was one of those who still recalled the oppression, the intoxicating taste of power – who recalled the blood which flooded the streets, the sweat that fell into your eyes and blinded you and the many, many tears which so often had fallen unnoticed in the constant, magical rain which washed the coppery red off slippery stone. Honestly then, who was better to silently guard the new era than the one who helped birth it? Working in the shadows, as he'd always done.

Besides, filing papers and reading reports, complaints and whatever else civilians, mages and other Guilds could possibly turn in seemed like a fitting occupation for the former Battousai. Peaceful, ordinary; normal. A way to repay society, keeping the order he had fought for. That sounded about right, didn't it? His double life of roaming the streets and catching the worst of the worst in between doing paperwork just proved he was all the more willing to repay for the lives he'd taken, wasn't it? Though, it was enough for people to just know about the paperwork, he mused.

Overprized bread on the market went to the Bakers' Guild, suggestions for a revaluation of the Educational system to the Guild of Education.

He easily sorted through the mass of paper seated on his desk, readying them to be sent to their respective authorized receivers. Why the Law Enforcement needed to deal with it all first, he didn't know, but apparently people preferred to send it all here rather than to the Guilds responsible. Something about it being more organized, but sometimes, he found himself wondering what they were thinking. But, he had no right to complain. He'd chosen – willingly and knowingly – to take on the desk job of an Inspector despite its unfortunate side effect of (insanely close to fatal) boredom. So he continued, placing a crumbled paper titled "Concerning the Question of Installing a Beer Tap in the City Square's Fountain", which smelled suspiciously like the beverage it promoted, on a small stack of paper to his left that looked a tad bit more disorganized.

Some things were rather hard to catalogize, after all, so he left them for the Guild of Miscellaneous Matters. They couldn't have much to do in the first place, he reasoned. He really wasn't feeling guilty enough to be bothered by the fact that some Guilds just weren't qualified to deal with certain matters – such as a giant beer tap in the center of the City. It sounded eerily like something Sagara Sanosuke would pull off, but personally, Kenshin preferred coffee.

No, Kenshin wouldn't say no to a cup of coffee, that he wouldn't. Standing, he happily left the stuffy office in search for a traditional coffee pot in order to brew the real beverage, but he feared all of them had been confiscated in favor of installing the new machines from the University. He sighed at the thought, lazily making his way down the corridor.

A sudden, familiar, wisp of magic made him pause for less than a second, before he resumed his seemingly relaxed walk. The sensation of a pair of eyes regarding his back followed him until he turned a corner, and when he was out of sight, he carefully let his magic loose to feel the touch of the other's once again.

It would seem as if one of the new, startlingly blue-eyed siblings had either gotten lost in the building on an errand, or had found him more interesting than they should.

Perhaps it was time to do something about his paranoia, and what better than to confront the current problem?

oOo

Her supposedly great infiltration had not given her much more to go on. Her notebook's pages were still painfully sparse of actual notes, and she'd been forced to yell at a young errands boy who was found stealing paperclips. A whole bunch of Officers had been watching, after all.

It was with a pout that she settled down in her old, worn chair behind the desk of her office. Opening her notebook, she read through the little information she had added today with a disappointed sigh.

Three potential suspects on the same floor, five all together on the other floors. Only leaves his office to get coffee and more paperwork. Likes his coffee black in the morning but adds milk and sugar around noon. Looks good in his pink shirt, as long as he keeps his vest on. The shirt is in bad need of mending.

Not very profitable for her mission. Not even sneaking into his office and going through most of his drawers had provided her with any sort of useful information, like telephone numbers or addresses, names or gifts. She had stopped dragging her camera with her, since it became apparent pretty early that she would really have to work to find this mistress of his.

If nothing turned up soon, she might even consider the possibility of there being none at all.

But first, she had to pack. It was time to crash a business trip.

oOo

Looking up civilians was quite easy, Kenshin knew. Their history, their lives, was not as complicated as that of a mage simply because the records of their time alive had no magic woven into it. Not because some of them didn't possess any of it themselves, it was just the matter of successfully merging it into their lives. As it turned out, however, it was proving quite difficult to look up civilians who appeared not to be civilians at all. He had wasted precious time to come to this conclusion, before he realized the pair of siblings he was looking for was actually mages. That, or foreigners. He opted the last one out, since he had come in contact with the magic both possessed and recognized the tell-tale…frequency it was on. Shaking his head to prevent himself from diving into the complicated task of analyzing the texture of their magic he remembered eerily well, Kenshin resumed his search through the many tombs of knowledge lined up on impressive shelves in the City Library within the, ironically, Guild of Knowledge. Sometimes he wondered what outsiders must think of this City and its fixation with Guilds, but this was not one of those times.

He had finally found the book containing the rough mages with a last name beginning with "A".

"Abe, Kenji," he mumbled, having placed the book on a nearby table and settled down. He browsed past several pages, running a finger down the many names listed and was a little surprised at the length of the section with "Abe" named people that lived in the City currently. It was an impressively common name, he noted with a familiar tug of suspicion.

Finally, he arrived at the name he was looking for. Abe Kenji. There were seven of them, but it didn't bother him. From here, it would be easy. Closing his eyes he thought of the spell needed to gain the necessary information from the book and for a moment he wondered why they haven't added a magical index to finding the names yet. He suspected it was some kind of precaution, and didn't linger on the question as he completed the chant in his head.

When he opened his eyes again, the book before him had been wiped clean of the many names and was instead filled with the location, occupations, status and little bits of miscellaneous information of the seven Abe Kenji in the City. Two of them lived close enough to work in his neighborhood, and a muttered word cleared the other five from the book. Both of the Abe Kenjis left had siblings, but only one had a sister. He emptied the book of the last name and was left with what he was sure was the correct one. Satisfied, he started to scan through the messily written information. The rogue mages wrote their own records, under the supervision of highly ranking Citizen Guild members, with fountain pens spelled to prevent lies. It would take an educated mage to bypass the pens, and thus false identities were hard to register for 'legal' use but not uncommon in these books. Only mages who wished to obtain a solid position in society applied to Guilds and had their chosen Guild renew their personal information in the Citizens' Registration of Mages' books that would allow no civilian or rogue mage on its pages. False identities in those were much rarer than among the rogues, since you'd had to fool both your Guild and the actual books. Magic like that was tricky, but not impossible.

Realizing he had spaced out, Kenshin shook his head and almost laughed at his own thoughts. He hadn't even started to look into the identities of the Abe siblings, yet here he was, thinking like it was already proved that they were somehow forged.

"Perhaps Megumi is right," he mumbled, wiping his bangs out of his eyes. "Maybe I am a tad bit too paranoid."

Well, whatever the case, he really needed to speed up. He was supposed to be home by now, earlier than usual since he, for once, left work early. But he had left to come here, and he wasn't done yet. So, if he wanted to get home at his usual time he would have to hurry.

"Abe Kenji, eleven years old," he read, tapping his finger against the table. Lives on Apple Street, orphaned at six. Sister is legal guardian.

He stared blankly at the page, wondering for a moment how the slip of a girl he had met at the café could be old enough to be a legal guardian before he took full notice of the inadequate amount of information given. The line where the name of the kid's school should be scribbled was empty, as was the one that should be confirming his employment as a news paper boy. There was, however, a section that he hadn't considered that wasn't left blank, much to his surprise.

Apparently, those wide, innocently blue eyes belonged to a boy who was no stranger to the shadowed side of society where magical education could be bought, at the right prize. If the amount of times he had been noted by the Law Enforcement was of any indication, this boy was well enough trained to fake his own identity.

Sometimes, Kenshin thought his paranoia wasn't really paranoia. More like a gut feeling. Maybe even instinct. And now, it was whispering that there would be more pieces to this puzzle if he found the sister's files as well.

He didn't arrive home at his usual time, but Tomoe didn't show any signs of noticing the obvious break in his 8 years old long routine. He didn't really notice it himself either, because what he found about Abe Mai was enough to keep his mind occupied thorough the night.

Since when was a mage of the Freelance Trackers' Guild aged 18 noted with no existing files of former education? Why was she listed qualified, and apparently born a foreigner, when his own observation and simple logic told him she definitely was not? If she was foreign born, the lack of history of her education made sense. But he had felt her magic, and it was not tinted with the feel of life outside the Eastern Kingdom. Besides, the brother in her care whose magic he had felt tangled with his own left no doubt that her origin was a lie. But why would she lie? And more importantly…

Who was she?

oOo

End Notes: Please review! :)