And she wasn't alone.

Kiki's POV (a bit before Mitsuhide arrived)

Crap. What was I doing here? What had I been thinking when I had made that right turn? Why couldn't my day off have been normal? But instead, I was here.

Normal POV (earlier that day)

Kiki had mounted her horse that morning after speaking to Zen about having leave that day. She chose the North gate, then took off on the forest path.

Five minutes later, she came to the fork in the road. She knew that she should take the usual left, but something told her to take the right. Since she was trying to shake Mitsuhide from her head, Kiki took the more risky route.

Once she had ridden into town, she wandered slowly through the streets, glancing at all of the shop signs.

"I wonder which store I should go in first…" she thought, remembering the money in her pocket.

Kiki stopped in front of a restaurant and realized that she hadn't eaten breakfast that day. The door had a bell on the top that jingled when she pushed it open.

There was one other man there, who was sitting and drinking what appeared to be his third beer. He seemed to be waiting for somebody.

"Who drinks that much before noon?" Kiki thought, though she didn't dwell on it. Instead, she walked up to the owner and asked for some bread and jelly.

After she finished eating, Kiki walked out and back down the row of shops. The man from the restaurant had followed her out. Although it could have been a coincidence, Kiki remained on guard. She kept her hand close to her belt at all times.

As a test to see if the drunk was following her, the woman made a sharp left turn into a shaded alleyway.

So did the drunk.

"Crap," she thought. "Not the best idea." Even more conscientious now, Kiki actually put her hand her scabbard. "And to make it worse, I didn't even bring my sword. I just brought my little dagger…"

"Hey, you…" the drunk's voice slurred and he raised his arm limply to indicate that he was talking to Kiki.

She rolled her eyes and tried to run past the drunken man, figuring it would be pretty easy with all of her experience. Kiki was able to get past the drunk just fine, but just a second after, another man jumped out.

He was tall and appeared to be sober. The man was holding a potato sack and a knife, clearly upset that their target had not yet been wounded.

The sober man pulled the knife up, "Don't make me do this," he warned.

Kiki pulled out her own weapon and aimed it at the man, "Back at you." She wasn't really in the mood to fight somebody while she had so much on her mind, But if she had to, she would.

The drunken man tried to jump on Kiki from behind. She easily pushed him off and hit his Adam's apple. He fell to the ground and clutched his throat in pain.

Annoyed now, the other tall one lunged at Kiki. Kiki used her own dagger to deflect the knife, which went flying to the other end of the alley. His face turned red in anger as he attempted to get Kiki onto the ground.

The clearly experienced fighter finally did manage to get Kiki down, but she was up in seconds. Now that she was angry too, she easily launched back into the former struggle.

"Kiki!" a familiar voice shouted from a distance.

"What is he doing here!?" Kiki screamed internally, becoming distracted. Seeing this as an opening, the sober man was able to grab Kiki's knife from her. He then got a small cut on her face, and blood started trickling down.

Pissed off now, Kiki continually smacked the man until she got her weapon back. As he lie writhing in pain on the ground several feet away from his drunken friend, who at this point was just sitting there, there was another desperate call.

"Kiki!" Mitsuhide's voice came again, this time from very close behind.

"Mitsuhide." She turned and addressed him. Though her voice wasn't frantic, it wasn't entirely calm either. It had a sort of urgency to it.

"Crap, let's get outta here!" the drunken man said, pulling the tall man to his feet.

Even though Kiki wasn't a very spiteful person, she stuck her dagger into the wall, blocking their path. "Not so fast."

The stout drunk snorted, "What are you gonna do? Huh?"

Mitsuhide kicked him in the stomach, sending him backwards. Once that was done, the pair left wordlessly.

The two of them walked in silence for what felt like forever but was probably no more than a couple of minutes, before Mitsuhide noticed the small slash on his friend's face.

"Oh!" he realized, taking a closer look at it, "Does it hurt much?"

Kiki shook her head, "No. Not really." She shrugged, "I can just have Ryuu or Shirayuki look at it when we get back to Wistal."

Mitsuhide stopped. "How can you be so nonchalant about it?!"

She sighed, "I would have been fine." Inside, Kiki was kind of happy, not annoyed. "It's not like people to wonder whether or not I'm safe. They just assume that I'm okay." She thought it was nice to have somebody care.

Mitsuhide clicked his tongue and began his little rant, "What were you thinking!? Why did you make the right turn? If you had just taken the left like you were supposed to, none of this would have ever happened!" At this point, the two were on their horses, heading home.

Even though she was trying to focus on just making it back, there was one thing that was still bothering Kiki in the back of her mind. But she couldn't bring herself to pose the question.

Back at Wistal…

The first thing Kiki and Mitsuhide saw when the rode through the palace gates was Obi, fiddling with something small in his hands.

"Master is looking for the both of you," he said, taking both of their horses over to the stable for them.

When Mitsuhide and Kiki had gotten to Zen's office, the stack of papers that had been there that morning was gone.

"Where were you, Mitsuhide? I believe I only permitted Kiki to go out today…"

Mitsuhide bowed his head in apology, "I'm sorry, but I went looking for Kiki."

Zen raised one eyebrow and asked, "And why was that?"

Kiki looked over curiously, as Zen had just asked the question that she had been too scared to.

"Um... I just…" Mitsuhide trailed off and bit his lip, then looked down at his shoes.

Zen's next order of business was Kiki's check, which had stopped bleeding but was still covered in drying blood. "Go see Gakura. Mitsuhide, you may go too."

He stayed, though, and brought up Kiki's earlier situation.

"I couldn't… stand the sight of her getting hurt." Mitsuhide vented to Zen.

After leaving Zen's office Mitsuhide decided to go see Kiki to finally ask her about what had happened the other day.

Yay! Longest chapter yet! I always think my chapters are long but on Fan Fiction they seem so much shorter. I can't think of anything else to write about, so it may be a bit until next chapter release.