Awwww… I love you guys! I got so many nice reviews!

A week had passed since the eventful trip into town. It was dusk, and Kaoru sat in her tiny cell of a room, much less tired than she usually was. The reason for this, of course, was Kenshin. Having one more person around to help made an immense difference. He had taken over the laundry and cooking, two things that she herself was bad at. Kaoru's cooking, as much as it pained her to admit, couldn't hold a candle to it.

However, while he was extremely polite, he entirely avoided answering any questions about his past or of the strange healing magic he had worked on Kaoru. No matter how much she wheedled, cajoled or threatened, he would simply smile and change the subject.

He was infuriating.

Kaoru was usually so exhausted, she would fall asleep right away. Tonight, she felt like she could work for a couple more hours. She sat up off her chair and padded towards the doorway. As she reached for the doorknob, the door swung open, causing her to stumble a bit. Her foot caught on the doorframe, and she sprawled face first onto the floor.

"Damn it!" Her nose was bleeding profusely, and it was staining her dress. She looked up with pain-bleared eyes into the face of one very concerned redhead.

"Are you are right, my lady?" He offered a hand to help her up.

She swatted away the proffered hand. "No, I'm not all right!" Fuming, she climbed to her feet. She cast about, looking for something to staunch the blood. Kenshin wordlessly handed her a handkerchief from the pocket of his white pants. As she held the bit of cloth to her nose, she gave Kenshin a glare.

"What do you want?" Her voice was slightly nasal, and the handkerchief was slowly turning crimson.

"Well, my lady, I was wondering…"

"What?" Kaoru was this close to losing her already thin patience.

"Do you think that you should take off that face paint?"

Kaoru lowered the handkerchief and blinked at him.

"Look in the mirror, my lady."

She did, and nearly shrieked.

The paint had faded, all right, but it had somehow gotten smeared over half her face.

Kaoru started scrubbing her face in the washbasin, to no avail. The horrid stuff wouldn't come off.

"Why didn't you tell me?" She knew that he probably didn't deserve to be yelled at, but still…

"Lady Kaoru, I did not noti—"

"What am I going to do?" She couldn't go around looking like that. After all, what if Karenna saw her? She was on the verge of going into a full-fledged panic when—

"Wait."

Kenshin had gripped her shoulder and was staring intently at her. As the moments ticked by, Kaoru didn't know what to think. Was he using magic? Or…

Kenshin shook his head and removed his arm. "I am sorry, my lady," he said, "But for some reason, I have no effect on it." He looked perturbed, and Kaoru used the temporary silence to get herself back under control.

"Only one thing to do then, as I see it, Lady Kaoru."

"Huh?"

Kenshin gave her that same odd little smile that had made her so angry earlier.

"I imagine, Lady Kaoru, that if your stepmother uses these cosmetics, then she would also have the means to remove them."

……………..

So once again Kaoru found herself rooting through the countless bottles of makeup in her stepmother's room. This time however, she took special care to stay quiet. Karenna herself was in her sitting parlor, which was only one room away. She couldn't begin to imagine what the older woman would do to her if she was caught.

After testing nearly all of the concoctions, Kaoru finally found what she was looking for. She grabbed a swath of clothand began to dab her face with the contents of a tiny green bottle. She had almost finished cleaning off the infernal stuff when she heard the words she had been dreading.

"Just who did you think you were fooling?"

With a gasp, she dropped the tiny bottle she had been holding. Almost too afraid to do so, she turned around—

And found that no one was there.

Again came Karenna's voice. "I am not stupid. I know that the mark was gone!"

Overcome with curiosity, Kaoru snuck over to the door that led to where Karenna was sitting. Her quick glance confused her even more. Her stepmother appeared to be her normal hideous self, and was completely alone. However, she seemed to be talking into an enormous mirror, which hung on the left side of the room. The mirror bathed the room in a faint glow, which gave Karenna a positively eerie look. Kaoru shrunk back into the bedroom, knowing that if Karenna locked even a bit to the side, she'd be caught. Nevertheless, she found herself leaning back in once her stepmother spoke.

"It was clever of her to use my cosmetics, but I saw it all the same. That bruise was completely healed. Her power is asserting itself, and it is time for us to act."

Very faintly, from the direction of the mirror, a male voice replied, but Kaoru, for all her straining, couldn't make out many of the words.

"…get the men…maybe one, two weeks…be ready…"

Kaoru had a feeling that it was time for her to leave. As she tiptoed to the door, the firelight from the other room glinted off something.

The bottle. She had almost forgotten about it. Moving as fast and as stealthily as she could, she knelt and reached under the table for the object, at the same time listening for any sign of Karenna's approach. As she was groping around, one of her hands caught on a protruding nail. To her surprise, a blast of cold air hit her face.

……………

Yes, it's a cliffhanger. Yes, I know it's short. Yes, I will update soon.

Today is my 2-year anniversary on I would like to thank all of you who are reading my stories, and I hope to write many more before I'm done.