A/N: Okay. First and foremost I would like to apologise for the lateness of this chapter. And thanks to Arwey for the most recent kick up the butt to remind me that I hadn't really stuck to my word of posting at equal intervals. Secondly, I realise that it isn't as long as everyone would have hoped for, but this is yet another "mini" chapter. It keeps the ball rolling and allows me some study time. Yay! For finals! Then I have a break in which I hope to post as much as I possibly can to make up for my late of posting-ness this semester.
She heard the scampering of quick feet before her shoji door was pushed open and Yahiko stumbled in holding a tray of what looked like her breakfast. In his haste, his tripped on an invisible brick and began a downwards tumble with the help of gravity. Kaoru moved quickly saving the tray and whipping out a pillow for her young student to fall on. She hadn't countered on the pull of pain emitted from her ankle or the pull of the bandages across her cuts which caused the unfortunate incident of the spilling of her tea.
Setting the tray carefully down beside the head of her uncoordinated charge, she sighed pulling out a clean rag she kept near the drawers for such incidents.
"Yahiko, you really should be careful when carrying hot food." She carefully cleansed her hand of the hot liquid before moving onto the sodden tray. Her breakfast would just have to have the slight taste of tea. From his sprawled position on the floor, the boy just moaned slightly before pulling himself up.
He had left her shoji door open and beyond it she could see two figures making off into the rain, both stalking seemingly in anger. It wasn't the two men that caught her attention however, it was the blue piece of cloth hanging from one of the beams across the porch.
Realising she was going to have a visitor within the next half hour, she sent Yahiko back to the kitchen to finish his meal and quickly finished her own before changing into her only other gi and hakama. She didn't think that she could manage on her own with a kimono, and judging by her almost inability to get into what she was now wearing, she highly doubted if she would be wearing a kimono in the next couple of days.
Her clothes smelled of the sandalwood she kept in the bottom of her drawer, the one she hardly ever opened. It contained a couple of outfits that she thought she would never take out of their sealed packaging. Sighing, she stared out into the rain soaked yard. Yahiko cautiously made his way back to her with a pot of tea and two cups moments later. He silently took her breakfast tray which lay abandoned behind her near her futon, the soaked material folded neatly on top to wash at another point in time.
She poured tea into the two cups and nodded. She took a calming breath at once more stared out into the empty courtyard which seemed to be forming into a small lake. On Yahiko's return she had watched him wiggle as he battled with the question circling in his head. And quickly realised he was going to ask about her new attire. Not wanting to get into a deep conversation with him, she answered as simply as she could before she was interrupted by another.
Tokio now sat across from her, sipping the tea that Yahiko had brought in to replace the spilt tea which had come with her breakfast. Kaoru had done her best to hide her injuries, not wanting the other woman to worry too much.
"Kaoru, you do realise we can't let you work in your condition." The other woman pierced her with her gaze and Kaoru gave up all pretence of hiding her pain.
"I'm sorry, Tokio. I realise I've set us back somewhat-"
"Set us back? My dear, you've provided us with more information that we could credit you with. The fact that you got injured this badly shows that we were working you too hard." Setting down her cup of tea, she reached into her kimono to pull out an envelope.
Massaging her temples in a circular motion, Kaoru watched as Tokio placed the envelope next to the tray between them, her movements smooth and graceful.
"Tokio, when I was injured, I wasn't doing anything." She commented wearily.
"What?" It was a quick response that had the older woman's eyebrows snapping together whilst she looked upon Kaoru with curiosity.
"I was on my way home after helping some of the injured who were turning up at the Akabeko last night and I was jumped." The shortened version sounded like the best way to deal with the current circumstance.
"This doesn't have anything to do with why my husband was dragged out of the house at the crack of dawn this morning, does it?" She commented wryly.
"By the way that both Kenshin and Sanosuke left this morning after Sanosuke's early morning ritual, it probably has." Tokio froze on her way to pick her cup back up off the tray. Frowning whilst continuing the paused movement she brought her cup up to sip.
"They have returned earlier than expected." Nodding in response, her brain clicked to action. Putting her own cup down, she then picked at the bandages on her ankle.
"I won't be able to get out without being watched, especially now." Slight exasperation crept into her voice. Tokio tilted her head in recognition of Kaoru's small outburst.
"It does make things seem somewhat more difficult than first thought."
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Yahiko walked to the Akabeko with his coat and hat, wondering how Kaoru had done it. One minute she had been watching him walk through the door, the next he was on the ground with a pillow underneath him and she had the tray. She would have had to have moved at what Yahiko considered super speed, which would match Kenshin's somewhat.
To have her then turn to him calmly and tell him to be more careful next time, was something he had not expected. The old Kaoru would have endlessly tormented him on his lack of being able to stand on his two feet properly. He supposed that he really shouldn't have expected any more, considering her reaction to anything in the past couple of weeks. Still, he wished that for once, she would act like normal.
He had gone back to the kitchen to eat his own meal, after his scandalous attempt at being a waiter but then had felt a heavy attack of guilt which had prompted him to make a new batch of tea and return carefully to her room. She had finished her meal and was staring out at the rain through the open shoji door, and had also managed to change from her night yukata into a training uniform which he had never seen before. He knew that her other one was past repair, and had contemplated buying her a new one for her birthday, but hadn't thought about if she actually owned another. She looked different wearing it, older, less Kaoru-like. He had cleared his throat before approaching cautiously. She had smiled slightly up at him and his gift.
"Thank you, Yahiko. You really didn't have to." She exchanged her empty tray for his full one. After returning her empty tray to the kitchen, he had returned to her room to find she had poured them both a cup of tea that were waiting for his arrival. He sat on his knees next to her, but didn't reach for the cup. He moved uncomfortably before he attempted to ask where she had got the clothing she now wore. She answered him quietly without him ever having to ask the question.
"It was a gift from my father. Before he died." He was opening his mouth to say something resembling comfort when he was interrupted by one of the scariest women he had come across in his life.
"Kaoru-chan, what have you done to yourself?" The woman was tall and he cursed himself for not even noticing her approach, let alone her standing next to him. It was the response that Kaoru made which made him go white.
"Saitou-san, what are you doing out in this weather?" He had been quickly bundled up in rain gear before being elegantly booted out of the house by none other than Saitou's wife to go check on the Akabeko and bring home some food for lunch.
He was so caught up in his own thoughts he almost missed someone calling out his name.
"Yahiko-chan? What are you doing here?" A young girl who had been bundled up in rain gear as much as he, was walking toward him carrying a heavy covered box.
"Tsubame, what have I said about not calling me chan?"
"Oh! Sorry Yahiko-chan. Oh!" She covered her mouth at her faux pas but he let it go.
"What are you doing in the rain?" He began walking at a slightly quicker pace, not wanting her to be in the rain longer than she had to.
"I had to get more supplies for Tae-san. We've been taking people in out of the storm all night and some who have come in have been injured, so we're providing some medical attention." Yahiko turned his head slightly to look at her profile and saw she looked exhausted.
"Don't you need a doctor to help you with that?" Yahiko asked, not wanting to be offensive, but wanting to be helpful and possibly offer to fetch one if they needed it.
"Well, we had Kaoru-san working with us last night until Tae-san sent her home. And then Megumi turned up really early this morning…" She paused mid sentence, for he had stopped suddenly in the street.
"You saw Kaoru last night?"
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Sano felt this was somewhat like what Kaoru liked to call deja-vu. He must have something remotely horrific in a past life for kami to subject him to such torture. Walking through the rain, again, with a very angry ex-hitokiri was never a pleasant experience. At least this time, he knew why the smaller man was so furious. They stalked all the way over to the police station without much communication between the two of them.
A couple weeks ago he would have expected a fiery response from the raven haired woman who had stolen the hearts of the men she lived with. Sano smirked as a particular sunny day replayed itself in his mind.
"Come back here, brat!" A voice rang out through the courtyard as he sat lazily on the porch. A small object hurtled past him at high speeds, dust flying in its wake. Only after a bucket-like looking object flew past in the same direction, did he realise that the first object was Yahiko. Obviously the boy had said something remotely insulting for Kaoru to fly off the handle at him. Kenshin had looked up from his place by the laundry bucket to watch the young boy in his attempts to outrun his kendo instructor. She came around the corner, her face flushed with indignation, her gi gaping slightly in the front.
"Oh, Yahiko." Her voice rang out with saccharine sweetness, her face a perfect picture of innocence, hiding the fact that she was attempting to figure out his location.
"If you can't find me, you can't punish me, busu!" The young boy's voice rang out from one of the trees in the yard. Smiling in triumph, she grabbed one of the shoes off her foot and threw it into the tree resulting in a collision and a young boy swearing colourfully down at Kaoru. Kenshin had stood at this point, a golden sheen appearing at one of the many obscene statements made by Yahiko – something to do with an animal trapped in a man's body – and responded in a somewhat rough manner.
"Maa, maa. Sessha thinks everyone should calm down, that he does."
Sighing softly and kicking his foot through the mud he thought about the changes to the dojo. Over the past month, it seemed, the roles had now been switched. Kaoru had become calm and non-responsive to any of the insults that Yahiko lobbed her way, and Kenshin could seemingly no longer hide his own anger. Sano had attempted to take a calming breath but was stopped by an angry response from the red-head.
"Sano, if you even attempt to calm yourself down, I will have to hurt you." Raising an eyebrow at the redhead beside him, he took in Kenshin's appearance. He seemed to exude an angry aura and had clenched his teeth so hard that Sano could almost hear them grinding over the rain pelting down on them. It didn't seem like Kenshin was suffering at all from the onslaught of the continuous droplets of rain that Sano encountered. To be fair, he had gone out earlier without having changed before returning once more to the swamp that was Tokyo. Although, he wouldn't be surprised if the anger the permeated from him scared the water molecules from even attempting to get near him.
They walked out of the rain and into the police station, the rain that had decided to continue with their journey marked the floor on which they strode. Kenshin stalked past the undermanned desk in the entrance and headed straight to the heart of the station, and Sano followed, not wanting to be on the ex-hitokiri-turned-rurouni's bad side.
A/N: So I really hope that everyone enjoys this chapter and hopefully the next we'll see some more action.
I realise that there are a couple problems with this chapter and I will attempt to correct them ASAP. No Kenshin in this chap, sorry! But he'll be in the next one, so it should be quite amusing to see what happens next (sorry, shameless plug there).
Please review! Even if you hated it, or have a problem with grammar, or if there are any unclear 'bits' that I haven't explained properly (in your opinion).
The more reviews, the better I understand how it's getting across to all you guys.
Thanks heaps to all who have reviewed/read my rk fanfic!