Mirai

Disclaimer: Sessha does not own the anime rurouni kenshin or any of it's character.
'Although it would be nice too....* sniff sniff *
'They all belong to the great Watsuki Nobuhiro.

Mixed feelings?

By the time Kenshin and Soujirou had solved their problems, it was already late afternoon,
and the sun was going to set soon if they didn't leave soon.

In the end, Kaoru rode with Kenshin, and Soujirou had the job of keeping Sanosuke on the
horse, while the other man clung on to him like a leech.

Yahiko rode with Hikaru. He was the only one who was able to absorb everything that
Soujirou told him. Hikaru, just held on to him.

"Oi! Girl sleeping by the tree, do you mind?" Sanosuke said, shivering as he did. Is fear
of horse, made him lose his usual coolness.

He even let Yahiko joke about him; not caring as long as they were on the horse, but once
they were off, the street fighter would see that Yahiko gets his share.

"We have to quicken our pace if you want to reach there tonight." Kaede urged her horse to
hasten its speed, again, not waiting for an answer for those behind her.

"Matte! " Soujirou caught up with her in no time.

Considering that he used to ride horses a lot when he ran errands for Shishio, he was
expected to go that fast. But, there was still one problem...

"Do you mind? Or have you forgotten about me?" The ex Zanza tapped the boy, informing him
that there was a passenger with him, who was feeling very sick from the movement of the
horse.

"Ah. Sano-san, Gomen." The boy turned to smile at the man behind him, before slowing down.

'These people are hopeless.' Kaede thought, before stopping.

Not long after, everyone caught up with her, wondering why she stopped if she was the one
who wanted to make it to wherever they were headed so urgently in the first place.

"It looks like we have to stop here for the night, thanks to you people."

"Hm! It's not our fault. Before you guys came and disrupted our lives, we didn't need to
ride horses." Kaoru got off the horse, with Kenshin's help. The veins in her head were
throbbing, and from where Kaede was standing, they looked like they were going to burst.

The raven haired girl just shrugged it off. She headed towards the forest, and somehow just
blended into the dense forestation.

"Great going Jou-chan. What if she decides to leave us here?" The former Zanza shouted at
the girl, his own set of veins popping out of his head.

"Don't worry, she has orders to follow, and she won't leave us here just like that. She
probably just went to gather some firewood." Soujirou said, as he stared at the place
where the girl was standing before she disappeared.

"How would you know?!" Yahiko added, his feelings clearly showing in his voice.

"He's right. She does not seem the type to just leave her orders just to get back at us.
In the mean time, we'll have to gather some firewood too, before the sun sets." Kenshin
said, motion for the girls to stay, while the rest went to look for wood.

'Why is that girl so confident about us anyway? Does she think that we are a bunch of
pushovers that she does not seem to mind camping with them overnight?' These questions
nagged at the red-headed samurai's mind, the whole time he was looking for wood.


Soujirou was finally able to get the fire started after Kenshin arrived with his own stack
of wood. Apparently, the other two, collected their wood near the river, and the wood was
already wet, so he could not start the fire. The wood he collected was not enough to start
a big enough fire to last the night, or to keep them warm.

Kaede returned soon after Soujirou started to fire, mumbling something about how at least
the smiley face boy knew how to start a fire correctly.

Soujirou left after he was done adding wood to the fire. The boy left their camp,
disappearing into the bushes just as Kaede had done not too long ago.

"Where is he going?" Kaoru asked.

"Probably went to get dinner." Yahiko answered, recalling the nights where Soujirou would
always get them dinner. "He's very good at fishing." The boy nodded to confirm his sentence.

With that, Kaede stood up, and followed the path the boy took.

"Where do you think you're going?" Sanosuke said, holding on to her arm.

"Somewhere..." With one swing of her arm, she somehow managed to get out of the man's
supposedly tight grasp.

Kaede walked, just walked, when she found herself at the river, she stopped and saw the
blue clad boy, trying to catch some fish, obviously for the rest back at camp.

Quietly, the girl took a step forward, hiding behind some trees. She watched on as the boy
continued fishing. Whenever she saw it was safe, she would move closer to get a clearer
look at him. Somehow, she knew that the boy seemed different from the rest, except
Battousai of course. But still, something told her that Battousai was not the one she
should worry about.

Suddenly, Soujirou tensed up, feeling that someone was near, and watching him, he pulled
his katana out of the water, fish on the other end. He pulled the wriggling creature off
the tip and put it with the others he had already caught.

All the time, Kaede kept a close eye on him. Suddenly, the boy vanished into thin air. The
next thing she knew, he was in front of her, the sharp edge of his katana at her neck. She
stared wide eyed at the boy, as he apologized and withdrew his katana.

"What are you doing here? It's dark, and it's dangerous to wander alone here at night." The
boy said, smiling as he did.

"Who are you?" Kaede asked, following the boy to get his other things, before walking back
to camp.

"Does it matter?"

"No." The girl snorted her reply, losing her patience. 'How in the world can he smile so
much?!'

"Then why did you ask?"

The boy smiled again, looking at the girl.

That was one question that she didn't expect. Taken back, she ignored him all the way back
to camp, where Sanosuke and Yahiko were waiting impatiently for the boy to return.


"Mmmm...that was delicious..." Yahiko leaned against a tree, a wide grin on his face as he
patted his stomach.

"Yeah, I haven't eaten this much in my life." Sanosuke mimicked the boy, fishbone in mouth
as he spoke.

"Only for the two of you! I can't believe you ate Soujirou's share too. All he had was a
tiny little fish for dinner." Kaoru went on nagging at the two, while Soujirou tried to
persuade her that alright since he was not hungry in the first place.

Hikaru watched as her 'sister' watched on, obviously enjoying the commotion which was
taking place in front of them.

Whereas Kenshin was just sitting there, looking at the fire, as it danced on the burning
wood, as if he would find an answer if he looked at it hard enough.


~*~

"Oro.." The boy said, as he poked the older man's nose, causing him to drop the boy.

Kenji then started running around Hijikata, giggling as he tugged at the man's hakama ,
loosening his obi (1) bit by bit.

As Hijikata bent down to try and pick up the boy, His obi loosened again, this time,
causing his hakama to drop.

Lucky for, his reaction to the situation was fast, he immediately caught hold of his hakama,
and pulled it back up.

The man grumbled as he gave up trying to catch the boy at the moment. Right now, the most
important thing on his mind was tying back his obi. This time, making sure it was tight, so
the boy would not be able to play the same trick twice.

Kenji watched on, as the man struggled with his obi, his katanas entangled, the whole thing
in a mess. Kenji playfully laughed as he saw the man hit himself accidentally with the back
of his saya.

"Itai...." Hijikata, at that moment, just felt like strangling the boy there and then, but
when he heard the boy laugh, he could not bring himself to. 'Breathe. Breathe.' The man
told himself as he scooped up the giggling boy into his arms.

Kenji stared at the man, wondering why he was not shouting at him like his mother did when
he had done the same thing to his father. Then, his attention span, being as short as the
width of a needle, the boy started giggling and this time, he somehow managed to grab hold
of the man's ponytail, and pulled it.

"Itai!...Not again..." Hijikata, never thought that anything like that would or could
happen to him in a million years. Slowly, with one hand, he slowly entangled the boy's
fingers from his hair.

'I wonder how Himura puts up with this boy. I didn't think it would be this hard to get a
single child to get into the bathe tub.' The man sighed, suddenly full of praise for the
once proud Hitokiri Battousai.

~*~

Kaede was the first to awake, as soon as she got up, she went to the stream nearby to fill
her bottle with water.

When she got back, she saw the boy and the hitokiri awake.

"Ohayo Kaede-chan." The boy greeted her cheerfully, his boyish smile, once again plastered
on his face.

"Hn.." The girl only nodded a reply.

"I think we'd better wake them now, the earlier we reach there, the faster the whole thing
will end." Kenshin said, nudging Kaoru in the shoulder.

"Hai." Soujirou walked over Sanosuke, thinking that it would be easy to wake him up.

But, as soon as Soujirou tapped the man on the shoulder to wake him up, Sanosuke's reflexes
took charge. The man suddenly tried to hit Soujirou, missing only because Soujirou knew it
was coming.

"Ano, Kaede-chan, can you please wake Hikaru-chan up for me?" The boy smiled at the girl,
only rewarded with a punch in the cheek.

"Itai..." The boy brought one of his hands up to cheek to rub the newly acquired bruise.

"Let me do it." Soujirou was pushed aside, by none other then Kaoru.

"Oi, Tori Atama(2), Wake up!" That was soon followed by a kick to the man's head.

"Itai..." Sanosuke woke up, a throbbing pain in the back of his head.

"There, that is how you do it." Kaoru said to the boy, who was staring wide-eyed at both
the girl and the chicken headed man.

"Next..." Kaoru lifted her sleeves, walking towards Yahiko.

Soujirou and Kenshin winced as they 'heard' Kaoru wake Yahiko up.

"Jou-chan..." Sanosuke taps her shoulder.

"What is it?" Kaoru turned to shout at Sanosuke.

The man just pointed at the boy in front of her. The boy's hand was twisted in what looks
like a very painful position. He was twitching, from the pain.

"Kao...ru...ahh...." His voice cracked as he too cracked along with it.

"Ahh...Yahiko, Gomen gomen." The girl laughed as she bent down to check that she didn't
wound him too badly.

Both Kaede and Hikaru started laughing at the sight. Who knew that traveling with the
Kenshin gumi could be so much...fun?

Kaede winced at her thoughts. What was she feeling all of a sudden? Why was she feeling
anything in the first place? Kaede decided to shake away her thoughts when she felt someone
staring at her.

"What is it?!" Kaede asked, glaring at the other girl.

"Nothing, it's just that for a while there, you looked different." Hikaru said, turning to
walk towards the rest of the group, leaving Kaede leaning against the tree...drowning in
her thoughts.


When they had reached their destination, they realized that Kaede was gone.

"Eh, where is she?" Kaoru asked.

"I don't know, but I think that we have other more important things to worry about right
know." Kenshin said, using one if his hands to tap Kaoru's, who was sitting behind him.

Everyone looked at the place in front of them. Jaws dropping at the sight.

"What is this?" Yahiko said, loosening Hikaru's grasp on him.

"A maze." Everyone turned to look at the boy, who smiled in reply.

~*~*~*~*~

1) Obi: The obi is the sash that holds everything together. They vary from formal elaborate
obi, as for young women or geisha, to the very simple, barely visible obi for men. In
addition to the actual obi, the obi-age or "scarf" is worn under the obi, just peeping out
over the top, and the obi-jime is the cord that goes around the middle of the outside.
There is a world of nuance and subtle meaning in the choice of obi fabrics and accessories
as well as the way they are arranged.

2) Tori Atama: In case any of you guys forgot what it means, it means, chicken head...;)

~*~*~*~*

ahhh...another chapter done....minna-san, onegai r&r, ne? Anyway, on for the next chapter...
for me. Arigatou!...demo...one warning, I'm very bad at writing action scenes...hehe...
* sweatdrop *...ja!