Insert standard disclaimer here.

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"So what is it?"

"That's what we don't know, Misao-dono," Kenshin replied, as the whole group knelt in a circle, looking at the largish crystal and the chain it hung from.

Kenshin slowly unclenched his fingers and let the chain slip from his grasp. The crystal bounced a little against the floor, then was still.

"Well," Sano said, relaxing a little from his protective half-crouch. "Now we know it won't shatter or explode on impact."

"Are you sure this is from an enemy, Ken-san?" Megumi asked. "It doesn't look dangerous."

"Yaikou Karasu is well known for his obsession with destroying red-heads," Aoshi returned tonelessly.

Yahiko snorted. "Well, he won't succeed this time! I, Myojin Yahiko--"

"Oh, shut up, Yahiko," Kaoru muttered, hitting him with a random object to hand.

Yahiko fell to muttering.

The partial silence was interrupted by the forceful opening of one of the panels. A mature, somwhat dissheveled woman with glossy auburn hair dashed in, and with a quick, "Hide me!" dove behind Kenshin, completely ignoring his half-drawn sword.

She was soon followed by Saiou Hajime. "Come out from behind the Battousai," he ordered.

In a rare fit of childishness, Saitou Tokio stuck her tongue out at her husband from over Kenshin's shoulder. "No. I don't care how red my hair is, I refuse to go to one of your 'safe places', just because of Yaikou Karasu! And if you dare try --"

"Tokio, this is neither the time nor the place," Saitou said, actually looking tired.

"Actually -- excuse me -- but I believe it is, that I do."

"And why would that be?"

Kenshin pointed to his own flaming red hair that made Tokio's look black by comparison. "He also gave me this crystal for no reason I can fathom, that I can't. Saitou-dono, if you don't mind?"

Tokio sighed and got up to pull Saitou down to kneel with the rest of the group.

"So what now?" Misao wanted to know.

"I dunno. How can anything so beautiful be dangerous?" Kaoru held it up to the light. "See, it's so clear, it could practially be molded water, or glass. It makes rainbows too." Sighing, she let it fall to her open palm.

"Don't--!" Kenshin began. Before he could warn of poison, however, there was a flash of something, and the whole group was caught in an endless instant of nothingness.

Later on that day, Saitou Takeshi, the eldest son and just turned 13, came looking for his father. In the middle of the Kamiya-Himura dojo, there was his father's poice hat and a cloudy, largish crystal on a chain. He went looking around the house for Himura, but the only thing alive was a tiny little puppy awaiting the birth of Himura's child. He took the crystal and the puppy, then went to the woman doctor's place, to the symbol-of-evil-on-his-back guy's place, to Tae's and then home. His parents weren't back yet. He gave the puppy to his sister, who immediately got into a fight with their baby brother over it. A few days later, when still nobody had returned, he showed his siblings the crystal and told them that the world's greatest fighters, their parents included, were caught in is, for a joke. He also moved everyone to the neighbors, an childless couple called Kurita who were all too happy to take the three children in. As time passed, however, the young man, now Kurita Takeshi, came to believe his jest, and the legend grew...