***
Chapter One; Road's End
***
For the sword outwears its sheath,
And the soul wears out the breast,
And the heart must pause to breathe
-We'll Go No More, by Lord Byron
***

A familiar night surrounded the newcomer into Tokyo's arms, dense fog hugged the ground but he sky was clear with an awesome spectacle of stars in the sky. It was a night in which things were meant to happen.

The Ronin's worn sandals made a soft scuff scuff on the paved street. The Ronin was garbed in a back gi and blue hakama, both being heavily worn and painstakingly patched in places. The only mark of prosperity was the sword the Ronin carried, the sheath was made of oak and lovingly polished.

The still of the night was broken by the sound of slightly newer sandals running down the same alley the newcomer had chosen to walk.

"Hold it right there, Battousai!!"

The newcomer stopped and blinked in surprise at the young boy, no more that ten, brandishing a bokken at the Ronin.

"Huh?" came the intelligent reply.

The boy bristled. "Don't you 'huh' me! Prepare for battle, murderer!" he howled as he threw himself into his attack.

Given little choice in the fight, the Ronin leapt nimbly out of the way to land gracefully on a nearby yatai...only to realize that mistake before it could be corrected.

The boy winced as the cart gave way under the Ronin's weight.

"Are you really Battousai?" he asked the Ronin now buried in kindling and bonsai trees. "I heard you killed three more people last night in a single swing!"

He walked over to the yatai... only to stop as the Ronin wrestled out of the mess and pushed off the straw hat that had been obscuring his... her face.

The boy made a highly undignified noise as the Ronin pushed her long glossy black bags out of her face to glare at him indignantly. "I'm just a wandering Ronin, a female one at that." She said defensively as she fought to sit up. She tugged at the blade at her waist. "Do you really believe this could slay three people in a single swing?" she asked as she extended it to him. "I'd be lucky manage one, if I were so inclined."

The boy look in amazement at what he had mistaken for a sword. "It's just a wooden bokken. Like mine."

"So am I free to go?" she asked in annoyance.

"Hey!" the boy scowled at her. "Don't you know? Battousai's gone mad! He's been murdering people on the streets every night for a week; you wear this thing like a sword so anyone could suspect you! You want to get yourself arrested or something?"

"Now, look..." she started, but was interrupted by the blare of police whistles.

The boy frowned. "Something's happening." He cried as he took off after them.

The ronin sighed and looked up at the sky. "This is not funny." She told it.

A few streets over an extremely tall, brusque man stood in a knot of policemen casually slashing his sword, expertly killing policemen at random. The boy used a few stacked boxes as a springboard and hopped onto the rooftops of the buildings outlining the alleyway.

"Weak! Weak, you're all a bunch of weaklings! Is this the best Tokyo can muster?" Battousai howled, slicing through humans like wheat under a thresher.

"You're going down, Battousai!" the boy launched himself from the rooftop and hurled himself at the swordsman. The boy spun in mid-air and brought his bokken around for what would have been a very impressive side swept assault.

'Battousai' casually blocked the boy's frenetic attack. "Sloppy." He murmured half to himself as he used the boy's weight to throw him against the wall opposite him.

"Die." He howled bringing his katana down to slay the child. The boy folded on himself to make himself smaller... then he realized the ronin from earlier was holding him.

Battousai snorted at the woman who had stolen his prey. "I am the Hitokiri Battousai, I use the Kamiya Kasshin Style!" he cried as he fled into the night.

"Stop!" the boy cried. "Come back... ugh." His eyes rolled back into his head as he succumbed to the nerve tap the ronin woman administered unto the back of his neck. She watched Gohei run away and then looked at the boy in her arms. "Yahiko, Yahiko. What am I going to do with you?" she murmured.

***

Dawn greeted the Kamiya Dojo with open arms, Kaoru smiled as the warm rays bathed her in their welcoming embrace. The entire house and city seemed to be saying 'Welcome home, you have been missed!"

Kaoru smiled into the simmering miso. Yahiko would wake up soon and he would undoubtedly be hungry, if he was anything like the Yahiko she remembered.

She smiled as Ayame and Suzume counted their way up to her, their arms full of garden vegetables. Kaoru smiled as memories of yesteryear crept up behind her, even though technically they had never happened. "Now, now." she chided gently before the girls could dump them in the miso. "We don't need so much." The girls giggled, as she took the vegetables from them. "We'll just put these in the larder for later."

The ten years of wandering under her belt had done more than sharpen her sword skills. Many times she had earned her bread by caring for the children of villages as their parents tended the fields.

From behind the sound of pounding feet told Kaoru that her patient was up. Predictably the screen slammed open and Yahiko tumbled out. "Are you still here?!"

KKaoru chuckled. "Yes, I apologize for interrupting you last night but you seemed in need of aid. I hope you don't mind," she nodded towards the wok. ", but I made use of your garden to make a bit of breakfast. Ayame and Suzume have been quite helpful. We've already become fast friends!" at this point Ayame and Suzume dog piled her adding their agreements.

"Here! She can make mouse- rice balls!" Ayame cried happily, while offering Yahiko the tray. Kaoru winced... they were rabbits.

"That's great, Aya-chan." Yahiko murmured indulgently while accepting one. He returned his attention to Kaoru. "How did you know this was my dojo?"

Kaoru shrugged expansively. "I've heard many things. Even a few rumors about a school that preaches the protection of people over bloodshed and the young boy who will inherit it."

Yahiko took a bite of the rice-ball. "Wha...." his sentence trailed off as he stared at the rice-ball. "This.... this is..." he began to tremble ever so slightly.

Kaoru flinched, for all her travels had improved her sword style her cooking still left much to be...

"These are great! I've never tasted anything so good!" he cried and proceeded to wolf down the rice ball and followed it with a second. "After sensei's cooking I thought I'd never taste good food again!"

Kaoru flushed and tasted one of them herself... she couldn't see what he was talking about. They were the same as they ever were to her. She shrugged and ladled out some soup for herself and the children.

"Thank you." Yahiko said as he accepted the bowl. "I, ah, couldn't help but notice you patched up the wound I got from the Battousai... I'd like to thank you for that too."

Kaoru snorted. "I did no such thing."

"Huh?"

Kaoru chuckled. "I hate to burst your bubble kid, but the man you faced last night was not Battousai."

Yahiko sprang up. "You've gotta be kidding! He's gotta be, the way he was slaughtering those policemen last night, only the monster of legend could have done that!"

Kaoru sipped some miso out of her own bowl. "Myoujin-san, allow me to tell you this one thing, had that man truly been the Hitokiri Battousai. You would have been dead now. That man is an impostor. Simply because he says that he is Battousai the Assassin does not mean it is so." she sipped her miso again and giggled. "Besides, Battousai is five feet nothing with bright red hair."

Yahiko exhaled gustily. "Damn, if it isn't Battousai, then who is it?" he groaned. "With Enishi gone, I can't protect the School. Even if he isn't Battousai...." he stared at his sandals.

Kaoru blinked at this rare show of humility, could this be the same Yahiko that she remembered? She shook her head briskly. "You mentioned Enishi, where is he if not here?"

Yahiko blinked. "You know Yukishiro-sensei?" he frowned suddenly. "and while we're at it, how do you know my name?" he asked suspiciously.

Kaoru smiled benignly. "How rude I've been, I haven't introduced myself. My name is Kaoru; I was Enishi's tutor when he was young. I taught him the basics of Kenjutsu before he came here."

Yahiko flushed. "Oh... I... forgive my rudeness. Enishi's father took ill just before all this began happening. I've tried to write to him, even go to his father's villa, but Battousai has always interfered somehow."

Kaoru frowned. "Interfered?" she asked delicately.

"Yes," Yahiko murmured. "He attacked the man I entrusted the letter to and began his slaughters every night I tried to go out. I can't imagine what grudge he has against the Dojo, but he's almost destroyed us. The students have all left except for me, the only thing left is the practice hall..."

Kaoru set down her bowl. "That seems to be a problem. Maybe it would be best if we got you away from here."

Yahiko burst up from his seat. "Haven't you been listening, Battousai or whoever he is won't let me escape!" Yahiko growled. "As it is, you're in danger just visiting!"

Kaoru smiled and placed a hand on his shoulder. "You aren't alone here any more, Yahiko. If I may, I'd like to stay here and help."

Yahiko jerked away. "You'd just be in the way... you can stay the night, but in the morning you'd better get going."

Kaoru retrieved her hands and sat back on her heels. "If it's so dangerous, why are Ayame and Suzume here?"

Yahiko flinched. "Their Grandpa runs a clinic a few blocks away and they have to go somewhere during the day so they won't be underfoot... and..."

Kaoru nodded her understanding. "I see, well then. It seems you will have company for tonight... at least." She winked good-naturedly. She gestured to the tray. "Eat up, your problems are never so far away as when you get a chance at a good meal."

Yahiko smiled and snatched another rice ball. "Thanks!"

***

Kaoru smiled as Dr. Genzai left with his grandchildren milling about his legs. The old man had been startled to see her there, but thank fully he'd caught her wink and kept quiet about her full identity. She would have to stop by the clinic and have a nice visit with him once Gohei was taken care of.

Gohei...

Kaoru frowned and would have tucked her arms into her gi in an imitation of Kenshin when he was thinking (just for nostalgia), but as she was a woman and had more to reveal in the chest area she merely tucked her hands into the opposite sleeves.

She sighed; Gohei would be after the fall of the Kamiya Kasshin Dojo again, no doubt. He wasn't a terribly imaginative individual... but there was no reason for him to be.

She could remember with crystal clarity his thumb sticking out at odds with the rest of his hand; obviously crippled by a sword. That much was clear... but try as she might she couldn't remember Gohei as one of her father's students in her current time line.

With so many changes to the time line, other things would have changed as well. She willed her mind into a trace-like state where she could analyze the world about her.

Gohei would have been a student here... 11 years ago, eleven years ago she had been... watching over Tomoe in the little farming community Kenshin had hidden her in while the Bakumatsu was in its death throes.

When she'd been in the Dojo, Gohei would probably have been a first year apprentice and well beneath her notice as Advanced Class Shinhondai. He probably hadn't started causing trouble until long after she'd left.

Kaoru sighed, at least she had that straight in her head... she chuckled as she strolled through the familiar yet strange halls of her birthplace... so many little changes and yet so many things still the same.

"Looks the same to me." Raven commented from her perching place on the roof.

Kaoru glanced up at her. "Yes and no. It's obvious two healthy young men have been living here as opposed to a lonely young woman."

Raven faded out and reappeared next to Kaoru on the outside walk. "I don't see it." She said disparagingly as she looked over the surrounding architecture.

"Repairs Raven." Kaoru sighed. "It's in better repair. You know, the Mr. Fix It thing men do."

Raven blinked. "OH!" She giggled and tapped the tiny white skull that dangled from her left ear. "I see it, now." She blinked out of sight just as Yahiko turned the corner before them.

"Who were you talking to?" he asked, looking at her oddly.

Kaoru shrugged and grinned in an unconscious imitation of Kenshin at his goofiest, once she realized what she was doing she quit in a hurry and settled for a serene smile. "Just thinking out loud, it happens when you're alone a lot. Please don't let it bother you."

"Yeah..." Yahiko scratched the back of his head. "Uh, Kaoru-san. It's getting close to supper time and I was wondering if you would..."

Kaoru sucked in her breath. "Is it really so late? Oh dear, I really have been out of it. I'll start dinner for you, how about that?"

Yahiko relaxed. "Arigotou, Kaoru-san. I really appreciate it... usually Enishi cooks, bleagh!"

Kaoru chuckled at Yahiko's comical face. "Come and talk to me while I cook." Kaoru offered. "It will make the work go faster."

Yahiko nodded and led Kaoru to the kitchen.

"Kaoru-san? I've been meaning to ask you..." Yahiko paused as they reached the kitchen wing and pushed the shoji open for Kaoru. "Why do you wear a bokken instead of a real sword? Usually thugs have real ones hidden inside their staffs but you don't."

Kaoru chuckled. "Well, are we being frank here, Myoujin-san?"

Yahiko blushed. "Please, call me Yahiko."

Kaoru nodded. "All right, to tell the truth I can't afford a real sword so I have to make due with a wooden one!"

Yahiko face vaulted. "Whaaat?"

Kaoru giggled merrily and made for the vegetable bin. "Well, that's not the whole of it... let's see, what have we here..."

***

Yahiko watched Kaoru sort through the vegetables, murmuring to herself.

Without exception, this was the -weirdest- woman he had ever met!

She walked like a competent swordsman and the way the bokken at her belt moved with her was a testament to her skills. Why was she a ronin then?

Yahiko didn't consider himself naive, he'd lived on the streets until he'd made the mistake of picking the wrong pocket... or the right pocket depending on how you looked at it. One day he was working as an unpaid drudge for the local Yakuza and had attempted to pick an old man's pocket, the next day the old man's son had caught him, spirited him away from the Yakuza and had given him a place at this Dojo on the condition that he take it over one day.

He was well aware that even in the days when swords had been legal those swords-women- had been a rare commodity. It had been even more rare for them to progress very far (provided that they found someone willing to teach them) and the only jobs that were usually available these days were as bouncers in the red light districts and among the Yakuza.

Kaoru-san was something of a mystery. Here she claimed to know Battousai the Hitokiri by sight and she'd been Enishi's first Sensei...

Come to think of it, she didn't look old enough to be Enishi's first sensei.

As if sensing his thoughts, Kaoru looked up at him over her shoulder through the thick, glossy black bangs that framed both sides of her face and fell down to brush her throat. She smiled that serene smile of hers, maybe she'd spent time at one of those Zen temples, and it wasn't inconceivable that the monks had taught her sword work.

"I see questions in your eyes." Kaoru said gently in that smooth tone of hers.

Her tone of voice bothered Yahiko somehow, it seemed... not quite right to him, he kept on expecting... he wasn't sure what.

"Um... ah... ano..." he stammered and yelped as Kaoru thrust a knife and a daikon radish into his hands.

"Could you chop these up for me?" she asked with another one of those ethereal smiles.

Yahiko nodded dumbly and obediently went to the chopping boards. "What shape?"

"Round please, I'll be making Oden." She replied and turned to the wok he had heat over an open flame. "Is there something else you wanted to ask me?" she asked as she ladled water into it.

Yahiko looked down to the vegetables he was chopping. "A lot of things, I hope you won't take offense but... you really look too young to be Enishi's first sensei. He started his lessons when he was..."

"Nine and a half." Kaoru interjected. "He was quite the natural. I myself was but seventeen at the time."

Yahiko dropped the knife in shock. "Seventeen!!! That would make you...."

"Twenty-eight." She laughed and shook the ladle at Yahiko in mock chiding. "Twenty-nine in a few months." she blinked at the tragic look on Yahiko's face. "Is there something wrong?"

Yahiko shook himself. "That's just not right!" he protested.

"Well, maybe if you let it sink in for a while." Kaoru suggested. "Perhaps while you chop those vegetables?"

"Um.. er..." Yahiko reached for the knife and was about to continue his chopping when a boisterous voice rolled across the Dojo.

"Hey! Yahiko! Where are ya, runt? I hope you've got dinner started because I'm bushed!"

Yahiko leapt his feet, cleaver forgotten. "It's Enishi!" He breathed, relief evident in every line of his young body. "I'm saved!"

***
End Chapter One

Seiyuu- Bet you never thought you'd hear someone in RK say -that- didya?