Departure Scars

Chapter: 2

"Secrets"

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Kaoru stirred. She lazily opened her heavy eyes. She gazed up at light pink Cherry Blossom trees and the little birds fluttering from tree to tree. She shivered. It was cold. She noticed that the sun had barely risen making a beautifully pink and purple, hazy horizon. The ground was shining with morning dew that made her kimono damp along her entire back and side. Her hair was wet too. She turned her head and slowly sat up. She groaned at the sudden headache cause her surroundings to blur. "Why does my head hurt so bad?" Kaoru squinted her eyes and stood up, using the trunk of a tree for balance. Her stomach twisted as she strained to remember why she was there. "…Where?" She clenched her teeth together as a wave of nausea flowed over her. "He…left. I wanted him to stay. Why didn't you stay…Kenshin…?" The nausea got stronger.

'Farewell, Kaoru-dono' that was all it took. Her stomach muscles tightened as she bent over and vomited. Her body ached and everything was spinning. While coughing, Kaoru wiped her mouth off with the sleeve of her kimono and decided to go back to the dojo.

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After stumbling in a daze most of the way she reached the gates of the dojo grounds. Kaoru hesitated for a moment looking as if she wasn't sure if she should go in. What would everyone think of her disappearance? She didn't really want to answer the many questions Yahiko and Sanosuke would have for her. She fingered the handle on the door. What if Megumi was even there? "Can I even handle that?" She wondered.

Finally, she slid the gates open and mutely walked towards the dojo. Through her dry eyes she could see Yahiko standing on the steps with the broom sweeping off dust and dirt. She lowered her head so her bangs shielded her eyes from any looks he might give her. Kaoru knew she couldn't handle that.

She heard a gasp and her stomach twisted again.

"K-Kaoru!? What happened to you?! Where have you been?!" Yahiko demanded. "Sanosuke, and I were looking all over Tokyo for you!" He dropped the broom hurried over to Kaoru. She grimaced at the poking of little rocks that were tearing her tabi and meeting her skin, but continued to walk to the front door of her house. Yahiko stepped in front of her. She slowed and came to a stop. "Kaoru! Are you alright?" He asked again. His voice was high pitched with worry. Then he noticed dry blood down the right side of her face. He lifted his hand to brush away her bangs from the cut.

"Dame." Kaoru said in firmly with danger in the edges of her coarse voice. Yahiko immediately dropped his hand to his side. He stared at her wearily. Her jaws were clenching and unclenching nervously. She looked really bad. "Did someone beat her up or something? What happened?! Her Kimono is in ruins and she's bleeding. She was missing all night too. What happened?!!"

"Please, don't ask me anything…nothing about…Kenshin. I don't want to talk about him. I don't want to talk about anything. Just let me go inside and sleep. I'm not hungry and I can bandage and clean myself up without any help. Just leave me alone!"

"Ano…do you want to take a bath?" Yahiko asked, completely off the subject. He noticed her relax a bit. "I could prepare one for you if you want…" He looked at her expectantly. She appeared to be thinking. She answered with a voice barely audible.

"That would be nice. Arigoto." He smiled; glad that he could get the conversation a bit lighter. Still, he had to find out what happened. She couldn't keep this a secret. Especially with Kenshin—"Kenshin! Did he do this…no…He would never do that to Kaoru!…would he? Where is Kenshin anyways? Oh Kami! Now I'm even more confused. Damn it! WHAT HAPPENED!!??" Yahiko growled and threw his hands up in the air in frustration. Kaoru watched with a puzzled look on her dirty face as the young boy stomped off to the bathhouse. She sighed and went to her room.

"Where is my Yukata?!" Kaoru was just as frustrated as Yahiko while she dug through her closet and moved on to the small dresser on the other side of her room. "I clean my room and I can't find a single thing anyway! Oh Kami, can my life get any worse?" Kaoru's face mimicked her thoughts. She yanked out a drawer and threw out some ribbons, books, tabi, and found a little box. It was a forest green with yellow and olive colored bead designs of dragons all over it. She didn't really recognize it. Since it was on the bottom of the drawer it had probably been their several years. Carefully, she pulled off the lid. Inside there was a thing that looked like a bokken but much smaller. It was about the size of a knife or dagger. There was a beautiful carving of a dragon in the lower part of the object. Kaoru peered at it closer and saw a tiny separating line strait across the higher part of the object. She picked it up from the box. The wood was soft. It had been sanded well. She gripped both hands on each end of the wooden object and pulled her hands in opposite directions. The wood separated into two pieces to reveal a hidden dagger. Her jaw dropped open a bit at the sight of the shinny blade. She could see her sad eyes in the distorted reflection. Kaoru pulled the sheath off more. The blade looked very sharp and new. She wondered how long it had been here.

"Probably even before my father died—" Her ocean blue eye's widened. "Died..." Sadness returned and she began to look at the blade longingly. "It would hurt…but probably not much more than Kenshin leaving…I loved him. He obviously doesn't love me back. He would of stayed if he did." Kaoru pulled the sheath completely off the blade and poked her finger with it. A drop of blood oozed out of the little hole. An awkward smile formed on Kaoru's face as the traces of real reason faded from the depths of her eyes. She became hypnotized by the glare of light on the blade. She lifted it up and began to position it between her breasts. "Just a little pain and it will all be over." Kaoru told herself. "All over…all over." She was ready. "Okay. Ichi...ni...san." She thrust it to her chest.

"Kaoru, your bath's ready!" yelled Yahiko as he slammed the shoji door open. Kaoru nearly jumped out of her skin. With lightning speed she hide the dagger and sheath behind her back.

"D-domo arigoto." She sucked in a deep breath and panted a little. Beads of nervous sweat glistened on her forehead. He almost gave her a heart attack!

Yahiko began to notice the look on her face and gave her a suspicious look.

"What were you doing?"

"Uuuh…looking for my yukata." She half lied. "I can't find it."

"Is that it?" He asked pointing to a rack with her training gi and hakama hanging on it. Next to it was her yukata.

"Hai." She replied feeling dumb. "I searched all over my room and it's right under my nose!"

"Well, I guess I'll go then."

"Alright. I'll be there in a minute." Kaoru answered still glued to her spot on the floor. Yahiko shut the shoji. She listened to the soft footsteps of him walking away and looked back at the dagger. She shook her head slowly, wondering what she had been thinking as she slid it back into its sheath and tucked it inside the folds of her futon. Kaoru glanced back at her newly messy room and her futon and silently walked out the door.

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Kaoru's mouth dropped open when she looked in the mirror. "I can't believe that Yahiko didn't just drag me to Dr. Genzai's" She thought. Her face had dry blood down the right side and dirt was smeared on her cheeks and nose, but there were two clean lines tracing from the corner of each eye and down to neck. "Tears." Sighing, she began to remove the many bits and pieces of her kimono. When she was done she held it up and looked at it. Dirt was on the back, knees, arms and side. The elbows was shredded and ripped like the knees and hip. "Well, I guess I can just throw this one away." She tossed the kimono to the floor. "It can't be fixed...nothing can."

And the memory of Kenshin leaving slowly began returned again. She couldn't seem to keep it off her mind for long.

"How could I be so stupid?! Why do I love him like this?! I should have known that everything he did was just polite...nothing special and that in the end he would throw away it all. Even if he did hug me like that and look at me with a special spark in his eye sometimes...it was probably just male hormones or something. He didn't love me. He was just playing the little flirting game with me because I was so perfect…perfectly dense and gullible. Those are the only things I'm good at. He can cook, clean and he has better manners than I do. I'm just some sweaty little girl that fell for charm and a hansom face. A stupid giddy child. It was so easy for him! I was an idiot to fall for some stranger like that! He could have killed me if he wanted to. He could have raped me if he wanted to. (Although it didn't occur to her why he didn't do those things.) He's so much stronger than I am. He wasn't that kind of person though. He just wanted a place to stay and nothing more but a little fun. I was under his command like a little toy." Fresh tears fill Kaoru's eyes and dropped onto her naked body as she finished washing herself and dipped her foot into the hot bath water. "His toy…"

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"Oi Sanosuke, Kaoru's back!" Yahiko called from the dojo steps where he had been completing his sweeping.

"Where is she?!" Sanosuke demanded as he ran over to Yahiko.

"She's taking a bath." His face suddenly became animated and he yelled several things to Sanosuke at once.

"Wooah, slow down." He scratched his head. "So what did you say?"

"She looked really bad Sanosuke! There was dirt all over her, she didn't have her shoes, her kimono was ripped up really bad and there was dry blood down the right side of her face. I'm afraid something happened to her but she won't tell me anything!" The boy explained. "I was thinking that she might have got attacked by some bandits or something." Sanosuke looked thoughtful for a second but then his face flashed with sudden worry.

"Maybe she did get caught by some bandits. Her kimono was ripped so…what if…what if she was..." His voiced faded. "Raped..." Yahiko looked at him expectantly.

"'What if she was' what?" He echoced.

"Hey, did you try to touch her?"

"Yes..." Yahiko gave him a strange look.

"Did she let you?"

"No...why?"

"Just wondering." Sanosuke stood up.

"Damn, this pisses me off! Some people can be so sick!" Sanosuke looked disgusted as some memories of him beating the crap out of men that were raping some woman near the gambling house past his mind. "It's too bad that things like that have to happen to innocent woman like them."

"Where are you going?" Yahiko asked.

"To go talk to her." Said Sanosuke as he slid the door open.

"But she's taking a bath!" Yahiko reminded.

"I'll knock." Sanosuke muttered and shut the door behind him, leaving Yahiko to go back to his sweeping duties alone and confused.

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At the end of the hall Kaoru turned around a corner. She looked surprised to see Sanosuke.

"What are you doing here?" She tried to hide the pain in here eyes and look curious but he noticed it anyway. In a way, he reminded her of Kenshin, though she couldn't figure out why. "Because they were almost best friends? Protected people they cared about? Both of them fought for me one time or another."

"I was looking for you." He replied. "I know you don't want to answer my questions but your going to no matter what you do or say." Sanosuke locked his eyes with hers in complete seriousness. "Got it?" Kaoru was silent partially from shock of how extreme he was being with her. It scared her because she knew that he was stronger than her and there was no way of getting out of this one by the looks of it.

"I'm going to bed." She mumbled after she managed to tear her gaze away from him. "Just leave me alone. I want to go to sleep. I just want to forget about...him." Kaoru diverted herself around him and headed to her room.

"No you aren't." Sanosuke grasped her arm.

"Let go of me!" Kaoru cried and tried to pull her arm away.

"Tell me what happened." He didn't let go.

"No!" She yelled, pulling harder. He tugged in return and pushed her back to the wall. He held both of her upper arms against the it so she couldn't move. "Let me go!"

"Then tell me!" He yelled back. Kaoru squirmed and tried to get free but he had her in a good hold and he was still much stronger than she would ever be.

"Let go of me now!"

"Are you deaf!? Damn it, I said I'm not letting you go until you tell me what happened!" His grip became tighter. Kaoru closed her eyes as tight as she could to get the tears from slipping down her cheeks. "Don't cry in front of him! Don't cry in front of him! It'll just show how bad it was and make him ask more questions!" Sanosuke shook Kaoru lightly against the wall, getting annoyed.

"Leave me alone! I thought you were supposed to be friends with us!" she snapped. His grip became tighter with more frustration.

"I am!"

"Then don't treat me like this!"

"Then tell me!"

"No!"

"Tell me! I'll never let you leave if you don't!" he yelled back.

"No!"

"Yes, damn it!"

"No!" Kaoru's tears seeped through her lashes and streaked her cheeks. His anger grew, just thinking that someone had caused Kaoru to hurt so bad...and when he found out who he was...he didn't even want to think about what was going to happen.

"Kaoru, just tell me!" Sanosuke's grip grew even tighter.

"Let go!"

"No!"

"Sanosuke, let go! You're hurting me!"

Translations:

Hai- yes

Arigoto/domo arigoto- thank you, thank you very much

Yukata- single layered cotton kimono. Worn for bed, after baths or in the summer.

Oi- hey

Tabi- socks so you can wear the zori

Kami- God

Shoji- a door with paper lining, inside a traditional Japanese house

Futon- a Japanese bad that folds up and can be put in the closet, think of a little bit more that a sleeping bag.

Bokken- a wooden sword

Gomen- sorry

Author's Notes: Well, I finally got this chapter done. I hope you like it. Please don't flame me! *Looks timid* I know it was kind of a bad place to leave if but I need to get to bed and it was the best I could think of right now. Please review it too! I want to know what people think! I'll get more later this week okay? Don't worry about Sanosuke. He did that on accident. You know how when he gets annoyed he clenches his fists? Well, now you understand. Alrighty then. I'll see ya'll later. Bye bye!

And remember: Hugs and Oros are important

(Re-edited)