Ronin Kaoru; Kyoto Arc

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Chapter Four; The Fool Who Follows Her

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I ran up the door, closed the stairs,

said my pajamas, and put on my prayers.

Turned off the bed, and hopped into the light,

all because you kissed me good night

- ???

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AU- Hehehehehehe. You're going to hate me! You're going to hate me!

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She should have known better than to run. He was miles faster than she and she was in no shape to use the enkakusousa properly. He caught her almost immediately after she escaped the courtyard.

An extremely undignified grunt escaped her when he shoved her against the whitewashed wall. She might have protested the rough treatment, or bashed his head into the pavement for daring to rough house her but the initial shove knocked the air out of her lungs making speech impossible.

Which was, apparently the way Kenshin wanted it.

He pinned her forearms with his hands and crushed Kaoru between the wall and his chest. As she fought for breath he pressed himself as close to her as he dared and hissed into her ear.

"Never run from me again! I'll never harm you, but do not do that again ever!" his breath was hot against her throat and Kaoru decided her trouble breathing had less to do with her stunned lungs and more to do with his proximity and her hormones.

His lips brushed over her jugular followed by his tongue. She gasped as he pressed his ear against her pulse point and held her close. He seemed to take strength from its powerful rhythm and slowly relaxed against her. He reached up to her ponytail and tugged the cord binding it loose. Her hair fell down in a shimmering wave and she felt his hands leave her forearms and plunge into the thick tresses.

Abruptly he released her and melted into the shadows. Kaoru fell to her knees and drew in painful breath after painful breath. Slowly she managed to get herself in the proper position, with her head between her knees and evened out her breathing patterns.

There was very little energy in her body that wanted to have anything to do with moving her limbs so she leaned back against the wall and courted stained hakama as she sat in the dirt and waited for her head to clear.

What in the hell had just happened?

"You okay, chica?"

Kaoru smiled in relief as she registered Raven's warmth, smooth, brandy wine voice. "I'm fine."

Raven materialized in the dirt beside Kaoru. "I dunno, chica. I'd hate to be left in the lurch that way." she winked laviciously. "At least my boy delivers what he promises." she sighed somewhat sadly. "I need some quality time with Aiden."

"Don't let me stop you." Kaoru said flippantly. "I'm just occupying space until Shishio starts his bit."

"It won't be so long." Raven consoled her. "Then you can get back to being tough, benevolent, omnipotent Kamiya-sensei but you know..."

"I know, Kenshin isn't going to go away." she rubbed her still smarting ribs. "Not after this afternoon, not without explaining to me exactly where we stand."

"You might be standing a lot closer than you think." Raven pointed out. "From that little display just now I'd say he's harboring some pretty powerful emotions for you. Perhaps you two should decide what is between you before the stuff starts flying."

"Maybe you're right at that." Kaoru shook her head. "You were going to do some prying and spying around Kyoto, has anything turned up?"

Raven shook her head. "Nothing really surprising. Were I you, I'd start drilling so as to be in top shape for that fight."


Kaoru groaned. "That's right!" she smacked herself in the forehead. "You're absolutely correct, I don't have time for this sort of thing."

"I didn't mean for you to drop your social life completely." Raven huffed and tapped Kaoru in the temple. "There's a mental health thing involved as well. There's no point in even going to Kyoto if you are not at your utmost peak. You need to have a clear mind as well, you know that better than I do."

Kaoru nodded. "I don't know how well I'll be able to do that with Ken... Himura around. He is somewhat... distracting."

"He's one hell of an opponent, though." Raven pointed out.

"He is at that." she agreed. Now if he'd just quit holding back, that'd be just peachy. She blinked as something occurred to her. "Did something happen this morning? I sensed something, it startled me so badly I dropped my tea."

Raven blinked. "You sensed the vista shift?" she asked incredulously.

"The what?" Kaoru echoed. "What's a vista shift?"

The latina rubbed the spot between her eyes. "Forget it, I shouldn't be surprised. You're my Catalyst; of course you're sensitive to those sorts of things. A vista shift occurs when a being such as myself actively begins to participate in the course of a Timeline's history."

Kaoru frowned. "What's a catalyst, you've never mentioned this to me before?"

"A Catalyst is a, forgive the term, tool that a Watcher uses to manipulate a TimeLine to the desired effect. The Catalyst must be a plane-bound, such as you. A Watcher can only have one Catalyst in a single Time-line at any given time. To make a Catalyst a Watcher must invest a certain amount of their physical matter in their Chosen." Raven made a sketchy gesture. "You know that I cannot always interact with this Timeline."

Kaoru nodded.

"Well, that is because I am not physically attached to this plane in the manner that you are. I can't come here when the possibility spectrum, which is the maximum amount of possible events that can occur at a particular point in time, is narrow. In layman's terms that means that there is no possibility that I may exist in this Time-line when that happens, I'm a particularly difficult being for a Time-line to support so the possibility spectrum must be particularly large for me to be here. It usually is, unless an important event for the Timeline is about to occur then the Spectrum narrows to prevent something from stopping it." Raven explained. "You are here because the Spectrum cannot shut you out and so you can influence this world even when I'm not with you."

"What if something happens that there are no possibilities for?" Kaoru pressed.

Raven shuddered. "Paradox." She said in a hushed voice. "That's what we spent so much time and effort preventing. You see; you are an anomaly since you originate from a different Time-line so you are sensitive to the changes in this one. You can also sense those changes since you are my Catalyst and carry a bit of myself with you. That bit of me enhances you physically to a small degree but also gives you the ability to be aware of the fluctuations of the Timeline around you."

Kaoru pondered that for a while. "I see." She said finally. "So that 'Vista Shift' you mentioned means that another 'Watcher' has made someone like me in this world. Will this affect us?"

"Only if that Being is out to effect our business, which they probably are." Raven said darkly. "It is the Official Policy of the Watcher's Guild that only one Watcher may be active in one Time-line at a given point. I was here first so they're poaching. If their intentions were innocuous then they would have cleared their mission with me first."

"Could they have been behind that poisoning attempt a few months ago?" Kaoru asked. "We never did find out who did it."

"It's possible. I wouldn't have been aware of another Watcher in this area until they triggered a Vista Shift. It isn't beyond us to affect things on our own, although I wouldn't know of anyone -other than myself- who would work on such a miniscule scale as to poison one particular plane-bound and, frankly chica no offense, you just aren't important enough to this Time-Line to warrant that amount of effort."

"None taken." Kaoru said with a smile. "So what do we do?"

"We do nothing." Raven decreed. "I will hunt the pendejo down and put the fear of God into him and you will train to face Mum-ra."

"Shishio." Kaoru corrected.

Raven sighed. "Nevermind, chica. I will go now."

"Wait, Raven." Kaoru said quickly. "Kenshin sensed that 'Vista Shift' as well."

Raven sat up straight. "Come again? He could not have!"

"He did, he's the reason I didn't pass the feeling off as nerves.  You've explained how I sensed it, but how did he?"

Raven scowled. "I know not, but rest assured that I will find out." She promised grimly.

***

Kenshin hissed quietly as the dark woman beside Kaoru vanished. So, that explained where she got that information of hers.

He'd spotted Kaoru with the woman once before, although he hadn't overheard their conversation he had seen the dark woman, Raven apparently, walk through a wall to leave. He'd been scared enough that his hair should have turned white.

Their conversation was enough to do that all on its own.

'… and now that stranger is on to me.' He thought. 'It won't take her long to find out what happened after Tomoe's death. I should leave now.'

He dropped down off the roof ledge he'd been using as cover and into the disused alley below. Kaoru was now on the opposite side of the building from him so he was in the clear… or so he thought.

Raven lounged against the wall opposite him with her arms and ankles casually crossed and a slightly predatory smile on her dark red lips. "Hello, little plane-bound." She purred. "Prying and spying are we? Didn't your Shisho teach you better than that?"

"My Shisho taught me not to get caught. What are you?" Kenshin said brusquely.

"What I am is none of your business." Raven countered smoothly. "At least until you started getting sloppy, now you are very much my business. The question I should be asking is what or who are you?"

"Himura Kenshin." He replied stiffly with a guarded bow.

"… but which one?" she mused. "I could tell if you were someone's Catalyst so that only leaves one option. You're from another Time-line."

"You could be right, I'm not at liberty to say."

"Since you're taking all of this awfully well, I can assume I'm correct." Raven intuited. "Am I?"

"Partially." He allowed.

"Are your intentions towards my Catalyst honorable?" Raven teased.

"As honorable as honorable can be. Someone has made a plot against her life known to me and made sure that I cannot help but dedicate my life to safeguarding hers." He nodded. "If you will excuse me, I have business elsewhere. Unless I am mistaken, Kamiya will need an opponent to help her prepare for the up coming battle in Kyoto that you two were discussing. Good day."

"Good day." She agreed. "You won't be interfering in that fight, will you?

Kenshin shook his head. "Regretfully I cannot, although I would if there were the slightest chance for me to do so, but Kamiya is a grown woman now and I cannot fight her battles for her. It would belittle her… and its time I realized that." The last was whispered to himself so quietly that even Raven's preternatural hearing could barely detect the sound.

She straightened. "Which timeline are you from?!" She demanded as a horrible notion occurred to her.

He chuckled nd bowed deeply. "Sessha has already told Raven-dono, sessha is not a liberty to say de gozaru yo."

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Seiyuu; How's that for a cliffhanger?