And now, after my little hiatus of directly copying from the manga, I shall return to actually writing my own story! Or not, since this is a fanfiction and all. Oh, I see, the story is mine, just not the characters. No no no, alter ego Evil Green who has creepy pink eyes, I don't own Inuyasha or Rurouni Kenshin! No, stop! Ite, ite, ite, ite, ite!!!
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Rurouni Inuyasha
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Wow, it had been a long time since Inuyasha had thought of the first time he had met Kagome. They had really been at each other's throats back then. Inuyasha grinned at the memory. Kagome had always been such an enigma to him, ever since the beginning. She had never been afraid of him, even when they had first met and he had seriously, well, semi-seriously, been trying to kill her.
A slight movement to his left pulled Inuyasha from his musing. His ward had turned over, murmuring something about ramen. This was a good thing, considering the kid hadn't moved once since they had gotten back to Inuyasha's room. He had been starting to wonder if the kid was dead or in a coma or something.
Mmmmm…ramen. He remembered ramen; that delicious little treat that Kagome brought back with her all the time. Wait. Did ramen exist in this time period? Maybe the boy was just speaking in gibberish…
Inuyasha looked over at the figure laid out on his futon. The kid seemed to be dreaming something, he was moving around a bit, not too much, his wounds were still too severe, but at least it didn't seem to be a nightmare. Oh, boy, when Inuyasha had first brought the kid back, the boy had had some doozies. If it hadn't been clear to him earlier, it was clear to him now; the kid, Himura, was not a bloodthirsty killer. In fact, he was anything but, and if the dreams were any indication, Inuyasha had a sneaking suspicion that the kid felt each death that he took as a weight on his soul.
The kid rolled over again, this time muttering about exams. Well, those wounds certainly didn't seem to be bothering him too much.
"Of course," Inuyasha thought, "despite how he looks, this kid's a seasoned warrior, and can probably overcome minor things like pain."
It was still amazing to think that this kid was the hitokiri battousai. Somehow Inuyasha had always seen him as a rougher character, someone in his late thirties, with deep scars all across his body, and a lot taller and a lot wider than the actual thing was. Sure, in his vision of the battousai, Inuyasha had seen the infamous blood red hair, and the vicious scar on the cheek, but on this kid…it seemed a little blasphemous.
But once you got past the physical attributes of the hitokiri, you could see it, you could feel it. This kid, he really had to stop thinking about him like that, was really the battousai. The night before Inuyasha had felt that, had seen it with his own two eyes; this young, physically unimposing, person, slashing through bodies effortlessly with such speed and grace, that it hadn't seemed real. The face of the hitokiri, even while snarling or smiling, had been emotionless, and that hidden strength that you never would've guessed was there…. In those few moments, Inuyasha felt he had seen the real side of the hitokiri battousai, a person who seemed born to kill; in those few moments, Inuyasha had seen the man of legends…and it was utterly terrifying.
But, then…he had stopped. He had stopped killing and he had given the rest a way out. Inuyasha, who had been still so shocked by the killing fury in the kid's eyes, had just stood there in the shadows, watching as the boy had broken down.... Tomoe...the name that Himura had said at the graveyard. The kid had just sat there, all of his former determination gone; he had just sat there, waiting to die. That was when Inuyasha had finally snapped out of his shock. Seeing the ninjas descending upon the defenseless hitokiri was more than he could take, and Inuyasha had run to the rescue, carrying Himura back to the inn.
Inuyasha sat back to regard the boy. In his sleep, Inuyasha could see a passing resemblance to Kikyou, though not nearly as close a resemblance as Kagome had had. Similar eye shape, though, a similar nose; the boy had a more masculine chin than Kikyou, though he was still pretty feminine looking. Poor kid, he probably got harassed about that a lot. Well...maybe not to his face. Most people probably didn't want to piss off the Battousai.
"Inuyasha..."
Hmmm? This was odd. To his knowledge the kid hadn't called Inuyasha by his name once. Why start now, while dreaming? Maybe he needed something?
"...no baka."
Oh, so he was the idiot now; he saw how it was. Stupid boy. Still, this was odd, very odd. Inuyasha shook the kid lightly.
"Oi."
Suddenly, Himura pushed him away with surprising strength.
"Inuyasha no baka!" the kid screamed, sitting up. His eyes were glazed over, as if he were still dreaming. "I have an important math exam tomorrow! I need to get into a good school!" The boy stopped screaming, as if listening to something; someone?
Ah? What the hell?! Had the kid gone crazy? Had Inuyasha gone crazy? Because for some strange reason this was all seeming very familiar.
"Inuyasha!" the boy screamed again.
Uh, oh. He could just see where this was going, and he could tell he wasn't going to like it.
"Sit!"
Whump.
"Bitch!" came Inuyasha's standatory explicative for this particular situation.
(I'm sure you all saw that one coming)
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Kenshin woke sitting up. Not that this was different from how he usually slept, but generally when he slept sitting up he was leaning against something; this time he wasn't. And besides that he wasn't where he expected to be either. Instead of waking up in his own room, he was in some room he had never seen before.
"That must have been some dream."
Huh? Kenshin turned and found the demon that he kept on seeming to run into, regarding him somewhat angrily from the floor.
"Dream?" Kenshin asked, his eyes darting around the room, looking for his swords. Even though, surprisingly, Kenshin felt fairly safe here with the demon, he might have to make a quick exit, and besides, not having his swords near him made him feel uneasy.
Kenshin finished his reprisal of the room, finding his swords over on a stack of bloody clothes, presumably his. He looked back at the demon who seemed to be trying to pull himself off the floor.
"Demon san," Kenshin began. "Where are we?"
The demon had managed to pull himself up into a sitting position.
"My room."
Kenshin shook his head. "Yes, but where?"
The demon looked him in the eye. "The Sakura Inn."
Kenshin nodded, thinking. All right, that was only a couple of blocks away from his own inn, in his present state, it would probably take him about 15 minutes to get back there. Kenshin glanced out the window, it looked like it was late morning; better wait until night fall then, in his current condition a fight could be detrimental.
"Hey, kid," the demon said, grabbing Kenshin's attention. "You don't have to call me demon san. Just Inuyasha will do."
So the demon had decided they should be friends, Kenshin thought, noting the absence of the honorific. This was a strange occurrence. Kenshin was used to people avoiding him, respectfully of course; but for most of the last three years he hadn't really had a friend. Mostly his fellow Ishinshishi were terrified of him, and they were really the only people he ever made contact with, and in this time of war, it was generally a bad idea to get close to anyone. Kenshin had learned that the hard way. Even so....
"Then please stop calling me kid. Kenshin san is fine." Kenshin had a bit of a smile on his face.
"Kenshin SAN?!" the demon, Inuyasha, exclaimed. This was the reaction Kenshin had been hoping for.
"Yes Kenshin san. I am a samurai, after all." Kenshin began climbing to his feet, his lips twitching with the urge to grin.
"Oi, don't!" Inuyasha exclaimed, pushing Kenshin back onto the futon. "Moron! You could reopen one of your wounds! And besides," Inuyasha jumped up, taking on a superior pose, "I'm in a higher caste than you anyways; my father was the great demon dog of the western region of Japan! I'm practically royalty!"
Kenshin blinked. Well, that was pretty childish of the demon. Kenshin smiled.
"What?" Inuyasha asked, back to his normal semi rude self. Kenshin laughed. How strange that felt.
"Sure thing, Inuyasha SAN."
"Oh, shut up, and eat your miso soup," Inuyasha said, pushing a bowl towards Kenshin. "I'm going to sleep. I suggest you do to."
Inuyasha plopped down against the wall and closed his eyes. He opened one eye to regard Kenshin briefly.
"Kenshin SAN no baka."
-----
It was late afternoon and the kid, Kenshin, was still sleeping soundly. Inuyasha however, hadn't slept a wink all day, preferring to watch over his ward. In the past he had actually played this role many times, although it had been a long time since. This kid seemed to bring back so many memories. Not surprising though, considering who he was. It was just one surprise after another.
Inuyasha idly fingered a beaded rosary around his neck, lost in thought. Hmph. Silly kid. Inuyasha smiled just a little bit.
"It looks like I got my wish after all."
Inuyasha's ears perked up as Kenshin began stirring.
"Oi, kid, how ya' feeling?" Inuyasha asked.
"Mmmm...a little hungry."
"More miso soup coming right up!"
Inuyasha watched as the kid dug into the soup, slurping loudly. It was strange, something about watching Kenshin eat made him seem so much more...human. Maybe it was the voracious appetite he was showing... or the fact that he wasn't looking at him with those too wise eyes.
Kagome had had blue eyes, an unusual feature she shared with Kikyou, although Kikyou's eyes hadn't been as bright, almost as if the color of her eyes signified Kikyou's melancholy, compared to Kagome's exuberance. Because of that he had always thought that a person's eyes showed the nature of a their soul, and he found it very odd and worrisome that Kenshin's eyes weren't blue as well, but instead a demon like amber. Because if he wasn't sure by now, that last incident while the kid had been dreaming cinched it. No one but Kagome could make him "sit."
"Inuyasha san?" Inuyasha flushed a little, thinking Kenshin had caught him staring at him and had thought the wrong thing.
"Just Inuyasha. What?"
The kid looked away, embarrassed, and Inuyasha thought, "Oh, great. Here it comes. He probably thinks I want to jump him or something."
"I just wanted to know..." he stopped, and Inuyasha nearly jumped up and left. He really couldn't deal with this right now.
"...what your father was like." All right, it was time to go. Maybe he should try the sake thing again.... Huh, what?
"My father?" Inuyasha asked, bewildered. That had not been the question he had been expecting at all. Kenshin noticed the bewilderment and sighed.
"It's just...I don't remember my own father all that well, he died when I was young..." He looked down. Inuyasha scratched his nose, wondering what to say.
"Well, I'm afraid I can't help you much there, kid...Kenshin. My father died when I was just a kid, too. I don't even remember my mother all that well."
The kid looked a little crestfallen. "Oh, so I guess we're both orphans."
Inuyasha shrugged. "Everyone's an orphan at some point. Not many are ever truly alone." At those words, Inuyasha noticed Kenshin's gaze drift over to where his swords were sadly. Ah, the burden of a hitokiri.
"I've been wondering about this for a while," Kenshin said after a moment of silence. "Are there a lot of you?"
Inuyasha grimaced a little. "I was wondering when you would ask that." He sighed. "No. I'm the only one left that I know of."
Kenshin looked a little bit startled at that. "You mean..."
Inuyasha nodded. "Yep. Over the last three hundred years or so, they started disappearing. I didn't notice at first, since it was the small fries that went first. Then the mediocre demons, and then finally all the extremely powerful demons were gone. Poof! Just like that! Gone!" He shrugged. "Even my own brother, Sesshoumaru, disappeared about a hundred years ago without a trace. I figure the only reason I'm still around is because I'm half human."
The kid looked even more started. "Three hundred years?" he asked, disbelief in his tone. "Just how old are you?"
"417, 368 if you discount the years I spent pinned to a tree in an enchanted sleep."
"Enchanted sleep?"
"It's a long story, kid," Inuyasha waved him off. "We don't have time for it now." And frankly, it was a story that hit too close to the current situation.
Kenshin eyed him with scrutiny, sensing the evasion. "Why not?"
"Don't you think someone important is wondering where their prime hitokiri is?"
-----
Kenshin was very, very tired. It had been a tiresome night, though educational. He had gotten to spend more time than he had ever thought possible with the half demon, and he found that he was beginning to learn the quirks and oddities of the demon's personality. It was simply amazing that someone who was close to 400 years in age could be so immature. He had always thought that maturity came with time, but with Inuyasha, that proved not to be the case.
The whole situation had been very amusing, and Kenshin had found himself laughing for the second time in over a year. It was amazing how good it felt to laugh. No one else had been able to make him laugh in such a long time, no one had even tried. But, after watching a few of Inuyasha's antics, Kenshin found he couldn't hold it back any longer; and as mad as the half demon had seemed about being laughed at, Kenshin sensed that he was really very pleased about it.
He liked this man. For all of his gruffness and rudeness Inuyasha was kind and honest. Like Kenshin, Inuyasha defied appearances, and Kenshin had found himself telling the half demon things he had never told anyone else. Not even his Shishou. It was like he had found a long lost brother.
Now, Inuyasha was off with a letter for Katsura, although how he planned on finding him was something Kenshin hadn't bothered to ask, he assumed it was some kind of demon magic. The letter explained where the Battousai was, and about his current condition and when he would be returning. Inuyasha had estimated that it would take approximately two to three days for Kenshin to recover, although he could be walking around by tomorrow night. Kenshin hadn't bothered to argue with that, he was still bleeding and as long as his body was still losing blood, he wouldn't be much good in a fight against the Shinsengumi. Even so, he was worried about Katsura and the other bodyguards; he hoped that they would lay low until Kenshin came back.
In a strange sort of way, Kenshin was relieved to be off duty for a couple of days. He hadn't realized until now how out of sorts he had been. Sleep deprivation, among other things, had been causing him to lose concentration, evident by his latest encounter. He had not known that he could break down like that in front of other people, but the woman's resemblance to Tomoe, while not uncanny, had been still close enough to make him lose it; and he had lost it, not just in front of Inuyasha, but an entire team of ninjas. His weakness and lack of control was detrimental; if word got out on the street about it, there would be problems, not only in the morale of the Ishinshishi, but the skirmishes with the Shinsengumi and other related factions would increase ten-fold, which was something they could not deal with right now. No, as much as he didn't want to, he was going to have to take care of them, and as soon as possible.
"Why aren't you sleeping?"
Kenshin looked up to see Inuyasha in the doorway. How had he come in without Kenshin knowing? Now that he thought about it, the demon was there in the graveyard a long time before Kenshin realized it. And that first night in the alley, he hadn't felt Inuyasha's presence until he had been following him for a while. What was going on? It seemed like the half demon was able to overstep all of Kenshin's internal alarms without even trying. This was something that had never happened to him before. Even with Tomoe, he had still had a constant guard up, so why...?
Kenshin's eyes widened when he realized that Inuyasha was now crouched right in front of his nose, a semi-worried/angry look on his face.
"Oi, you okay?"
Kenshin blinked, realizing that he must have been staring off into space.
"...Yes."
"Go to sleep, then."
Kenshin just sat there, pausing before he spoke. "Katsura san?"
Inuyasha smiled before settling himself against the wall to sleep. "He's fine, and he's glad to know you're okay too." He frowned a little bit, although his mouth did not lose its humorous edge. "You Ishinshishi people are really high strung though, you know."
He didn't bother to elaborate, and after a few minutes Kenshin drifted off.
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~aw, now isn't that sweet.
~Jeez, this thing is starting to get long. You know, I never really expected to go anywhere with this thing, but thanks to all of you, I haven't lost interest yet! Yay! So you can be expecting another chapter hopefully within the next week. Heee....
---Green signing out.
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Rurouni Inuyasha
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Wow, it had been a long time since Inuyasha had thought of the first time he had met Kagome. They had really been at each other's throats back then. Inuyasha grinned at the memory. Kagome had always been such an enigma to him, ever since the beginning. She had never been afraid of him, even when they had first met and he had seriously, well, semi-seriously, been trying to kill her.
A slight movement to his left pulled Inuyasha from his musing. His ward had turned over, murmuring something about ramen. This was a good thing, considering the kid hadn't moved once since they had gotten back to Inuyasha's room. He had been starting to wonder if the kid was dead or in a coma or something.
Mmmmm…ramen. He remembered ramen; that delicious little treat that Kagome brought back with her all the time. Wait. Did ramen exist in this time period? Maybe the boy was just speaking in gibberish…
Inuyasha looked over at the figure laid out on his futon. The kid seemed to be dreaming something, he was moving around a bit, not too much, his wounds were still too severe, but at least it didn't seem to be a nightmare. Oh, boy, when Inuyasha had first brought the kid back, the boy had had some doozies. If it hadn't been clear to him earlier, it was clear to him now; the kid, Himura, was not a bloodthirsty killer. In fact, he was anything but, and if the dreams were any indication, Inuyasha had a sneaking suspicion that the kid felt each death that he took as a weight on his soul.
The kid rolled over again, this time muttering about exams. Well, those wounds certainly didn't seem to be bothering him too much.
"Of course," Inuyasha thought, "despite how he looks, this kid's a seasoned warrior, and can probably overcome minor things like pain."
It was still amazing to think that this kid was the hitokiri battousai. Somehow Inuyasha had always seen him as a rougher character, someone in his late thirties, with deep scars all across his body, and a lot taller and a lot wider than the actual thing was. Sure, in his vision of the battousai, Inuyasha had seen the infamous blood red hair, and the vicious scar on the cheek, but on this kid…it seemed a little blasphemous.
But once you got past the physical attributes of the hitokiri, you could see it, you could feel it. This kid, he really had to stop thinking about him like that, was really the battousai. The night before Inuyasha had felt that, had seen it with his own two eyes; this young, physically unimposing, person, slashing through bodies effortlessly with such speed and grace, that it hadn't seemed real. The face of the hitokiri, even while snarling or smiling, had been emotionless, and that hidden strength that you never would've guessed was there…. In those few moments, Inuyasha felt he had seen the real side of the hitokiri battousai, a person who seemed born to kill; in those few moments, Inuyasha had seen the man of legends…and it was utterly terrifying.
But, then…he had stopped. He had stopped killing and he had given the rest a way out. Inuyasha, who had been still so shocked by the killing fury in the kid's eyes, had just stood there in the shadows, watching as the boy had broken down.... Tomoe...the name that Himura had said at the graveyard. The kid had just sat there, all of his former determination gone; he had just sat there, waiting to die. That was when Inuyasha had finally snapped out of his shock. Seeing the ninjas descending upon the defenseless hitokiri was more than he could take, and Inuyasha had run to the rescue, carrying Himura back to the inn.
Inuyasha sat back to regard the boy. In his sleep, Inuyasha could see a passing resemblance to Kikyou, though not nearly as close a resemblance as Kagome had had. Similar eye shape, though, a similar nose; the boy had a more masculine chin than Kikyou, though he was still pretty feminine looking. Poor kid, he probably got harassed about that a lot. Well...maybe not to his face. Most people probably didn't want to piss off the Battousai.
"Inuyasha..."
Hmmm? This was odd. To his knowledge the kid hadn't called Inuyasha by his name once. Why start now, while dreaming? Maybe he needed something?
"...no baka."
Oh, so he was the idiot now; he saw how it was. Stupid boy. Still, this was odd, very odd. Inuyasha shook the kid lightly.
"Oi."
Suddenly, Himura pushed him away with surprising strength.
"Inuyasha no baka!" the kid screamed, sitting up. His eyes were glazed over, as if he were still dreaming. "I have an important math exam tomorrow! I need to get into a good school!" The boy stopped screaming, as if listening to something; someone?
Ah? What the hell?! Had the kid gone crazy? Had Inuyasha gone crazy? Because for some strange reason this was all seeming very familiar.
"Inuyasha!" the boy screamed again.
Uh, oh. He could just see where this was going, and he could tell he wasn't going to like it.
"Sit!"
Whump.
"Bitch!" came Inuyasha's standatory explicative for this particular situation.
(I'm sure you all saw that one coming)
-------
Kenshin woke sitting up. Not that this was different from how he usually slept, but generally when he slept sitting up he was leaning against something; this time he wasn't. And besides that he wasn't where he expected to be either. Instead of waking up in his own room, he was in some room he had never seen before.
"That must have been some dream."
Huh? Kenshin turned and found the demon that he kept on seeming to run into, regarding him somewhat angrily from the floor.
"Dream?" Kenshin asked, his eyes darting around the room, looking for his swords. Even though, surprisingly, Kenshin felt fairly safe here with the demon, he might have to make a quick exit, and besides, not having his swords near him made him feel uneasy.
Kenshin finished his reprisal of the room, finding his swords over on a stack of bloody clothes, presumably his. He looked back at the demon who seemed to be trying to pull himself off the floor.
"Demon san," Kenshin began. "Where are we?"
The demon had managed to pull himself up into a sitting position.
"My room."
Kenshin shook his head. "Yes, but where?"
The demon looked him in the eye. "The Sakura Inn."
Kenshin nodded, thinking. All right, that was only a couple of blocks away from his own inn, in his present state, it would probably take him about 15 minutes to get back there. Kenshin glanced out the window, it looked like it was late morning; better wait until night fall then, in his current condition a fight could be detrimental.
"Hey, kid," the demon said, grabbing Kenshin's attention. "You don't have to call me demon san. Just Inuyasha will do."
So the demon had decided they should be friends, Kenshin thought, noting the absence of the honorific. This was a strange occurrence. Kenshin was used to people avoiding him, respectfully of course; but for most of the last three years he hadn't really had a friend. Mostly his fellow Ishinshishi were terrified of him, and they were really the only people he ever made contact with, and in this time of war, it was generally a bad idea to get close to anyone. Kenshin had learned that the hard way. Even so....
"Then please stop calling me kid. Kenshin san is fine." Kenshin had a bit of a smile on his face.
"Kenshin SAN?!" the demon, Inuyasha, exclaimed. This was the reaction Kenshin had been hoping for.
"Yes Kenshin san. I am a samurai, after all." Kenshin began climbing to his feet, his lips twitching with the urge to grin.
"Oi, don't!" Inuyasha exclaimed, pushing Kenshin back onto the futon. "Moron! You could reopen one of your wounds! And besides," Inuyasha jumped up, taking on a superior pose, "I'm in a higher caste than you anyways; my father was the great demon dog of the western region of Japan! I'm practically royalty!"
Kenshin blinked. Well, that was pretty childish of the demon. Kenshin smiled.
"What?" Inuyasha asked, back to his normal semi rude self. Kenshin laughed. How strange that felt.
"Sure thing, Inuyasha SAN."
"Oh, shut up, and eat your miso soup," Inuyasha said, pushing a bowl towards Kenshin. "I'm going to sleep. I suggest you do to."
Inuyasha plopped down against the wall and closed his eyes. He opened one eye to regard Kenshin briefly.
"Kenshin SAN no baka."
-----
It was late afternoon and the kid, Kenshin, was still sleeping soundly. Inuyasha however, hadn't slept a wink all day, preferring to watch over his ward. In the past he had actually played this role many times, although it had been a long time since. This kid seemed to bring back so many memories. Not surprising though, considering who he was. It was just one surprise after another.
Inuyasha idly fingered a beaded rosary around his neck, lost in thought. Hmph. Silly kid. Inuyasha smiled just a little bit.
"It looks like I got my wish after all."
Inuyasha's ears perked up as Kenshin began stirring.
"Oi, kid, how ya' feeling?" Inuyasha asked.
"Mmmm...a little hungry."
"More miso soup coming right up!"
Inuyasha watched as the kid dug into the soup, slurping loudly. It was strange, something about watching Kenshin eat made him seem so much more...human. Maybe it was the voracious appetite he was showing... or the fact that he wasn't looking at him with those too wise eyes.
Kagome had had blue eyes, an unusual feature she shared with Kikyou, although Kikyou's eyes hadn't been as bright, almost as if the color of her eyes signified Kikyou's melancholy, compared to Kagome's exuberance. Because of that he had always thought that a person's eyes showed the nature of a their soul, and he found it very odd and worrisome that Kenshin's eyes weren't blue as well, but instead a demon like amber. Because if he wasn't sure by now, that last incident while the kid had been dreaming cinched it. No one but Kagome could make him "sit."
"Inuyasha san?" Inuyasha flushed a little, thinking Kenshin had caught him staring at him and had thought the wrong thing.
"Just Inuyasha. What?"
The kid looked away, embarrassed, and Inuyasha thought, "Oh, great. Here it comes. He probably thinks I want to jump him or something."
"I just wanted to know..." he stopped, and Inuyasha nearly jumped up and left. He really couldn't deal with this right now.
"...what your father was like." All right, it was time to go. Maybe he should try the sake thing again.... Huh, what?
"My father?" Inuyasha asked, bewildered. That had not been the question he had been expecting at all. Kenshin noticed the bewilderment and sighed.
"It's just...I don't remember my own father all that well, he died when I was young..." He looked down. Inuyasha scratched his nose, wondering what to say.
"Well, I'm afraid I can't help you much there, kid...Kenshin. My father died when I was just a kid, too. I don't even remember my mother all that well."
The kid looked a little crestfallen. "Oh, so I guess we're both orphans."
Inuyasha shrugged. "Everyone's an orphan at some point. Not many are ever truly alone." At those words, Inuyasha noticed Kenshin's gaze drift over to where his swords were sadly. Ah, the burden of a hitokiri.
"I've been wondering about this for a while," Kenshin said after a moment of silence. "Are there a lot of you?"
Inuyasha grimaced a little. "I was wondering when you would ask that." He sighed. "No. I'm the only one left that I know of."
Kenshin looked a little bit startled at that. "You mean..."
Inuyasha nodded. "Yep. Over the last three hundred years or so, they started disappearing. I didn't notice at first, since it was the small fries that went first. Then the mediocre demons, and then finally all the extremely powerful demons were gone. Poof! Just like that! Gone!" He shrugged. "Even my own brother, Sesshoumaru, disappeared about a hundred years ago without a trace. I figure the only reason I'm still around is because I'm half human."
The kid looked even more started. "Three hundred years?" he asked, disbelief in his tone. "Just how old are you?"
"417, 368 if you discount the years I spent pinned to a tree in an enchanted sleep."
"Enchanted sleep?"
"It's a long story, kid," Inuyasha waved him off. "We don't have time for it now." And frankly, it was a story that hit too close to the current situation.
Kenshin eyed him with scrutiny, sensing the evasion. "Why not?"
"Don't you think someone important is wondering where their prime hitokiri is?"
-----
Kenshin was very, very tired. It had been a tiresome night, though educational. He had gotten to spend more time than he had ever thought possible with the half demon, and he found that he was beginning to learn the quirks and oddities of the demon's personality. It was simply amazing that someone who was close to 400 years in age could be so immature. He had always thought that maturity came with time, but with Inuyasha, that proved not to be the case.
The whole situation had been very amusing, and Kenshin had found himself laughing for the second time in over a year. It was amazing how good it felt to laugh. No one else had been able to make him laugh in such a long time, no one had even tried. But, after watching a few of Inuyasha's antics, Kenshin found he couldn't hold it back any longer; and as mad as the half demon had seemed about being laughed at, Kenshin sensed that he was really very pleased about it.
He liked this man. For all of his gruffness and rudeness Inuyasha was kind and honest. Like Kenshin, Inuyasha defied appearances, and Kenshin had found himself telling the half demon things he had never told anyone else. Not even his Shishou. It was like he had found a long lost brother.
Now, Inuyasha was off with a letter for Katsura, although how he planned on finding him was something Kenshin hadn't bothered to ask, he assumed it was some kind of demon magic. The letter explained where the Battousai was, and about his current condition and when he would be returning. Inuyasha had estimated that it would take approximately two to three days for Kenshin to recover, although he could be walking around by tomorrow night. Kenshin hadn't bothered to argue with that, he was still bleeding and as long as his body was still losing blood, he wouldn't be much good in a fight against the Shinsengumi. Even so, he was worried about Katsura and the other bodyguards; he hoped that they would lay low until Kenshin came back.
In a strange sort of way, Kenshin was relieved to be off duty for a couple of days. He hadn't realized until now how out of sorts he had been. Sleep deprivation, among other things, had been causing him to lose concentration, evident by his latest encounter. He had not known that he could break down like that in front of other people, but the woman's resemblance to Tomoe, while not uncanny, had been still close enough to make him lose it; and he had lost it, not just in front of Inuyasha, but an entire team of ninjas. His weakness and lack of control was detrimental; if word got out on the street about it, there would be problems, not only in the morale of the Ishinshishi, but the skirmishes with the Shinsengumi and other related factions would increase ten-fold, which was something they could not deal with right now. No, as much as he didn't want to, he was going to have to take care of them, and as soon as possible.
"Why aren't you sleeping?"
Kenshin looked up to see Inuyasha in the doorway. How had he come in without Kenshin knowing? Now that he thought about it, the demon was there in the graveyard a long time before Kenshin realized it. And that first night in the alley, he hadn't felt Inuyasha's presence until he had been following him for a while. What was going on? It seemed like the half demon was able to overstep all of Kenshin's internal alarms without even trying. This was something that had never happened to him before. Even with Tomoe, he had still had a constant guard up, so why...?
Kenshin's eyes widened when he realized that Inuyasha was now crouched right in front of his nose, a semi-worried/angry look on his face.
"Oi, you okay?"
Kenshin blinked, realizing that he must have been staring off into space.
"...Yes."
"Go to sleep, then."
Kenshin just sat there, pausing before he spoke. "Katsura san?"
Inuyasha smiled before settling himself against the wall to sleep. "He's fine, and he's glad to know you're okay too." He frowned a little bit, although his mouth did not lose its humorous edge. "You Ishinshishi people are really high strung though, you know."
He didn't bother to elaborate, and after a few minutes Kenshin drifted off.
-------
~aw, now isn't that sweet.
~Jeez, this thing is starting to get long. You know, I never really expected to go anywhere with this thing, but thanks to all of you, I haven't lost interest yet! Yay! So you can be expecting another chapter hopefully within the next week. Heee....
---Green signing out.
