Rurouni_agra: Chocolate covered green beans? Oh my.
Yami Kitsune: I'll have the chocolate; you can keep the green beans.
Rurouni_agra: Another chapter.
Yami Kitsune: We no own.
Rurouni_agra: Here we go. This chapter dedicated to Pzanna.
Yami Kitsune: Like the name, Pzanna. Pzanna, … pazanna, ... pazanna pazanna pazanna pazanna pazanna. It's just fun to say.
Rurouni_agra: Here's the next chapter. Again short. Damn my need for study halls to do homework and evil weekends to stuffed to do anything. You know, freshmen year is hard, but I like it.
Yami Kitsune: Who cares? We wrote another chapter. Now let them READ!
Old Friend
… A voice answered him. It was feminine, most defiantly, but it was deeper them most women's voices, "You can turn around and make my dreams come true."
Kenshin froze. Not only because of what the voice had said, but because something in the voice seemed familiar. He could not place a face to the voice, nor a name, but it seemed familiar. He knew the person, but he did not know the said person's identity.
He considered not turning around to speak with the newcomer but his rurouni mask wouldn't let him, it would be rude.
"I do not know what you mean, that I do not," he said as he stood. He waited for her answer before turning.
"Don't tease me, Himura. You mocked me for years. I don't think I can stand much more."
Tensing at the use of his surname, Kenshin prepared to turn. No one he'd met since the revolution called him 'Himura' without the usual –san. That meant the woman behind him knew him as the Battousai.
"Kuso!" he murmured finally turning to face his known stranger.
A woman stood before him, that in it was not a surprise, he had known the stranger was female from her voice, but the hurt with her voice he had expected someone small and fragile. He was half right. The woman before him was small but fragile was not the word that came to mind.
She wore a black shirt much like Saito Hajime's but she wore a hamika like his own. Even through the shirt Kenshin could see she was well muscled. Long, reddish brown, hair was pulled away from her face with a length of cloth high on her head, like the way he use to were in during the revolution. Her bangs only covered the left side of her face. High cheekbones set of her similarly coloured red brown eyes that were starring at him, unblinkingly, examining every part of him. They lingered on his sword and on his scar, before coming to meet his eyes. Two sword, one shorted then the other, could be seen hanging from her left hip, just as his had hung so many years ago. Damn but she looked familiar, but he still couldn't place her. The one thing that threw him the most was how young she appeared. She looked not much older then Sano, but then she couldn't have known him during the revolution, be had been the youngest in the Inshinshishi, plus she was to young to join the group anyway.
"It has been too long, Kenshin, far too long."
Realizing they'd been starring at each other in silence for at least five minutes before she had spoken, Kenshin hurriedly pulled up the rurouni mask and put it firmly in place. Apparently she knew him, or thought she did. He however, was still unsure.
"I am sorry, that I am, but I don't believe I know you, that I don't."
He expected her to remind him of one of his many travels as a rurouni, or perhaps of another Inshinshishi and say she was his daughter, or even perhaps attack him because he'd killed someone she knew, to smile, smirk, and taunt him like most people who know of his past did. He'd expected anything but what happened.
The woman had not smiled nor shown any emotion outwardly since she'd arrived. But when Kenshin had told her he did not know who she was, her face utterly fell. She looked like someone who'd just found out his or her parents died suddenly. He could see the sadness in her eyes. A grief so deep it affected her entire soul. He had felt a strong, confident ki from her when she'd entered the dojo, but now, every part of her reflected misery, pain, and despair. When she spoke, her voice clearly announced she was holding back sobs.
"What did I do Kenshin? What did I do to make you leave me? You only had to tell me any I would have done anything for you. Why? Why did you leave?"
Kenshin froze. He'd never left anyone. True he'd had one or two lovers before Tome it hadn't lasted. One lover had gotten killed. The other, he preferred not to think of.
Could this be her? Would she really, after doing what she did to him so many years ago, try and come back to him, thinking he would forgive her? He examined the girl a little more closely. Upon a second look he could see her face was more mature then he'd previously thought, not to mention that, if this was who he thought it was then she would look younger, her chest was more mature as well and there was wisdom and experience in her eyes along with the pain.
Could it really be Nekura? Would she really come back to him after all this time? After what she did? Perhaps her epithet fit her just as his had. She was known to be heartless, perhaps she was. He was known as a manslayer, and he was.
"Nekura," he said, again dropping the rurouni mask letting his voice deepen to resemble that of what it was when he was a manslayer.
Though she had been on the verge of tears, she still stood strait. Apparently not even a broken soul would cause this woman to loose any honor.
"You…you remember me?" her voice still spoke of unshed tears.
"Yes I remember you, and what you did to me."
Rurouni_agra: And there it is. Another annoyingly short chapter, sorry.
Yami Kitsune: Thanks again to Pazanna, our ONLY reviewer!
Rurouni_agra: Hint, hint, please review! The more reviews, the more inclined we are to write this. We DO have other things to do you know.
Yami Kitsune: You act like you have a life.