KatDrama: I can't believe me. Here I am, I just updated the story today and already writing the next chapter.

Kitty: you need more to do.

Rurouni KatDrama: Yes, boredom is often the breeding ground of dangerous ideas, that it is.

KatDrama: relax guys, I have PLENTY to do, im just taking a break before I get back to work.

Kitty: scoffs WORK??! Work at what?

KatDrama: you guys know, I have that audition thing tomorrow and I've been playing my fingers off trying to prepare for it.

Rurouni KatDrama: I was not aware of any "audition"

Kat: sighs I have to audition to be in the school's, shall I say, "elite" orchestra.

Kitty: W-o-o-o-w-w....e-l-i-t-e....

Kat: guys, cut it out!!!!!

RKD and Kitty: (a/n there's supposed to be one of those smiley things here but all of a sudden ffnet wont let me have them in my story....so....)

Kat: sighs well, you guys read the chapter while I go practice my violin, comprendo?

RKD and Kitty: crystal! (another smiley should be here....)

Kitty: anywhoo- you guys don't want to hear about Kat's boring life anyways, so here we go with the chapter—

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Whispering Sunshine

Chapter Eight

Thundering Dreams

Thunder boomed and sheets of rain pelted the roof of the Kaimya dojo. Icy droplets pounded the ground into a mass of mud. Inside the warm glow of lanterns illuminated the rooms. Kenshin threw another blanket over Sachi as she fitfully slept. He leaned his back against a surrounding wall, letting his sword sit against his shoulder and his red bangs nearly cover his eyes, as he too tried to catch some wisps of wanted sleep.

"CRACK!" A bolt of lightning tore the sky to pieces.

Thunder, lightning, everything was dark and stormy.

"Why do you want to kill me?!" A man huddled against the window side of his western style house.

"You have sold arms to both sides of the war, therefore you are a traitor to both and must be stopped." A shadowed figure drew his sword.

"Please, just spare my daughter."

The fighter glanced over to the scared spit less girl in an aqua blue kimono that huddled in the corner. His narrow eyes searched the pale figure. "Alright, but only because she is young and not corrupt like her father!" The swordsman lunged forward; his blade pierced the man's heart and the scarlet blood that spilled forward glittered with a flash of lightning.

"PAPA!!!!!!"

Sachi was very young; she stood on the bow of a ship with her mother and father, her green, western-style dress flapping in the breeze.

"Tell me again why we are doing this. Why are we taking our young daughter with us to a country in the midst of a revolution?" The woman asked her husband as she wrapped her comforting arms about her daughter.

"Because my business goes where the wars are. Where there are wars there will be need for muskets and cannons." Her husband replied.

"Papa, is that Japan?" Sachi pointed across the horizon to a strip of land.

"Yes it is honey. Gaze upon your new home." Her father spread his arms wide.

"Will this truly be our home?" She pleaded with him.

"What do you mean?" Her father bent to gaze into her deep blue eyes.

"Will we really stay here? Forever?"

"Well, I can't guarantee that..." Her father scratched nervously at the back of his neck.

"I've always wanted a real home to stay at...forever." Sachi leaned out against the railing.

"But you've always had a home..."

"No papa. A R-E-A-L home, a country where I belong and where we can live together all the time. At first I thought that Germany was my real home, but then it was Africa, then America, and now, Japan. Will we ever stay in one place?"

"Daughter..."
Whistles tweeted outside as police stormed the building.

"Daughter, I'm sorry. It was wrong to move here...please...go home, to wherever you desire to be home..." Sachi's father squeezed her hand one last time as his life, his blood drained from him.

Sachi's eyes brimmed with tears and she shook her head forcefully as if she could open her eyes and find it was all a dream. A bolt of lightning illuminated the room again and she gazed into the piercing glare of the assassin...
Sachi screamed as she sat straight up on the futon. Lightning, thunder, all the elements were there. Sweat dripped down her nose and unto her blankets. She struggled to gasp for breath as panic surged through her.

"Sachi! It's okay! It's just a storm! I'm here." Kenshin grabbed her hand. Sachi jumped at the sudden contact. Then she threw herself into Kenshin' s lap and wept as she hugged him close. "There, there, it was just a dream, that it was." Kenshin stroked her back as he tried to comfort her.

Lightning flashed and the thunder boomed again like an ear splitting cannon. Sachi gripped her comforter tighter. "There, there..." Kenshin swept the hair that clung to her sweaty face out of her eyes.

"Hmph." Kaoru turned and stormed off down the hallway. She was about to apologize to Sachi, but after what she had just witnessed she didn't feel obliged to. "K-e-n-s-h-i-n.....!!!" She gritted her teeth as her anger boiled.

"Hey, Kaoru, what's Kenshin cooking for supper?" Yahiko popped up out of nowhere.

"Buzz off!" Kaoru shoved him out of her way.

"Sheesh." Yahiko watched his sensei march down the hallway, putting occasional dents and holes in passing walls. "Bad timing or what?"

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KatDrama: well, I hope I didn't spoil the future of the story toooo much...

Kitty: Naw, I don't think so, rather I think it whets the readers appetite and makes them crave for more.

Kat: hopefully you are right. By the way, I hope the flashbacks weren't tooo confusing, but I didn't want to reveal tooo much yet....

Rurouni KatDrama: If you the reader enjoyed this chapter or have any suggestions, you should review, that you should.

Kitty: there was something I was going to mention but I can't think of it right now....so I guess I'll have to let it go for now

Kat: plz review!

Ja'ne!