Author's Notes: Ahh... aren't you all so happy? It's a new chapter! Today is November 8th, 13 minutes after Kenshin ended. I got to watch it today because I said so! Hehehehehe. I just kinda stole the remote and refused to give it up. If it works then I say by all means DO WHAT YOU NEED TO DO. Hehehehehe. Well, I started this chatper late because of writers block and... it got posted late due to writer's block.Wellto the chapter! Did you notice that so far the story has only spanned a total of 3 days? Dang I'm good! hehehehehehe! I'm very proud of this small fact! 126 slides on Powerpoint right now is the length of the story! I'm getting better at this I think!
Breaking Through
Chapter 6- Growing Closer
There was only one thing on his mind when he burst into the Inn after the walk back. He needed peace of mind, so he stormed into Katsura's office. He needed to know if he had been ordered to kill Kaoru's father or not. For some reason her words of 'It could have been you' seemed to bother him, and he needed to know for sure if it had been him or not. At least then she could know if she was trusting a manslayer that had murdered her family.
Katsura looked up from his work, not to shocked to see the leading manslayer standing before him. He simply moved aside his earlier work to pay attention.
"Yes Himura?"
Kenshin stared at Katsura momentarily. "I need to know if killed a certain person."
Katsura pulled a book with logged assassinations. His eyes scanned to a thick portion titled 'Himura Battousai' and then awaited Kenshin's question.
"The last name is Kamiya." he told him.
Katsura looked under the K's under Kenshin' file. "May I ask why you need to know this, Himura? You've never questioned your orders before."
"Peace of mind." he stated flatly. "I have connections with the family."
His tone gave off to Katsura that he had better not push the subject. He did that and flipped through the pages.
"Well Himura, rest assured I see nothing under 'Kamiya' in your file, so you are not responsible for that one death." Katsura stated as if the killings were usual and murder was not a crime.
Kenshin nodded quickly and stalked off, to his room he supposed. He wasn't exactly sure what he was doing anymorethose images were still fresh in his mind. The images of Kaoru, dying beneath himby his blade. What was that supposed to mean?
He shook his head. No, he concluded, he hadn't been seeing Kaoru. It was a replay of Tomoe's unneeded death. He was beginning to replay his late wife's death again in his mind. He had been so careful not to replay the scene.
But, it had still been different. He had his crossed scar. Then it couldn't have been Tomoe's death he had seen.
Then- had it been Kaoru's downfall he had seen? Kenshin flopped down onto his futon is distress. He couldn't figure out what was going on, or why it was happening. It scared him. He usually had such good control over his emotions. But ever sinceever since he had prayed to Kami, things had changed. Ever since he had run into Sireta in the field that day. Things had changed. He had changed.
He wasn't sure if he liked these changes.
Promises he had made himself were slowly starting to fall apart and he was losing his edge. He wasn't able to hide as well anymore, and he didn't really feel like the Battousai. He felt as if he had to force himself to be the assassin. Of course, he countered, he never truly was an assassin, that was something he had evolved into.
Shaking his head he tried to sleep. But sleep decided to evade him that night. The images he had seen continued to replay in his mind, the scent of jasmines and blood assaulting his senses. The feel of death gripped roughly at his heart, mind, and skinhe felt the cold darkness he had drawn upon her doomed body. Kenshin felt sick, as if the images were a forewarning of some sort.
He couldn't sleep, he finally discovered. Sighing he rolled out of his futon again, and tried lethargy to sleep against the wall. After an hour, he gave up on that too. He needed to talk to someone, he decided. But he had no friends, he reminded himself. So who was he supposed to talk to?
That voice...
She had told him that if he needed to talk to someone, just to stop by. She would be there. No, he told himself.
He had bugged Kaoru enough for one night.
Why did he trust her so much already, he asked himself. This was completely unlike him. There was no reason to even be civil with her, he reminded himself. Besides, he rationalized; she probably didn't expect a visit at midnight from him because he needed to talk to someone.
Why he would talk to her, someone he barely knew, he wasn't sure of.
He was so confused. Kenshin had no clue what was going on in his mind. Ever since she had held her ground against him everything had become harder. So much more vivid and much more confusing.
Too much for him.
A few moments later he found himself walking down the path again. He cursed himself. He hadn't even known he was walking, not to mention weaponless at that. He was simply in a sleeping yukata, walking down the path to the house he swore he wouldn't go to. He knew he could just turn back around and go back to the Inn, but his feet didn't listen to his reasoning in his mind. They just pulled him farther on to down the path again.
His feet kicked up dust, and he was vaguely aware that he had even put on his sandals without noticing it. Sometimes deep brooding wasn't a good thing, he decided.
In the distance he could see the field again, the one with the charred firewood in the center that was hastily covered in dirt. No longer was it a place of tranquility; it was covered in sin, just like everything else.
Not far away, he knew, was that house again. Despite his better judgment he continued on in his mechanical walking and walked directly in front of the dojo. His eyes scanned the area, slowly melding from amber to a hesitant blue. Everything was silent and the wind blew through the leaves of the surrounding trees in a soothing way. Kenshin stood there staring at the scenery around him.
"Back to check on me already?" came the familiar, sultry voice of Kaoru. "I told you I'd be fine on my own."
Kenshin turned around, and saw that she had just walked out from the bathhouse. Her hair was still damp and clung to her yukata and exposed skin. Her arm was still in the makeshift sling as she stood there.
Not waiting for a response, she walked next to him.
"You do know, you're a lot different than I expected." she stated almost silently, as if she was afraid he would strike her.
He bent his head to the side and followed her inside. "How so?"
"Aren't you supposed to be off killing someone?" she asked, a slight tinge of disgust hidden in her voice.
"I have the week off." his response was gruff and angered. "I never would have met you in that field if I didn't have the week off."
She turned and looked at him. "You never would have saved me from Gohei, either."
"Just because I'm a hitokiri doesn't mean that's all I do, cause death every night."
"I understand." she told him. "You are so strange."
She motioned for him to sit. "How many people do you let get away with everything I have done to you so far?"
His eyes were questioning, and she noticed this. Kaoru sighed and decided to answer his questions.
"I've snuck up on you, I've cut your fingers and slapped you, called you strange and ordered you around." She told him. "How many people get away with that?"
"I've never had to put up with it before. Everyone is too afraid of me to give me their straight opinion."
She nodded. "Is that why you haven't bothered to even draw your sword against me to scare me?"
"I'm not only meant to scare people."
"You're different than I expected, like I said before." she told him.
"Why?"
"I never thought Battousai could be so, well, what's the word I want? Civil?" she said. "I never knew he could care enough about someone to check on them the way you do me."
He glared. "You're different. No one has ever snuck up on me before."
"You let your guard down, how is that so different? That doesn't explain your strange personality."
"What is there to explain?"
"I don't know. It's just different."
Silence ensued after this, causing a dark and tormenting void in their conversation. But Kenshin had to think. Why? Why did he keep coming back here?
'Jasmines. Damn, that was it. What was it with that scent?' He asked himself. There was no way in the world he could be so attracted to the scent, could there?
No, he told himself. He wasn't attracted to the scent; he was attracted to the person who wore the scent. The innocent, warrioress beauty that wore the scent was why he kept coming back.
With this in mind, he stared away from her, letting his eyes turned to amber again. No, he couldn't feel that way again. He couldn't endanger another innocent life. It was just so hard to stay away.
Kenshin stirred, shaking his head. His eyes opened and then turned into slits. Where was he? He defiantly wasn't at the inn right now. His eyes searched the room and he noticed through a window that the sun was coming up. The colors that crossed the sky were beautiful, he admitted. But where was he?
He stepped through the door, and slowly walked around. He remembered where he was now. Why he was there was his question. He shouldn't have been there.
Picking up his discarded katana, he stepped out the door and decided to walk by the river, maybe clean his hands. He suddenly felt really bloody.
The water looked like some sort of pinkish candy when he looked down at it as it reflected the sky. He stared at it slightly, his eyes boring into the colors where his reflection bounced back to him. A sigh caught his ears and he let his eyes flow over to the side.
There she was, standing there already dressed and staring down at the water, also. A small, contented smile was on her face, and her arm was out of the sling, which lay nearby. This time her kimono was yellow, but it had small red and purple flowers strewn around it. Her hair was down with a comb and a ribbon in it. It was somewhat messy; giving the appearance that she didn't do it much. He was in awe, but angry all at once. He shouldn't even still be there.
"I couldn't sleep." she said.
"You knew I was here?" he asked, a little shocked.
She nodded. "I heard you walk up."
"Why aren't you in your sling?"
"It got in the way, I was trying to sleep out here."
He lowered his head, fully knowing why she couldn't sleep inside that night. He had fallen asleep in the hallway, next to her room and it must have seemed strange. He had come to talk, and they had spoken, but somewhere along the line he had drifted off to sleep.
"It's not your fault." she told him. "I didn't mind that you were in there sleeping. It was just that whenever I started to drift off I'd start to get nightmares. It's become a common thing for me, but I don't like to sleep when I have nightmares. So I just stay up and hope I'll become so exhausted I won't have nightmares when I finally sleep."
"You're lying."
She turned, her blue eyes piercing his own molten gold ones. "I am not lying! How lowly do you think of me? First you claim I'm a whore and now you're calling me a lair? I thought that perhaps you may have respected me as a swordswoman, but I suppose you don't even have that for me. I'm a crutch to you."
"I have respect for you." he defended himself.
"Then treat me like you do."
"You call slamming my fingers shut in a wooden chest showing respect to me?"
"You were getting into my intimate wear, what was I supposed to do, just stand there?" she said, crossing her arms.
"And you say I'm strange."
"How am I strange?"
"You're not the traditional Japanese woman." He told her. "You've got more of an attitude, and I have a feeling you cover most of it up around me because you're scared."
Shaking in anger, Kaoru walked up to him and got straight in his face, her hands on her hips, despite the pain in her still healing shoulder.
"You listen to me! You do not scare me, not in the slightest! Just because you are a hitokiri doesn't mean I'm going to be terrified of you! I have confidence in my skills. You may be Battousai, but that doesn't mean anything. That's a title, and that's it. Why should I be afraid of a title?"
He shook his head. "You are very naïve, you do realize this, don't you?"
She glared. "You're hardheaded."
"You aren't cautious enough."
"Listen to me. I opened my home to you. You're welcome here whenever you wish to come by. Now tell me, does that make me afraid of you? If I were scared of you, I wouldn't want you around. I may be naïve and I may not be very cautious, but I'm all alone here. I don't like to be lonely. I'm sure you know what that feels like." she said. "You're just to stubborn to think that I can feel that way too, that I can have some emotional intelligence."
"You are very very stupid to let an assassin come to your home and invade it, when he could be ordered to kill you at any time. But, at the same time, I thank you. I do know what it is like to be lonely, and it's been a long time before I've ever had somewhere I could go that I was wanted."
She nodded." That's all you want."
Kenshin didn't agree nor did he disagree. So many fears ran through his mind at that moment, of things that could happen because of his contentment. He shouldn't be feeling content around her, but it was hard not to. She was lively and yet calm and kind all at the same time and it confused him. In that short span of four days, he had been drawn to her and bound with invisible ropes to her life. He couldn't stay away and he wanted to. And at the same time, he wanted to stay. It was so confusing.
Everything will turn out okay.
Jasmines meant that. Maybe, just maybe Kami was giving him some true solace in his morbid life? Was there truly a light, or was this going to end up like the last time he developed a relationship? He couldn't drag her into thisshe was too innocent.
"I needed to tell you something."
Her eyes lightened a little. "Yes?"
"I went back and I asked... have a clear conscience, it wasn't me who killed your parents." he told her calmly.
"Wellthat's a little bit of a relief, I suppose." she answered him. "But I wasn't really worried about that."
"If I had killed them"
"You can't really change what happened then. All I want to do is have it all leave my mind. Don't you have anything you wish you couldn't remember?" she whispered.
Sakura. Akane. Kasumi.
Tomoe.
And if he could remember is parents, them too.
Master Hiko's disappointment.
He nodded. "Yes, many things. Including my job."
"Understandably."
She turned her attention back to the water.
"Were you up all night?" he asked, noticing the sun moving up higher as the colors changed.
Kaoru nodded. "I told you that I couldn't sleep, didn't I?"
"You should go rest. It will do well for those small injuries you acquired yesterday." he told her.
"You sound worried."
He glared. "I'm being civil with you. It has to do with the whole respect thing."
She nodded and turned to walk, but stopped suddenly. "Thank you. I suppose you're going to fix the dojo and then leave before I wake up?"
"How did you know?" he asked, a half smile tugging at his lips as she grinned.
"So you can smile." she said. "I'm glad you have some emotion under that exterior of yours. Well, since you demand that I go to sleep so bad, I'm going."
She lifted up her sling and reslung her arm through it and then walked off toward the dojo, walking past him. He followed her somewhat with his eyes before he followed her back. He might as well get to work on the dojo. Then he could leave and never come back.
"You do realize now, you're a part of my makeshift family now. So don't you dare think of never coming back again. I'll hunt you down on my own." she told him.
"But you don't even know my name."
"Well, if that bothers you so much, then tell me. What is your name? I don't want to call you Battousai." she said. "But I'll call you whatever you tell me to."
He stopped. He hadn't given anymore thought to what he should tell her to call him. He wanted to tell her just to forget it but he needed to tell her. She seemed determined to get it out of him, and he was kind of scared of her tactics. He knew she could be violent.
"Kenshin Himura."
She smiled. "Alright Kenshin, I'll call you that."
"Alright, Kaoru-san."
"I hate the honorific, just so you know. You forget it if you want to."
He nodded in response.
Kaoru led them inside and then departed toward her room. Kenshin stood there by himself, trying to decide what he wanted to do. He could just leave now and never fix the dojo. But he promised. And then if he fixed it fast enough, he could leave and never return. But she'd come after him, he didn't doubt that. Already she was considering him a member of her makeshift family.
He felt a little strange. It had been a while since he'd been considered a member of a family. He was uneasy with it. After what happened to every other person he'd began to know, he didn't trust that his luck would change now. His parents had died. His 'sisters' had died. He had left Master Hiko to fight. Tomoe had died by his sword. And now, he had to worry about Kaoru.
Shaking his head, he went into the dojo. He might as well fix it.
Author's Note: I'M SO SORRY THIS TOOK SO LONG TO UPDATE! I had horrible writers block, so I had to force myself to sit and just write. So I apologize if this chatper was horrible. As you can see from the top author's note, I started this chapter a long time ago. Almost 20 days. I'm so sorry. And since I wanted to get this out now, I didn't get a chance to make out personal review responses. I will do that in the next chapter, or at least I will try. I joined Cheerleading so my updates are going to be less and less. I am so much busier now.
Love and hugs,
Crystal Renee