Finally, I get this chapter up! It took a million years because I wasn't really into writing this part. Just like last chapter, it's a lot of fluff and character development without much meat in it. Each day this week I'd come home, and on the bus ride home I'd say to myself, "You're doing to finish that damn chapter today! Get it out of the way!" Of course, every single day, it fell through. Until today, thank God.

It's sort of ironic. I'm update with a constant amount of speed four three chapters, then as soon as Whiterabbit says to keep it up, I make you wait two weeks! I'm such a bad person.

Forgive me if this chapter seems a little underdeveloped, especially the conversation between Kaoru and Kazue. I'd been trying to muddle through this for two weeks now, and when I got to that part I just said, "Screw it!" But I still did it to the best of my abilities. I hope you guys enjoy reading this chapter more than I did writing it.

Disclaimer: RK still isn't mine. Not until I'm a super mega millionaire and can buy it. And with my current finances, that should be about…never.

Kazue looked up at the sky above and squinted in the sun's light. The heat was getting worse by the hour, and at the moment it was teetering on the edge of unbearable. She wiped the sweat from her forehead, successfully getting soapsuds in her hair, and went back to work.

She was leaning over the washtub, elbow deep in soapy water, aggressively scrubbing away at several items of clothing. Even though washing clothes tended to be a neat and rather simple process, Kazue had somehow managed to mess up and get herself completely covered with suds. Strangely enough, she was doing quite a bit better than she had the last few times she'd done the chore. Apparently, she wasn't quite suited for washing clothes.

She halted her attack on the clothes for a moment and extracted her hakama from the soapy water. She turned it from side to side, checking to make sure she hadn't missed any dirt or stains. When she was satisfied with it's level of cleanliness, she wrung it out, stood, and hung it on the line beside the clothes that Kenshin had washed. As Kazue retrieved her gi from the tub and began to ring it out, she took a second to look at all the clothes drying on the line. Afterwards, as she hung her gi up beside her hakama, she was very thankful that she only had to wash her own clothes.

She shook the water from her hands and began wiping the suds off of her. When she looked down to brush the suds off the shirt she was wearing, she couldn't help but flinch: the collar had come undone again. As she pulled it securely into place yet again, she silently begged the sun to dry her clothes as quickly as possible. Even though Kazue greatly appreciated Kaoru's generosity and was thankful to have something to wear while she washed her clothes, there was an obvious problem with wearing clothes of Kaoru's. Kaoru, being seventeen, was much more shapely than Kazue, so the gi was a lot looser than it should have been. Even when it was adjusted drastically, it still didn't fit quite right.

"Please," she begged, dropping to her knees and bowing to the two articles of clothing before her. "Please dry most quickly! I can't stand this humiliation!"

"…um…"

Kazue blinked and slowly looked up to see Yahiko starring at her, seemingly lost for any smart-ass comment he could have made.

"Oh," said Kazue, standing up from her kneeling position, apparently not embarrassed in the least. She waved at the younger boy, saying, "Konnichiwa Yahiko-chan." Yahiko was on her in a second's time.

"DON'T CALL ME THAT!" he yelled, teeth bared and eyes white with rage. Kazue almost fell backwards from the force of his yell. "It is not –chan."

Kazue blinked at the irate boy, rather surprised by his animated reaction to such a simple statement. "I'm sorry." She stated plainly, blinking more times than she really needed to. "It's just that…"

"What?" barked Yahiko, his intense glare never wavering an inch.

"Well," Kazue lifted one of her hands and placed it firmly atop Yahiko's head, making sure to press down on his hair to reach his scalp. The boy watched curiously as she did the same thing to her own head with the other hand. She then moved her hands away from them both and positioned them so that one was directly at Yahiko's height, and the other was at her own. The gap between them was pretty extensive.

"See, I'll confess I'm not exactly tall myself." Admitted Kazue, "But still, I'm up here," she waved the hand indicating her height, "and you're down here," she then waved the hand indicating Yahiko's height.

"And…" said Yahiko, looking at her suspiciously.

"And you're just so small, I figured that '-chan' just seemed to fi-"

BAM!

Kazue blinked in utter shock, a decent bump beginning to grow atop her head.

"I don't usually hit girls." Yahiko said coolly, rubbing his fist where he had bopped her. "But you're not exactly a girl now are you?"

Hearing this, Kazue's eyes momentarily flashed red, and a malicious smile spread across her face. "Oh…" she said, cracking her knuckles, "NOW it's on."

"Oro?" said Kenshin as he stepped into the kitchen. His intent had been to start cooking dinner, but to his surprise, a certain brunette had beaten him to it.

"Hm?" said Kazue as she turned to the surprised rurouni. The sleeves of her gi were rolled up and bunched at her elbows, and several grains of rice could be seen caught in her hair. "Oh. Konbanwa Himura-sama!" She said with a wave.

"You're…cooking?" asked Kenshin as politely as he could, though he couldn't hide the surprise in his voice. Though Kazue kept herself from being a burden, she was never really one to do chores around the dojo, save washing her clothes of course.

"Yep." She said. Kenshin immediately became nervous when she gave him a knowing smirk. "Just like I promised you, I'm going to make you men appreciate Kamiya-sama's cooking."

Unfortunately for said men, Kazue was true to her word. The girl sat with the other residents of the dojo, her bowl up close to her mouth, her eyes shifted back and forth to observe the expressions on the men's faces. Yahiko's eyes were wide and watery, and he was completely silent except for a quiet humming noise suggesting that he was about to be violently sick. Sanosuke was halfway through a bite of food, and already his eye was twitching unrelentingly. Even Kenshin's hair stood on end.

Behind her bowl, Kazue smiled slightly, taking a few more bites of rice.

"It's an acquired taste." She offered in her defense.

Kenshin swallowed (but not without difficulty) and carefully slid the bowl away from him.

Sano stood and walked out the door of the dojo, then dumped the food on the ground outside. Some animal could eat it.

Kazue watched him as he did this, her smirk widening so that it was getting hard to hide. However, it was wiped cleanly away when Yahiko disposed of his remaining food his own way: throwing the bowl at Kazue. It bounced off her head and successfully knocked her to the side with a yelp. She stabilized herself, and then slowly, she turned to face Yahiko, her eyes narrowed. He looked right back at her, unthreatened.

The girl scooped the food she had dropped back into her bowl, then stood and walked over to Yahiko. He watched her as she did, not taking his glaring eyes away from hers. Kazue paused for a moment, starring at him. Then, before the young boy could react, she had turned her own bowl over and slammed it down on his head. The food covered his hair while the bowl remained where it was on his head.

"There." Said Kazue finally and she pulled her hand away and crossed her arms. "Now you have a hat."

It wasn't a particularly funny comment, but it still made Kaoru (who had strategically been pushing her food around the whole time has to not eat it) giggle.

"I believe my point has been made." Said Kazue as she stepped away from a seething Yahiko. Even if was five years younger than she, she knew he could hold his own against her. The bruises from their scuffle earlier in the day were proof of that.

"Your point?" asked a somewhat aggravated Sano as he slid the dojo door shut. Apparently, he wasn't too happy about being 'cheated' out of his free meal.

Kazue smiled innocently and nodded. "Uh huh." She said. "You all appreciate Kamiya-sama's cooking now, don't you?"

Kaoru, unknowing of Kazue's intentions, blinked in surprise. She looked around at the men's faces, and saw with shock that their uncertain expressions said what their tongues would not (for Kenshin was too polite and the remaining two were just too stubborn). Apparently, Kazue's cooking was just bad enough to make Kaoru's seem good to them.

"That's what I thought." Said the younger girl with a smile. "Kamiya-sama?"

"Hm? Yes?"

"You want to make something instead? These guys deserve a prize for surviving my cooking."

"…I'm really that obvious??"

"Of course. You've been living here for three weeks now. You think I wouldn't notice you starring at him all the time?"

"I thought I was being subtle…"

"Starring right at him without even blinking is hardly subtle Kazue-chan."

It was several minutes after Kazue's interesting little experiment, and both she and Kaoru were in the kitchen making a quick meal. This time, Kaoru did the cooking, while Kazue was in charge of cutting vegetables.

At first, they had worked in silence, but soon began talking. They spoke mostly of events that had happened within the past three weeks, the time that Kazue had been at the dojo. As it turned out, the subject soon turned to something Kaoru had noticed about Kazue during that time: she had a tendency to stare, though it was only at one rooster-headed person in particular.

Kazue blinked a few times and flushed pink. Seeing this, Kaoru covered her mouth with a hand and snickered.

"Don't worry," said Kaoru with a smile as she went back to stirring a bowl of miso soup. "He's pretty dense. He probably hasn't noticed yet."

"You don't give him enough credit." Kazue responded, tilting her head to the side to make sure she was cutting the vegetables the correct thickness. "My brother was just like him. He seemed pretty stupid, but there was more to him than he let on."

"You have a brother?" asked Kaoru, blinking, momentarily turning away from her work. She recalled what Kenshin had said to her the night Kazue had arrived, and confusion encompassed her mind. Hadn't Kazue said she had nowhere to go? If she had an older brother, why couldn't she go with him?

As the question left Kaoru's lips, Kazue's smile disappeared and her face took on a somber look. "Well…" she said cautiously, "I had an older brother actually."

Kaoru's eyes widened, and then softened decently. "Oh…" Kaoru said, looking down. So, he was dead. That explained why Kazue wasn't with him. "I'm sorry."

"It's not your fault." Kazue said, further inspecting her work on the vegetables, though her eyes weren't focused on them in the least. "It was someone else's fault." As she said this, her eyes narrowed, and Kaoru could almost see the vegetable slices shiver in fear.

Kaoru looked up, staring at the younger girl. Hatred was plain in her blue eyes, which were beginning to become gray again. Kaoru did not press her for an explanation, but instead went back to her cooking. Within a few moments, Kazue calmed and did the same. However, the incredible hatred remained in her eyes.

Kaoru did not speak to Kazue again that night. Instead, as she laid in bed, she continued to turn one particular question over and over in her mind: Was Kazue's brother murdered?

At the same time, Kazue lay in her own bed, staring up at the dojo ceiling. It was glowing blue with the light of the crescent moon. In a few nights, they would be having another new moon. She replayed the conversation with Kaoru over in her head repeatedly, and every time she reached the part about her brother, she could feel a twinge in her heart.

She brushed her hand across the futon where several weeks ago she had hidden the gun. She'd kept it right under her back, the pain a reminder of what she needed to do. After roughly two weeks at the dojo, she'd moved it. That short time ago, she'd thought she could start over, live with these people and forget about her wretched past. How blind she had been.

"He's still out there, somewhere." She whispered to the night. She turned on her side, away from the window, and gripped the futon tightly. "I've got to find him. He has to pay."

And, just like last chapter, you get a whole bunch of fluff and an interesting morsel of meat at the end. Only of course, this chapter was worse. Please R/R anyway. I want to know what you guys think.