A piece of childhood memory…….

The last time Kenshin looked so dangerous, they were still children in the orphanage. The pack of wild dogs living on the island had come out in the day looking for food. They were getting more desperate and hungry because there were fewer and fewer animals in the forest where they lived. Previously, they would come out in the night to rummage for food in the dumps but now, driven by hunger, they were coming out more in the day. Until that day they chanced upon Tsubame.

Having arrived at the orphanage not long ago, Tsubame was not aware of the danger of wandering out alone. But even if she knew, she would not have cared because the kitten Sano-nii gave her had got lost. Its mother was killed by wild dogs and it was an orphaned kitten just like her. But she still had Kaoru and now, she had Sano-nii, Kenshin-nii and Enishi-nii. The kitten only had her. She must find it because it must be scared, all alone like she was when Kaoru was not with her. She pushed the fence open cautiously and tiptoed along the weather-beaten path to the back garden. Kaoru and the rest of them were taking their nap. The two elderly nuns taking care of them were also napping. She must find neko-chan quick before they wake up.

"Meow, meow…neko-chan, where are you? Come out, neko-chan," Tsubame whispered. A faint meow reached her ears and she hurried to the source. It came from under the huge tree in the garden. The mewing was faint and growing weaker. Tsubame knelt down and peered under the roots. In the little shelter, there was a small pool of blood. The kitten's back legs was badly mangled and blood was flowing from its mouth and the torn legs. Tsubame's eyes widened with shock. Tears gathered as she reached out her hands to the kitten. Badly injured as it was, the kitten struggled weakly in her hands. Blood flowed even quicker through the matted and dirty fur.

The tears fall even quicker as she stood there at a lost, not knowing what to do. It was so small and it must be hurting so much. No longer making any noise, the kitten's mouth opened and closed as though gasping for breath, it tiny, as yet unformed fangs coated with blood. Grieving, Tsubame was not aware of the rustling behind her. The dog that had bitten the kitten had come back with its pack. Hunger had driven them here and they were not about to leave without food……

Silently, they spread out, surrounding their two-legged prey, preparing to lunge and bring her down. But a flurry of stones set them back a few steps.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

From the main house, Kaoru woke up with fear gripping her heart. Tsubame! Climbing down the double-decker, she checked if Tsubame was in her bed. She was not. Alarmed, she run into the boy's room, knocking on the door frantically. A sleepy-eyed Sano opened the door, "What's up?" he yawned.

"Tsubame's gone! Get Kenshin and Enishi, quick!" The urgency in her voice drove away the sleepiness. Rushing back to the room, they quickly woke up Kenshin and Enishi. Together, the four of them arrived just in time to stop the dogs from pouncing on Tsubame. Seeing them, Tsubame stumbled forwards. But instead of reaching for Kaoru, she reached for Kenshin. A trace of hurt passed by Kaoru's face but it happened so fast no one noticed.

Although Tsubame had not known Kenshin long, she always felt a strange sense of calmness with him. That he would protect her and Kaoru. It was a feeling subtly different from what she felt with Kaoru.

Seeing the dying kitten in Tsubame's arms and the tears on her face, Kenshin felt rage coursing through his veins. Pushing Tsubame to Kaoru, he said shortly, "Go to the main house first. We'll be back in a while."

Although unwilling to leave the boys with the wild dogs, Kaoru understood that it was more important to get Tsubame away first. They may share the same face, but Tsubame was so much softer and gentler. She did not want her to see anything that would scare her. Nodding, she led her sister back.

In the back garden, the pack leader watched as his prey got away. But there were three more left. He snapped his jaws, spittle hanging from his drawn back lips.

Once the girls were gone, Kenshin turned to face the pack with Sano and Enishi at either side. Bending down slowly, he picked up a dead branch on the floor, keeping an eye on the dogs which moved slowly to encircle them. Shifting, the three of them stood back to back, watchful and alert.

It was now late afternoon and the sunlight sieved through the leaves. The calls of birds were conspicously absent. The silence was only broken by the growls of the pack.

Without warning, the battle-scarred black dog leapt at Kenshin, his jaws aiming for his throat. Startled, Enishi and Sano fell to the ground and rolled away. The other dogs stayed back, watching the battle. Kenshin had ducked to the left, escaping the bite to the neck. But the dog now had his teeth embedded in his shoulders. The weight of the dog pushed Kenshin onto the ground and he landed with a heavy thud on his head.

His grip on the branch was not loosened. Hair-raising growls sounded close and loud in his ears. He could feel his bone grind against the dog's teeth and the pain ran like lightning through his body. Wetness run down from his shoulders. His blood and the dog's spittle. From the corner of his eye, he saw Enishi and Sano running towards him. But he did not want their help.

Clutching the stick tightly in his fist and ignoring the pain in his shoulders that threatened to paralyse him, he raised his right hand and closed it on the dog's ears, squeezing with all his strength. With his left, he swung the stick and hit the dog's body with such force that it snapped. With a startled yelp, the dog loosened its bite and tore loose from Kenshin's hand, retreating. Kenshin stood up, gasping, his breath loud and raspy. Seeing that Kenshin had stood up, Sano and Enishi stopped their advance.

The dog was panting as it faced Kenshin. It's eyes were bloodshot and crazed as it swallowed the blood in its mouth. The warm, coppery taste whetted its appetite. Its muscles tensed as it prepared itself for another leapt. Kenshin shifted his grip on the stick. All his attention were on the animal in front of him. In its next attack, Kenshin vowed to kill it.

In the next instance, it leapt again but this time, Kenshin was ready. He leaned backwards as if falling freely to the ground. Unable to stop in midair, the dog was carried forward by its momentum. Kenshin lie on the ground, his eyes wide open. The shadow of the dog seemed to cover the sky, keeping the sun away in a minor eclipse. Its belly and chest were fully exposed in that single moment. Without hesitation, Kenshin aimed for its open belly with the splintered ends of the stick.

Blood, hot and fresh gushed out from the gaping wound as the dog fell and landed on Kenshin. Silence reigned as all stared disbelievingly at how the battle ended. Red sticky liquid stained Kenshin's worn clothes and sipped into the earth. "Kenshin?" Sano whispered uncertainly. Finally, the body trapped under the carcass began to move. The hand holding the stick still embedded in the dog shoved the heavy load aside where it landed on the floor in a dead weight.

Kenshin stood up. The whole of his shirt was red. No one could tell where he was injured because he was bloody all over. Silently, he looked at the rest of the pack. His eyes were those of a predator, burning with thirst and calculation. The remaining dogs stirred uneasily, whining with fear. Their whines were the only sounds that disturbed the eerie silence. Standing a short distance away, Sano and Enishi felt as if they standing in the eye of a tornado where the air was thick and oppressive. Their playmate was no longer the person they knew. It seemed that the blood had awaken a beast that resided in the body of their friend.

The stiffling atmosphere weighed down heavily, straining their nerves. Any movement from Kenshin would break the taut tension because he was the most dangerous creature in the closed off garden now. But he did nothing, allowing the tension to build as his eyes roamed over the remaining pack. One by one, they cowered under his gaze and retreated carefully until finally, one of the dogs broke into a dead run. The spell broken, the rest of the pack follow suit, leaving the body of their fallen leader behind.

Once the dogs were gone, Kenshin seemed to slump in exhaustion. Sano and Enishi hurried to support him. Through the dried reddish brown splotches on his face, his skin appeared unnaturally pale.

"I'm all right. Go get a few spades, the both of you. We need to bury the dead dog before the pack came back for meat," Kenshin moved over to sit under the tree with the help of his friends. Now that the adrenaline was no longer pumping, he felt every bit of the pain and beating his body had gone through. Blood was still sipping sluggishly from the wound on his shoulder and he pressed his good hand on it.

"I'll get it. Let Sano stay with you," Enishi decided.

"I want to be alone," Kenshin insisted, "They won't dare come back, just go."

Casting worried looks back at Kenshin, they ran to the other end of the orphanage where the tool shed was.

Alone at last, Kenshin closed his eyes. The battle and his injuries had taken a lot out of him. But he could not rest. His mind was filled with crazy images of the battle and how he felt then. Another him, another entity it seemed, had risen to take control of his body. To coldly calculate how to eliminate the threat. There was a dreadful thirst for blood in the planning and a frightening elation when the hot, burning blood of his prey sprayed onto his face. But what disturbed him most was the part of him that had stood back from the killing shared in that pleasure. And wanted it.

His senses, still highly alert felt a presence. A familiar one. Going around a corner, he saw, through the thick foilage, Kaoru holding the kitten. Although to everyone else, the twins looked the same, he had always been able to tell them apart simply because they felt different to him. Tsubame was delicate and fragile. She needed to be protected and tereasured while Kaoru was strong. If they were flowers, Tsubame would be the carefully-tended lily in the greenhouse and Kaoru the wild rose that flourished freely under the sun.

Her face was blocked by the leaves but he could see her cradling the kitten carefully in her arms. Curious about what she was doing, Kenshin did not make any noise. With one hand supporting it, she covered the mouth and nose of the kitten with the other. Kenshin's eyes widened. Weak and dying, the kitten barely struggled. Within seconds, it stopped moving. Stunned, Kenshin did not know how to react. Her hands, still plump with baby fat moved slowly away. Even in her small hands, the dead kitten looked like a pitiful scrap of fur, shrunken in death. As he looked on, droplets of water fell upon the matted fur, sinking in and clumping it up. Kenshin reached out to brush away the leaves.

Kaoru was crying. This was the first time he saw her crying in the month since she arrived with Tsubame.

Tsubame came running up the path with bandages and medicine and hearing her sister's arrival, Kaoru wiped away her tears.

"I'm back! Neko-chan?" Tsubame asked worriedly as she laid down the supplies she found.

"I'm sorry, Tsubame. The injuries were too serious…"Kaoru did not have the heart to tell Tsubame that no matter what, with the extent of its injuries, the kitten would have died despite her ministering. It might live to the next day but that was just prolonging its sufferings. So she killed it.

As Kenshin watched Kaoru comfort her sister, he realised that the person who swallowed her tears and pain, felt the hurt deeper because it was a lonely secret only they knew. Returning to the garden to wait for Sano and Enishi, he resolved to be there for Kaoru no matter what. He would not allow her to hold back her sorrows with him and he would share everything he had with her.

That night, when all the day's business was dealt with, Kaoru returned to her bed, tired out. Climbing into bed, she saw through the faint moonlight, a red feather lying on her pillow. Picking it up by the shaft, she twirled it between her fingers, watching the light reflecting off each fine hair. It belonged to Kenshin, she remembered. He used it as a bookmark and Sano teased him, saying that it was the exact colour of his hair. Smiling, she put it under her pillow. Her last thought before she fell asleep was that the colour really does ressemble his firey hair.





This chapter was not planned so its simply titled 'memories'. But I still hope you enjoyed it. Soujiiro had not arrived at the orphanage at this point of time.