They say that your life flashes before your eyes when you die.

Sometimes I worry that your face would be the only thing that I'd see.

The feel of the sword in her hands was familiar- after all, she had given a sword at the age of four. But the power that radiated off of this small dagger in her hand was mesmerizing. She gazed, spellbound, at the reflection of her eyes, watching them narrow and harden with resolve.

"He killed my father," she sobbed out, her eyes welling with hot tears. "And I have failed to kill him tonight."

"Father, forgive me..."

Raising the wakizashi above her head, she closed her eyes and gritted her teeth in expectation as she plunged the weapon down towards the vulnerable skin of her abdomen.

"KAORU!"

Startled, Kaoru's hand jerked and led the blade away from its steady path to her stomach. Instead it glanced her side, making her gasp in pain as warm blood flowed hot down her skin. She bit off an oath as the dagger fell from her hands, and clamped her hand down on the wound.

"Kaoru!" He fell to his knee and ignored her protests as he went about wrapping her wound with a few strips of dark blue cloth. Kaoru dimly noted that it was a piece torn from his gi, and wondered briefly of it.

"Are you all right?" he asked her frantically, his gaze filled with concern. She stared dumbly at him, unable to speak. He shook her gently, noting that the wound was deeper than he had thought. "Kaoru, answer me!"

"Battousai?" she murmured, her eyes glazed in shock. "What..."

"Baka!" he shouted, stepping back from his handiwork. The makeshift bandage was soaked a deep navy from her blood. The sight did nothing to improve his mood. "What were you thinking!"

She blinked rapidly, raised an unsteady hand her throbbing temple. "...I ...eh?"

Cursing at the both of them, Battousai ran a shaking hand through his hair. He was standing, he knew, on uncertain and foreign ground. His control was shaken, his heart racing, and his breaths were unsteady.

There should have been no reason, he knew, absolutely no reason to why a wound, no matter how deep, would shatter his composure this thoroughly.

She was shivering now, her teeth chattering as the wind blew gustily through the open shoji. Muttering under his breath, Battousai yanked the thick blanket off of his futon and wrapped it around her.

"Baka!" he hissed again, barring in his temper. "Baka!"

Her mind was beginning to clear, and she registered and resented the way that he was reprimanding her.

"Monster!" she screamed at him, shoving him away as he gaped at her openly. Her wound throbbed in wild protest, but she paid it no heed. "Will you not even allow me the honor of –"

"Honor of what!" he roared, watching, disgusted at himself as she shrunk away. "The honor of running away from your troubles? If anything, you should want to stay alive to get your revenge!"

She stared at him, not quite sure if he knew what he was implying.

"I am no fool," he sighed, raking a hand through his hair again in agitation. "I know that in order to get your revenge, you must kill me."

"Do you?" For the life of her, she could not begin to understand this man.

"I am no fool. Nor am I deaf. I heard your silly little speech."

"Do you wish to die?"

She waited with baited breath for his answer, her huge eyes never leaving his tense profile.

He turned back and offered her a crooked, bittersweet smile. "What difference would it make? I do not live for myself, but for my employer, my lord. Such is the life of a samurai."

Her eyes narrowed in honest bewilderment. "How can you talk of life in such a way? Each life belongs to each person. It is his decision to cherish it or..."

"Take it?" Battousai laughed, infuriating her with his mockery. "Ah, hime-chan, you have a lot to learn."

"I take it you will be teaching me?"

He shrugged lazily, his earlier panic all but gone. Temper was bring color back into her cheeks, he noted gratefully. "Who better?" His expression sobered as he checked her bandages. "You will be sore in the morning. I will have to draw you a bath then, I suppose."

She blushed and tried to shy away from his gentle probing. "It is not necessary..."

His eyes laughed at her, and her own blue gaze widened in slight surprise as she saw the emotion swirling in their violet depths. "'Tis the least I can do for a hostage."

She couldn't laugh with him, so she bit her lip until she tasted blood. "I thank you." He waved a casual hand to her reluctant gratitude.

"Sleep now," he told her, pausing with one hand on the shoji. "You will be sore in the morning, but it will pass with time." He slid the paper screen and turned to look at her once more before he left. She looked utterly vulnerable in the faint moonlight, her features sad and lonely as she stared at the tatami mats, and he felt a wave of undescribable emotion wash over him.

"And Kaoru?"

She looked up at him, her eyes impossibly blue in the light. "Hai?"

"It isn't Battousai. My name. " He smiled gently at her. "It is Himura Kenshin."

And with that, he slid the shoji door shut silently. And turned the key.

They say that if you hold on too tightly to something, it will slip through your fingers. Sometimes I'm more afraid that if I hold on to you at all, you'll break beneath my hands.

AN: Ahhh! SAT II 's this Saturday!