MysticShadowWanderer
Disclaimer: My sanity wrote a suicide note... but one of us is illiterate and the other is blind...
Chapter One: Convergence
Kaoru could sense his presence, even though she had yet to turn and verify that the man was leaning against the tree, just a short distance behind her. She could feel the energy radiating off him in waves, aloof and calculating, powerful. A lazy smirk stained her features; he was red, whoever he was. Red tinged with black and riddled with anomalies like holes in the roof of an otherwise secure home. In her mind, everyone was characterized by what color she felt from them. It didn't make any sense to anyone, but she knew she was right; after all, who were they to tell someone such as her that she was awry?
It would be well worth the time to approach this man, she could sense that. Here was someone that would understand her. She trusted her intuition, it had never failed her yet. Replacing her self-satisfied expression with one of mild disinterest, she slowly released the umbrella that she found so distasteful and disrespectful to the rain; it rolled haphazardly until it settled on the freshly dug grave. Well isn't that a pretty image, she thought briefly before letting her attention shift elsewhere. That bloodstained man was waiting.
Kenshin raised one eyebrow, nearly imperceptibly, as he watched the Kamiya woman make her way towards him, her fingers trailing distractedly through the water droplets on a neighboring headstone. Her easy gait was misleading; she was only a slight loosening of the stress in her muscles away from sauntering. As he observed her from his unmoving station under the tree, it dawned upon him that she resembled a predator, albeit a young and slightly tremulous one. With a few more years, or perhaps a few more lovers, he could without difficulty imagine her as a man-killer. He wondered just how old she was; he could see that she knew what she wanted and was used to getting it, that much was obvious from the gentle, deliberate sway of her hips and the seductive pout that she wore. If it was a game she wanted, he was more than willing to play one, provided that they play by his rules.
"How do you know my parents?" she asked quietly, her voice barely above a whisper. There was no grieving in her tone; she remained unaffected.
"Would you believe that I am the killer that stole from them their meaningless lives?"
Kaoru let out a husky chuckle at his words, noting the glint of his beautifully deceptive amber eyes. "In that case, there is only one option," she purred as she reached down in one fluid motion to draw a short knife from her knee-high leather boots. On an ordinary day she would have been fascinated by the sharpness of the blade as the rain ran down it in silver rivulets to flow over her hand, but today she was captivated by the slow, even throb of the pulse in his neck as she pressed her knife to his neck. She smiled sweetly and his eyes slid half shut, as if to savor the moment.
"I see," she said slowly, letting the blade dip just low enough to draw a thin red line across his neck.
"Do you?"
She smiled again and then, so slowly that he was certain he could see her thoughts, dropped the blade in the wet grass, turning her back on him. Without a single word, she walked away, her pace steady and self-confident.
"Don't think that you won't see me again, Kaoru," Kenshin said, and though his voice was quiet, he knew that she heard.
"Kaoru. Kaoru..." the voice was not anyone that she recognized, and she sat bolt upright in bed, her eyes flying open.
What do you want? Who's there? She didn't ask her questions aloud, for she had never found the need to do so. Answers always dropped from the sky for her, right into her mind. She knew she had a gift in that way.
When no one answered she sighed heavily in annoyance and flopped back down into her pillows, trying once more to find a position of comfort. The blood pulsing through her ear sounded like a million ants marching down her pillow and she suddenly realized that the silence of the room was overwhelming. With shaking hands she fumbled hastily with the CD player that rested on her bed near her pillow, this time remembering to program it to repeat. There was nothing more panic-inducing than waking up to silence and thousands of voices that didn't belong to her. As the simple yet potent melodies of A Perfect Circle washed over her, she breathed out in contentment and allowed herself to slip off to sleep with the final thought that she would indeed be seeing her mighty assassin again.
Kenshin's lips drew upward in a rapacious grin. It was his birthday today, and though more centuries had passed than he could even remember, he would have his gift. This woman was young, younger than him, but age did not matter to them and she was more than a temptation. She lay entangled in her sheets, her black silk hair rumpled delectably around her head in a dark halo. Her wings were deep purple.
He stalked to her bedside and crawled over her body, breathing heavily. His lips fell upon her neck, biting and sucking until she moaned needily in her sleep. Those blue eyes needed to be open, and he moved his hungry mouth down her body until she opened them languidly. Her small hands came up to run through his hair and stroke his dark green feathers. He arched under her touch, his hips pressing into hers with a need he'd never felt before. She responded in kind and was already crying out in ecstasy as he enfolded her in his wings.
A/N: Interesting. Very interesting. I'm struggling slightly with how to write this, so the chapters are kind of short. I'm really having fun with this one... Just let me warn you, it's probably going to be really confusing, but that's the point. Don't really try to comprehend too much at first, it will all be revealed later.