Rurouni Kenshin is the properties of Nobuhiro Watsuki-dono not mine.

So please don't sue.

Authors notes: Well looks like I was able to get a chapter out before April!(Please clap…I have 2 major essays due but I needed time to relax) Enjoy!

Exile

Chapter 4

Kenshin woke sore, very sore. Everything from his shoulders to his neck was numb and tingly (it is possible). He sat up gingerly and looked about his surroundings. He was still at the dojo and there was an angry presence at his door.

"You awake in there?" came Sano's gruff voice, he sounded upset and Kenshin could hear the salt in his throat from tears left unshed.

"Yes…Sessha is awake, where is Kaoru-dono?"

Sano then entered and grabbed Kenshin by the throat lifting him off the floor. "You could have killed them! What the hell were you thinking? He's just a kid! She's just a girl!"

"Sessha is sorry. I never meant for any of that to happen. I will leave, please let me go and I will leave and never return." Kenshin could feel Sano's anger especially through his neck. He was sending waves of it directly towards him. Kenshin had let go, he had let his instinct take over and possibly hurt Kaoru – no, he did hurt Kaoru.

"Sano?" squeaked Yahiko. He stood in the doorway wringing his hands. He was scared of Sano's anger but he feared Kenshin even more, this was plain as day on the small boy's face. "Sano, Onee-san wants to see Kenshin. She wants to talk to him."

"Why?" growled Sano, his hand still firmly wrapped around Kenshin's neck.

"Because it's important." Rasped Kaoru, who now stood behind Yahiko. She was braced on the wall but it had taken all of her strength to just get off the futon, let alone stagger all the way to Kenshin's bedroom.

Sano let Kenshin go and instantly Kenshin was at Kaoru's side. Her face was pale but her grip was strong. She pushed off the wall and half staggered half walked the distance to the futon where they had spent the night together. She collapsed into Sano's arms and sat up.

"Yahiko close the door, Kenshin we need to talk." Yahiko did as instructed and sat beside his sister, everything in the boy's frame was keeping him from holding his sisters hand. He feared for her and it terrified the small boy.

Kenshin returned to sit in front of them and looked at Kaoru her face placid, "We need your help." She satiated plainly.

Kenshin looked startled, and glanced from Kaoru to Sano, to Yahiko who just stared at his sister in disbelief. "Could, could you repeat that?"

Kaoru sighed; it seemed that it was going to take a little more time then she had expected. She had thought Kenshin to be a very bright guy, but it appeared that was not true. "We need your help. If you are by our side when we face Yukio then we are sure to win. Just the mere mention of your name and he will go running for the hills. I'm not asking you to fight but merely to use your name. If they think that I have coaxed a great warrior to help us then they might just fold up and leave." Kaoru looked at Kenshin with pleading eyes.

"I…I…" was all that he could stammer. Yahiko was looking at him like a kid in a candy store, in Kenshin; Yahiko saw all that he could be, a strong man that helped those that needed it, a man with honour. Sano was looking deeply in to Kenshin's eyes; he was sizing him up, would he really leave when Kaoru was making such a compelling point? Would he say yes and then demand that she really give herself to him as payment? Even though Kenshin knew that Sano didn't really expect this of him, Sano knew that there had to be some sort of payment. Then there was Kaoru. She looked at him with a steady and stern face, a face that she might have reserved for her brother when he might have upset her, but was now focused on him.

Kenshin swallowed hoping that would dislodge her piercing gaze from his, but it did nothing of the sort. Instead she rose and said "Sano please take Yahiko outside and entertain him for a while. Kenshin and I have some things to discuss." Her voice was stern and heavy. She looked down on Kenshin and suddenly he felt very, very small.

Sano sighed and rising grabbed Yahiko and shoved him roughly from the room, much to his protests. When they were alone Kaoru moved closer to Kenshin. She kneeled so close to him that he could feel her body heat. "I know who you are…Hitokiri Battosai." And with that she stood and headed for the small window at the opposite end of the room. Kenshin started blankly for a moment and turned to face her silhouetted form. Wondering where he had gone wrong. He had covered his tracks; he had done all he needed to hide himself, what had he done wrong?

"The scar gave it away." She said reading his mind. "I may not be as old as you but I was there during the unrest of the samurai families, and I know that you were one of the protectors that helped bring about the change in our lives. You in part were responsible for what has happened here. You like many others believed that this new form of government would put and end to all hostilities, but it did not. It simply allowed other power hungry men to take the places of the previous rulers. I'm not demanding you to help us, but to give us your name so that we may have that safe and tranquil society that you fought so hard to create." Her shoulders were shaking and Kenshin could faintly see tears glittering in the late afternoon light. But no notice of it in her short speech, her voice was steady.

"You want my name to kill in?" he asked, and saw her back stiffen.

"No…no I never meant that." She spun and faced him the sun surrounding her face like a holy light, akin to the Buddhist paintings of enlightened people, but Kaoru's had been received through the edge of a sword not through the word of Buddha.

Kenshin stood and faced Kaoru. "If you go to battle with my name you go to battle with me."

Kaoru had already begun to shake her head before he had even finished, "no, I can not ask this of you. I saw you in battle; if you begin to fight you may never stop. You could hurt innocent people."

Kenshin looked to her bruised shoulder, the imprint of the bokken clearly visible through the crisp whiteness of her yukata, as well as the burn that he now recognized as the character for 'exile'. They had burned who these people were (in their opinion) right on to their bodies. He instinctually reached out to touch it, but Kaoru leaned further back into the window and tried to close off the wound. "They did this to you? Does Yahiko also wear the same mark?"

Kaoru kept her eyes averted, she disliked speaking about that night but if Kenshin were really willing to help then she would have to tell him everything, even what happened to her precious family. She breathed deeply steadying herself, and faced him. "I will tell you all only if you help us. I do not want to force this upon you, especially after I tell you what happened. I want you to decide here and now before you hear anything more from me."

Kenshin saw the determination on her face, she didn't want him feeling sorry for them and then deciding to help, she wanted him – no they needed him to help them regardless of what had happened. Kenshin sighed, he wanted to help Kaoru, and if that meant that he would have to face his darker half then so be it. In her he had found a spirit a kin to his own, both troubled with death and both with the bloody hands to prove it. "I will help you."