A/N: Hey everyone! I'm sorry for not updating. I just have had a writers block lately and it's been difficult on how to exactly write this chapter correctly.

So, I apologize if this comes out a little crazy!

Anyway, this is chapter 7? Yes, 7. Well…actually, it's chapter 8, but chapter 7 was an authors note!

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Chapter 8/7 – Correction of Time

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Gazing at the small device in the palm of her hand, Kaoru fried her brain to figure out exactly how the thing worked. Just arriving back on the grounds of Kenshin's house floor, she wasted no time in looking into how to get the item to function.

What do I do…?

She bit her lip while nervousness started to engulf her system. She glanced around the eerily still room. The clicking from the clock had been stopped. The dust that floated around in the air stood still.

Kaoru never knew that such a thing could actually happen. Her heart told her not to look, but she had to. She slowly shifted her head over to where Kenshin lay, reaching out in need of her touch, unmoving. His eyes were still pleading and his mouth still in the middle of his desired words he wished to say while his streaking tears had ceased in the middle of their trailing.

Guilt flushed through her. She couldn't do anything to help him in his sorrow. Slowly, she let her feet guide her over to where the boy lay still. Kneeling down to his form, she hesitantly lifted her hand up to his hair. Slender fingers ran through red locks gently in a tender, repetitive motion. His hair had shifted from her touch, and when she drew away, the pause of time froze his locks in place.

You must make haste…

The words she had been left with visited her and she knew she was not granted the luxury of pitying Kenshin in his frozen state of obliviousness to the real world around him. Slowly leaning forward, Kaoru placed a tender kiss on his forehead. A kiss that laced a promise.

"I'll fix things…"

Her whisper, she knew, fell upon deaf ears, but something inside of her told her that he head heard it. His mind unconsciously grasped her words and preserved it for a time when he could reflect on their meaning.

Standing back up, Kaoru regained her composure and put her mind to work.

"I have to do something to prevent all of this from happening… But what is it…"

Things that could have prevented Kenshin's dire situation of life or death raced through Kaoru's mind. Yahiko's visit, Kenshin's date, Her telling about Tomoe's true goal, Their fight—

Suddenly, Kaoru's mind dinged. Tomoe. If he had never met Tomoe, then this wouldn't have happened.

Congratulating herself on a job well done, Kaoru turned to her time warp.

How do I work this thing…

Gazing at it hardly with sapphire eyes, Kaoru picked out small details. Engraved on the small rings that encircled each other were words.

Seconds, Minutes, Hours, Days, Weeks, Months, and Years.

Her memory racked up the time of day in which they had met Tomoe, and she was successfully presented with lunch hour at Kenshin's high school.

Pieces of sudden understanding on exactly how to work the time warp came together. Turning to the frozen clock, Kaoru let her mind take over her fingers as she worked the warp to the right settings. The time from the clock had read 5:34.

Alright. So lunch hour is around 11:25 am. So… I turn it back… 6 times with hours. And for minutes, I turn it back…9 times for the minutes… and for weeks…three times.

She knew the day was important as well and tried to re-call what day it had been.

…Wednesday!

The present day was Saturday and so quickly, she turned the certain time ring for the subject of how many days, 4 times. Once she had finished her twisting, she waited patiently for the contraption to fulfill it's rightful duty.

Gazing at the object in which what seemed like an unreasonable amount of time, Kaoru's frustration flared out verbally.

"…Why isn't it working? C'mon!…I don't have any time! Work, you stupid warp th-"

Suddenly, the scenery around her started to become abstract. As if warped by time. But once Kaoru looked closely, she could finally decipher that it wasn't warping, but moving. To a velocity of extreme speeds. The lifting of her body had sparked her curiosity. Her back suddenly felt the weight of a familiar sort and the gust of air around her could only do her in to the lust of her need to look behind her. And so she gave in and twisted her head to glance behind her.

Ivory soft feathers were proudly sprouted on her back once more and outstretched, defying their removal that had happened in past, present or future, that certain time now corrupted by the one small angel.

Her mind suddenly filled with hope as she reassured herself that the device was working. Her heart fluttered as her mind tried to comprehend exactly how much excitement she felt and how little did she care for the once confusing movement around her. But suddenly, she was forced to leave her mental world as the sudden stop of her traveling and the painful pull of gravity that had latched her to hard tile ground greeted her.

"Ow…"

Wincing from consequence in the lack of her landing skills, Kaoru slowly made her way to her feet. Her eyes anxiously roved about the foreign hustling of life around her. The tile halls echoed with footsteps and presented itself with overwhelming chatter from many mouths. The realization suddenly hit her.

She was in Kenshin's school.

She looked around excitedly, frantically trying to spot a mane of red hair or a flash of violet eyes, but instead, she was greeted with the sound of a familiar voice.

"Kaoru, c'mon! It's lunch!"

Kaoru slowly turned her body toward the owner of the voice in which teased her ears in a gentle caress. The first that met her eyes was the palm that was outstretched toward her and then warm violet eyes along with a smile.

Yes. She remembered that.

Biting her tongue to scold herself from the build up of emotion she felt, Kaoru substituted the sting of tears for the pain in her tongue. She reached out with a forced smile and laced her palm with his. His reaction to her touch was an immediate turn of his head and a sudden rush of movement as he guided her to the lunch room.

Where they were destined to meet Tomoe.

Kaoru had kept that sharp in her mind and ever since they had entered the lunch room, Kaoru kept her senses to the highest of her peaks. Her eyes were scanning the area of kids all over the lunch room, not taking a chance to miss her.

Finally, she spotted the girl. And just as she had done in the past, or present, she headed toward the table where Kenshin was with that deceiving look of innocents in her lifeless eyes.

She needed to make an excuse.

Quickly thinking, Kaoru bent down to Kenshin's ear and whispered.

"In the halls before you got me, I saw Sano talking with Soujiro and Aoshi, and they're planning to sit with you."

Kenshin looked at her with those violet eyes and Kaoru wished she could gaze into them longer. They were still gentle to her and the way they expressed what they held for her made her want to scream at herself for not appreciating it earlier. He looked at her with a smile, while his eyes told her that she was the only girl in his life, and nodded before turning back to his sandwich.

How she wished that his eyes glistened with the same saying always, just as they did at that moment. Kaoru cursed herself for not noticing what they told her earlier.

Tomoe had finally reached his table and like before, asked if she could sit there. This time, instead of agreeing, Kenshin told the information Kaoru had said to him, although it was, oblivious to him, a lie.

"I'm sorry but these seats are taken."

Kaoru felt quite accomplished when he had told her the news. The fake sadness in her face as she picked up her tray once more had somehow managed to brighten Kaoru's spirits, which somehow left her feeling rotten. The sadness of this girl made her feel happy, and even though it was only a fake emotion, Kaoru told herself, it was still wrong.

But her sudden questioning on whether she had fixed everything or not was suddenly cut short by Kenshin's next words.

"But I'll tell you what. Tomorrow, I'll save a seat for you here!"

Kaoru's heart skipped a beat. It had slipped her mind on the possibilities of Tomoe meeting him in the halls or outside of school, or even the next day at lunch. She couldn't risk the time of preventing every single potential meeting. It just couldn't be done.

Panic suddenly blossomed in her stomach. If meeting Tomoe couldn't be prevented this way, how else? She couldn't think of anything more. The smile on Tomoe's face and her nod had been dreaded only b Kaoru while Kenshin felt quite polite while continuing on eating his sandwich.

Tomoe was always going to be there, and she couldn't change that. She was a person who was taught to meet this boy and destroy his life. That was her life purpose for the time being.

Suddenly, her last thoughts triggered a sudden idea. If she didn't live that life, then Kenshin wouldn't be in the danger he so mindlessly walked into.

She didn't need to prevent their meeting.

She needed to prevent her birth. At the least the birth into that family.

Puzzle pieces started to fit together.

To prevent the birth of Tomoe in the family she had bore into would prevent everything that had been foreboded and presented to her in the meekest of fashion. And to stop that from happening, she needed to stop the date Kenshin's father had planned.

Quickly retrieving the time warp from where it had been laced around her neck, Kaoru fiddled with it almost nervously. It had been 15 years ago since Kenshin's father had died, and Kaoru set the time warp to such. Her memory served her quite well as she quickly applied months, weeks, days, hours, and minutes to the time warp. Finishing her settings, Kaoru whispered the little word that triggered the device.

"Warp."

Directly after she had whispered those words, the same pulling feeling she had felt earlier started to act up again as a blur of time swept past her eyes in the swiftest of speeds. And with the difference of time, her age slowly started to decrease. Her limbs slowly shortened and her features turned from mature and womanly to the looks that a young girl would harbor.

Then, just as before, everything stopped. Kaoru's sapphire eyes were set on a figure that was quite familiar but yet so foreign at the same time. She sat on the familiar floor of the familiar house.

The Himura household. She was back at home but many years prior. It felt so strange to see just how different things were in the short time frame of 15 years. Liveliness was coursing through the house as the broad figure strode through the abode, humming an unknown tune.

Kenshin's father.

The strange feeling of him being alive brought a chill through Kaoru as she tried to get used to the feeling that her thoughts had presented to her. The thoughts of a dead man in the present of which time had been frozen who now stood very much alive in a sense of present time irked Kaoru.

Suddenly, her heart felt quite heavy and painful as it's regular beating started to increase. Her small hand quickly went to clutch at the fabric that covered the area of her heart. Her breathing enhanced and sweat started to form on her brow. Her eyes were wide while one thought suddenly seized her mind.

Time is scarce….

And just as quickly as it had came, all the pain that had devoured her, disappeared. Her mind was searching desperately for an explanation while her breathing tried to slow from it's labored pace.

You will know when time is scarce.

The sudden memory of what the lord had told her solved her confusion. Time was running out. She couldn't rely on Kenshin anymore. There was no time to do so. It was up to her and her only. Fear clouded her thoughts.

What could she do?

Racking her mind of the memories she preserved of Kenshin's father, she vaguely remembered a phone call he received. And her memory somehow managed to dish out that the phone call had been that of his to-be murderer.

The phone call…!

Half of her knew that she couldn't prevent the call, but the other half refused to think that there was nothing she could do at all. The lord had told her that she alone needed to fix things. If only she could reverse his answer. If only she could change his mind.

But how…?

Dread suddenly ran through her as she sat still on the cold floor of the household. The comfortable silence aside from Mr. Himura's small humming had been interrupted quite abruptly.

By the ringing of a phone.

"I'll get it!"

The deep voice in which Kenshin's father possessed had long left Kaoru's memory and how it had sounded when he used it. But all the same, she knew it was his and cursed. Quickly picking herself up to her feet, she staggered over to where Kenshin's father had strode and to her dismay, already took the blaring phone from it's receiver and placed it to his ear.

"Hello?"

No!

Kaoru continued to hurriedly make her way over to where he stood. It seemed like it took years to make it to reach him and immediately by the tenseness in his tone she could tell that it was that call.

She failed. Not only had she not stopped the call, but she also disastrously failed to prevent Mr. Himura from answering it. So she did the only thing that had come into her terror filled mind.

She pleaded.

"Mr. Himura, listen to me. I know you can't hear me but please. You mustn't accept. The death of your only son rests on your answer. Please, you must. Say. No. I beg of you."

Her pleads were laced with sudden tears that dared to fall from her eyes. Weakly carrying herself to his eye level, Kaoru prayed with all her might that just maybe she could, unconsciously, make him change his mind.

"What time?…Tonight? But…"

The way the conversation proceeded, Kaoru's hope for his cooperation slowly started to stretch thin and her pleading eyes and words became more dire.

"Please Mr. Himura. Don't agree to it. Say no. For the sake of your son and family, say no!"

"Listen, I don't feel comfortable…But…you are right…it would be nice."

Kaoru's heart beat quickened. For a slight moment, he had been doubtful to give in to his murderer's suggestion. The optimism of her silent words possibly getting through to him had sprouted as her tears continued to fall. But his sudden change of mind in the end had sent that fear back to her stomach as it bubbled furiously.

"Please Mr. Himura…Don't go. I…I love him…Please. Don't kill him. Don't Kill Your Son."

Suddenly, his form went rigid. Right when her lips had uttered her last plea, his eyes went wide and his figure, stiff. Kaoru's fists tensed as she stared at Kenshin's father with broken hope, praying fiercely for her success. Then, Mr. Himura's wide eyes became stern as his voice became serious and held no means for debate.

"…I'm sorry…but I think it's best that we don't meet…at all."

And with that said, his hand that held the phone to his ear quickly placed it back on the receiver. Turning on his heel, Mr. Himura turned away from the telephone and headed toward the kitchen where his family awaited him with smiles on their faces.

Kaoru floated there, tears still streaking down her face.

She did it.

With dying hope and panic pleads, she had succeeded and stopping Kenshin's father from signing Kenshin's death sentence with his own spilt blood of the murderous night that had originally awaited him.

The largest form of relief washed through her. Closing her eyes, she let a small, triumphant smile slip onto her face. The dread that threatened to do her in quickly retreated from her as she felt the large weight that rested dangerously on her shoulders lifted away into oblivion.

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Lendra-chan: Well folks, that's all for now! I hope you liked the chapter!

Please remember to review!