Adelaide: This story is of my own imagination. No, I do not own Kenshin. No, I do not own the song Waiting for a Girl Like You. I could wish I was that creative, but I'm not. This is part of the little creativity I have. I'm sorry. And no, this is my standard disclaimer for this story, it will not be changing at all. I don't own anything but the idea and words that form this little story.

Chapter One: The Meeting

So long, I've been looking too hard, I've been waiting too long
Sometimes I don't know what I will find, I only know it's a matter of time
When you love someone, when you love someone
It feels so right, so warm and true, I need to know if you feel it too

"Kenshin, I'd like you to meet someone." Sano said, coming up to the red head.

"No tonight Sano. I just want to drink my drink and leave."

"This girl's special. Just come over and say hi." Sano said.

"Why is this girl so much more special than the other girls Sano?" Kenshin said looking at his much taller best friend. Even sitting on the bar stool, Sano was taller than Kenshin. That was with out the added height of Sano's dark spiked hair.

"She has a special ability, sort of like your own. She also has carried on her family's sword technique. The sword that protects." Sano said.

Kenshin looked up at him with violet eyes, a look that with anyone else would be measuring up their strength and ability in just a few seconds time. With Sano he was thinking of the few words that Sano just said about the new girl.

"My ability? Hm, maybe I will talk to her. What is her name?" Kenshin said, turning back to face the bar mirror in front of him. His eyes where violet now, earlier they had been the bright amber color. His hair was pulled up into a pony tail, his trench coat had dirt over the arm and various other places from the fight he had had earlier in the evening on his way to meet Sano here at the bar. He had taken a short cut through the alley and had seen the young girl struggling with the bigger and rougher looking male. He had quickly released the girl from the man and told her to run. She hesitated for only moment, then followed his words and ran in the opposite way out of the alley. He had taken that alley for a reason, a gut feeling. Something a little bit more than a gut feeling though, something in his bones, he could have taken the alley before, or the one after the alley he had taken. For his entire life Kenshin had known how to do things, see or feel things that went unexplained. Until this day, he had never met anyone with any type of ability similar to his own.

"Kenshin. Yo Kenshin, you in there buddy?" Sano asked. He had been trying to get his friend's attention since he asked the girls name, lost in his own thoughts again. Man, Kenshin really could go out like this quickly.

"Hm? Yeah, I'm here."

"The girl's name is Kamiya. Karou Kamiya." Sano said. "Come on, Megumi's sitting with her at one of the booths. Aoshi and Misao are here too." Sano said, starting to leave his friends side. Kenshin took the last swallow of his drink and followed the tall thug through the crowd, easily passing through the people with swiftness and courteousness. Once they passed the bigger crowd, he saw where his friend was leading him, saw a stranger with his other friends.

The stranger wasn't a complete stranger though. The girl sitting between Megumi and Misao had long dark black hair pulled into a pony tail, and even though her bangs covered her eyes, he knew that when she looked up, she would be looking at him with sapphire blue eyes. There was a tear in the sleeve of her blouse and dirt smudged across her jaw line.

She looked up as he and Sano reached the table and sat down. He could tell that she had been crying. Her eyes where bloodshot and red, there was puffiness around them as well, her nose was slightly pink from blowing her nose over and over again. As he sat down he looked at her, and as if she knew what he was asking her, she shook her head yes, and then she spoke. Her voice was shaking, and he could barely hear her over the crowd that was just a short distance away, "Thank you for helping me earlier this evening. My name is Kamiya. Karou Kamiya."

Kenshin looked at her for a moment and then smiling, said, "This one is glad that you are ok Karou-dono."

"When I told Megumi and Misao about the man that saved me, they seemed to know exactly who you where. They then explained to me that you were a student at the University as well, and that they did in fact, know who you where. I wanted to say thank you for saving me. I took that alley, knowing it was a short cut here, where I was meeting Megumi and Misao. I usually would have been able to protect myself, but he came up behind me, just as I was approaching the alley and dragged me into there. I was looking out, but he was so much stronger than I am," Karou broke down into tears once again, remembering the strength of the brute that had captured her, lifting her up, and as she struggled, losing his grip, her running, his catching up to her and pinning her with his body against the brick wall of a building. She had tried to push the man off of her, but with the fear that was gripping her and the smell of alcohol on his breath, she could hardly fight him off. That is when this short red headed man had so simply thrown the man off of her and her behind him to the side.

"I was happy to be there at the right moment. I was actually just about to head back to the campus, would you like to go back to your dorm?"

"You wouldn't mind?" She said, looking up at him

"Of course not. It would my privilege." Kenshin looking down at her with warm violet eyes.

"Thank you very much. I am very tired and worn out." Karou said. As Kenshin slid out of the booth, letting Megumi, then Karou out of the booth, they said their good-byes. Sano looked at Kenshin as he slid in next to Megumi and nodded. He understood why Kenshin had wanted to get out of the bar before, and now he had a reason, and a reason to talk to the girl that was more like him then anyone else knew.

After a few minutes, Kenshin and Karou were back onto the street, and headed back to the campus. They walked in silence for several long moments before Karou broke it.

"I never did get your name. Megumi called you Ken-san while Misao called you Himura. Himura would be your last name?" Karou said, looking up at the quiet man. He wasn't much taller than she was, but he walked with a gracefulness that was beyond just his movements. He seemed always to be aware of what was going on around him. She had noticed in the bar that his hair was a deep red color, in the dark, it reminded her of the color of blood. In the alley, his eyes had looked a bright yellow color, a cold hard amber, while in the bar his eyes where the opposite of what she thought they had been. There, they had been a warm, comforting violet. An unusual eye color, but in a way seemed to fit him.

"Kenshin Himura." Kenshin said turning to the woman walking next to him.

Karou noticed that his eyes were violet, she must have been imagining things in the alleyway earlier. She turned to look forward, not sure what to say. She was still jittery from earlier. But somehow, walking next to Kenshin, she felt safe, protected. She looked down to her hands. There she found what she expected to find, a pair of white kidd gloves that her grandma had bought when she had visited America in the 1950s. On the side of her wrist where small pearl buttons holding the gloves closed.

She felt a warm hand slipping into hers and looked up, Kenshin was looking down at her. "It wasn't your fault. The guy would have attacked any girl. I'm sorry you where the one that had to happen by though."

"It wasn't that. I'm still jittery, yes, but my mind moved to other things." Karou said, giving Kenshin a small smile to reassure him.

"Would you like something hot to drink?" Kenshin asked pointing to a small coffee shop just ahead.

"Thank you, that would be nice." Karou said. When they reached the door, Kenshin open the door with his free hand and followed behind her, never letting go of her hand. They went up to the counter, ordered, and found a open table not to far away. When they were sitting, Kenshin decided to ask the question that had been running through his head since he'd seen her.

"Karou, When Sano came up to me at the bar, he didn't tell me you were the girl I had saved. He told me something else very interesting though." Kenshin stopped when the waitress brought their tea cups to the table. They nodded their thanks, and took sips of their tea, then a longer one. Karou wondering what Sano had said to this man, and Kenshin wondering how he should bring it up.

"Kenshin?" Karou said after a few minutes of silence. "What did Sano say to you?"

"Sano, he...he uh, told me something very interesting. He said that you had an ability very similar to my own ability. A very unusual ability, that like my own, you don't meet someone with everyday."

"My ability? Is that what he called it? I have often thought of it as a curse. Having to wear gloves, because if I don't, who knows what I would see when I touched someone."

"I have often thought the same. A curse. The word fits it very well. But if you don't mind me asking, Karou-dono, what do you see?" Kenshin said, lifting his bowed head, and looking at the girl across from him. Not for the first time this evening, he felt as if he had known her his entire life, longer even.

"If I didn't wear these," Karou said, lifting hands from her lap, and holding them out in front of her, "and I touched someone, I would see things that happened their past. Whether they remember it from this life, or from a different life, a different time, place, society. I see the good moments, and the not so good moments as well. Those are the times," Karou stopped suddenly. She didn't know why she was telling this to Kenshin. She hardly knew the guy. She looked down at her Chai tea, then back up at Kenshin. He gave her a quizzical look. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have told you that much. You didn't need to know all that."

"Your wrong though. I have a feeling that you feel very much like I feel. You where saying that those where the times..." Kenshin said, prompting her.

"Are you sure you want to hear this?"

"Of course." Kenshin replied, reaching for her hand.

"Those are the times that stick with me the most. Not the happy ones, but the sad and depressing ones." Karou said. She felt so comfortable with Kenshin. It was almost...almost as if, she had know him her entire life, or longer.

They finished their tea, paid and left the coffee shop for the quiet street that led back to the campus. Kenshin was alert as he always was. By now it was second nature.

"Karou, may I ask you something?" Kenshin said after a few minutes.

"Yes?"

"When I asked you to explain you ability, even though I had said something about having my own, you never asked anything about it."

"Oh. Well I don't know. When You said that you probably felt very much like I felt, I got the feeling that you had bad memories of it, that it was something that had brought you pain and sadness in your life. I wanted to know, yes, but you already looked sad enough when we were talking about it, you didn't need me to bring it and make you even more sadder." Karou said.

Kenshin was stunned. He had never met anyone so perceptive, or thoughtful enough to think of him, but offering so much more information on herself first. After a few minutes in silence, and as they were entering the campus of Tokyo University.

"I have found that I don't necessarily see the past, but I have memories that I can not explain. Ones that have not happened to me in this life, but, could have happened in a different one. I have the ability use a sword, a technique, Hiten Mitsurugi, one that I have never trained for, one that has been out of use since the Meiji Era. I am able to perceive things by a feeling, a gut feeling, but something that is more also. I could have turned down any of those alley's tonight. But I turned down the one you were in for a reason, it pulled me in, the feeling I had in my heart, in my gut was overwhelming that I had to go down that alley at that moment. But yet, it is so different from what I just explained. These memories are bloody, they're something that is terrible, they are me, but yet they aren't me, I am someone else in my memories, but yet so much like me...I...I just don't how to explain it." Kenshin said as they walked the streets that led to Karou's dorm.

She was gently guiding him towards her building, just letting him talk as he wanted to. "Kenshin, I would like to help you. Would you mind joining me in Megumi, Misao and I's dorm room?"

"Help me how? I think I'm beyond help." Kenshin said stopping in front of the residents hall building.

"No one is beyound help Kenshin." Karou said.

"I don't know my past, Karou-dono. My past life, whatever it is was very bloody. I have images of blood splattering everywhere, images of me slashing bodies, blood falling with the rain." He said looking into her eyes.

"Kenshin, Please, I want to try something." She said pulling him inside. Once she opened the dorm room door, she led him to the couch and pushed him down until he sat. She went into the kitchen and poured two glasses of water for her and Kenshin and sat down next to him. "Kenshin, I want to look into your past." Karou said slipping the pearl buttons out of their holes and slipping the gloves off each of her hand, placing them on the coffee table in front of them.

Kenshin grabbed her wrists so that she wouldn't be able to touch him. "Karou, I don't want you to do this. I don't know what it is about you, or about me, and maybe I shouldn't be saying this, but since the moment I saw you, sitting there between Megumi and Misao, I have felt like I have known you my entire life. This is not a normal life I lead it. I do not want to hurt you with these thoughts, memories of mine. I don't want you to see these things, no one should see them." Kenshin said, leaving go of Karou's wrists and cupping her cheek in his one hand.

Karou leaned into his hand, "Kenshin, Kenshin, you have so much pain, I see it in your eyes, and hear it in your voice, feel it with every beat of your heart. I'm sorry, but I'm going to do this, no matter what you say. Nothing will persuade me otherwise." Karou said placing her hands in his and linking their fingers, placing her palm against his own.

All of sudden Karou went ramrod straight, throwing her head back and with her eyes wide open.