Disclaimer:I do not own kenshin or any of the characters. i wish to god i did!
Chapter 3: Mixed Feelings
She took a step back. "What?" He came closer and caught hold of her hand. "I came to see you. You're looking very beautiful tonight."
"I'm an assassin! You came here to woo me? You must be drunk! Get out of here now, you don't want to be anywhere close to me Sanosuke…for god's sake I'm trying to murder your friend!" Mariko yanked her hand away looking at him incredulously.
He looked down at his hand. "You're bleeding. Let me clean that up."
She looked at her finger…it was bleeding she hadn't noticed what with Sanosuke and all. Shit she must've cut it when she saw Sanosuke while testing Kenshin's blade. "No thank you, I can do it myself."
He walked up to her, taking hold of her wrist and leading her to the small basin of water at the corner. He picked up a clean towel next to it, wet it and started wiping the blood away. "You've cut it pretty deep, I wonder how you managed that, and the blood won't stop." He took another thin piece of cloth and bound it up.
She ignored the voice in her head that was screaming at her, telling her to pull her hand away put a stop to this madness and kill him. She did pull her hand away, but for some crazy reason every time she tried to tell him to go away, the words didn't come out.
"So…let's take a walk." He smiled at her.
"A walk? I could kill you out there, hell I'd like to kill you out there then at least you wouldn't be this irritant in my plans!" she backed up against the wall without knowing it, fingering a shuriken.
"No…you don't want to do that!" Sano grinned. "And well if you killed me I could always come back to haunt you…I could be a very annoying ghost, you know."
She bit back a laugh. Part of her just told her to go for that walk. Would it be so bad? Just one day of fun with a man who didn't think of her as a killer and if it was a trap she could handle it. "Fine. One walk and you're out of my life alright?"
She walked to the door, motioning for him to hide. "Akiko! I'm not feeling very well, so I will be retiring to my room. Please make sure everything goes well and apologize to my guests. No one is to disturb me."
She climbed out of the window, with Sanosuke. Her room was on the first floor and it very conveniently had a thick branch to swing down from. So she landed expertly on her feet with out damaging her kimono.
They snuck out in the cover of the tree until they had passed a few more shops before fully emerging onto the street. She looked around, the streets looked nice. "So Sano-san how did you find me? You didn't know my name, just my nick name."
Sano grinned. "Easy, I just asked Sakana-san if he knew who you were and he told me. I can't keep calling you Tsume-san you know…Miss Claw doesn't exactly fit you right now."
"Mariko. I used my real given name here. But my last name remains a secret. You can call me Mariko." She went into a jewellery shop, hiding her excitement; she had never been in one to actually look the stuff as a customer, just to pretend to be a customer while looking at her prey.
Then they went to another stall, where they bought tempura in paper plates and munched as they looked at the other stalls. The market outdid itself today, it looked beautiful. Sanosuke slipped off after a while claiming he had to go to the toilet. Mariko wandered around the market place, looking at wares and buying a few things. She let go of her excitement a bit now that Sanosuke wasn't there, though not too much to arouse suspicion.
Sanosuke came back to find her glowing, and excited. He watched amused as she tried hard to compose herself, but failed as she looked at more kimonos and accessories. All her own beautiful kimonos were bought by the other members of the ninja clan, who didn't do fieldwork.
Then they went down to the bridge where they had first met and sat down by the bank of the lake. Mariko watched the ripples, in the water thinking. It was her first proper date. She'd been on dates before, but in the dojo you didn't get too much time go out and if you did it was mostly on raid. And she didn't usually let people get that close to her, except for Tomoe.
"How old are you?" Sanosuke's voice broke into her thoughts.
"I'm twenty four. I've been killing since I was fourteen." She looked away. "Why don't you leave me alone? I'm a killer, why do you even bother?"
"But you're not just that are you? You're a woman…then you're a killer with a conscience, like Kenshin was after he met this woman called Tomoe. I don't know much about her, just that he loved her enough to stop killing."
Tomoe. She didn't reply, or let him know that she knew about Tomoe. Unlike Enishi, who hated Kenshin, she was just following orders. And now, Sanosuke was messing them up. "I have to go."
They walked back and stopped at a window just beneath her room. It was placed in a corridor and no one would notice her. She was about to climb in, when Sano stopped her. He drew out a beautiful silver chanin with a pretty pendant. The pendant was a navy blue flower lined in silver, medium sized. He slipped it around her neck…"it looks good."
She stared at him. "I can't accept this." He smiled. "You know you can". He bent down and softly kissed her. She stifled a gasp and clambered in. behind her she heard him whisper. "I don't want to get out of your life. Do you still want me too?"
She walked back to her room, without answering. Behind the closed doors she slumped to the floor giving in to hot tears. No one had treated her like this…he was a nice man, but she couldn't fall for him…she couldn't!
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Kenshin sat in his room, staring at the patch of blood on his sword he still hadn't wiped away. She must have gotten cut deep. He wondered if he would ever kill again…pushing away the sudden eagerness he felt at the thought. The plum scent invaded his senses again. Tomoe…he had promised her he wouldn't kill once the new government was established. "But sometimes Kenshin-san, you might have to kill again…." Mariko's voice floated at the back of his mind.
He touched the blood, before running his finger down the blade, leaving a line of blood trailing after his finger…Shit! It was sharp.
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Kaoru sat outside his door, wondering why Kenshin wasn't talking to her today. What hurt her was why Kenshin was lying to her, she knew he didn't have dinner with the commissioner; dinner with the commissioner wouldn't leave him like this. She sat against the wooden beam wiping away the tears that were flowing down her cheeks.
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Sanosuke walked back to the house…he smiled, he had scored a point. He had gotten her to understand he wasn't giving up, he liked her…maybe he could stop her from killing Kenshin, maybe they could fall in love, maybe get married…he shook his head, Baka you're already in love….
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A/N: I hope you liked it. I kind of liked the idea of a short date, I mean girls like Mariko really need to go out sumtimes! So well this is the end of this chapter many more coming up so don't forget to review.