A/N: F-four reviews? 0.0... I LOVE YOU ALL! Man, I guess WhiteRabbit5 was right about my summery being 'misleading in a good way'. Changed the summery and SHABAM! Four reviews! And how do I show my appreaciation to all my beautiful reviewers? I made you wait. ARG. I guess I could blaim my lack of writing on school, but it really comes back to my laziness...

omasuonibanshi-Dramatic conflict? Hey I doing cool stuff literary stuff! Don't worry, you'll find out the connection between Saito and the girls in this installment. Thanks for being a faithful reviewer!

Saitouu Ryuji- Thanks, I really hope that I don't go out of character with Saito...too much. And yes I did like your stories. Now when I watch "Whose Line" I burst out laughing "SAKE!". A bit embarrassing...

Miburo Kid- YEY! I try to do descriptions well (sometimes I think that I over-describe things). Thanks for your answers and letting me know that there's other Sojiro fans out there (and a guy too, wow).

nannon- wow, a few chapters are that suspenceful? WHOO! I'm happy (didn't take much). A little by little you'll find out just who Asira and Kakiku are. Also, I was a little sad that I couldn't look up your name on the search. Not that I'm a stalker, just I like to know who I impress with my stories...yes I know I rant.

"..."- dialoge
Italics- Thoughts or used in dialoge stress on words
O0o...o0OO0o...o0O- change in scene

0o. Chapter 4 .o0

Tense.

That was the only word Ashira could think of to describe the atmosphere in the courtyard they had entered. As soon as Saito had reentered his home a suffocating, silent tension wrapped around the four people; refusing to liberate them from its grasp until someone spoke. And Ashira, in all her cool level-headedness, had found nothing worthy to say. Saito and Tokio had felt the anxiety rise; each felt sorry for the girls, but it was Saito that took the obligation to make the girls more comfortable and spoke first.

"Well, it seems that you arrived just after your letter." Tokio shot him a warning glance, while one of the girls seemed to wince. Reminding himself to apologize to Tokio later, Saito spoke again to satisfy his curiosity.

"It seems odd that two girls wearing formal kimonos and getas could have traveled as quickly as you two did. Care to explain?" He could feel the exasperated looks his wife was sending him, but before she could do anything, such as leading the girls to their rooms or coming over and walloping him on head, the girl who had winced before looked him straight in the eye and replied.

"Ah, sir, that would be my fault. I was in charge of sending the letter and I didn't get it sent in a, uh, timely manner. Ashira wasn't at fault at all." She stared back into the amber eyes of Hajime Saito, nervous but determined to take whatever punishment he would deal out. Saito returned her stare, inspecting her demeanor. With a smile that hid behind a smirk Saito concluded both girls had backbones; first it was that one girl, he believed she said her name was Ashira, who had spoken first in the street and now it looked like Kakiku possessed some courage as well.

"Understandable. Tokio, please show these girls around; I'll start dinner." True, his words were not soft and wholly welcoming, but it was not his nature to gush around two girls he did not even know. That was Tokio's area of concern. So with a look that had just scarcely lessened in exasperation Tokio led the girls to their rooms. There was a particular plan forming in her mind that she would chide Saito later tonight for the way he was acting, but now there were two girls that seemed utterly lost within the confines of the house that needed attending to.

Saito's smirk never faltered when he received Tokio's look. Though she might think him cold and inhospitable at the moment, soon she would realize the method behind his madness. Him following the group of females around the house would only result in Kakiku and Ashira becoming uneasy with their surroundings; he knew full well that he was intimidating (something he was slightly proud of). Let a fellow female be their tour guide and all would be, relatively, well. As Tokio, Kakiku, and Ashira entered the girls' new room, he went towards the kitchen mentally going over the menu of all he could cook. (A/N: Soba noodles anyone?).

Soon the sun finished its celestial odyssey, having the bloody remnants of its journey enrobed in the velvet cloak of night, and dinner was served. But nothing much can be said for the taste of the meal for none of the four people who ate it remembered any flavor. Indeed it could be considered a miracle that Kakiku and Ashira were able to properly shallow their bites. For they knew what was coming. After dinner questions would be asked and answers would be expected. Try as they might the girls could not delay the inevitable, even through chewing each bite deliberately slow.

The last bit of food was eaten and dishes cleared away, and Ashira and Kakiku found themselves in front of a firing squad. While Ashira tensed in a lady-like manner, Kakiku contented herself with gnawing the inside of her lip and softly jiggling her foot against the wooden floor with anxious impatience. Amusement flashed once in Saito's amber eyes before he fired off the first question,

"In your letter you stated that you two were distant relatives of mine and that due to a family crisis you needed to stay with me. You did not go into anymore details than that and I'm not the type of man who enjoys being left in the dark." Not exactly a question, but one was strongly and obviously implied. And Saito waited for the answer. Since Kakiku seemed too preoccupied with the chewing on her lip, Ashira was left with task. Taking a deep breath she replied,

"Well sir, we are indeed related to you on your father's side." After a brief pause Saito nodded once for her to continue. "Well, in the simplest terms, we are the granddaughters of your father's sister." And there it was. The small thread that had connected them in its obscure way had been reveled; but there was still one more thing left to be discovered.

"I see…but what sort of 'family crisis' has happened that you would need to live with a distant relative?"

Tokio, who had been quietly observing the conversation between Ashira and Saito, now noticed how the diplomatic Ashira seemed to be at a lost of words at the moment; almost as if she was struggling to find some delicate way of stating what their current situation was. But Tokio and Saito waited patiently as Ashira mentally stumbled over possible things to say. It was almost a surprise when Kakiku released her lip from a relentless chewing to come to her sister's aid.

"First of all, our parents are dead, and their parents are dead, and since you're the closest living relative we have we sort of have to live with you now."

Ashira closed her eyes so the couple in front of her could not see that she was rolling her eyes. Leave a question unanswered for long and soon Kakiku would come and answer it bluntly. Effectively, but still blunt.

Saito's eyes once again flashed with amusement as Kakiku stared at him with the same look as he had witnessed in the courtyard. He nodded only once and without further ado, rose and exited from the dinning room. Kakiku's eyebrows rose with him and watched him disappear behind the shoji door.

Oh, this is great. I manage to say one sentence and I make the scary guy get up and leave. Maybe I should just commit seppuku and this over with. Kakiku mused.

But her musings were cut short when she heard a rather odd noise, something between a grunt and sigh, come from Tokio. The raven-haired woman turned to them with an almost apologetic look.

"Well girls, would you two like to take a bath tonight or wait until the morning?"

O0o…o0OO0o…o0O

Oh, that man was deeply in trouble. No path of logic could possibly lead to an answer as to why he decided to leave so abruptly. Undeniably Tokio had come to an understanding as to why Saito had not come with her earlier on the tour of the house; but this was simply absurd! And that man was going to pay dearly. Now if she could only find where he was…

The soft splashes and tiny squeaks of clean dishes tugged at her like an invisible leash towards the kitchen and soon she was standing in the doorway. And at the sink, dutifully washing the dishes, was Saito. The sleeves of his still donned on uniform were rolled to his elbows as he leaned down the gain better access to the sink; and he continued to wash a particular dish utterly too well, all the while knowing that his wife stood behind him brewing in her anger.

Lifting the dish from its sudsy prison he ran his thumb along the surface, and after hearing its satisfying squeak he put it aside. Flinging the suds from his forearms back into the sink, he turned to face Tokio.

"Yes?" A seemingly innocent question, but Tokio would have none of it. With three large, determined steps she crossed the space between them, and lifting her hand, smacked him soundly on the side of his head.

"Woman-."

"Don't you 'woman' me! You deserved that! I have no clue as to what's going on in that mind of yours Hajime, but let me tell you something; those girls are not two criminals sitting in the office of Goro Fujita waiting to be interrogated, they're two homeless orphans in the home of Hajime Saito! Can't you be just a little bit more hospitable?" She started to punctuate her words with irritated pokes to his chest.

"I'm not the hospitable type."

"Well, learn!"

For a moment a pair of cool amber eyes stared back into flashing deeper-then-emerald, and then Saito spoke first.

"I take it that the girls would like a bath tonight?" He smiled at the look of surprise scribbled across Tokio's face, and with deft ease, slid pass her; but not before laying one of his still damp hands on her shoulder and giving it a gentle squeeze. When he had taken a few steps down the hallway, Tokio spun around with her mouth ready to pull him back into another round of the argument, or at least curse him; but Saito cut her off.

"Tokio, don't curse. It's an ugly thing for a lady like you to do." And with that he left her in the doorway, mouth hanging open before she shut it with a sharp click. Turning back into the kitchen she nearly stomped her way over to the sink. Picking up the nearest dish she began to scrub it with enough force to wipe the paint off; all the while cursing the day where she had agreed to marry into the Saito family.

O0o…o0OO0o…o0O

Saito crouched down, calmly feeding logs to the ravenous crimson beast inside it's cage, all the while thinking over the day's events. Ashira had said that she and Kakiku were granddaughters of his father's sister, and if his mental family tree was correct, then that would make them the daughters of his cousin. Which now seemed perfectly logical; Ashira herself possessed telltale physical features of the Saito family. Petite, with thick glossy ink-black hair that framed her femininely angler face. And her almond shaped eyes were only a darker shade of amber then Saito's own, but still held the piercing, cool, and calculating gaze that sometimes flashed with hidden emotion.

But Kakiku…what in dear Kami's name had malfunctioned in her?

The only physical ties Kakiku had to the Saito clan was her apparent lankiness that made her a few inches taller then Ashira, but that is where all similarities ended. One of her characteristics that immediately caught the eye was that her hair was blonde; bright, undiluted, unable to be produced with Japanese blood only, blonde. And her eyes, the eyes that stared into Saito's own without intimidation or hesitation, eyes that sparked and flashed like any emotional fire, were the same color of rain-soaked bark.

But Saito shrugged off this minor detail, telling himself that this was not the first time that he had seen a person with such foreign-looking hair. He began to think back to their relational tie they had with him. He could faintly remember meeting his aunt and cousin when he was a boy. His aunt had been a good deal younger then his father and a typical Japanese woman, calm and respectful; and the more he mused about the subject, the more Saito could recall meeting his cousin. She had had an ardent spirit even at a young age, and her eyes had been the never-ending black as Kakiku's. But not much else could be remembered of Saito's cousin; save for the faded memory years ago of how she had been shunned by her family for a reason that was still half buried in his mind.

Saito stood from his place beside the bathhouse, satisfied with how hot the bath would be for Ashira and Kakiku. This Wolf of Mibu, a former leader of the third squadron of the Shinsegumi, a man who had helped stop a madman's plan to topple the Meji government, and he was at a loss as to how his life would be with the arrival of Ashira and Kakiku.

O0o…o0OO0o…o0O

If one could turn back the sands of time to an hour or two ago, they would find that Kenshin and Sanosuke had not left their spot in the road. Indeed they had not even closed their mouths yet. Crows in the distance kept crying as if to wake these two men from their comatose state; but it seemed that each had stuffed their ears with their thoughts.

Before long Kenshin had the sense to close his mouth, lest a fly buzzed in, but his vocal cords had seemed to rebel against the will of his body, and he remained silent. Even though he looked out of place and lost with this new piece of information, he was not completely shocked by seeing Saito alive. In fact, Kenshin was almost expectant of this situation. He had known, or at least fought, Saito long enough to know even if that the odds of survival were against him, Saito would somehow overcome them. It looked as if fate had chosen a comfortable death for this battle-worn wolf.

Poor Sanosuke had not even come to the closed-mouth stage of his shock. Kenshin might not be surprised at all at the sight of Saito, but then Kenshin had never seen his apparent end. Try as he might, the memories still came thundering back to Sanosuke. The sight of the last battleground of Makoto Shishio going to hell with him. The stench of the blistering gas enrobed with flames that rose to meet the sky. The sound of the crazed Hoji as he tried to bring the fortress down about him, making a tomb for his slain master and his foes forever.

Kenshin never saw Saito's freedom-giving Gatotsu.

Or hear his last words…

"I've been in more life or death situations than any of you."

With that he turned from them and the chasm that separated them, calmly accepting the inevitable, and disappeared behind a curtain of ruble and into oblivion.

"S-Saito?"

Kenshin snapped from his thoughts at Sanosuke's outburst. Tilting his head to the taller man he responded to Sanosuke's confusion.

"Yes. So it seems that Saito did not die like you said, that it does."

"Saito?"

Kenshin merely shook his head at Sanosuke and turned around towards the end of the street they had entered.

"It's getting late; Miss Kaoru and Yahiko will worry if we don't show up at the dojo soon."

Sanosuke finally closed his mouth and hesitated at the gate, still unsure of what he had just witnessed, but soon followed after the redhead. He easily matched his pace his Kenshin and they walked back to the dojo in complete silence. For part of the trip.

"You're not surprised are you Kenshin?" Kenshin let out a slow deliberate breath as he turned to look at his companion.

"To tell you the truth Sano, I'm not really that surprised."

"You looked pretty shocked to me."

"Well, I wasn't expecting him to be with people." Kenshin replied while smiling ruefully and rubbing the back of his head.

"Really? Who do you think were those ladies?"

"I'm pretty sure that the older woman was Saito's wife, but I don't know who those two girls-..." Kenshin stopped his sentence to look back at the now-immobile Sanosuke. He stood looking back at Kenshin with his mouth, once again, slightly parted and this time a small twitch had formed in his right eye.

"W-what did you say?"

"I was pretty sure that the older woman was Saito's wife, but I didn't know-." Kenshin was going over his sentence slowly as to not confuse Sanosuke any more, but he was interrupted.

"Saito's what?"

"Wife."

The twitch in Sanosuke's eye increased.

"Saito's MARRIED?"

O0o…o0OO0o…o0O

Kaoru was not happy. After finishing the training session with Yahiko she had changed into something more ladylike and patiently awaited Kenshin and Sanosuke's return. But her patience only lasted for so long. Any other person would rationalize that Kenshin and Sanosuke were grown men fully capable of taking care of themselves to a certain extent; but lately Kaoru was the embodiment of paranoia when it came to Kenshin and disappearances.

Not that she didn't trust him…

"Hey ugly, when are coming inside?"

"Hn."

"Geez, it's been twenty minutes already, it's not like Kenshin gone again, Sano's with him."

No response.

Yahiko rolled his chocolate eyes and came to watch at the gate with Kaoru. Lacing his fingers behind his head Yahiko looked up to his teacher. Kaoru shifted her eyes over to him to make sure she was aware that he was standing beside her, but nevertheless had keep a diligent watch on the street. Yahiko took her silence for moping and would have none of it.

"Come on Kaoru, are you really that nervous that Kenshin'll leave you for a better looking woman? But you really don't have to worry about that 'cus it doesn't take that long to find someone better looking then you!"

Yahiko could almost hear Kaoru's fingers tighten around the handle of the lantern.

"Listen here you little-." Before she inflict a taste of the wrath of hell upon the spiky-haired boy, she saw in the corner of her eyes the relieving sight of two long-awaited men coming down the street. She turned her malice-filled gaze to the approaching two men, but soon found herself blinking in surprise at their conversation.

"That woman's gotta be like Buddha or something to put up with him!"

"Yes Sano, she must have great patience." Kenshin's tone was on the verge of exasperation.

"Yeah, but, but how could a woman willingly marry him!"

"Sano-."

"I mean, he would have to pay someone to do that! That's it! He must have bought her!"

"Sanosuke!"

Sanosuke stopped what he was preparing to say to look at the shorter man with the same look a child would have if he was just told that putting a frog in his sister's hair was a bad thing to do. Kenshin shook his head and sighed; even his patience had begun to wear thin after many minutes of Sanosuke's ranting.

Kaoru and Yahiko watched from the sidelines, utterly confused as to what exactly their friends were discussing. But neither of them had to wait long for answers. As soon as Sanosuke had come within hearing range of Yahiko and Kaoru, and before Kenshin could stop him from making an idiotic mistake, Sanosuke blurted out the news.

"Saito's alive and married!"

A/N: Okay so Kakiku's hair is really blonde, But there's a very good reason as to why! I didn't just make her blonde to make her blonde! (well, maybe I did but I took care of that.). Oh, I am thinking about doing a Misao amd Aoshi humor story, a one-shot. Be expecting that sometime. Other then that: tell me what you think so far. "hate it" (why) or "love it" (why). Thank you.