Author's Note: This is not like me-I haven't updated in over a week! Usually I update like every other day or every few days. However, my computer contracted a horrible virus so I had to wait while the computer got cleaned out. Luckily, the computer's fine now (otherwise I wouldn't be updating -;) By the way, we are STILL in the beginning of this fic. Surprised? There'll be at least 20 chapters. So stick with me, you guys- it's going to be a long and bumpy ride. And it would be better for you readers of this fic if you already read/watched the Shishio episodes (Legend of Kyoto).
Review Responses:
Brittanie Love: Thank you! I hope you look forward to the other chapters as well.
GoldAngel2: Keep an eye on the characters-their actions, demeanor, and emotions are a crucial part to this fic. I'm glad you noticed-and your fics are truly a work of art! They're written poetically and smoothly.
Shihali: Thank you! I'll keep that in mind-but for some reason I still have this picture in my head of Soujirou wearing breeches. Did he wear breeches when he was fighting Kenshin?
Star0704: Yes, Kaoru is going to have to wait a long time for Kenshin to show up-maybe even more. Don't worry, our little Rurouni will be furious enough! And, uh, cough cough talented writers? Where? Where? -; (sorry Jenny! I'm starting to copy you!)
Dragon Master271: Thank you! I'm hoping it is...
rurouni madness: Yeah, this fic will have barely any humor in it...And I think a week is a good long time to rest up my fingers, ne? -
kaoru-chan: Thanks! Well, here it is...
Whisper of Darkness: That's a good idea-if Soujirou's too affected, then his battle with Kenshin won't be very useful. I'll keep that in mind.
A Cloak of Protection
Chapter 6: Painful Discoveries
DAY TWO (finally)--5:30 am
It was silent as a tomb in a cemetery when Kaoru awoke, quite early the next morning.
Kaoru blinked blearily, her dark, full lashes adorning her porcelain skin. She groggily raised her right arm and draped it over her eyes, opening her mouth to yawn sleepily. Under her back, the plush couch radiated warmth.
This pale-yellow couch was way too comfortable for her own good. If only she had a blanket or something--this room felt like the dojo in a blazing winter snowstorm.
The dojo.
A sudden thought flitted through her head. Did they miss her yet?
Kaoru gingerly sat up, using her arms as leverage and moistening her dry lips.
Did they know she was gone yet?
Shishio had said that she would practically destroy Kenshin by herself.
Then she had reason to believe that Kenshin was in grave danger. Or at least, going to be.
A blast of icy coldness struck the surprised Kaoru in the heart. She quickly wrapped her cold arms around herself, bringing her knees up to her chest and huddling in a lump on the couch.
Now she was wide-awake, for the time being.
Kaoru could have sworn that this room was as cold as Hell, in its iciest days.
Kenshin.
Kenshin.
Kaoru couldn't stop thinking about him. How she was eventually going to finish him off by herself. Even if not by her bare hands...then...
She lay her head onto her knees, feeling the cool silk of her azure-blue kimono under her warm cheek. How WAS she going to destroy Kenshin without her bare hands? Shishio hadn't said.
Her thoughts went back to when Shishio had told her of their plan.
Wrenching her chin upward, arching her white swan's neck, forcing her to grit her eyes in frustrated, unwanted pain, Shishio had informed her of every detail of his monstrous plan.
The bandaged murderer had revealed every secret of his plan to her--except how she was going to destroy Kenshin.
Kaoru hugged her knees tighter to herself.
Did Shishio think her a weakling? Did he think her a helpless girl? Did he know her only as "Battousai's fragile girl?"
And how in the world was he going to make her "destroy" Kenshin?
Kaoru gave a great sigh and unfolded herself, slinging her long legs over the side of the couch. She was just so confused.
She stared at without really registering the double wooden doors a few yards in front of her. They loomed, heavy and dark. Probably locked, too.
The room seemed unbearably quiet. Her ears roared with the deafening silence. She suddenly noticed that she was all alone in the room. Soujirou had left.
In the silent room, all Kaoru heard was the slow beating of her own heart. Her muscles angrily throbbed with the need to move, to practice with her bokken. In her mind, she played over the movements required to slash the wooden sword downwards and forcefully, at that. The muscles in her arms tensed up, and she winced at the sudden pain in her left shoulder.
Oh yeah...
She dimly thought, I'm still wounded...the gashes haven't healed yet...
She tilted her head to glance down at her blood-caked left shoulder, soft waves of ebony hair falling down her arms. No blood seeped out of the wound, but it still throbbed painfully and steadily. No doubt this was one deep slash Soujirou had given her.
Kaoru gingerly reached out with her fingers and gently touched the bloody gash in her shoulder, the shoulder of her blue kimono partially ripped open by Soujirou's sword.
The white-hot pain that followed was unbearable.
Kaoru quickly snatched her fingers away. "Baka! Baka!" she grimly chided herself, biting down hard on her lower lip and clenching her upper left arm in pain. If she had known it was going to hurt so horribly...
She sighed and directed her attention to the deeper wound in her right side. This wound hadn't throbbed in quite a while, ever since Shishio had burned her there with his sizzling, bandaged fingers.
"Sizzling?" Kaoru murmured softly. "How in the world did his skin flare to such a high temperature?" Shishio was indeed a great mystery--possibly Kenshin didn't know so much about him than she did now, just by encountering him.
In fact, her side wound seemed a bit numb.
Kaoru gingerly separated the two cut folds of her pink-purple obi, cut when Soujirou had given her the second slash. Underneath, the blue kimono was slit open, and as she glanced at her wound, she hastily recoiled.
Splashed all around the right side of her obi and kimono, surrounding the wound, was dried, caked blood.
And the wound's gaping lips were a charred brown.
No wonder it had hurt so badly when Shishio had burned her wound.
And no wonder it no longer hurt.
Kaoru swallowed, sickened by the stomach-turning sight. She gently and lightly grazed her fingertips on this wound, expecting a waterfall of pain. However, it was numb. No pain seared from the wound.
Kaoru sighed. So Shishio had actually done her a favor. Had he realized?
She released her bloodstained obi and smoothed back a strand of midnight- blue hair that had fallen in front of her sapphire eyes. What time was it?
In the silent room, she heard a steady ticking close by where she sat. At first, she immediately thought of the weird contraption that had been emitting a long slip of paper with black dots and dashes imprinted on it. But then she thought of Soujirou, of the dark-haired youngish-looking boy, when he held out his pocketwatch to her.
"Welcome to the Six-Gated Temple," the grinning boy had told her.
Kaoru lay her hands in her lap. They looked like two pale lilies against the sky blue of her kimono. "The Six-Gated Temple, huh?" she quietly murmured.
Kenshin would be coming here soon, to fight Shishio. And Shishio would be waiting for him, deadly as a furious rattlesnake and poised to attack.
So she was in Shishio's room, where he sat creating plans to take over Japan. Kaoru couldn't imagine the bandaged ex-hitokiri sitting where she was perched now, with an evil smile on his charred face and his men around him.
Kaoru turned her attention to the ticking object--Soujirou's gold-rimmed pocketwatch. She leaned over the right arm of the yellow-cloth draped couch. And there was the pocketwatch, resting on the slender wooden side table along with the single candle.
And--Kaoru noticed--there were several more unlit candles next to the one candle. A book of matches lay next to the unlit candles.
She reached out her right arm and scooped up the pocketwatch. It ticked in her right palm, the golden chain sliding down the back of her hand.
Kaoru glanced at it, and the face read that the time was 6:42.
6:42--morning or night?
If she didn't make mark of the specific times, she was going to get pretty disoriented quickly.
She settled back on the couch, fingering the pocketwatch in her hand and thinking.
"Let's see... when Soujirou was here yesterday, he had said that it was around... um...5:45 or something like that. And I'm pretty sure that was in the late afternoon." Kaoru ran these thoughts around in her head, tasting them. Finally she came to the conclusion that it was in the morning.
But it was so early!
A thought wafted through Kaoru's head, so quickly she couldn't stop it. Kenshin would be up by now...
Despair quickly overtook her, and she hurled the pocketwatch away from her in sudden anger. Anger at Shishio. Angry at herself, for letting herself become captured and hurt. Angry at the always-happy Soujirou.
Kaoru buried her face into the right arm of the couch, feeling the soft yellow cloth press into her face. Dimly, she heard the distinct clanging noise of the pocketwatch slamming resolutely into the hardwood floor beyond the green carpet, and she gritted her teeth in fury. Frustrated tears began to stream down her cheeks again.
Kaoru got even angrier. Already three times she had cried in less than 24 hours. This was so frustrating.
She gently closed her eyes, ridding away the tears. Finally she got up and wiped her shining cheeks, smoothing back her raven hair.
She sat on the couch for a while more, breathing deeply. Finally she felt the anger welling slowly away.
Finally drained of angry, guilty tears, Kaoru stood up. Her unstretched limbs and limp muscles protested, and she almost toppled over. Holding onto the arm for balance, Kaoru managed to steady herself. There was absolutely nothing to do in this wretched place. There weren't even any windows, and there was only one set of doors in this room.
What a boring place.
Then the merest ghost of a memory touched Kaoru. A-are you really sure there's only one set of doors to this room? she slowly asked herself.
NO!!! a voice seemed to scream furiously at her in her head.
Kaoru snapped her head up, slightly bewildered. Wh-what was this memory?
At this thought, the faint ghost of the memory started to float away. Desperate and curious, Kaoru hastily started after the memory, trying to grasp it in her reaching hands.
Finally she snagged it, pulling it back.
She dimly remembered that when she had woken up after Shishio had hurt her, Soujirou had been doing something.
She had looked over the back of the yellow couch to see him fiddling with the red drapes, which were covering the wall opposite to the double wooden doors to the room.
And when Soujirou had seen her staring at him, he had immediately dropped a red drape and walked away, plastering a smile onto his face.
Like he was trying to hide something.
What was that something?
Kaoru's sapphire eyes gleamed with new purpose. She quickly hurried over to the red drapes, and stood in front of them. The thick, silky red drapes brushed the ground, flowing from the ceiling to the floor, completely blocking the wall behind.
Her heart thudded suddenly. What the thick drapes were trying to block...that could be the something Soujirou could be trying to hide!
Kaoru reached out a pale arm and hastily drew apart the heavy red drapes. They swirled up clouds of dust, and she turned her face away, coughing at the dry, scratchy feeling in her throat.
When the dust subsided, she turned back to see a door.
The door was set into the wooden wall, behind the red drapes. The knob was flatter than most knobs, so to hide the fact that it was hiding behind the red drapes.
So the red drapes were just covering the wooden wall, covering the secret door. All of the walls were to have been wooden, and this wall was no exception.
Another set of doors.
Kaoru brightened at the discovery. She could well have a way out of this boring place yet. She wouldn't have to succumb to Shishio's demands. And, most importantly, she wouldn't be able to harm Kenshin, if she escaped this place.
Her heart grew light and her wounds seemed nonexistent as Kaoru eagerly reached for the knob, twisting it.
The knob didn't twist.
The door stayed shut.
The red drapes slowly dropped from Kaoru's limp hand as she stood there, frozen still.
Her one seemingly easy way to escape...gone.
So when Kaoru had woken up and seen Soujirou at the red drapes fiddling with something, he had been hastily locking the door. To what? Was it a secret passageway?
So now what?
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6:00am
"Kenshin! Kenshin! Help me! Please! Kenshin! Where are you?!"
"K-Kaoru-dono?!" Kenshin responded, turning his head frantically. "Tell me where you are! Are you hurt, de gozaru yo?!"
"Kenshin! Kenshiiiin!!!!"
Kenshin stumbled through the dark fog that threatened to pull him under. Suddenly, a dark shadow emerged in front of him. Its eyes stared him down, eyes of a hitokiri's. Eyes of a murderer's.
"K-Kenshin... K-Ken...sh-shin..."
"Kaoru-dono!" Kenshin raised his arm to his face, the dark mist billowing in his face. Through the fog, the shadow veered closer...closer...
Suddenly, through the blinding fog, Kenshin spotted a dark something lying limply in the gray mist. No--not something--Kaoru-dono!
Kenshin hastily scrambled to her side, dropping heavily down to his knees and staring into her face. "K-Kao--"
He cut himself off, staring down at her prone figure. Blood was splashed over her, and her beautiful blue kimono with the magenta obi was ripped. Large gashes showed dark blue in the dim light. Her long midnight-blue hair was sprinkled with droplets of mist. But what was worse of all was the dying light in her dull blue eyes, no longer glittering sapphire.
"KAORU-DONO!!!!!"
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6:15 am
Kenshin sat bolt upright in his warm futon, shuddering violently. H-how...
His raw throat throbbed painfully immediately after he yelled out her name, in his sleep. His panic had woken him up, probably.
Kenshin wiped away a trickle of sweat dripping down his forehead. His whole body was cold, touched with the freezing mist of his horrifying dream.
And Kaoru-dono was...
Kenshin buried his sweaty face into his hands, untied auburn hair falling down around his shoulders.
There came a rustling from the other side of the room.
"Ke--heh-sh-hin?" came a yawning male voice. "What the heck is it? Ya wanna wake up the whole household?"
Kenshin slowly lowered his hands, clear violet eyes wide with fear and panic. "San-Sanosuke..." And he relayed his horrible dream to the sleepy Sano.
Kenshin concluded with "And, Sano, Kaoru-dono....was dead. And it was all sessha's fault, de gozaru yo..." His violet eyes were clouded with guilt as he stared down at his hands.
A vehement groan was heard from Sano's side of the room. "Kenshin, you baka. It wasn't your fault! Now stop blaming yourself and get back to sleep so we can search for Jo-chan wide-eyed and fully rested! We can't search now, before the crack of dawn!"
Kenshin sighed, boosting himself up with his left hand and getting slowly to his feet. "No, Sanosuke...I usually get up at this time, de gozaru yo." A rue smile formed on his lips. "In the meantime, while I wait for you to get up, I'll prepare breakfast, that I will."
The red-haired samurai straightened his magenta gi and white hakama, and proceeded to roll up his futon. Dimly, he heard the younger man plop back onto his pillow.
As Kenshin finished stacking up his blankets and tying back his hair with a short blue string, the sound of Sano's deafening snores filled the dark room. Kenshin tiptoed out of the room, not wanting to disturb Sano any more than he already had this morning.
The first pale rays of the new morning shone in the dojo's yard, shining over the tub of unwashed clothes. As Kenshin looked over the yard, he sighted the clothes and visibly winced, feeling guilty. He had forgotten to hang up the clothes, in the midst of his panic.
Kenshin quickly slipped on his sandals and went down the three wooden dojo steps, walking purposefully to the well and laundry. He would just hang up the few remaining clothes and then prepare everyone's breakfast. No, he would just make his, Sano's, and Yahiko's breakfast. They would be the only ones here at the dojo.
This thought sent a wave of pure anguish through his heart. We just know that Kaoru-dono's missing, that's all, he told himself fiercely. However, the evidence he and Sano had unearthed last night proved him wrong.
His auburn red hair streamed behind him, as he stepped across the yard to the well. His sandals made quiet shuffling sounds against the dry, cool concrete.
Suddenly, Kenshin tensed.
Something vile was in the air. It came with the turf of learning the Hiten Mitsurugi Style.
Quickly, Kenshin stepped to the left, and not a moment too soon. An icy blast of wind streaked by his unscarred right cheek, and it immediately started to throb. Kenshin brought his right hand up to his cheek, and felt a hot, thick liquid streaming down it.
Hastily glancing up, his hand to his right cheek, Kenshin glimpsed a dark shadow perched in the branches of a tall oak tree, just outside of the dojo gates.
The shadow lowered a bow and, as Kenshin stared at the figure, the shadow leaped out of the tree and away from the dojo. Several leaves fluttered to the ground.
Kenshin stared at the shadow's wake for a long minute, violet eyes crackling with amber fire. What was he doing here??
Kenshin whirled around to see what had passed by his cheek, long fiery hair flying behind him, and stiffened.
There, embedded in the wooden dojo wall just behind him, a long, wooden- shafted arrow quivered. Its feathers were trembling as the arrow recoiled from the impact with the dojo wall.
Kenshin stared up at the arrow, amethyst eyes wide in horror. His hands clenched into fists at his side, and he gritted his teeth together.
Attached to the arrow shaft was a white piece of paper with words written boldly on it, folded over many times and secured around the shaft.
TO BE CONTINUED
Author's Note: This was completed and put out on my birthday...! Anyway, I just wanted to say thanks to all you great people who are constantly supporting me! Thank you so much! And, uh, sorry for the weeklong wait!
-Twilight Sky