The vampire had trudged through thick vegetation for several miles now, and still the little girl was following quietly after him. He wasn't sure whether she knew that he knew she was sneaking behind him, but he didn't think so, as she was going out of her way to be quiet and inconspicuous. She was doing okay for a human, in any case, but he could reach out his senses and practically touch her fearful presence, smell both her gentle blood from her scrape and that of the Vampire Hunter, and could hear her wiping at her face, plainly irritated by the tears falling into her injury. Frankly, her very soul was loud, and her life-energy was giving him a headache.

"What do you want?" he snapped suddenly, his voice coming out roughly from its general lack of use. There was a sharp intake of breath, then a short pregnant silence, in which her nervousness was nearly tangible to his strong senses.

"…Y-you killed that man," she finally stammered in a small voice with only the slightest of southern accents, clutching her small hands together at her chest.

"Yes, and you're still following me," he replied humorlessly. "You wouldn't happen to know anything about head injuries, would you?"

"But why?" she persisted quietly.

He stopped in his tracks and sighed. "Don't be stupid. You would never understand, child-"

"I'm not a child!" she snapped, kicking at the ground angrily. Suddenly, as if it was a reaction to her childish behavior, he stopped walking, paused, and then instantly whipped around and raised his hand slightly, frowning. The girl stepped back a bit, her pretty eyes shut with terror at his speed, her hands once again drawn up under her chin.

But instead of hitting her, the vampire sighed and gently cupped her chin in his hand. She still seemed to be pretty blatantly horrified, but didn't try to struggle or draw away from him, and stood gazing into his golden eyes, eyes only wavering to examine his other features. Besides the scar marring his right cheek, his pale skin seemed to almost be flawless, and his long, handsome countenance was framed with airy, jet-black bangs that parted in the center of his face, fell slightly over his eyes, and increased in length as one moved closer and closer to his ears, though even they were hidden behind night-black locks of shoulder length hair, at its longest point. All of this and his straight, handsome nose, strong chin and worried frown all betrayed her first impression of him—murderers weren't supposed to be pretty. She continued to search for some sort of flaw.

Seeing that her attention was moving from his eyes to various other parts of his face, he tilted her chin upwards slightly, as to draw back her concentration. "Again, don't be stupid," he said. "Now. Go home. Surely someone your age shouldn't be wandering around."

After looking again into those deep turquoise eyes of hers, he released her and turned again. Several quiet moments went by. Sighing contentedly at the sudden quiet and her diminishing presence, fading slowly and forlornly into the opposite direction, he continued on in search for somewhere to sleep off the few nicks that the two Hunters had managed to inflict upon him.

"Hey!" she suddenly called, her dim voice proving that she had planned on leaving him for about fifty yards, before changing her mind. "Were they the bad guys?"

He continued to walk, but closed his eyes and winced. "Honestly, I'm really not sure anymore, girl," he called back to her. But still, he heard her footsteps following him.

"Hey!"

The vampire let out a low growl, wondering why in the world she wanted to be around him after seeing him kill someone with superhuman speed, and with an ancient katana no less. He opened his mouth to answer her, but before he could, the child had run ahead of him and was holding open his cloak to stare interestedly at his weapon.

"Is this real?" she asked, pointing quickly to the sword, before stupidly reaching out and ripping it from its sheath. She nearly toppled onto it when she discovered how heavy it was, however, and sheepishly took to leaning on it rather than holding it up.

Gently taking back his sword and flicking away the blood that hadn't yet dried onto it before putting it away, he answered, "Yes. It's not a toy, either so don't take it again."

"Fair enough," she sighed. Her voice was unwavering but it still had the slightest hint of fear in it. "Still…why would you kill someone?"

He shook his head, knowing she wouldn't understand even if he took the time to explain, and instead asked her a question. "How did you get your cheek scraped so badly? You really should go home and get it cleaned up. Besides, didn't your parents ever tell you to stay away from strangers?"

"I've only got a mom," the girl answered, frowning. "And she don't like me much. She doesn't want me to come back home for a while, cause she wants to spend some time with her boyfriend. I don't like him much… Besides, my name's Toklata. Now we're not strangers anymore."

He frowned as well. "So, you can't go home. Sorry. But would you really rather—"

"What's your name?" Toklata pushed on, timidly sitting down on a rock and swinging her feet back and forth.

"Ronin Takoda," he answered sourly, continuing to walk despite her invitation to sit down and chat. "And…if you have to follow me, we should at least get your cheek cleaned up. Come on. There's a steam up ahead." He sighed as her presence quickly brightened up. Giving in to a little girl was the last thing he had wanted to do, but he still thought that she would eventually go away.

--

A bit later, the two sat on logs by a small creek across from each other, one happily sloshing her feet around in the water, the other scowling. Thunder was still ominously rolling around in the sky, but rain was still yet to come as Ronin grudgingly used the bottom corner of his cloak, which he had dipped in the stream, to clean Toklata's scrape as well as he could. She kept peeking shyly up at him as he worked, and finally found the courage to mumble "So…" after several minutes of her quick glances.

"Do you have a fear of silence, girl?" Ronin snapped, reminding her that really she had managed only a few minutes of quietness before her mouth had again began to run. Frankly, he had liked her better when she had been scared speechless.

She stuck out her tongue, and then shut her mouth, with a display of delayed obedience. Now she sat still staring at Ronin, who chose to ignore her round eyes, but started wiping his cloak across her face very roughly. And though it must of hurt, she didn't say a thing about it, though he sensed her abandoned fear come flooding back into her, rather dismally. Really, it wasn't his goal to scare her off.

Once her scrape was as clean as it was going to get, he wrung out his black cloak and looked painfully at the sun. "It's getting late," he sighed. "You can probably head back home now."

"It's not late," she answered, shaking her head. "It's only the end of fall, so the sun still sets pretty early. Around a quarter to six, I think. Not to mention it's not really all that close to the horizon yet. I'd say it's about…five thirty."

Ronin raised his eyebrows, slightly impressed with her, and opened his mouth to speak, before being cut short.

"I shouldn't be home until seven," she added shyly, as if waiting to hear the click of his sword sliding out of its sheath dangerously if he was unhappy with this news. He again opened his mouth to either answer her or try to console her, and was again rudely quieted when two young boys came crashing out of the bushes.

"There she is!" one cried, pointing at Toklata as her small hand unconsciously found its way to her freshly-cleaned cut.

He shook his head exasperatedly, wondering why it was always the ones who needed protecting that fell under his care, yet still eyeing the boys uncertainly; almost immediately deciding they weren't exactly pacifists.

"Leave me alone!" Toklata cried, stepping back slightly.

"You're such a baby, running away like that!" the other boy snapped, picking up a rock and chucking it at her, hitting her square in the jaw.

Ronin kept an emotionless mask upon his face, determined not to get involved. But as the two boys became more and more threatening, it became harder and harder to do so. Soon enough, they were kicking and punching at her, even hair-pulling, and while she was preoccupied with these, one even tripped her.

About then, he figured he had no choice but to intervene. After all, what wrong could he do if he was simply protecting a defenseless child?

He picked up the two boys by the back of their shirts with no trouble at all and glared at them. "I suggest you leave her alone," he crooned. His tone was icy as he set them back down gently and glared at them through amber eyes. The two stood stock-still, wide-eyed and terrified, just like Toklata had been several hours earlier. "Go home now," he added in a soft-but-creepy voice, grinning a bit, and the boys did as they were told, quickly and silently. He then looked down at the girl, expecting a thank-you or at least a smile but…

"I could have fought them on my own! Damn…I don't know how they found me way out here…"

"Don't be stupid," he snapped, grabbing her wrist and helping her to stand up. "Now, why were they chasing you?"

Toklata didn't answer, but lowered her head a bit, her hand moved slowly to her pocket. She remembered herself halfway there, though, and made it out to look as if she were only going to brush the dirt off her shorts.

Ronin held out his hand and she obediently reached into her pocket, pulled out a toy car, and dropped it in his palm. "Wonderful!" he growled. "I saved a thief!"

"Well…" she muttered softly, rubbing the back of her neck timidly, looking everywhere except at Ronin's face.

"Well what?"

"It's not fair! I just wanted something to play with!" she suddenly howled. But just as Ronin was readying himself for more noise, she stopped screaming and looked up at him thoughtfully, with an almost sarcastic sort of face. "I never thought they'd come after me."

"Girl, you never think, do you?" he asked softly, putting a hand on her shoulder. "Anywya, don't you have toys of your own?"

"Not really. I have some baby toys—I guess I was actually loved back then—but they're obviously not exactly nine-year-old material, ya know?"

He sighed at both his own problems and hers, but resolved to solve one of his first, and firmly pointed in the direction that they had come from. "You need to go home now, okay? I really can't stay in the sun any longer."

Wiping her eyes, she smiled and asked, "Are you a vampire?"

Ronin itched to tell her not to be stupid, but he knew that would be rather hypocritical. Instead, he ruffled her hair and turned her in the direction in which she had come. This time, the girl actually did head back, but not before turning around and giving him a quick smile.

--

Later that night, Ronin prowled the streets. Not secretly. He simply lacked the motivation to take the care to sneak around without being seen—his black cloak and piercing eyes didn't exactly fit in with the crowd too well, so the "blending in" option was already gone. Still, his empty stomach was practically pulling him somewhere that he could stop and get something decent to eat, and maybe some alcohol, too.

Still, even with thoughts of food on his mind, he stopped in front of a small shop with stuffed animals in the window. And before had time to think about anything other than a scowling Toklata, glancing up at him as she pouted sourly, he went in.

The strong scent of cinnamon and cloves enveloped him as he looked around the store, and he soon found his way to the small, soft plushies, in the center of various candles, magnets, and other gifts. Wondering cynically why in the world such a godforsaken patch of dirt of a town would have a gift shop, he picked up a bean-bag puppy plushie, thinking it kind of looked like the girl herself, with its big eyes and messy hair.

He shook his head slightly, trying to figure out why he kept thinking about Toklata. It had only been a chance meeting, and he figured he had apologized enough to her for getting the Hunter's blood all over her when he had saved her from the boys, so he wasn't in any debt to her. And, he'd been eager to get rid of her. Certainly, he didn't want to see her again.

He bought it, reasoning that if he didn't see her within a week, he'd chuck it. Emotions were just too troubling.