Disclaimer: I do not own Rurouni Kenshin or any of the characters (sighs)

Thanks bunches for the reviews! I'm almost to 20 reviews! This chapter is in Kenshin's POV and he might be slightly out of character, depending on how you look at him.

Please enjoy this new installment of Runaway Stars! (bows)

Chapter 5:

Kenshin swerved around and looked about franticly. He ran over to the source of the noise where he saw that there where four men were surrounding a small figure and all of them held knives or dull swords. They laughed maliciously as the child whimpered.

"Leave the kid alone." Kenshin called in a slightly quiet, yet extremely deadly voice.

The man who seemed to be the leader turned around and glared at him. "What are you going to do about it, boy?"

"If you don't step aside, I'm afraid I'm going to have to give you a lesson in eating dirt."

The men all laughed. "So you're some tough guy are you?" the leader asked in a spiteful tone with such sour breath that Kenshin had to try with all of his might to not cover his nose.

"I'll give you one more warning…"

The men laughed some more and went closer to the child.

It was all Kenshin could take and he unsheathed his sword and in the blink of an eye the leader was on the ground and his face was covered in blood. The man was completely knocked out. Kenshin looked throughout the group and questioned "Do any of you want to end up like your," he snorted "great leader?"

Some of the punks looked like they were about the wet themselves and they ran off. The brave ones picked up their boss and ran off.

Kenshin, for the first time, looked closely at the person he had saved. It was a small shy-looking girl with cropped chin-length brown hair and was wearing some type of restaurant uniform.

"Th-h-hank you s-s-sir," the girl muttered while she looked at the ground and tears ran down her face.

Kenshin felt sorry for her and instead of yelling at her on why she was out her in the middle of the night, he decided to ask a gentler question, "What's your name?"

"Tsubame."

"Well Tsubame, why where those men after you?" he asked in a gentle tone as he offered her a rag to wash off the dirt on herself.

"Well, I work at this restaurant a few miles from here and I refused to steal money from the place."

Kenshin frowned. "Why would you have to do that?"

"My family has been slaves to theirs for generations and they told me to steal the money and I told them I wouldn't. The owner trusts me so much and is so kind… I-I couldn't bring myself to do it!" she raised her voice a little.

Kenshin raised one of his eyebrows a little and she blushed.

"I'm sorry. I shouldn't have spoken out like that," She mumbled.

Kenshin laughed "Its fine, I don't care. In fact, I kind of like it."

She paused a little, but then she quietly spoke up. "Excuse me, I know that this is rude but, why have your eyes changed colors?"

Kenshin was startled. "What do you mean?"

"They were gold at first, and now they're violet."

Kenshin was shocked. The last time that he had purple eyes was before his mom died. He had never gotten why it happened this way though. He decided to ignore it and ask the girl a question, "How about I take you to your restaurant?"

"But sir, it's much too far!"

"But you said that it was close."

"I only said that because… because…" Tsubame cut off.

"It's okay, Miss Tsubame. Where is your restaurant?

"It's twenty miles south of here."

"Twenty miles! How did you get this far?" Kenshin stepped closer to the shy girl.

Tsubame cringed at the tone of his voice. So Kenshin drew back. "Did they force you to come this far?" he replied in a soft voice.

"Yes sir." She whispered as she looked at her feet and tears were slowly coming down her cheeks.

"Did they force you to do anything?" he asked in a deeper, more serious tone.

"Oh no! Nothing like that sir! They just stole some horses to get out here so there would be no witnesses!"

"But they may have done something."

"And for that, I thank you again sir," she bowed her head low to the ground

"Don't call me 'sir' please and please don't bow. I'm just a normal citizen like you." He gently said. She looked up and he wiped the tears off the young girl's face. "So what do you say about my offer?"

"I have no money for an escort."

"You don't need to pay me."

"But I do! You were so kind to me and I think that I should do something to pay back your kind service!"

Kenshin signed. There was no getting around it, so he said, "I've never been around the area where your restaurant is before. How about you just give me a tour for free once we get to your town?"

"But that's not enough to repay you!"

"Oh, but I do love to travel!" he said with a twinkle in his eyes.

After a few hours of convincing, Kenshin set up camp for Tsubame and himself. She insisted that she wanted to be the one to sleep on the ground, but Kenshin firmly urged her that his honor would be crushed if he let a girl sleep on the ground and have himself sleeping on the mat.

It took a while to get her to consent, but when she did finally agree she quickly fell asleep and Kenshin headed for a tree and sat down keeping guard of the place the whole night.

The next morning they both set off on the trip to Tsubame's restaurant. Kenshin had Tsubame ride on his horse while he led it on the ground. After many hours of silence Kenshin decided to break the ice. "What's the name of your restaurant?"

"It's called the Akabeko. I work for a lady there named Sae. She's very nice."

Kenshin sighed. He knew that that was all he was probably going to get out of her for a while. So he was really surprised when she asked, "Could you please tell me your name, sir?"

Kenshin was happy that she was getting more comfortable with him, but he had to speak wisely. "My name is Kenshin."

"Like the princes name."

"Yes. But of course I'm of no relation to him."

"Of course you aren't."

Kenshin gave her a strange look.

Tsubame blushed, "Oh! I didn't mean to be rude! I just mean I doubt any prince would bother to save me."

Kenshin chuckled "I'm sure that any prince would be glad to save you."

Tsubame's face flamed and then looked back at the road. The road they were on was narrow and covered with thick forest on either side of it. Kenshin didn't expect to see another human for at least five days, but out of nowhere a strange man jumped out of the bushes.

"WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING TO MY SISTER?"

Kenshin looked up at a man with spiky brown haired man who seemed to stand a foot taller then Kenshin. He was obviously muscular and Kenshin was a little frightened.

"Miss Tsubame is your sister then?" he gulped.

"Yes she is, you scumbag, now give her back!"

Tsubame quickly spoke up, "Brother please! This is Kenshin! He's the one who saved me from my abductors! And why do you have to act all macho and tough? If you would have been here earlier you would have seen that Sir Kenshin was obviously not my abductor!"

Kenshin was so startled by the small girl's outburst that he had taken a few steps back, but her brother didn't seem to be fazed by it.

"Hey! Hey! I tried the best I could! I just kinda got a little...Well…"

"A little what?"

"Lost! Alright so now you have me! But it is not my fault that these forests are so damn hard to navigate!"

"They're not if you have a map!"

"Men don't need maps!

"Well them obviously you're not a man!"

"You've been around Megumi too much, Tsubame! That fox woman is pure evil I tell you!"

"Sanosuke, just admit that you like her!"

"I do not!" Sanosuke stomped on the ground like a small child.

"Excuse me…" a small voice came from beside the bickering siblings. They looked over to see a timid little red-headed man looking at them, slightly scared to say something. "Mr. Sanosuke, do you know how to ride a horse?"

"Yea."

"Well, maybe you could take the horse with Miss Tsubame to her town. I don't want to be a nuisance. I'm sure Miss Tsubame is safe now with her big brother so…"

"That's stupid! Of course you can come with us!" the man, who looked slightly like a rooster, yelled.

"But I would think that you could get somewhere a lot faster on a horse with only two people then three."

Tsubame spoke up. She was back in her quiet voice. "How will I repay you though ,Sir Kenshin?"

"If you want I'll come to your village and you can give me a tour like you promised; I'll just come a little later."

"Alright, if you feel that way," Sano sighed and jumped onto the horse behind Tsubame and he set off into a gallop.

Kenshin sighed once they where out of sight. Well now his horse was gone. But he did kind of like being threatened by a "commoner". These people were nice and he never had met anyone who had treated him so genuinely. If he was able to settle down in a small village, he would be satisfied and it seemed that he was already making ties.

Kenshin smiled and enjoyed his moment of peace. He walked back on the road smiling, thinking that he was finally going to have a normal life. Little did he know that his life was about to be turned completely upside down as he looked over his left shoulder.

A/N: Okay... Kenshin didn't meet Kaoru in this chapter... But I do promise he will meet her soon... maybe in the next chapter (Hint, Hint).

I know that Tsubame really got OOC, but I just love the thought of her having a big brother to pick on, especially Sano…

I also have something else to say! I might be taking a small break on 'RS' to start thinking about what I'm going to do for 'Scream', so I might take a short break... (Runaway Stars is basically planned out, but Scream, is not sadly) I promise though that I will continue eventually! But the more reviews I get, the sooner it's going to be. (Please don't take this as a threat though, I will eventually continue, just not as soon) But if I get enough reviews I will probably update at the same time I always do! By the way... the person who gives me my 20th review will receive, not cookies, but lemonade and muffins. Why lemonade and muffins? Because they rule okay!

Hope you enjoyed it!

-rm/bo