Eternity in a Grain of Sand Chapter 3, a rurouni kenshin fanfic

A/N: This was written in only three days, even though I've supposedly been working on it since my last chapter. What can I say, I'm a horrible liar. This was supposed to be posted Monday.However, ff . net had different ideas.Please forgive the lateness.It occurs to me that I've been forgetting my disclaimers, so here it is, loud and clear: Kenshin is mine and will be mine until the day I die. …Ok, clearly the cop reading over my shoulder says differently. Kenshin is not mine and will never be mine; I just like to borrow without returning every once and a while. Oh yes! Rated T for vampiric activities. Rating may be upped next chapter (hint, hint.)

Eternity in a Grain of Sand

Chapter 3

Hiko was waiting for Kenshin when the redhead appeared around midnight on his doorstep, buried deep in one of the few forests left in Germany. The young man emerged from the shadows, though the shadows seemed reluctant to release him and clung to his shoulders as the moonlight touched his lithe frame.

Hiko stood and placed himself squarely in front of the door as the first waves of his pupil's rage hit him.

"Where is she?" growled Kenshin, coming to a halt before the taller man and boldly meeting sloe black eyes with his own burning gold ones.

"She's inside, in the guest room," Hiko answered, disgustingly calm as always.

Kenshin made to move past Hiko, but the larger man did not budge. He kept his ground and fixed his pupil with a glare that was meant to make the younger vampire submit. Kenshin refused to do so, aiming instead to move to a nearby window. Hiko responded by grabbing the redhead by his shoulder and bodily pushing the man into a chair just outside the doorway.

"You're not going in there until you've calmed down. She's still recovering."

"If I go in there calm, I won't be able to get angry at her," Kenshin hissed.

A frown marred Hiko's chiseled face. "And you want to be angry at her because…"

"She threatened a friend of mine. She could have killed Misao. This battle is between her and me. She had no right to threaten an innocent."

"Was the girl helping you?"

Kenshin glared up for a moment before averting his eyes and attempting to burn a hole into the ground with his anger.

"That's what I thought. Kaoru was justified, if a little harsh. That woman has suffered a lot, especially from you. I don't blame her for being a little edgy."

"I do," Kenshin shot back. "I know she suffered, but she, of all people, is smart enough to know that wallowing in her own self-pity and the pain she inflicts on others will only draw her deeper into the pit she's made for herself."

"She does know that," Hiko said softly, surprising Kenshin into silence. "She told you herself," he continued, "she doesn't want to exist anymore. Since she cannot kill herself, this is the quickest way to bring death upon herself—create enemies capable of killing her. If she does that, she can leave this world."

Kenshin sighed, the anger rushing out of him suddenly as he felt the drain of running several hundred miles. It was entirely too hard to maintain his rage any longer. "I just don't understand why she has lost the will to live. I…I know I'm part of it. But if I'm willing to make reparations to her, why is she not healing."

"Because she's afraid," Hiko answered simply, seating himself on the front step of his home. "She knows you left her once and that knowledge makes her fear you'll leave her again. Combine that fear with all she has already endured and she starts to lose sight of the important things."

A cold voice effectively cut Hiko off. "Well, aren't we all just the world's next Freud? Clearly you have analyzed my entire life and will now proceed to tell me all the things to make it right again."

Both men looked apprehensively up at the black haired woman supporting herself against the door jam. Kaoru glared back down at them, her eyes taking an eerie silver cast in the moonlight.

"How dare you?" she hissed, anger roiling off her in waves. "Kenshin, I realize, is enough of an idiot to think he can understand me. You, however, Hiko…I expected you to be smarter than that. You've known me entirely too long. You know the reasons behind what I do. How dare you question them?"

Hiko stood slowly, his hand automatically reaching for the katana hidden on his back. Kaoru only laughed harshly as she saw his hand start to move.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you. I'm pissed off enough as is. Don't add to your problems. You idiots think you can control me with a few carefully chosen words and a small threat with a shiny sword. You're wrong. And if you wake me again before noon tomorrow, I will personally ensure that each of you will be regenerating your manhood for the next two centuries."

Hiko grimaced and Kenshin had the good grace to look ashamed as they watched her limp back down the hallway to the guest room. The door slammed shut behind her, making both of them flinch.

"Well," Hiko said after an intermittent amount of time, "that honestly went better than I was expecting it to."

"She didn't run," Kenshin pointed out softly. Hiko laughed softly at his statement.

"Oh believe me," the black-haired man said, "she would've run halfway around the world by now if she had the energy to. I'm surprised she managed to make it back to her room without collapsing. We got lucky."

"I hate it when she runs from me. She's only done it a few times, but I've hated every one of them," Kenshin confessed softly.

Hiko glanced at his pupil from the corner of his eye before looking back down the hallway. "It's her defense mechanism," he said quietly. "Kaoru used to be a fighter, but that run-in with the Council taught her she was not as all-powerful as she liked to believe. It made her very afraid, though she'd never admit it. Because of what that idiot on the Council did to her, whenever she's confronted with a situation that is out of her control, her automatic reaction is to run."

Kenshin looked sad, his eyes taking a hurt cast as he looked at her door. Hiko could see that Kaoru was really doing damage to Kenshin with her cruel, disdainful attitude. Silently he resolved to ward her room in the morning so he could have a serious talk with her. The wards would do several things: keep her from trying to escape, keep Kenshin from hearing the yelling that was bound to happen, and keep her from removing any body parts that Hiko was liable to need. He sincerely hoped he would not need to rely on the last function too much.

Shaking himself of the dark feel of Kaoru's rage against his skin, Hiko turned to Kenshin. "I'll bet you didn't hunt while you were running all the way from Transylvania. The redhead looked up, as though startled to remember that he needed to eat every once and a while. Hiko took on his characteristic pigheaded smirk and said, "Let's see if I can't round us up a couple of deer."

oOoOoOoOo

Kaoru collapsed the moment her door was shut. She would've liked to have slammed it, but found she didn't have the strength in her arm to do so. Anger burned sweet and hot in her system, but it was quickly eating away what little energy she'd managed to regain in the last twelve hours or so.

Kaoru slumped against her door frame. She knew to all appearances she was asleep, her breathing shallow and even and her eyes relaxed and closed. However, her consciousness was still moving at a million miles an hour. She could not stop thinking of what she'd heard and every time she reran the conversation in her mind, the rage returned as strongly as she'd first felt it, even though the time for which it burned was nearly nothing.

How could they be so…infuriating? I understand exactly why Kenshin can't comprehend my anger towards him. He's blind to my rage because he fancies himself in love.

"Idiot," whispered a small, malicious part of her mind. "You know he loves you. Why can't you just accept that?"

He betrayed me. He left me without ever hearing my side of the story. How can I acknowledge love from someone who would do that?

"He was frightened and hurt. He'd thought the world of you and you had let him. You allowed him to believe you were the pinnacle of what a vampire could be and he found out that you had lied. You are lucky. He ran, but he also came back. You don't want to admit the real reason you're pushing him away. You're not worthy of him."

Kaoru hissed aloud as the cruel voice whispered her darkest secret. Shut up! she thought to herself. I hate him! Stop your lies.

"You fight because you know I'm right," the voice hissed back, even as Kaoru felt tears burn in her eyes. Angrily she swiped at her eyes before rising and stumbling to the bed. As she slumped against the edge, she could not stop the harsh caw of bitter laughter that rose in her throat. I'm going insane, she thought hopelessly. Now I'm arguing with myself.

She tried to summon up the self-righteous rage she'd felt when she'd heard Kenshin and Hiko discussing her defense mechanisms and her fears as though they thought they could see inside her mind, but found that there was no rage left. After all, hadn't almost all of what they said been right? Was she not a coward who ran when confronted with someone she could not control? Did she not still secretly fear the Council that had destroyed her so long ago?

With a rare show of exhaustion, Kaoru pulled herself into the bed and collapsed upon it without removing any of her clothes. She tried to summon her blanket of catatonia, in which she would not dream or think, but it was slow in coming and she was awake long into the night, listening to that same familiar voice torture her.

Just shut up! she growled to herself. I'm exhausted so that means you are, too. Why can't you just give it a rest?

"Because if I do," it told her softly, "then you have no hope at all."

oOoOoOoOo

Hiko glanced in on Kenshin as he moved silently about his house. The redhead was still out cold, completely exhausted from travel. The young vampire probably wouldn't be awake before nightfall. Hiko gave a rare soft smile where none would see before schooling his face and moving on to the next bedroom. His next task would not be so easy.

He'd set the wards last night when he'd known Kaoru would be unable to stop him, even if she was awake. Now, as he entered her room, he activated the wards, closing them in.

Kaoru sat in a chair near the window, her legs drawn up to her chest. By all appearances, she was asleep, but he was not so naïve. She'd known the moment he entered her room. Rather than confront her, he sat at the edge of the bed, still made and slightly rumpled. Kaoru had obviously slept on it without even getting into the covers.

Slowly, Kaoru lifted her head, her eyes open only to enough to reveal a glint of silver. Her anger was more contained today, but it still broiled just beneath the surface. Hiko felt a glimmer of hope. If he stepped carefully, he might get through this whole conversation without having to yell.

"Why are you helping him?" Kaoru growled softly. "You disapproved of what he did just as much as I did."

"I'm helping him because…though he's an idiot, he's my idiot. I had a hand in the man he became just as much as you did. So when he came to me as a complete fool in love, I knew it was my responsibility to either knock some sense into him, or knock some sense into the girl he'd fallen for. Shame it was you."

"What's that supposed to mean?" she asked, though there was not real anger in the statement.

"It's no personal offense to you. When he left you the first time, I had hoped it was because the disillusionment he felt towards you would also undo his love for you. Instead, he stupidly stayed in love, even though he'd hurt you enough to drive you away. He was an idiot in every aspect, from beginning to end. There's not one thing he did right in the last hundred years except try to quit that Council."

Hiko watched Kaoru's reaction carefully. At first, she was still, absorbing the information. Then, quite suddenly, what he'd said clicked. "What did you say?" she asked him breathlessly.

"He's trying to be free of the Council. So he can be with you."

Kaoru's wide eyes slowly narrowed again. The cold exterior that she held so dearly slowly rebuilt. "They'll never release him."

"On the contrary," Hiko told her, rising and slowly approaching, "he has a deal going with Saitoh. If he can get you to reemerge from hiding, even if you don't rejoin the Council, Saitoh will break his contract."

Kaoru snorted. "I doubt the Wolf would keep that bargain."

"He has another assassin lined up. Even if he didn't, you of all people know Saitoh is a man of his word, even if he's little else."

She had no way of refuting his words, so she maintained a brooding silence.

Hiko sat down across from her, trying to make his normally harsh face a little more gentle. "The boy's in love with you," he said softly.

Kaoru glanced at him before carefully looking out the window. Her eyes were distant, perhaps trying to judge how much she could lose based on her decision. At long last, she refocused on Hiko. "You are asking for trust I do not have. This might have once captured me, but I have nothing left to give him, least of all my trust and love."

"He's not asking for anything, Kaoru. That's the point of love. You give of all of yourself and ask nothing in return."

"Then I don't think I can ever love him again."

"But you loved him before."

Rage began to filter into her eyes, slowly overtaking the sadness and the coldness. "Yes, damn it. I loved him. And he betrayed that love. I now I hate him. When I betray his love, won't he feel the same? I'd rather he love me right now and keep on loving that memory than hate me in fifty years because he's realized I hate him."

Hiko shook his head at her and rose. "You might be three thousand years old, Kaoru, but you still don't know the first thing about love. You don't even know what your own heart is telling you."

The black-haired man quietly left the room, wards vanishing as he went. Kaoru watched after him and vaguely thought that beneath his usually gruff voice, she'd detected a hint of sadness.

oOoOoOoOo

Kenshin was slow to waking, an unusual sensation for him. Normally when he emerged from his catatonic sleeping state, it was in a sudden snap that accompanied the rush of his waking energy. However, weakened as he was, his energy was very loathe to return. After several minutes of simply lying where he was, Kenshin summoned the will to open his eyes and sit up.

He was in a room that was vaguely familiar to him as he glanced around at the sparse furnishing and bland colors. Hiko always had been a minimalist. Slowly, the redhead stood and stretched, his bones popping almost like human joints, though he was certainly not stiff.

Kenshin stumbled out to the dining room uncaring that his hair was down and wild and that he had misplaced his shirt. Hiko sat at the dining room table sipping sake. Kenshin mentally laughed with the thought, When is that man ever not drinking sake? However, the sight of the woman sitting across from Hiko quickly halted his mental joke.

His light mood dropped away as he laid eyes on Kaoru. She glanced at him before returning to the small rabbit set before her. Her single icy glance was enough to quell any happiness he might have felt on waking. Hiko met his gaze for a longer time, his sloe black eyes telling Kenshin that they would talk later.

The redhead carefully made his way to the kitchen where he found a rabbit chilling in the fridge as well as a carafe of sake with a note pinned to it. He leaned down and read the kanji, his mind slowly dredging up meanings for the symbols; he'd not had to read kanji in years. When he'd finished reading the note, he was not reassured. It read, "You're going to need this. And I do mean all of it." With a resigned sigh, Kenshin pulled out the rabbit and the carafe and drank them both in one sitting.

Kaoru came into the kitchen once, to dispose of her rabbit carcass, but she pretended as though he did not exist. He watched her through hooded golden eyes, wondering what exactly Hiko had managed to learn from her. The slightest bit of information would help, especially if she ran again, as Hiko predicted she would.

When he'd finished eating, he went outside, choosing to go through the patio door adjacent the kitchen rather than passing into the same room as Kaoru again. It was better she was not reminded of his presence until he wanted her to be reminded. Hiko joined him only a moment later.

"What did you say to her?"

"It doesn't matter what I said," Hiko told Kenshin, "it only matters what she said."

"And?"

Hiko glanced to the side and said, "Didn't I teach you more patience?"

"You patient, Hiko? You didn't teach me any patience at all. The only thing you ever taught me was hardheadedness."

The older vampire chuckled softly before taking a serious cast. "The good news is she still loves you, though she might not admit it for the next hundred years or so."

"You should have given me the bad news first. I already knew the good news."

"The bad news is she never intends to let you get close enough to show her how much you love her."

"That does present a problem doesn't it?" Kenshin whispered softly.

"The good thing about all this," Hiko said a little more loudly, "is that I plan to save your ass…again."

Kenshin glowered at his old master, though he was secretly glad to see that Hiko had not changed, though many years had passed since they last stood in the same room together. He'd feared that the same apathy towards life that was afflicting Kaoru would also be affecting Hiko--a vampire who was easily more than a thousand years old.

He grew quiet again as he looked out at the twilight forest. "Do you think we can make this work, shishou?"

Hiko immediately sensed the gravity behind his pupil's words and considered the question carefully. "I suppose that depends on your definition of working order. If you mean do you think we can bring Kaoru back from the brink of whatever precipice she's on right now, the answer is yes. If you mean do you think she'll be the same as she was, the answer is no. If you mean do you think you'll still be able to love her, then I have no doubts."

Hiko turned and entered his house, presumably to drink more sake. He left Kenshin staring out at the deepening sky and the cold stars, with only dark thoughts to accompany him.

oOoOoOoOo

Kaoru silently fumed at the infuriating vampire who she had once trusted as a friend. The moment she'd returned to her room to rest, he'd brought up his damned wards. Most unfortunately, she had not yet regained her strength and even if she had, breaking Hiko's wards would probably drain her again. The man was nothing if not ridiculously strong.

Now she could only sit and wait and she had an excellent hunch of exactly what they were planning next. As if in answer to her silent, brooding thoughts, the door quietly clicked open. Kaoru gathered her rage around her, preparing for the rant she was about to go on at the idiot redhead who would not forgo his stubbornness and leave her alone. However, when she turned to face him, she found herself at a loss for words.

Kenshin stood in front of her closed door, still shirtless. The soft moonlight that fell through her window threw his chiseled body into sharp shadow, adding to the already defined contours of his muscles. His wild red hair caught her attention and she admired the way the moonlight gilded each fiery strand with silver and left the rest in purple shadow. His eyes were what most commanded her attention. They glowed with a light of their own, the fierce gold burning through the darkness and reflecting the faint light like cats' eyes.

Kaoru swallowed against the absolutely perfect picture he made. She cursed her automatic attraction to him and cursed the fact that he knew to use it against her. Silently, she raged at herself for not being strong enough to resist hormones that, for the last hundred years or so, had been perfectly happy with leaving her alone. All of this self-introspection, unfortunately, gave Kenshin enough time to make the first move.

He crossed the room to her with ungodly speed, moving so quickly even her skilled eyes could not track him. He stood directly in front of her, far too close for comfort. If her heart had been beating, it most certainly might have been erratic right about now. As it was, she felt a rare flush in her cheeks and knew he could sense her nervousness.

Kaoru nearly jumped when his hand touched her jaw line, coaxing her to look up and meet his eyes. Cold rage returned to her veins, albeit very slowly. She tried to jerk away from his grasp, only to find she was too weak or too unwilling to do so. His hand continued to coax her upward until she had no choice but to stand or have her neck break.

Standing, Kaoru found, brought her even more uncomfortably close to Kenshin. Their bodies were nearly flush to each other, only a hair's breadth keeping them from touching. She found that the proximity made her hyper aware of everything about him, from the faint ghost of warmth that escaped his skin to the way his chest steadily rose and fell with breathing that was more habit than necessity.

"Kaoru," he whispered, the scent of sake and blood still fresh on his breath as he leaned in close to her ear, "we have some talking to do."