Author's Notes: Well, here is the next chapter. I hope you enjoy and please review. I don't know about you, but I'm looking forward to Thanksgiving break. I've been dying for a chance to catch up on homework. Maybe I'll even find time to practice my Yoga. My muses tell me to keep dreaming on that one. Review responses will be at the bottom, as always.

Disclaimer: I don't own any of this. The story idea is probably mine, but I won't put that down in concrete either. So, to make things simple, nothing written here is mine, though I do wish it was...I'd change the ending to Reflection...

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Hiko greeted Kaoru warmly as she entered the house that ajoined the dojo. She smiled warmly, if uncertainly, at the surprise visitor. "What brings you to Tokyo?" Kaoru asked the Hiten Mitsurugi Ryu master, mimicking unconciously her husband's question.

"I saw the cherry trees blooming in Kyoto and they reminded me of you," Hiko replied suavely. "I thought to myself, 'Hasn't it been a long time since I've seen the baka deshi and his friends?' and decided to come see you."

"Well, you are welcome to stay as long as you like," Kaoru said graciously. "May we offer you some cha?"

"I would appreciate it, thank you." Hiko sat down with Kaoru while Kenshin went to go prepare some cha. "I see you have a child now, Kaoru-san. He looks like a fine child," Hiko commented.

"Yes, he looks so much like his father," Kaoru murmmered in the tone of a contented parent observing her precious child. "I hope someday to teach him Kamiya Kasshin Ryu, so that he may carry on the tradition my father passed to me."

"With such illustrious parents, I don't see why he won't become a most excellent swordsman," Hiko complimented. His eyes narrowed, then, as he continued, "But I am wondering whether Kenshin will pass on his learnings to his son?"

Kaoru looked sharply at Hiko. "Kenshin will not teach Kenji Hiten Mitsurugi Ryu, Hiko-sensei. It is too dangerous and a thing of the past, now. It would not be wise to let that deadly art persevere in this Meiji era."

Shaking his head, Hiko said, "I'm sorry that you feel that way, Kaoru-san. There is more to the art than just killing. It holds much more than Kenshin managed to tap. If he had continued to practice it after learning the succession technique, I'm sure he would have discovered the many uses it holds secret."

"What are you saying? I thought after the succession technique was learned, that would be it. Nothing more could be uncovered." Kaoru looked confused, her eyes squinted, her forhead wrinkled, and her mouth pursed into lines that normally did not mark her face. "That was the whole point of it being named the succession technique."

"Normally, that would be the case," Hiko answered. "In many cases, that is what happens. The art can be passed on this way from student to student this way so that it won't disappear. However, using the succession technique and all the other stances, katas, etc. over decades, so much more can be discovered."

"Decades? You speak as if you had lived many before training Kenshin..." Kaoru trailed off, her eyes staring at Hiko as if her gaze could pierce through him and could read his thoughts. "You couldn't have been more than twenty three when you found Kenshin. You look so young."

"But does Kenshin not look young as well?" Hiko asked, prodding her mind as much as he dared to help her follow to the conclusion he wanted. "He is thirty-five, you know. Does he not look more than eighteen even now?"

Kaoru opened her mouth, then closed it. She was perplexed and her face showed it. Before she could think things through clearly, though, Kenshin returned with a pot and cups in hand. She kept her mouth shut while Kenshin poured the three of them freshly brewed cha.

"This is good," Hiko said after a sip. He inhaled the aroma appreciatively.

"Thank you," Kenshin replied simply. The three of them sat quietly, drinking their cha, until Yahiko arrived, noisy as ever.

"Hiko-san!" he exclaimed upon entering the room. "What are you doing here?"

"Visiting, Yahiko-san," Hiko answered the familiar question for a third time that day from various sources.

"How long are you staying?"

Hiko thought for a moment. How long would it take to entice Kenshin into teaching his son Hiten Mitsurugi Ryu? "A few weeks," he answered.

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Bai Ru grabbed his pack of belongings and shouldered it hurriedly. "Let's go," he ordered the rest of the rakshasa. "The ships's here."

Boarding the ship took less than an hour, barely. Packs were thoroughly searched by officials for illegal substances before anyone was allowed to get onto the ship. Finding their cabin took only a few minutes, then the group made themselves comfortable. "This is exciting!" Shui Ping, the youngest, said exuberantly. "I always wanted to go sailing."

"I hope you feel that way when the waves start tossing us everywhere," Li Jin commented wryly.

"Don't even mention that," groaned Heng Hai, who was already green in the face.

"If you have to hurl, do it outside," Li Jin told the queasy rakshasa.

Nodding, Heng Hai hurried out of the room to the upper deck's railing, where he clung with all his strength, fighting the nausea the tipping boat gave him.

"You'd think with a name like his, he'd be more comfortable with water," Shui Ping quipped. The others nodded, agreeing with the assessment.

The other rakshasa broke out the deck of cards Sanosuke had taken to carrying around and played a game called Spades that a gaijin taught the tori-tama. The trip started out pretty much uneventful and went as smoothly as could be possible, since the boat went through only a slight drizzle from the coastal townPusanto Kanazawa, Japan.

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End Notes: You probably are wondering about a few strange items I am scattering through the story. Let's start with cha.

Cha aka O-cha is a green tea that the Japanese drink. This kind of tea is REALLY green, not brown at all. The leaves are picked when new and green. They are steamed, then dried, then rolled, then dried, then rolled again, then dried, then rolled, then dried a final time, then the stems and debris are removed, then grinded, and at the end you get Matcha, Gyokoro, Kabusecha, Hojicha, and Sencha out of all that. Drinking real green tea is very good for you, because it is high in anti-oxidants which is thought to prevent free radicals.

Tori-atama means bird head. Tori is bird, atama is head.

Well, that's it for my explainations...on to review responses!

Review Responses:

Crewel: Don't think that I'm going to let it be easy for Megumi and Sanosuke to get together...there's a little matter of him being destined to live a very, very long life since he is part rakshasa...like Inu Yasha is destined to live for a hell of a long time because he is a hanyou, Sanosuke is going to live for hundreds of years due to his bloodline, if he doesn't get killed meanwhile, that is. Then again, I do have a few surprises in store for those two... I'm very fond of them, so I think they're safe from harm. Can't say so much for everyone else though...

omasuoniwabanshi: Thanks for the edit check, I'll look into that pronto. The rakshasa group doesn't know Hiko and he doesn't know them. Totally unrelated to one another. Heh, there's going to be an interesting conflict with those guys...