Author's Note: Greetings to one and all. Due to a moment of insanity I deleted my previous story Shadowed Innocence; the rewritten chapters nothing like they had once been. I thought it only fare to start over from scratch… That and it's much easer for me to keep track of. If you were one of my dear readers from before, I hope you find this newer, shiner rendition to your liking. Also, I send out a thank you to my beta Vaguely Aloof.
Warning: As I have done some planning and plot building for this story I realized several things. The more important of all is my decision to make this story is a PU. Yes, a PU not an AU; parallel universes always had a greater appeal on my end of things. Parallel because nowhere during the series can I find a reference to the past I've created for dear Kaoru. If your blinking at the screen with an empty look, please let me know as I'm more than happy to clear up any confusion. At any time. Eah... that is, if I can.
Disclaimer: I do not own Rurouni Kenshin, Hitokiri Kenshin, or any Kenshin in between.
Calculated Innocence
Prologue: Dreams of Reality
Sneaking from her room, Kaoru quietly maneuvered the darkened hallway with practiced ease. Bare feet drifted across the wood, her movements second nature after countless nights of habit, until she stood before his door.
Even as she berated her secret fears, pale hands slid the shoji aside revealing an opening just large enough to spy a small part of the sleeping inhabitant. As always her breathing stilled, the anxiety and urgency which spurred her on night after night mutated into perverse fear as she waited. Flashes from dark and morbid dreams were brought to mind; cold expressionless eyes peering out from beneath matted hair the same rich color as the blood coating her floor, discolored flesh stretched taunt across a pain filled face, blood soaked sheets twisted and encasing the mutilated body of her dead friend. It was vivid, so terribly vivid she felt sick once more.
She tried to tell her hands to open the door, just a few more inches, the waiting as nerve racking as the possibility of her dreams becoming reality. She should give him more credit, after all he was considered by many a mighty warrior, a skilled samurai from an era years into the past. A man whose name was legendary, whispered in the depths of night with violent hatred- with fear. He survived years without her, fighting his own past and demons. She knew this, yet the knowledge gave her no comfort.
Her dreams had grown in strength, the imagery slowly becoming a reality in and of itself. Beyond the sleeping world her worries and fears continued, like the dreams, growing in strength until her thoughts were consumed with the horror. Dreams were never meant to melt into reality. Could she stop it this time? She was older, wiser… perhaps this was a chance to shape the flow of destiny.
The seconds of eternity pressed down on her as she waited, waited for the bundle to give some movement, some telling sign that there was life under the cloth. She pulled back, a sigh of relief barely suppressed when she saw what she had been waiting for. But it was short lived, after all she had two to worry about. With as much grace her exhausted form could muster she closed the shoji, pleased with herself at the practically silent click of wood on wood. She moved onward, the safety of the second member of her makeshift family her concern now.
This time she opened the shoji wider, shoulder resting on the door's frame. Instead of waiting, she watched. Such a fine young man he was becoming, she thought with a bittersweet smile. She was sure his parents, where ever they maybe in death, were proud of him. She was. Her student, so peaceful and trusting in sleep, so unlike the unruly wakeful brat she knew him to be. It was times like these when she saw him at odds with his fiery persona that she was reminded of her brother. Yet even through the hazy fog of her own self doubt she recognized that he was becoming his own man; she couldn't be any happier for him.
If her dreams were in fact a warning of what was to come, there was only one possibility that came to mind. She couldn't quite grasp why they would wish to erase her existence now, not after all these years of letting her live peacefully in her banishment. She was no threat to them, not anymore. She had kept her word, her oath. She lived as Kamiya Kaoru, nothing more or less, denying almost all of what she had once been. If it was what she feared, she damned their existence, their interference. What could they possibly gain from letting her grow into an adult, to let her develop attachments to people and things, only to take it all away again? But if they were after her, why would her dreams revolve around the death of her loved ones? If they weren't after her, who could their target truly be? Was it all just an over reaction brought on from the coming anniversary of to much death and pain and madness? Had insanity slowly crept into her consciousness? Would her world forever be tainted?
Tired eyes lifted from the sleeping form to the small window across the room. Faint light from the moon created a glowing shadow that covered the forest outside. To her fracturing mind, it seemed alive.
She closed the door just as quietly as the last. Resigned, she padded softly down the hallway to her room. There was nothing she could do yet anyway, even if her fears were to come true. Nothing save waiting. Dropping with an unladylike grunt to her futon she prayed, like she did every night for the past week. Let it just be a dream.