Author's Note: I do not own the original storyline or characters, I just am using them to create a different take on this story. I hope you enjoy! No flames please! :D

Misao's POV:

The young Okashira limped amidst the outer Kyoto forest, mid-night. The events of that night still play through her mind as she numbly stumbles through the dimly lit woods, the moon her only guide.

Logically, she was in shock, she knew. Yet, she could still find her way home if she were blindfolded and deaf. She'd traveled through these trees one too many times, not to know exactly how long it would take in her current condition to get to the Aoiya. Grimly she set her determination to get there before dawn breaks, but it was nearing three in the morning, and daybreak was little but two hours away.

She wondered if she could make it, but Misao knew it was more probable that she'd get there after dawn.

Misao pushed the surge of guilt that ran through her mind away as her thoughts once again flickered from pain to the night's battle.

She traveled back from her solo trip to Tokyo when she got attacked just outside of Kyoto. Misao was armed, of course, but the ambush that was upon her so suddenly was too much.

Misao did not carry any tanto or sword, but instead her many kunai and two sai swords. There had to have been ten or more men who converged on her. Instinctively, Misao knew they were here for her.

Recognizing them from their uniforms, she knew them to be from the Yaro Ninja clan; they were indeed the Oniwaban's long-time enemies.

Recently Misao had been expanding Oniwaban's reach in Kyoto all to keep the peace in the town. However, one clan, in particular, was unwilling to stop their illegal activities. Three guesses who, huh?

The Yaro clan, justly named after the Japanese slang word for 'bastard' or 'scum-like person,' were unwilling to leave the Bakumatsu era of chaos and battles. They raided the outskirts of Kyoto regularly and murdered just as often the innocents. Misao had been pressuring her allies to aid her so they could finally snuff out the recent uprising of the Yaros; however, she was receiving no luck as of late. The Yaro clan had grown to alarming numbers, and many of their allies were just afraid to be led into battle by a 'young girl.'

Misao had ignored the insults and had proven her strength as a leader. Some clans were now beginning to get swayed into helping. However, this ambush shows that someone talked to the enemy about her investigations and desire for their removal.

If they thought Misao would go down easy with only ten or so to take her out, boy, were they wrong!

Misao may have been surprised, but she had sought out Hiko Seijuro, sensei to the infamous Hitokiri Battousai. Misao had the giant swordsman help her understand her father's training journals that included many different fighting styles. Misao was also a quick-study; Hiko himself had told her so. So while she may have been outnumbered and out weaponized, she could take these men.

Shuriken whizzed past her head when she had instinctively moved away from her spot. Mentally, she counted how many kunai she had on her and was displeased that she had not brought the max amount carriable. However, the little she had would have to do; she'd have to use the twenty kunai wisely.

She did a quick head-count of who she could see and reached the number ten before she began to attack.

Now, Misao may have undergone extensive training, but she was tired from her doing overnights and pushing through the last stretch of land before Kyoto. She had known she was in enemy territory, but arrogance had led her to believe she could slip through invisible.

Too late, she had realized that one or more of the shuriken must have nicked her somewhere on her body. Those shuriken blades also had to have been dipped in some sort of poison to slow her body.

Now, she felt as if she moved too slow, but she soldiered on trying to use her energy and kunai wisely. These men did not talk, which was fine to Misao; it helped her focus her senses on staying awake and upright enough to battle.

Misao, fast as lightning, threw her first kunai, puncturing through the first man's eye and effectively killing him.

Sensing movement behind her, Misao flipped over a scrawny man trying to cut her down with his katana. She killed him in a split second while flipping over him to land on his back with her second kunai burying into his jugular savagely.

Misao's head whipped up from her kill to look forwards as three more men came from the woods and into the clearing the battle was taking place in. It was now that she ripped her kunai from the dying man's neck and the real action started.

Hand-to-hand combat while fighting poison was not very fun; this was where the battle began to sway towards the Yaro clan's benefit.

One managed to deeply slice into her right thigh as another punched her in the back, effectively breaking her ribs. Growling at the change of tides, Misao used her two sais to push back any blades aiming for her neck or head while kicking out at the one who punched her from behind. Her donkey-kick sought true, and she connected with the man's groin and successfully knocked him back several feet. Waves of dizziness threaten to collapse her, but she fights on nonetheless.

She found an opening on one of the three advancing on her from all sides, and she took it by piercing the man's adam's apple, chest, and stomach in a quick three-part move, while also using her other sai to block his incoming wakizashi attack.

The other two she had left open to attack her, but she had killed that man so fast that before they could do anything, she was already meeting them with both of her sais.

Misao made quick work of those two when a hand grabbed onto her braid and swung her around. She grunted at the pain from her hair getting yanked, but she followed the motion and blocked the tanto from stabbing her gut. The rest of the battle concluded with her winning, but only with dirty moves and more injuries resulting from those attacks.

Her eye was beginning to swell, and her shoulder ached from getting popped out of place. Misao's body also sustained multiple stab wounds that she had instinctively turned away from fast enough not to end up being serious wounds. However, a nasty slice ran along from the middle of her thigh to the outside of her thigh. She had to deal with dragging her leg behind her as she walked back to the Aoiya.

Her back also burned with every step, so she assumed there must be some other major cut running the entire length of her back as well.

To make matters worse, she was beginning to become sleepy due to the unidentifiable poison, and that did not help with trying to get to the Aoiya before dawn. Misao prayed that it was just a sleeping draught.

Pushing depressing thoughts of not making it to the Aoiya from her mind, she began to think on whether she'd done a good enough job of making the scene of bodies look like an animal attack or at least like they were fighting amongst themselves. She covered her tracks as best as possible and found a quiet spot to stop and roughly bandage herself to avoid making a trail of blood.

Hopefully, Misao thought, nobody is on the streets of Kyoto this early in the morning. I'd have to guess it's around four in the morning or four-thirty at the latest.

God answered Misao's prayers of reaching the city as she indeed approached Kyoto's city limits. Misao, however, would have to tactically plan her way through the city streets so that she might get to the Aoiya unseen. Dawn was soon approaching, seeing as she could see the sky begin to turn lighter and lighter.

Gritting her teeth as another wave of nausea and dizziness threaten to make her pass out, she begins to walk again while wondering when she had stopped to stare at the city.

She slowly crept through back alleys and the city's outer edges until she had to cross through the heart of the town to the other side of Kyoto, where the Aoiya resided.

Misao grew more anxious the closer the sun came to the horizon and the lighter the sky became. Also, she began to be more nauseous the closer she came to the Aoiya.

She stopped in her tracks, her body almost unwilling to go on as she leaned against one of the many trees lining the backroad to the Aoiya. She was no longer lucid and had no idea how close or far she was from her home base. Misao was, indeed, lost in her very own hometown. Closing her eyes, she shook her head and, immediately regretting her impulsive decision to clear her head by shaking it, Misao almost passed out right then and there.

Suddenly she began to want Aoshi there with her before she passed out. His calming presence would be a balm to her aching body and spirit. Shuddering with the aftereffects of the poison and her limited energy, Misao suddenly accepted the fact that she might very well not make it to the Aoiya before passing out.

Suddenly, like she had summoned him mentally, she felt his presence an almost questioning press against her ki.

She felt alarm rise within him at her weak attempt at replying. Misao did not know how fast he reached her, but it felt like hours before he finally found her.

Gentle arms caught her as she fell into them, and he leaned down to sweep her into them before he ran like lightning to the Aoiya.

Let me know what you think! :D