Well, here it is... the second chapter, written by the awesome SiriusFan13! Enjoy :D

Chapter 2—by: SiriusFan13

Hiko turned away from his swirly-eyed baka deshi to closely observe the squirming bundle of energy that he held in his hand. This child—this… Kenji… was a spitting image of the young Shinta. Only Kenji's eyes were as blue as the midnight sky.

And unlike the traumatized slave boy, this kid wouldn't shut up.

"Baka! Baka! Baka! Baka! Baka!" the child was happily babbling.

Meanwhile, Kenshin was slowly picking himself off of the floor. He stood, brushing his hakama off, and carefully kept just enough distance between his hair and his son's hands to be safe. "Oro…" he murmured, his voice a bit unsteady. "Kenji's stronger than he looks, that he most certainly is…"

Hiko snorted, dangling the boy in front of Kenshin, and enjoying the way the redhead flinched each time Kenji reached for his hair. "I would hope so, baka," he said lightly, after a few moments of amusement. "He should be strong. Look at his parents."

Kenshin's lavender eyes widened, and his mouth dropped open at this unexpected compliment, only to snap shut again as his shishou continued. "Well… you aren't much. But the tanuki, I'm sure, has lent him a fair share of her strength and cunning."

Kenshin's eyes narrowed, and his eyebrow twitched slightly. Taking a deep breath, he changed the subject, his voice tight. "Shishou… I purchased some sake for you. To… celebrate."

Hiko's dark eyes lit up, and he almost smiled, seeming to forget he was holding a squirming, giggling two-year-old. His hungry eyes traced his deshi's form, almost disturbingly, if one didn't know better, looking for some place… some telltale bulge… that would betray the location of his liquid gold gift. There really weren't many places for the sake to be stored. And honestly, for a man of Kenshin's caliber, there really weren't as many bulges as one would have expected without the sake jug.

The almost predatory glint in Hiko's eyes grew dangerous as realization slowly settled in. "Well, where is it, baka?" the older man growled, feeling had.

"Baka! Baka! Baka!" Kenji crowed again, his shrieks causing even Hiko to wince a little. The hulking swordsman attempted to ignore it, glaring at Kenshin until the ex-hitokiri began shifting his weight uneasily from one foot to the other.

Kenshin nervously cleared his throat, starting to regret having even mentioned it. This entire situation was not going as he'd planned. "Oro… I—ah… left it back at the Aoi-ya. It's a rather large jug, Shishou, and I would have dropped it if I had tried to carry both the sake and Kenji."

"Baka! Baka…?" The boy was still babbling, but even at his young age, he seemed to be able to feel the dangerous ki in the air. Hishigh voice was growing uncertain, and was taking on a dangerously shaky quality, which Kenshin immediately recognized. Hiko, unfortunately, had been away from children for too long, and did not. He ignored the child in his hand, simply tightening his grip on the boy's shirt. "You should have left the brat home then, baka…"

"Baka!"

"But Shishou, Kaoru is out shopping with Misao. There was no one to watch Kenji." He paused before continuing hesitantly. "I can run back and get it. It'll only take an hour… if you could just watch Kenji, I—"

Hiko raised a brow. "No."

"But Shishou…"

"No."

The rurouni opened his mouth, ready to beg, when a different tactic came to mind. Slowly, Kenshin nodded. "You're right, Shishou. You've already had enough trouble dealing with me…"

"Damn right."

"And look how I turned out… Kenji doesn't need that."

Hiko's eyebrow twitched. "Excuse me?"

Kenshin continued, apparently nonplussed. "Kenji is still innocent. I would like to keep him that way, that I would." He reached for his son.

Hiko yanked the surprised child out of Kenshin's reach.

Kenji blinked, startled at the sudden movement. "Baka?"

No one heard the boy. Hiko was too busy fuming. "If I didn't know better, I'd think you're trying to imply that your social problems are my fault…" The look in his eyes could have crumbled Mount Fuji.

Kenshin didn't react, responding simply. "I was raised by an anti-social, pompous, overbearing, bloodstained, cranky bachelor with a nasty sense of humor and no social skills, who made my decisions for me, all the while ridiculing everything I tried to do for myself." He stared back at his shishou as innocently as he could manage, finishing with a sharp taste of Hiko's own sarcasm. "Why would you have anything to do with my becoming a self-imposed wanderer after years of killing?"

"Get the sake, baka." Hiko's voice was deadly. "I'll watch the kid."

"But, Shishou—"

"GO!" The man bristled, and seemed to grow even larger in his anger, if that were possible.

Kenshin bowed hastily. "Hai. Gomen, Shishou."

Before Hiko had time to change his mind, or even realize what had happened, the rurouni was gone, barely managing to hide his laughter.

"Baka…?" The faltering word came tentatively from the now uncomfortable child, still clutched in Hiko's tight grasp. Unused to being ignored, Kenji began to cry, reminding the hulking man, finally, exactly what he had just argued for.

"Kuso!" he snarled, his emotions running between anger and embarrassment at being successfully tricked by his deshi.

"Kuso!" the child crowed, enthralled by this new, interesting, emphatic word.

Hiko choked back a variety of other colorful phrases that would undoubtedly have been parroted by the precocious child, as he imagined the enraged combined reactions of the volatile tanuki and her idiotic, effeminate, and unstable husband when they heard their son's new vocabulary.

This was not good.

"Kuso!" the child chirped again.

Hiko finally set Kenji down. "You said it," he muttered, trying to ignore the dark sense of dread creeping up on him. This wasn't going to be pretty.

Author's Note: Thanks for reading. Please review. Up next is Sueb262, writing Chapter 3 of "Babysitting Blues" ! You won't want to miss it! (Oh god… I somehow became the English dub, heaven help me!)

Dewa mata!

Sirius