I like pre-series Kenshin way too much. I have to start writing the present, too.

Anyways, Tomoe! Also, if Okami has a last name, I don't know what it is and I'm too lazy to check.

Warning: PTSD, but it isn't called that obviously.

Disclaimer: don't own anything you recognize.

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"In the Land of Blood and Sake"

Tomoe wakes up some time past midday to birds signing sweetly in an unfamiliar room, alone. Her head is exploding with pain and the light hurts her eyes. She must have had too much to drink last night, but no amount of sake can make her forget the end result.

The last thing she remembers is the redheaded child - the Battousai - catching her as she fainted and the sky raining blood. Why isn't she dead? she thinks. She saw him, she knows what he looks like, knows that his eyes are bright amber and his grace during his kill is incomparable to the shock of his young face when he saw her.

But most of all, Tomoe knows that the Battousai is little more than a boy.

Lying here waiting for something to happen doesn't seem like a good idea, so she stands shakily, sliding out from under the warm covers of her futon. Outside the window she can still see light bouncing of the water residue of last night's rain. Besides the books near the wall and one opened, corner dogeared, the room doesn't seem as if anyone has lived here at all. It's dusty, implying that it isn't cleaned very often. Since from the book she guesses that it is inhabited at least on occasion, it must be a man's.

The kimono she wears is simple and course, but definitely feminine, so hopefully it was a woman who changed her blood-soaked clothes. Cautiously and silently, she slips out of the room, sliding the door shut gently behind her and heads to the left where she heard the sounds of a busy kitchen. As it's so late, she's somewhat surprised to find that she runs into no one.

That is, until a woman says, "Oh, you're awake!"

This woman is old with a small nose and a mouth too wide for her narrow face. In her hair are streaks of grey. "Yes," Tomoe answers, confused. "And, excuse me, but where am I?"

"The inn," the woman says as if that makes a difference. "Kenshin brought you here last name. White as a ghost he was - I think having you fainting on him scared him the poor boy. What's your name, child?"

Kenshin. If the old woman is referring to the boy who caught her, then she just found more about the Battousai than the entire Shogunate side put together. "Yukishiro Tomoe," she says and gives a polite bow. "Pleased to meet you."

"Pleased to meet you too. I'm Hatsumomo Okami." The headache is still pounding behind Tomoe's eyes and she attempts a smile. It must pass for Hatsumomo-san because she continues, "Come, we need to speak."

Wary now and afraid she's been found out already (because she needs to find Battousai, needs to find his weakness, needs to avenge her finance's death even if his killer is only a child), she follows the woman into a spare room adjacent to the kitchen, trying to ignore the sound of other young women laughing. "Is there any way I can assist you in getting home?" Hatsumomo-san asks. "Your family must be worried, though I'll have to request that you tell no one of this night."

Even though they haven't know each other very long, Tomoe can see that the old woman is very kind. "I have no family to return to," she lies. "I came to Kyoto looking for work. That's why I was in the restaurant yesterday, but they told me that they don't need help. Is there -" She pauses. "If I may be so intrusive for a moment, perhaps there is work here, Hatsumomo-san?"

"Please, just call me Okami. Everyone does." The use of the given name is more informal than Tomoe is used to, but she doesn't think that Kenshin is a surname, which means that the atmosphere is here is very informal. "I don't know if you want to find work here. This isn't a real inn. Nothing has happened yet, but it can be dangerous."

Danger or not, she needs to find her way to become close to Battousai because this he's the whole reason she's here in the first place. And she'll have to learn to separate the man she saw kill from the surprised boy that can't be much older than thirteen or fourteen. "I've chosen no side as to I believe in," she says, which is a lie, "so working here is not something that will bother me. Besides, I own a debt to the boy anyway."

Okami-san waves her hand as if dispelling worry. "He won't care about that," she says. "Kenshin doesn't think that way. But if you are willing to work, we're always looking for help with the cooking and cleaning. Unfortunately we have no rooms at the moment, so you'll have to stay where you are."

Against her better judgement, she says, "That's -?"

"Kenshin's room?" Tomoe nods, cautious now because though this works well with her true objective in living here, it still feels indecent. "Yes. You don't have to worry, though - he left right after dropping you off. He's easily embarrassed. I'm the one who changed you." Inwardly, she's flooded with relief. Child or not, she doesn't want Battousai to see her undressed. Or any man, for that matter.

"Will he mind?" she asks, and Okami just smiles.

"Of course he will," she answers, "but he has enough trouble talking to the men, so I can only imagine how much trouble he'll have around you. It might do him some good."

How fondly this woman speaks of the Battousai is unnerving because how can you feel such affection for a killer? Even one who is, apparently, too young to fully understand how to hold a conversation. If it were anyone other than the most feared murdered in Japan and the one she is here to kill, she might even find it cute. "I'll stay," she says because she must kill him no matter what it takes. It's what Akira deserves after all she put him through. "Will you speak with him or -"

Again, the woman smiles. "As funny as it would be for you to see him squirm," she says and Tomoe suddenly realizes that she must be a mother, "I'll talk to him about it. Heaven knows how often I need to do so anyway." Something about the way she words that seems strange and though she doesn't want to, Tomoe suddenly finds herself curious. "If you feel up to working now, you can assist the girls in making lunch. I need to finish getting the blood out of your kimono. Stupid boy, clean himself but getting everything else dirty."

And like this, Tomoe has sealed her fate and the disaster is nothing as she suspects.

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As it turns out, Battousai finds her long before Okami-san has a chance to speak with him.

Tomoe is walking down past the stairs and he down them, staring unhappily down at a blank envelope, katana not at his side. He looks even more than a child than he did last night, as short as she and possibly even lighter. Before he can walk into her, he looks up, eyes wide with surprise.

"What're you doing here?" he asks, obviously surprised, and from the slight rasp of his voice, she thinks that this must be the first time he's spoken all day. "You - Why aren't you -?"

Her arms are filled with laundry, but she manages the traditional, polite bow anyway. "I apologize for my behavior last night," she says, ignoring the actual question. "I was very drunk. The sake was stronger than a I realized. Thank you for helping me."

She goes to continue walking, but suddenly the redhead is in front of her faster than she could see him move, and she verifies that yes, the boy is her height. "It's fine," he answers, "but why are you here? Shouldn't you be going back to your family?"

"If I had family," she says, "why would I be out drinking alone?" His cheeks color lightly in obvious embarrassment and how is it that he can cut through a man without blinking but cannot talk to a person of the opposite sex? Okami-san was right; everything about the way he stands speaks loudly of how unfamiliar this is and how uncomfortable he feels. "I was given a job here," she continues. "Now, please, I must deliver this laundry to the wash room."

Again, she goes to walk and though this time he lets her, he ends up at her side. "This isn't safe for you," he insists, walking beside her and fidgeting in a similar way that her darling Enishi does. "You shouldn't be here."

"I've already been told," she answers. "Also, Okami-san wishes to speak to you about something."

"I -"

"Oh," she adds as he stops and she continues you on, "My name is Yukishiro Tomoe."

He stutters out, "H-Himura Kenshin," but before she can say anything else, he's already gone.

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Again, she thinks that if this were anyone other than Battousai, she might find his awkwardness cute.

Two days later, he says, "I didn't ask you to clean my room, Yukishiro-san."

"Just Tomoe," she says for what feels like the thousandth time. For her to get close to him, she needs to blend in with everyone else, including this unfamiliar informality. She already calls him Kenshin, as requested. "And Okami-san did, so I'll clean it."

"I do it myself," he says before his eye catches something on the desk and his curiosity is blatant. "What's this?"

"My diary, I'll have to ask you not to touch it," she answers and again, his cheeks flush in embarrassment, causing the single scar down his cheek to become more noticeable. From what she's managed to gather, he isn't this expressive or talkative around anyone other Okami and Kogoro-san. "You don't do a very good job, you know."

Taken aback he says, "I'm not in here enough. But -"

"Have you read all these books?"

Just because she's going to kill him doesn't mean she can't have a little fun teasing him. Something tells her he won't hurt her. "A hitokiri doesn't need books," he says, but she remembers the first day and that dogeared page and wonders why he bothers to lie about something like this, "but they're good to sleep against."

During her three nights here, she hasn't seen him sleep at all. He comes in after she falls asleep, leaves before she wakes. Trust issues, Okami told her, and he's always made a habit of wandering around at night. "Can you read?" she asks.

From the frustrated look on his face, she assumes he gets this a lot. "Yes," he answers. "I can write too. And no, I'm not the son of a samurai or nobleman. I'm leaving, I'll see you later."

She isn't sure whether she annoyed him enough to have him leave, or if he needs to in the first place. Either she, she thinks it's something of an accomplishment to get any reaction out of him, and not one she's proud of.

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The next night Battousai doesn't get in until three in the morning, hands shaking and bleeding from what Tomoe immediately knows as too much scrubbing. His face in pale and there's a moment where he looks like he's about to break down before he sees her awake and his face goes back to being completely impassive. His eyes are halfway between amber and purple and she cannot fathom what that color would be called. His cheek is bleeding again, though apparently he's had it for well over a month.

"You're still awake," he says, a statement rather than a question and she stands, ignoring the concern she feels. Battousai is the enemy, younger than her or not, and she cannot afford to show compassion.

(though here it is anyway, stuck in the deepest recesses of her mind, a seed planted that will grow and grow and in the end, this young man is the one she was always meant to love)

"Your hands," she says, grabbing his wrist as he tries to hide them behind his back and he's shaking badly. There's blood from his palms, blood from his cheek, and now there's blood on her fingers too. Okami told her where the medical supplies in his room are without giving a reason why it's so important for a boy who never gets injured, but maybe it's explicitly for this. She's noticed the scars already. "Let me help you."

He tells her, "I'm fine. You don't have to worry about me. Okami-san and Katsura-san do this to me enough."

This is the second time in a week that something's been said that seems a little...off. One thing's been made clear by everyone she's spoken to: Battousai is too skilled to get hurt. "Humor me," she says, pulling him over to where the medical supplies are and pulling out bandages. His eyes have faded completely to purple now and the color fascinates her much more than it should. Even though she hates him without all her soul, it takes a lot of denial to not admit she finds his odd appearance attractive.

In the end he does allow her to bandage him but not without a lot of fidgeting and thinly veiled pouting. She cleans up the blood on his face too, wiping it away a little rougher than necessary and putting a square bandage on. If he's in pain, he doesn't let on. "Go to sleep," she says. "I don't care how, but you need rest. You look exhausted."

"I'm -"

"Kenshin." The use of his name from her for the first time gets him to shut up. Okami said it's something she does when she wants him to listen to her, and Tomoe's genuinely surprised to see that it works.

Neither of them move for a moment, him standing still, her hand still resting against his check. Then they split apart, move, and Tomoe thinks that she plays this role almost too well.

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One June 28th, two days before Battousai turns fourteen, she speaks to the other traitor for the first time.

Casually, the man says, "The kid lets himself get hurt. I heard Katsura talking about it awhile back. If you don't want to feel too guilty, have him kill himself."

Tomoe stares incredulously, not caring that it's rude. She's so surprised she can't help it. "Why would he do that?" she asks, unnerved.

Iizuka shrugs, uncaring. "Never heard the reason," he answers, "and doesn't matter to me. Just letting you know you don't have to kill him. I've been trying to wear him down myself already but you might have a better job at it."

This new information disquiets her because no apathetic murderer would be making an active attempt to die and she doesn't like the idea of him feeling guilty because that makes him more human than she's already beginning to see him as. "I'll try," she says, and it's a lie.

After all, even he doesn't deserve that sort of cruelty.

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The day Battousai turns fourteen is the first time Tomoe ever hears him laugh and it breaks her down a little further.

It's some time past noon and she's walking past a room she's never been to before. The door is cracked open as if it had bounced when someone tried to close it and she catches the sight of red hair turned bright in the streaming sunlight. What he and the other man in the room are talking about she misses but the laugh she hears clearly. It's light and cheerful and unexpected and breaks her heart. She's never even seen him smile. How can a boy with a laugh like that kill? How can a boy with a laugh like that want to die?

She feels like an intrusion on a private moment and walks away before she can hear anything else.

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Not long after she hears that laugh, she's visited by another unexpected guest. "Be his sheath," she's told and Kogoro Katsura seems so kind a man, despite being the one to order around Battousai, that she momentarily feels bad for the betrayal.

What she's been told corresponds with her own observation and the words of others. Himura (and she doesn't realize that, in her head, he's already changing from a demon to a boy) is not entirely sane and what he's doing is tearing him apart from the inside. Thirteen is too young but his skills are too sharp for them not to use him. It hasn't even been a year since he came here apparently and for a fourteen-year-old to be that conflicted, there must have been something wrong with him even before he joined.

She doesn't think anyone else has realized this.

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The katana drops to the ground with a clatter and wide amber eyes stare at her in shock.

"I'm sorry," he says, eyes averting away from her and she notices that the color has yet to change as it normally does. Her hands are shaking and he somehow seems even worse off than she is. "I said that I'd never kill a civilian and now look at me...If you'd been any closer, I would've -"

Tomoe smiles even though she shouldn't and picks up her shall. "Let me," she interrupts, "stay here for a while. Now you need a sheath, to hold back the madness."

His eyes are wide, a strange combination with their amber color and she drapes the cloth over his shoulders like a blanket she isn't sure he owns. He looks so innocent and unguarded. "I thought about my answer," he says quietly, gaze turned downward. "Whether I would've killed you if you had a sword. The answer is no. Whatever happened, I couldn't kill you. Not you...Never."

This boy, three years her junior, is such a tragedy it hurts. She touches his cheek, the one with the scar, and sits down facing him. Her heart is pounding and she shouldn't, but almost involuntarily, she wraps her arms around him. He stiffs and doesn't hold her back, but still doesn't let go.

In this moment, she knows he loves her.

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After that, she hardens her heart. For Akira, for the one she loved so dearly and never expressed this to, she cannot feel compassion. Unfortunately it's hard not to look at his face and wonder what he must've been like before the killing began. And because of this, she decides that maybe she really can be that cruel because this kindness of his will get them both killed in the end, she knows.

That idea fades quickly. He returns from an assassination the night after next and he's upset enough that his attempt to hide it fails miserable. His eyes are bright, bright amber - the brightest she's seen so far - and he's clutching his bandaged shoulder. Lately she's been unable to sleep until she knows he's home, something she tells herself is because she's waiting to hear he died and not that she's failing at her own attempt not to worry.

Immediately, she asks, "What happened?" even though she already knows. He has a look of intense self-loathing and disappointment and shame that only worsens at her question. "Kenshin-san, what happened?"

There's no I'm fine or Don't worry or It's not your concern, go to sleep. Instead he continues to avoid eye contact, unfocused gaze towards the ground instead. The bandage is already showing spots of blood. "I was doing so well," he says so quietly she isn't quite sure it was really said at all. She goes to move but pauses as he cringes. "I'm sorry!"

She looks to him, bewildering because yes, there's a lot to say sorry for, but she doubts this counts as one of them. "Sorry for what?" she says.

"Please don't hate me."

"Hate you? Why -"

"Everyone's always disappointed in me." He's shaking now and looks on the verge of tears and his eyes won't go back to purple. It's actually beginning to scare her. "He promised it wouldn't happen again."

More slowly than before, she reaches over and moves his hand from his shoulder and then the weapons at his waist and as she gets him to sit down, she vaguely thinks to herself how easy he would be able to kill right now - how little he's reacting, how likely it is for Katsura to think he killed himself. But she doesn't and instead brushes his hair from over his eyes and he's looking at her now, amber eyes unfocused like he's seeing someone over her shoulder and not actually her.

This is the insanity she's been told about and suspected herself. He's not here right now, somewhere far off in his own mind and something about the wound in his shoulder set him off. She's never seen this happen to anyone before, but what he says makes no sense and he's never this unguarded so it needs to be something. Tomoe can't imagine what it must be like, trapped in his own head like that.

So easy to get my revenge, she thinks and still doesn't act upon it. Iiruka is right, and it would just be easier for everyone for him to do it himself. But right now...right now she's thinking that ending everything might even be humane.

So why isn't she doing anything?

"You killed him, remember?" she says, again sitting next to him. "It's all okay, you're safe now."

He curls up like he's trying to protect himself, arms wrapped around his rib cage. "It wasn't my fault," he says, still looking down and she can barely hear him. "He was hurting me and it wasn't working like it did last time a-and I pushed him and there was a crack...his head hit the table. I didn't mean to."

At a loss for words now, she decides to rely on actions and again reaches over, moving in to shake his uninjured shoulder. He looks at her directly now, still confused and she says, "Kenshin, it's me. It's Tomoe."

It's the sound of her name that forces him out of whatever happened and he blinks slowly, confused as he looks around the room before the confusion bleeds away and he pales. "How did I get over here?" he asks her and he seems much more focused than before. "Tomoe -"

"What's the last thing you remember?" she asks gently, inching away now that he's himself again. This is the longest amount of time that his eyes have stayed amber and he looks more like he usually does, eyes narrowed like everyone else's rather than large and rounded, facial expressions and bodies giving nothing away.

"Katsura was fixing my shoulder," he answers. "The katana almost went completely through, and he's..." He pauses and all she can focus on is almost completely through. "Then I came in here and I saw you and then nothing."

She swore to not be compassionate about him anymore or care about his well being, but she can't tell him the truth. Not about this. "You passed out," she lies. "It must have been from blood loss. I caught you. You're very light, Kenshin-san. You should eat more."

"Sorry," he says. "I must have scared you."

As she stands, she hands him the katana because when she wakes up she wants everything to go back to normal so she can hate him in peace. "It was no problem," she tells him, "but I'm tired and I'm going to go to sleep. You should too."

He nods, absentminded and looks out the window. "Goodnight, Tomoe-san," he says quietly as she slips back underneath the covers.

Her last thought before falling asleep is that he doesn't deserve to die.

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Okay, wow is this long. I blame the lack of internet connection. It allowed me to run away with this.

Reviews are always appreciated!