hello my loves!

Im trying to write slightly shorter chapters so I can produce them a little quicker. Please forgive any inconsistencies with italics of thought/etc etc. Im more interested int he story than format sometimes lol.

I hope you enjoy this chap! It provides a little insight as to where i wanna take this bad boy ;)

btw have I said lately that I dont own these characters and Im just making shit up?

love yoooouuuuuuu

Kaoru had left Kenshin swiftly and coolly, but felt the opposite within herself as she padded quietly away from the room. Grasping her hands together behind her back she strode down the hallway, emotionally tugging at the wild mess of her beating heart as if to force answers out of it. Unfortunately, it was just as ignorant as she was in these matters. All it could do was push against her chest, swelling at ideas she had never had before (is this a crush?) and sinking at others which had previously been non-issues (no partner forever wouldn't be so bad). Her mouth twitched into a frown and her pace slowed, in no hurry to encounter anyone else just yet.

What was developing between herself and Kenshin? The world didn't just hand you a handsome redhead in the middle of space and let you have a "happy ever after". This was the real world where emotional attachments got you killed, dumped on some outer ring planet and stripped of valuables. That was part of why this vessel was so special, it was completely unique - a small crew that fought together like family (both internally and externally, she thought with a huff) and never chose to sacrifice the safety of one for another. It was part of their most recent slip into near-disaster; Kaoru simply refused to flee danger without each member of her family. Because that's what they were - family - and she couldn't help herself from hoping Kenshin would want to be a part of it. Maybe they wouldn't get their happy ever after, but in the interim.. Perhaps it could be enough.

She didn't realize when she stopped walking altogether, staring blankly at the empty space ahead of her with eyes that were lost in waves of memory as she tried to draw on her experiences for guidance. Kaoru was lost in the sea of them, pushed and pulled against currents beyond her control. Her frown turned to a scowl - she hated not being in control, at least of herself. This was mutiny!

As she reached deeper into her core to find some stability, she took even breaths and tried to hear only her father's words in the echo of her mind. She could hear him speaking to her in Japanese, one of the last old world languages and kept safe within her bloodline. As his chanting reverberated across the inside of her skull she felt her energy still and her aura become soft and loving, rubbing against her like a housecat comforting its master. But there was something else, too. What was it?

Fine threads, Kaoru realized at last. In her calmed and centered state, she could see them. They wrapped finely around her and then raced in all different directions out from her, twisting around corners and pipes and dipping under doorways. Some of them were moving, like the silkiest of spider threads being disturbed and glimmering in the changes of light. Kaoru knew her aura could connect to others, it has been one of the few things her father had managed to share in his limited time with her, but she had never been able to see it so tangibly before. She knew, somehow without actually having learned as much, that it had something to do with Kenshin.

At the thought of his name, a group of spider-silk-aura threads caught her eye. They were a richer shade of color, as though they had captured the light of a sunset and woven it into themselves. Hues of amber and blue combined with a rosy pink, lavender, and white shine; iridescent as an opal and glittering in the dim lighting of the hallway. In awe she reached out to them, not really thinking about the fact that they were non-corporeal manifestations of her ki and instead was simply enraptured by the colors. Almost without her willing it did her slender fingers twitch towards the sparkly lines.

Just before she could make contact, a crackling buzz came through the speaker a few yards from where she stood. "Foods up!" Came the excited cheer of her gleeful mechanic, Misao. She had probably been haunting the galley since finishing her repairs from the latest bout with Gohei. Usually quick on her duties, Misao was otherwise a bottomless pit requiring calories far beyond the expectation of her petite size. It had been Megumi's turn to cook, which meant Misao's excitement was probably well-warranted.

Being startled by the announcement, Kaoru's hand jerked back a little as if she'd been caught doing something she shouldn't, and then the threads faded from her vision. Her focus disturbed, she wondered briefly how long she had been standing there like an orb-weaver at the center of her web, idly contemplating where her many threads might lead. She shook her head a little as though waking from a daze, and her outstretched hand clenched into a fist as it came up to rest at her heart. She knew where certain particular shiny threads would lead, and if she had touched them….

"Cap'n, happy surprise to bump into you!" Sano's voice boomed down the hallway in his usual boisterous manner. His frame towered over her by almost a foot, pushing into the six-foot-plus height range without even including his wild mop of hair. "I was heading to the mess for grub, are you joining us? The fox is cooking tonight.." He smirked and rubbed his hands together, though Kaoru could tell the expression on his face suggested there was more to his excitement than the quality of their comrade's culinary skills. A puff of air angled upwards from her mouth blew the bangs out of her face as she looked at Sano with skeptical humor glinting through her frustration.

"Yes, I'm joining tonight - in fact I'm hoping everyone is there," She said as they both angled their bodies to carry on at a normal stride towards the kitchen. Their ragtag group didn't always dine together, but usually it did happen at least once or twice a week. They all had many duties aboard the vessel, and they sometimes had to come before a meal.

The unspoken suggestion of everyone hung between them for a few paces.

"What room did you give him?" Sano asked brightly, politely digging into the subject as he stuffed his hands into his pockets. Kaoru was suspicious immediately, as his lighthearted inquiry was fairly loaded with implications. Of all the places he could have bunked, Sano knew she had put Kenshin up in their personal hallway. Not all of her crew had rooms in that corridor, but if they didn't it was because they practically lived where they worked, like Misao in the engine bays. Her eyes were sharp on him in a brief warning before she answered.

"Four B." She said nonchalantly, keeping her face turned forward so Sano would hopefully not notice her hint of a blush. Sano's head snapped over as he stared at her, mouth agape.

"Seriously?!" He squawked. She didn't answer that time, so his head turned forward again and he let out a long, low whistle.

"Damn Missy, I didn't know you had it down bad like that."

Megumi looked up from the large pot on the stove in front of her, bubbling merrily with something that smelled far too rich to be found aboard a space-bound vessel. She could have sworn she heard a loud CLANG just then, like something hard hitting metal, but as it wasn't followed up by any other noises she shrugged and turned back to the food. Just as she tipped in a small bowl of herbs to finish the meal, a very angry Kaoru strode in with a look on her face that could curdle milk. Sano came in after, sporting his usual sheepish grin, now new and improved with a glossy black eye forming above it on the left.

He rubbed the back of his neck and flinched when Megumi leveled him with a glare, intuiting that the sound she had heard was almost certainly Sano's head hitting a metal wall after their she-captain had decked him. Needing no further proof for her theory, she chuffed at him and turned her nose up and away, cementing his embarrassment. Sano began dutifully attempting to make up for his blunder by gathering up dishes for the rest of the crew, trying and failing to remove the look of indignant disapproval from her face with some mumbled charm only Megumi could hear.

Kaoru had plopped down into a chair at the dining table at the far end, lost in her own train of thought again but trying very hard not to let it fully capture her. Her mood lightened bit by bit as her beloved crew began to all filter in. Most of them came in pairs, which made her chest warm up in a secret feminine glee.

First had come Misao and Aoshi, the former Kaoru realized had made the dinner announcement from the room they were in but had not been there upon her and Sano's arrival. 'She went to fetch Aoshi,' her mind supplied genially as she greeted them both, receiving one in return. They joined her across the table, leaving one seat open at the "head" to Kaoru's right and Aoshi's left, two spaces next to Kaoru, one at the other head, and one next to Misao. After a brief exchange with Kaoru, Misao's attention went back to a story she must have paused in the middle when they arrived at the mess hall. Kaoru began to tune it out expertly as the younger woman used her hands and expressive nature to convey the important differences in the intricate wiring components of hyperdrive generators.

Another duo entered then, smaller in stature and a reversal of gender and attitude from Aoshi and Misao. It was Yahiko in this pair who was exuberant, regaling his companion Tsubame with a tale about their last planet excursion. Tsubame never left the ship unless it was for very good reason, so Yahiko was her lifeline to the activities that happened outside the safety of the Cassiopeia. She was quiet and shy, but those who knew and loved her could see that she looked at young Yahiko with a special gleam in her eye that no one else could elicit.

The two of them settled side by side next to Kaoru, Tsubame giving her a sweet smile as she settled into the seat beside her. Just as she was about to ask their resident gardener a question, the hair on the back of Kaoru's neck stood up and she looked with barely contained excitement at the entrance. It never crossed her mind that she shouldn't have been able to know he was approaching the doorway to the mess, but nonetheless she was watching as he appeared in the yawning opening. His eyes met hers instantly and her smile was immediate, toothy and shining through her gaze. "Kenshin! Welcome, come sit over here," She waved him over, gesturing to the chair next to her. He hesitated only briefly before a little smile of his own emerged, and he strode over.

Sano and Megumi had begun bringing food to the table now, the large pot of what smelled like thick stew making Kaoru's stomach rumble. Bowls and utensils began passing from one seated person to another. Megumi took the chair beside Misao, and Sano dropped down in the only one left remaining, which was directly opposite Kenshin's seat at the other end. The table was now full, with both crew and food. Thanks were exchanged as it was ladled out.

Kenshin was again in awe, and again for the simplest of reasons. His seat at the table seemed to fill it out perfectly. It was now symmetrically full and something in his heart suggested this was as it was supposed to be. Every seat was filled, warm food was being shared with gratitude, jokes told and updates provided to each other about their days. The ramshackle crew practically buzzed with familial contentment, and for once in a very long time, Kenshin felt like he belonged.

Utensils rattled against dishware as he tucked into the meal set before him. He tried not to watch the giver's hand as it retreated, or notice the lines of wear and tear that crisscrossed it and the arm it attached to. As the first spoonful hit his mouth his eyes grew wide and he quickly took another large mouthful, followed by another. Chewing in disbelief he glanced up and saw most of the crew was looking at him, their expressions spanning the entire spectrum of positive reaction. From the conceited Megumi who was pleased her cooking was so well received, to the knowing ember flaring in Sano's gaze that suggested he knew what it meant to go without food. Yahiko's curious distrust belied his interest, Tsubame was even peeking at him discreetly behind her bangs. Then there was Kaoru, and he couldn't quite put his finger on why her expression was so familiar and yet so distant. Was it tenderness?

"This food is amazing," Kenshin managed to croak out around his last spoonful. He found his bowl been swiftly refilled with a ladle out of the pot, and his mind took him back to the morning he awoke to a beautiful space captain filling his glass with water. Giving, always giving, always so full of love. He tried very hard to keep himself looking calm, and hoped it was working.

Kaoru looked at her own bowl with a renewed appreciation. After so long on the same recipes, maybe she had taken for granted that they always had something fair superior than what many others could get. At least, when it wasn't her turn to cook.

"Well, that's because I made it, of course," Sniffed Megumi, brimming over with delight that their guest was speaking highly of the meal.

"Tsubame grew almost everything in this pot! She gets a little credit too!" Yahiko shouted defensively while Tsubame tried to shrink down from the compliment. Megumi simply smirked and nodded, but when it was completed her nose was a little higher than before.

"Correct," She stated as her spoon twirled idly in her bowl. "However, a master artist may bask in the praise of their creation without fear of the paints being insulted," Yahiko seethed at this, clenching his spoon as Tsubame sweetly laughed and touched his arm, attempting to timidly suggest that it was alright, and that Megumi had already sufficiently celebrated her for the quality of the harvested ingredients.

As this line of chatter intensified at the other end of the table, Kaoru's gaze swung back to Kenshin as he tucked into his second bowl. 'Still recovering,' She thought to herself as she came to the conclusion of her own serving.

Well, recovering or not, it was nearly time to put Kenshin in the hot seat. She had been hoping all her crew would attend this dinner for more than the simple community aspect of it. She was hoping they would finally get some answers.

Finally everyone had finished eating and the large pot had been scraped clean of its yummy contents. There was calmer chatter now, discussions of what their individual plans were for when they arrived at Dejambe and where they would be landing. Kenshin felt unsure what to do next, he was certain there was more to this evening than simply dinner. All too soon his anxieties became reality.

"Kenshin," Kaoru began after a short lull in chatter. "We'd like to know.." A pause as she searched for the right words, glancing at him only to see his head dipped and, not unlike Tsubame earlier, his fiery red hair hung down enough to hide his eyes. The table had gone quiet in anticipation. She fisted one hand in the slack of her trousers for courage.

"How did you survive the destruction of your ship?"

"I don't give a fuck about the crew, what I want to know is how he was allowed to escape!"

The ferocious booming of the voice was reverberating through the dark building, deep and onerous and altogether frightening. There was a pause in which quiet pleading might have been heard before a strangled scream and crashing sound, then silence. A shadowy figure moved down the darkened hallway, passing other bodies laying scattered around his path to the exit. Night had fallen outside the complex and as the person emerged from within it, a brisk gust of air ruffled his clothing. His fists were clenched and bloody, the dripping fluid appearing black in the shining light of two moons above him.

His breathing began to calm and he looked up at the moons with a scowl. One slightly behind the other, craters perceptible in their closeness to the mother planet. His examinations made him rueful, a malicious chuckle escaping him. "I know, I know.." He said breathily, waving a stained hand at the hunks of rock as though conceding to their point.

He began moving forward towards the large spacecraft which lay a few hundred yards from the building complex he had exited. His shoulders slumped and he became withdrawn, his anger seeping out of him to be replaced by a toxic frustration. Wherever he had slipped off to, it wouldn't be long before his many servants found him. There was a bounty and a good cover story to warrant it: the moment his prey's feet met solid ground again, it would be over.

"Lord Commander, we have a new report from cruiser 47," A voice crackled in his earpiece. His hand raised and he pressed a finger against the little bud in his ear to respond.

"Good, have it ready for review immediately, I'm approaching the ship now," Stunned silence met him before a stuttered "Y-yes, Lord Commander!"

The darkened shadowy man smirked almost evilly, the fear in his subordinate's voice fueling the insanity and rage within him. After all, it had been less than an hour since he had left the ship. No one in their right mind would have expected his engagement to be so brief. His fury was endless after hearing the news that the cruiser bringing his prize to him had been destroyed. For a brief time, he thought his ambitions turned to dust with the information, all his plans laid low by the loss.

But one of his spies had learned the location of the surviving crew of the vessel. Excitement kindled in his blackened heart once again, and after various 'interrogations' with those crew that he captured, his horrible goals came to life once more. In that moment, armed with new and valuable insight as to the demise of the transport, he was more dangerous than ever.

As he entered the ship its ports closed behind him and the engines roared into action, lifting them up and away from the horror he had inflicted upon the former crew of the lost cruiser.

The silence in the mess hall was nearly palpable as the crew all waited anxiously for the redhead to share. Their captain was a direct woman, unable to hide behind subtleties and strategy. She preferred open combat where all the chips were down. Anytime they needed to do something secretive, it was not her that was deployed for the job. She was easily angered when in tense situations and it was mostly a result of her stranglehold on right versus wrong. They might have been considered pirates, but they were pirates with a moral code. In this moment her directness suited the crew's needs - truth and knowledge were the best defense.

Kaoru hoped she wouldn't need to defend them from Kenshin.

He began very slowly, picking his way through words as carefully as though he was walking through the memory itself. He wouldn't run from this, he had decided that earlier in his bunk. He would meet this head on, whatever may come. He could still feel the magnanimous, confident gaze of the man in the picture. Kenshin would live up to his expectations, no matter the cost.

"I was captured by forces loyal to the Circuit about a year ago, now," Kaoru's eyes widened slightly. He had been in captivity for a year?

"The conditions were," A pause and barely perceptible flinch, breaking Kaoru's heart. "not ideal, that they were not." He finished, censoring some of the awfulness he had been subjected to. Unknown to him, none of the crew needed to be told the details of what he had been through. Perhaps not for such a length of time, but at some point or another they had all seen the inside of a very dark cell in the Circuit's many prisons.

He carried on.

"Even though the War has been over for some time now, I was identified as part of the resistance movement by a spy belonging to Circuit officials." His hands couldn't be still in his lap, they grasped at each other as he looked at them, hardly feeling in control of his body. It felt right to share this - difficult, but right. His internal strife was enough to isolate him from the myriad of reactions he was receiving. They each knew, all too well, what the War had cost. They were still paying for it in their own ways.

"They held me in an attempt to gain information about other primary resistance fighters," His eyes shot up to Kaoru's briefly before lowering again, as though he couldn't help himself. Kaoru saw a glint of golden irises before they were hidden again, and something primal in her stirred. What did that mean? Her stomach clenched, having to remember her own share of awful experiences from the War. The cold chill of sorrowful memories battled with the warmth in her chest that came from hearing Kenshin's low timbre. Did he look at her for support? Or was it something else? There had been something new in his eyes in that glance, something old and sad.

"But I would not tell them anything true - I suppose that's why they held me for so long, because I kept sending them on wild goose-hunts that would never expose one of us." The unspoken unity hung in the air. He had made so many decisions, Kaoru realized with a start. He had decided, at some point, that they had been on the same side as him during the events he was referencing during the War. He had gathered enough information during his limited time on the ship and with its crew to make a great deal of correct inferences, and Kaoru had a suspicion that it was the real reason he was willingly sharing with them now. He had decided to trust them.

'I wonder if that means he'll stay,' The intrusive thought slid across Kaoru's mind before she could deflect it.

Kenshin's explanation was generating questions in the crew members, but they were wisely withheld as he continued his story.

"Eventually, I overheard guards discussing my transfer. I was going to be moved to an outer ring mining colony," He made a huffing sound, clearly thinking whoever had made the decision was an idiot. "And I knew it would be my chance to escape. They had me chained in a way that they thought would stop me, but they underestimated my... determination." Something in his voice had changed, darkened and become foreboding. A shiver went down more than one spine.

"I took the opportunity of the battle to break out of my cell, after we had been traveling for several days. I thought it might be pirates, so I stayed in the shadows and picked my way towards the escape pods."

'He conveniently left out the part about how he escaped his cell,' Kaoru noted silently. 'It must have something to do with how depleted he was..'

"The captain beamed his crew down to the planet's surface before the pirates could board," This part the others knew, as they had all been updated after the engagement with these details the captain and her first mate had been witness to.

"He must have forgotten about me, because he set the self-destruct mechanism and destroyed the vessel to keep it from being taken. The Circuit is very careful with their assets, as you all surely know." This detail didn't sit right with Kaoru, even though it was perfectly reasonable. In the heat of battle, the Captain would have been first concerned with the safety of his crew, and then preventing valuable resources from falling into enemy hands. However… something about the way Kenshin described this moment had her feeling itchy. Her intuition was screaming that there is no way the Captain had forgotten about their highly valuable, and highly dangerous prisoner cargo.

'Dangerous?' Kaoru asked herself, unsure where that nugget had come from. But it was in front of her, emanating from Kenshin as he explained the events. Yes, it was there - in his aura, seeping out of every pore and barely contained. He held it tightly under his control, but it awed her nonetheless. He was power incarnate, and reliving the tale of his past year seemed to have ignited the thoughtfully sheltered flame that burned in his body. She felt drawn to it like a thousand moths, fluttering towards him and unafraid of the fire.

She tried to put a mental pin in her line of thinking about the other Captain, wanting to examine it later.

"Why would they work you over so hard? What kind of role did you play in the War?" It was Sanosuke who asked, whose voice was deep and body language suggested tension. Kaoru startled at the image of him, having rarely seen him like this before. Even Megumi was having a mixed reaction. There was something pinchy in the way Sano had asked, like he knew the right answer and would be angry if Kenshin did not match his expectations. Sano was the one among them who had been old enough to fight in the War and did so, though only for the last year of it after the death of his father. If he was this tense around the revelations about their guest, it could only mean one thing. Kenshin's value as a prisoner could only come from being an elite leader of the resistance itself.

Silence again hung around them. All eyes were expectantly laid on Kenshin, who sat with his posture straight but his eyes respectfully downcast. Suddenly he seemed to deflate a little, as though giving up the last of his defenses.

"I was known as the Battousai."

DUN DUN DUNNNNN

Guys im rediscovering my joy through writing this story and I truly hope youre enjoying it! I hope to get another chapter done today, l stay tuned !

inspo is coming from Naruto for some of this stuff!