Rurouni Kenshin Fan Fiction ❯ What Dreams May Come ❯ When Night Falls ( Chapter 2 )

By the time Sano, Kaoru and Yahiko began to head back toward the house, the blushing sun was riding low against the western horizon and already little squares of light illuminated the strand of homes across the river.

 

“That was fun!” Yahiko said on a satisfied sigh, a long river reed sticking out from between his lips.

 

Kaoru smiled at the carefree picture the three of them presented: a perfect little family walking down the country road.

 

The irony of it did not escape her.

 

In the distance, their house with its white washed walls and grilled iron gates seemed lost and small beneath the looming shadows cast by the neighboring forests.

 

Ever since her father's mysterious disappearance the Kamiya home had come to feel more and more like just a structure where she, Yahiko, Sano and Megumi ate and slept, but did not live.

 

Each member of her small family was caught in a little bubble that kept not only the outside world, but also each other at bay… And no matter how hard Kaoru tried to retain that old happiness, she could feel it slipping away, leaving the sad remnants of happier memories echoing through every room.

 

Kaoru remembered a time when it had been a place of life. Light and happiness, with laughter and music, and most important of all it had been filled with a family and friends. But even loyal friends could be driven away by threats of a cruelty worse than death.

 

Now only the four of them remained.

 

A brother and sister who had lost their father much too early; an orphan with too many responsibilities thrust on his young shoulders; and a woman who was the bride of a missing, and possibly dead, clan leader.

 

“At least we have each other, neh” Sano's voice said with another accurate look inside her head.

 

“Stop doing that,” she sniped, aware that stress was making her more waspish than usual, she was sorry that Sano ended up being the one she usually took it all out on. Even though at times he definitely deserved it.

 

He grinned at her, knowing exactly what she was thinking and she punched him lightly on the arm, he yanked her ponytail and before they knew it Kaoru was chasing the two males with a scowl, their fluttering laughter like the last of autumn's leaves clinging tenuously to withering branches.

 

Kaoru heard the brittle sound for what it was, but shoved away any troubling thoughts. She wanted to forget, even if it was only for a while longer. When she finally caught up with them, gasping and out of breath at the corner of their compound, the laugh lines were smoothed away from Sano's face and Yahiko's gaze was focused tensely on something around the corner of the road.

 

“What is it?” she said on whisper, knowing somehow that it was important for her to stay as silent as possible.

 

Sano jerked his head angrily toward where Yahiko was staring, raw fury on the young boy's face. Kaoru took a surreptitious peek, and groaned inwardly, this was the very last thing she and her family needed at the moment.

 

Off to the side of the road, partially hidden by the wildly growing brushwood, a group of large burly men were openly harassing another boy. The boy's back was to her, the bright red hair trailing down his back marking him as a stranger to the village; but for the others… she would recognize those cruel features anywhere.

 

The biggest, and meanest of them was Souta, his shaggy black hair couldn't shade the maliciousness in his murky brown eyes. Despite his elevated status as the only son and heir to the Goromatsu clan, he hadn't learned the respect for power that went along with the position.

 

He and his gang of thugs were well-noted bullies in and around the neighboring village and worse than that, there was nothing anybody could do for fear of angering Shino, the head of the Goromatsu clan.

 

Kaoru's hands clenched convulsively at her side, the blood leaving them as her fingernails dug into her palm.

 

At one time, the Goromatsu would never have dared trespass so close to Kamiya land but ever since her father's disappearance they had become bolder, making no secret of the fact that they wanted this property for themselves.

 

The fury built inside Kaoru as memories of all the times they had openly mocked and threatened the tiny remains of Yasuo Kamiya's family. She watched with helpless rage as Souta's henchmen surrounded the much smaller stranger and she caught the flash of light on metal as they pulled out weapons.

 

The boy was unarmed.

 

Suddenly the resentment broke through her carefully constructed barrier and she found herself marching forward, her long strides eating up the earth between herself and the defenseless innocent.

 

“Kaoru, don't!”

 

“Idiot!”

 

She heard her companions' voices and the sound of Sano running toward the house. She knew he was running to get their weapons, something that would give them a fighting chance, but for herself she didn't seem to notice or care that she was completely unarmed and half the size and weight of her opponents.

 

From the corner of his eye, the redhead sighted movement and turned to see a black haired woman stalking toward him with all the fury of an avenging angel. Backlit by the fiery sunset outlining her lithe figure, she seemed a creature made of light herself and the stranger felt an inexplicable quickening of his heart that had nothing to do with his precarious position.

 

Following his gaze, his beefy harassers turned their attention to the girl, the leader Souta's dull eyes lighting up with a recognizable combination of malice and lust.

 

“Kaoru-chan,” he said silkily, reaching out toward her but she smoothly evaded his touch.

 

“Let the boy go.”

 

Chuckles rose amongst the group at the feminine demand and Kaoru feared that the men could hear the terror in her voice.

 

“You heard what the lady said,” Sano said, coming up behind her silently, his hand casually holding a large zanbatou sword over his shoulder.

 

The Goromatsu men's eyes flickered to the sword and back to their leader, but Souta wasn't as dumb as his size and looks implied, he had heard about Sanosuke's prowess with both blade and fist so he banked the fire in his eyes.

 

“As the lady wishes,” he said insolently. With a flick of his fingers the other men started to disperse down the road. But before Kaoru could dodge it, Souta's meaty hand had snaked out and grabbed a hold of her hand and he pressed it against his lips.

 

Kaoru snatched her hand back, wiping the sickly moist spot furiously against the side of her skirt.

 

“I look forward to furthering our …acquaintance, Kaoru-chan.”

 

“Dream on, Souta.” Sano said, his voice hard, his fingers tightening on the sword's hilt as he pulled Kaoru back with his other hand.

 

Holding his hands up as if in submission, Souta backed away, giving Kaoru a last lingering look before turning to join his comrades.

 

The look in his hooded eyes made Kaoru's shudder with equal parts disgust and dread at their implied promise. Pushing aside the feeling of dread she turned toward the boy, her eyes drawing immediately to the long cross-shaped scar on his left cheek.

 

“Oh, Kami! Are you okay, boy, did they do this to you?” Kaoru cried not giving him a chance to answer as she ran her fingers across his face, breathing a sigh of relief when there was no sign of bleeding.

 

“Relax, Kaoru,” Sano said, his voice hadn't gotten any softer after the Goromatsu gangs departure, “he isn't hurt… and he's hardly a boy if you'd care to notice.”

 

Kaoru looked at the face cupped in her palms and saw that despite the boyish looks, it was a man's eyes looking back at her. She blushed and pulled away.

 

“I'm glad you're all right,” she said almost shyly and he smiled affably, seemingly undisturbed by his recent assault.

 

Before he could form a reply, the three of them heard a screech and turned just as Megumi stumbled into Sano, causing him to drop his sword at the impact.

 

“Megu-” Kaoru stopped short as she watched the older woman frantically running her small pale hands over Sano's body, her words tumbling over each other as she tried to figure out if he'd been hurt.

 

As for Sano, he stood in stoic silence, his body strangely stiff, whether it was in embarrassment or something else Kaoru couldn't tell as she put on her most reassuring smile and caught the other woman's shoulders.

 

“Megumi, it's all right, we're all okay” she said kindly, and her stepmother looked up at her with dazed eyes.

 

“You're all okay?” she seemed momentarily confused until her eyes dropped down to where her hand rested against Sano's bare chest and she pulled it away as if burned, her cheeks colouring furiously.

 

A gasping Yahiko soon joined them, “I tried to stop her,” he managed to pant out between heaving breaths, and Kaoru rolled her eyes, sending her brother a look that promised punishment.

 

“Yeah, we're fine. It was just Souta and his bullies,” Sano answered the older with a snort of disgust.

 

“I know, Yahiko told me. I was so worried,” her voice was thick with unshed tears and her body had begun to quiver with the shock. The event seemed to have hit her harder than the rest of them, though it was hardly unexpected. Megumi hadn't really known what she'd signed up for when she's married into the Kamiya clan while the rest of them had had their entire lifetimes to acclimatize themselves to this warring way of life.

 

Maybe it was pity that made him do it, Sano wouldn't really know later, but he reached out and drew Megumi to him and felt the tremors quaking her body against his skin.

 

“We're all okay, now. No need to worry,” he said gruffly.

 

She was usually so strong and assured, but seeing her like this, she seemed fragile and so poignantly young. He wished he could tell her she didn't need to always be so strong.

 

“Thank you, Sano-chan, I needed that,” Megumi said finally pulling away, the familiar motherly smile she usually gave her children back in place.

 

Sano frowned but held his tongue, since this was neither the time nor place, and turned instead to the mysterious boy-man they had saved.

 

His frown deepened when he saw that the stranger and Kaoru had not moved from their previous positions.

 

The redheaded man was about the same height as Kaoru so she didn't have to tilt her head back awkwardly to look up at him, but that didn't mean he could stare at her so avidly. But there seemed to be something, almost an electric connection between their two gazes that even Sano was hesitant to force apart.

 

“Hey, ugly. You gonna stand there the whole day?” Yahiko's sarcastic voice startled Sano into action and even as Kaoru coloured furiously at her brother's jab, he clamped a hand onto the other man's shoulder in a grip hard enough to bruise. Despite himself, Sano was impressed when the man neither flinched nor looked away from Kaoru as she proceeded to whack her brother over the head with his own shinai.

 

Shoving a little harder this time, Sano almost took a step back as the gaze that had Kaoru so mesmerized was turned to him. The eyes were violet, tinged with bubbles of gold that simmered just beneath the surface. Sano wondered how he had ever mistaken this man for a boy.

 

“You gotta name?” he demanded in a voice low and intense.

 

Those violet eyes looked away momentarily, unerringly seeking out Kaoru. Sano felt his anger rising, but the other remained unperturbed. Then, as if coming to some kind of private conclusion the stranger smiled congenially and bowed toward the Kamiya family.

 

“This one is called, Kenshin”

 

Author's Note:

 

Sorry this chapter isn't that interesting, it's just one of those intermediate things to get the plot moving along. I hope things get more brisk from here on since I wanna get to the action myself but you can never tell with my muse… uppity brat!

 

I just got the RuroKen first season on DVD and it's turning out to be so much fun! Yeah ^^ although I still want to finish reading the rest of the series I don't have a change to get my hands on the rest of the books just yet.

 

Anyway, please R&R this chapter, even though I'm not really expecting much due to the slowness but it's nice to get comments right ;P

 

OCs:

 

Goro= “Fifth” + Matsu= “Pine”

Souta= “Dashing” (just a bit of irony in there 6_6)

Shino= “Stem of Bamboo”

**Note: they're pretty much names I picked out of a hat <_<'