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mamoro2202 · 8 years ago

Text

Stolen Heritage 8

Fandom: Rurouni Kenshin

Rated explicit for sex and violence.

(Sorry or the skipped week, real life occasionally intrudes.)

"Kaoru-dono, this one is finished packing and we should also go to bed. The morning will come very early, so it will."

Kaoru brushed a hand against Kenji's cheek. "Yes, it will." She looked at him, her eyes shining in the dark room. "Come to bed, Kenshin."

Kenshin finished tying the knot of his hakama, and felt troubled as he watched his wife say goodbye to their son.

"Mama and Daddy will be back soon, Kenji-chan, and it will be fun here with you aunts." She stroked the little boy's red hair. "You'll be good?"

"Yes, Mama."

"Don't be naughty at bathtime."

"No baths."

Kaoru sighed. "Kenji-chan…"

Kenshin knelt down next to her. "Kaoru-dono," he said, touching her shoulder. "Are you certain you won't stay? This one would be fine."

Kaoru shook her head vehemently and when she looked up her eyes were angry and stubborn… and swimming with tears. "No, Kenshin. I am going."

Kenshin watched her for a moment and then looked at his sleepy son. "Omasu-dono and Misao-dono have both offered to let you sleep with them, so pick whichever you'd like. Be polite. Do not hit or pull hair."

"Yes, Daddy." Kenji's eyes were wide in the face of his father's unusual gravity. Kenshin smiled then, to let the little boy know that everything was okay. Kenji's response was to crawl into Kaoru's lap and snuggle his face into her neck, which caused Kaoru to make a distressed noise and cuddle him close for a few minutes, before laying him down and tucking him back into the blankets. Once Kenji was settled, they gathered their things and slipped silently down the hall. The household was still sleeping, but Kenshin knocked quietly at Omasu's door.

"You're leaving now, then?" Omasu's eyes were sleepy but kind.

"Yes, Omasu-dono. This one apologizes for waking you."

"No, no," she said, waving a hand. "It's my pleasure." She stepped out and shut the shoji behind her. "Kenji-chan should have the comfort of warm arms. Safe travels." Then she bowed and walked towards the guest bedroom.

They slipped through Kyoto in the quiet grey of pre-dawn. Rather than exit the city immediately as he wished, Kenshin chose to walk east. Kaoru would surely appreciate even the small amount of extra smooth road – she was a strong woman, but city-bred. Kenshin doubted that she had spent many entire days wearing shoes, much less many hours walking over rocky, uneven paths.

During the walk through town, Kaoru was quiet at his side, lost in thoughts of her own. She'd left at least half of her heart at the Aoiya, and she was worried for her husband. Kenshin hated Kyoto; for him, being in the city was a discomfort to be endured. She suspected that visiting Otsu would likely leave him silent for hours, if not days, and he clearly had mixed feelings about visiting those little mountain villages. There was nothing, absolutely nothing, that Kaoru could say to help ease his stress; all she could do was be at his side and offer silent comfort.

They left the city just as the sun crested the horizon, and the farther they walked, the fewer travelers they met on the road, although there were more than Kaoru had expected. They ate while walking, Kenshin keeping a close eye on his wife. Walking evenly at his side, Kaoru kept her chin up and eyes sharp; it did heartened him a little, her steady presence and her stubborn strength at his side.

They arrived in Otsu well before lunch. Kenshin stopped at a pleasant spot and gestured to a rather large boulder with a conveniently worn outcrop, the perfect place to sit.

"Kaoru-dono, please sit and rest while this one gathers some information."

Kaoru shook her head, unwilling to let Kenshin to wander around Otsu on his own.

Laying a hand on her shoulder, Kenshin offered her a tiny smile. "Kaoru-dono." His voice was soft, although they were well off the main road. "This place has changed so much since the Meiji era as to be barely recognizable. This one is fine, so I am." Kaoru blinked in surprise, blushing that he had so easily seen her worry. "Rest here, Kaoru-dono. Your feet will be sore by tonight." He walked away with his customary gait, steps shuffling softly against the ground. Kaoru watched until he was out of sight, then skirted behind the boulder, seating herself behind it and out of sight to pull off her shoes and groan quietly.

Sore by tonight, he says. Sore now, more like. Grimacing, she poked at her tender flesh. She'd worn nice, thick tabi to help pad her feet, as well as to stay warm, but the skin was still slightly chapped and burning. She fished a pair of soft, thin tabi out of her pack and put them on, then drew the heavy, warm pair over that, followed by her sandals. Wiggling her toes and rotating her ankles, she considered her handiwork. Bulky, but better. She slipped back around the boulder and seated herself on the spot where he'd left her, glad for the opportunity to rest. She'd be damned before he left her in Otsu.

When Kenshin returned, he had learned little about the possibility of bandits in the mountains, just some very vague rumors that seemed to support the story. He smiled at the sight of Kaoru sitting in the sunshine.

"Kaoru-dono, are you well-rested?"

"I'm fine, Kenshin." She stood and shrugged into her pack. "Did you learn anything interesting?"

He shook his head. "Nothing of value, that I didn't." Kaoru briefly tangled her fingers with his, concealed by their sleeves. They left Otsu no better, but no worse, than when they'd arrived.

Several hours later, Kenshin tried to convince Kaoru to stop and rest for lunch. "We are making good time, Kaoru-dono. There is no reason to push yourself, that there isn't."

Kaoru frowned, her chin set at the stubborn angle that Kenshin knew so well. "I'm slowing you down enough already. We can walk and eat."

"Kaoru-dono-" Instead of answering him, Kaoru shoved a rice cracker into her mouth and chewed viciously, staring at the rather lovely scenery hard enough to start a grass fire. Kenshin was wise enough to drop the subject.

About an hour after lunch, Kaoru began to lag, and Kenshin chose not to comment. Instead, he merely matched her pace. An hour after that, he began lagging a little to encourage her to slow her pace further. Two hours later, her mouth pressed into a thin line, he noted Kaoru's subtle limp.

"Kaoru-dono, the road will only get steeper from here, and the wind colder. We should rest."

"You mean I should rest."

"As we travel further it is likely that it will become colder and the road rougher. It will also become dark earlier than you are used to, as we are in the shadow of the mountain. We will stop here and camp, so we will." Hiss tone warned that he was not going to yield, and though Kaoru's shoulders slumped, she nodded. Kenshin took her pack. "There should be a stream in a few minutes. We will stop there." Kenshin had no intention of telling her that they were only one ri from their destination, and that truly the road they had already traveled was both of a rather mild grade and moderately well maintained, as it skirted the base of the mountain. If her feet were in the state that he suspected they were, there was no question about traveling any further tonight. Besides, he would rather arrive in the village in full daylight.

Kenshin walked, and Kaoru limped, until a steeply arched and well-maintained bridge came into view.

"Why is the road so rough and that bridge so nice?!"

Mildly, Kenshin said, "It's likely that with the spring thaw, this little stream floods with the melted snow, that it is. It is only prudent to maintain the bridge; if it was damaged, the only road south would become impassable."

"Yes, you're right." Kaoru blushed at her own behaviour. "I'm sorry, Kenshin."

He brushed a hand over her shoulder. "It is alright, that it is. You do not feel well." They struck out east from the path, walking for several minutes down into the trees until Kenshin found a spot that he liked. He dragged a small log out from the underbrush. "Sit here and rest, Kaoru; this one will be back shortly, that I will. Please stay alert." He gathered water, sticks and dry grasses, and a likely-looking short log. The famous March wind of this area was brutal and cold, and even with their cold weather clothes, Kaoru must be feeling chilled. With efficiency born out of years of practice, Kenshin had a nice fire going after a few minutes and a sufficient camp established. There was no reason to leave Kaoru alone to gather ingredients for a meal, and not much grew here at this time of year anyway. He sorted through Kuro's generous gifts and selected several items, warming them as well as he could, while boiling the stream water in their only pot.

Kaoru ate slowly and Kenshin narrowed his eyes at her fatigue. "Let me see your feet, Kaoru." She grimaced at the very idea, then gingerly removed both shoes and tabi. Kenshin sucked a sympathetic breath through his teeth; they were just as bad as he had feared. The skin under the straps of her shoes was rubbed raw, and scattered wounds that looked as if blisters had burst and crusted.

"This one cannot protect you if you do not tell me when you are hurt, Kaoru," he scolded mildly, and Kaoru had the grace to look down and away. He washed her feet in silence and applied a salve that he knew from experience would sting. His stout-hearted wife never flinched. He wrapped them in bandages and a new set of tabi, then tucked her in the bedroll, with her extra clothes and jacket piled on top. She'd be warmer if he lay with her, but instead he simply sat between her and the wind.

"Kenshin? Aren't you going to lay down?"

"Perhaps later." Kaoru narrowed her eyes. Kenshin only smiled. "It is my honor to watch over you tonight, Kaoru."

"...You should sleep, Kenshin. If you wake me, I'll… stand watch for… few hours at least," she argued, already half asleep.

Kenshin stroked her bangs away from her face. "You are unused to such travel, that you are. Please rest." She was fully asleep in minutes, and Kenshin watched the rhythm of her even breaths. She had done well today, city raised as she was. To walk eight ri on country roads… four ri was mostly likely as much as she had ever walked in one day; endless hours of barefoot practice in a dojo with polished wooden floors would not have prepared her for this. He had not lied; watching over Kaoru today had been a welcome distraction. Despite his worry for her safety, her presence was always welcome.

He cast his senses wide and found reassuring nothingness, just the normal goings on of forest animals. Now with Kaoru well cared for, warm and asleep, he had nothing to distract himself from his thoughts, and they chased themselves across his mind in uncomfortable chaos. He sorted through his earliest memories again, as he had nearly every night since Manami's appearance but still, all he remembered was the usual jumble of affectionate blurs of half-remembered faces, and the impression of… safety, and contentment. Most of those people were dead and gone, but he could admit that it was likely that there were others alive... What if they were all dead or gone, those theoretical uncles and cousins and friends? What if they weren't?

He shivered from a particularly nasty gust of wind, tossed another piece of wood on the fire, and settled in for a long night.

The next morning Kaoru woke cold, stiff, and sore. She grimaced and took a quick inventory of her body: her back was stiff from sleeping on the ground, her muscles chilled from the damnable wind, her feet were a mess that she'd rather not think about, and her breasts hurt. Although, the fire to her left was quite nice… She sat up carefully to find Kenshin quietly repacking their bags.

"Good morning, Kaoru. How are you feeling today?"

Kaoru briefly considered lying, but discarded the idea as pointless and likely to upset Kenshin, bedsides. She settled for brevity, "Sore." Now sitting upright, her breasts were miserably sore.

"Why don't you dress and have breakfast, and then this one will change the bandages on your feet."

Kaoru sighed at the idea of fully undressing on this cold mountain, but she went about doing so anyway, carefully rebinding her swollen breasts as quickly as possible. Dressed, and as close to the fire as safely possible, she ate a quick breakfast and then let Kenshin care for her feet.

After that, she shrugged into her pack and started walking again. Kaoru bit her chapped lips to suppress any complaints at the steadily worsening terrain and the increasing grade of the road. Depressingly, the road zigzagged upwards. Kaoru understood the reasoning, managing the grade of the road by working with the mountain and not against it, but the lengthening of the path was enough to make her want to curse. Twenty minutes later, every curse word she'd ever learned from years of training with men and listening to Sano's drunken songs were tumbling around her head. She walked with her head down, focused on her footing, ignoring her breasts and her feet. When Kenshin came to a rather abrupt halt, she almost ran into him.

She looked up and saw it, the first of the two little villages. It was picturesque, two neat rows of houses winding through two mountain ridges, still fallow fields on either side, as well as some terraced fields extending up the slope from the rear of the village.

"Which one is this?"

"Supposedly, the village this one is from, Akaida. Shiraiyama is still further north."

Kaoru stepped forward and rested a hand on his back. "Do you recognize anything?"

Kenshin was silent for a moment. "No." He sounded a little disappointed.

"You were only six. It's not surprising."

"No, it is not." Kenshin adjusted his hat over his tell-tale hair. "Are you ready, Kaoru?"

Kaoru smiled for him. "Always."

The road led through the center of the village, houses clustered directly on either side, with small gardens behind that lead up to steeply sloped fields. The houses were of sturdy mountain make, well constructed with straight walls and windows.

As they neared the center of town, they were treated many mistrustful glances, and although he could feel Kaoru's tension, he was not disturbed by the suspicious eyes of the villagers. Actually, the wariness was reassuring; it was now even more likely that Manami's story about bandits in the area was true.

"Kenshin?" Kaoru's voice was quiet. "Have you noticed how many of these people have brown hair, not black?" From under his hat, Kenshin looked carefully over the people bustling about their business; there were an unusual number of people with light hair. Interesting… He filed the information away, keeping a watchful eye out for a shrine or guard post, or perhaps the headman's home, as they walked. He did not expect to be confronted by two rough-looking men holding crude cudgels.

"What are you doing here, strangers?" said the first. They were both clearly trying to be intimidating.

Kenshin tried playing the harmless rurouni. "Oro?"

"What business do you have here?" said the other. Interestingly, they were only a little taller than Kenshin.

"This one and my wife were merely passing through, that we were. Unfortunately, she has injured her foot. Perhaps you might have a healer or priest here?" Half-truths were always better than outright lies.

The men exchanged looks, clearly unprepared for a reasonable request for aid. "Okabe

would probably see you." Kenshin suppressed a twitch at the lack of an honorific for the priest a healer. These are very rude men…

They were walked further up the hill, flanked by the men. They both felt foul, brushing against his ki, a meanness and desire to dominate common to bullies. Kaoru certainly didn't like them; her energy behind him was alert and defensive. The men were making her terribly uncomfortable, and it was causing Kenshin to bristle.

There was a surprisingly large Shinto shrine to the right of the road, seemingly in good repair and quite neat. There was likely a resident priest here, and Kenshin was pleased. Priests knew everything in a village, and were often a good source of information. This could be used to his advantage.

"Old man!" Their escorts merely stood at the gate and shouted, one moving to stand too near for comfort. Kaoru actually stepped close enough for Kenshin to feel her breath on the back of his neck. "Old man, you've got strangers here who want to see you!"

A short and tidy priest walked out of the shrine, old and a touch stooped, with very intelligent dark eyes and an angry expression. "I know your mother raised you better than this, Hiroshi-kun! Take yourself and your bad manners elsewhere! And you, Shigeki-kun, come back when you can be polite. Off with you! These people don't need an armed escort; what kind of bandit travels with his wife?" He waved a hand as though dismissing children. The rude and burly men walked away with amusing speed – although once through the gate, the shorter of the pair spat on the ground. "Terrible!" The priest huffed, then turned his discerning eyes toward Kenshin and Kaoru.

"Would you care for tea? Or do you perhaps have some urgent business?" His speech and manner were calm and polite, and Kenshin felt his wife relax.

"It's not urgent. And tea would be perfect, that it would." The priest gave them both a friendly smile and ushered them into what were clearly his private living quarters. Kenshin calmly removed his hat to step inside, and the old priest paused, just barely, and then he prepared and poured tea while introductions were made. When Kenshin accepted his cup and took a polite sip, he blinked down at it in surprise; it was probably the best tea he had ever drunk.

"The tea is very good!" Kaoru's voice was awed, and then she blushed at her own bluntness.

The priest smiled. "The old haven't the time to waste being embarrassed, young lady. Thank you; tea is an important crop here. It does very well in the southern fields."

"You have a lovely home, Okabe-sensei." The priest's sharp eyes assessed Kenshin closely. Kenshin kept his expression innocent and his ki tranquil.

"Thank you very much. Even here in the country, as a traditionally Shinto shrine, we have benefitted from the new government's religious policies." Ah. That explains the obvious maintenance. They finished the astonishingly good tea in appreciative silence, while Kenshin and Okabe continued to quietly assess each other.

"Thank you for very much for the tea and the hospitality, Okabe-sensei... My wife is quite tired from travelling. Might you know of anyone in town who lodges travelers?"

"Hanari-san and his wife often rent their extra room to peddlers and traders. I do not see why tired travelers would not also be welcome. Tell them that I have referred you."

"...Forgive this one for saying so, but there seems to be greater than usual mistrust of outsiders here."

Okabe sighed. "Yes, well, the village is… in the midst of hard times. We have been beset by criminals since autumn. They raided us for the first time immediately after the harvest, and several times this winter. People are afraid, and hungrier than usual. Please excuse our poor manners." The priest gave a shallow bow, his expression troubled. "And you, young lady; do not walk alone."

"Your wariness is understandable, then, that it is." Kenshin was careful to maintain a rurouni's guilelessness. "We are strangers."

The priest's eyes wandered pointedly to Kenshin's hair, then down to his eyes. "Perhaps not so strange," he murmured.

Not quite two ri away, a red-haired, brown-eyed woman hummed a familiar song as she made breakfast.

Also posted here if you would like to read back chapters.

#rurouni kenshin #Stolen Heritage #rurouni kenshin fanfiction #mamoro's rk fanfiction

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