Be Careful What You Wish For

A Rurouni Kenshin fanfiction

By Chibi Tenshi and Kirstian

Chapter Eight

Half the city lay in happy ruins around her when she burst through the doors of the Aoi-ya.

"Misao-chan..."

Her voice died down when the patrons of the restaurant glanced up at her, though - and when she recognized the faces of what had once been a few members the Juppongatana.

"Ch-Ch-Chou... Kamatari...?"

The third one gave her a wide smile even as she began to back out into the street.

"My name is Soujirou. Nice to meet you."

Soujirou; the name struck her like lightning. Kenshin and Sanosuke had spoken of him once; they said that he had been such a terrific swordsman because of his lack of emotions.

Without delay, she threw herself onto the boy, shaking his shoulders. "You have to do something!!!"

"If that's what you want," Chou said, trying for what she suspected was supposed to be a sexy grin, but only managing a frighteningly un-sexy smirk, "I can give you something to-"

"Don't even FINISH that sentence," she screamed as he went sprawling into the street, fist still balled when she turned back to the boy. "I know you think I'm beautiful and amazingly graceful and gorgeous and impeccably dressed but - ... okay, well, maybe not so impeccably dressed at the moment, but you just have to help me!!"

"Don’t go to him, sweetheart," Kamatari whistled, shaking his head. "He's still going through puberty. Us women need to stick together, you know!"

The glare Kamatari received would have scared even Shishio, if he hadn't been laughing it up in hell right about that moment.

"... oh, don't look at me like that! We could stay up all night doing each other's hair, because, honey, honestly, no one goes for that chopped-off casual style anymore, and-"

Grabbing the jug of sake at the table, she swung and connected, not bothering to apologize for that one.

"Ara," Soujirou blinked, peering over the table to where Kamatari was giggling himself into unconsciousness, probably dreaming about makeovers and pyjama pillow fights.

Shoulders heaving, Kaoru stared down at her newest victim, and then glanced at the jar of sake. "You don't mind, do you?"

"A-ano, no, of course not-"

"Good," she growled, "because I could really use a drink about now."

If he did have any emotions bottled up inside of him, Soujirou was definitely experiencing a mixture of shock and utter horror when Kaoru slammed the emptied jar back onto the table, cheeks red. He was about to call for another jar when she turned back to him and grabbed him by the collar of his gi.

"You're supposed ta' be faster then Kenthin," she slurred, already suffering from the sake.

"Ano, Himura-san?"

"Yeah," she replied, sticking her finger in the air and shaking it at him, "that's the one! So you're gunna help me, alright?!"

"Ah, eh, miss, should you really have drank so much?"

"That's not important! ... or was it?" For a moment she frowned, in deep thought as she tried to remember what she had been talking about. "... aah, it doesn't matter," she grumbled in frustration after a few minutes. "What was I talking about again?"

"About me helping you," Soujirou supplied happily.

"Thassit! Such a smart little boy," Kaoru chirped, patting him on the cheek like she would a child, and then promptly falling against him. "Gotta take a nap, first... not in a stupid tree this time..."

The peril of her situation forgotten, Kaoru yawned and found a comfortable spot on his chest, and Soujirou blinked innocently down at her, before laughing and shaking his head.

"What would Himura-san do," he asked himself, and the answer was as apparent as the sounds of an approaching city storming down the street.

***********

Her first conscious thought was that she was never again going to down a jar of sake in one gulp.

"... aaah... no breakfast today, Kenshin," she mumbled, "I feel sick enough as it is..."

"Breakfast? It's past supper," a cheery voice replied - a voice that was most definitely not Kenshin's. "Although if you're hungry, I think I still have some onigiri-"

Kaoru shot up from the futon, eyes wild as she snapped her head back and forth around the room. "Where am I?!"

"You're in my room at the inn. Would you like some tea?"

The last two days flooded back like a nightmare - Kenshin holding her hand (and doing mmuch more then that), the almighty police officer Saitoh stammering like some nervous schoolboy, Megumi and Tae - and who could forget Hiko.

Absently, she mumbled into the room, "would you say my hips are the 'child-bearing' type?"

"Ara," Soujirou mumbled, blinking at her as he kneeled down beside the futon, still smiling as he offered a cup of tea. "I suppose... you could say that."

"Is that a good thing or a bad thing?" She whimpered, lifting her head a bit to glance down at her hips and hitting her fists on them like that would somehow make them smaller.

"Wouldn't it be a good thing?" Soujirou replied, obviously confused and not quite sure on how to answer her - but she seemed happy enough when she sighed and took the tea from him - glancing up a bit after another moment and narrowing her eyes.

"Hey," she growled, plucking at the neck of the yukata she was in, "what happened to my clothes?"

"You looked very uncomfortable, so I took the liberty of changing you into something nicer - and, plus, I don't think the owner of the inn would have been very happy with me if I had to show her the mess your clothes would have left on my futon."

From the corner of her eyes, Kaoru glared hard and long at him, ready to crack the tea-cup over his head - but he seemed to be telling the innocent, honest truth - and, besides that, she hadn't been that drunk that she wouldn't have noticed him trying to cop a feel.

"... well, thank you, Soujirou," she mumbled, sitting up a bit to sip at the tea. "... Kenshin... hasn’t, per chance, shown up... has he?"

"Himura-san? Yes, actually," the boy explained just as chipper as ever, "him and a bunch of other fellows were storming around town earlier... that Sagara-san and Shinomori-san were with him. Made quite the ruckus."

Barely managing to swallow the tea, Kaoru stammered, "eh, eto, where...?"

"I think someone said something about searching the mountains," he offered - and, relieved beyond a doubt, Kaoru flung her arms around him.

"I can't thank you enough! How did you know to hide me from them?!"

Awkwardly, the boy patted her shoulders and blinked at her. "Well, I just thought, 'what would Himura-san do'..."

"And you hid me? You sweet thing," she cried, letting him go again to flop back onto the futon, rubbing her temples with her hand. "You're acting more like Kenshin then Kenshin is right now," she sighed.

A flicker of interest shone in his blue eyes as Soujirou moved to pour her more tea. "... oh? What do you mean?"

"He's gone crazy," Kaoru wailed. "I mean, for heaven sakes, I wanted some action from him, but I never expected..." Realizing what she was saying, she gasped and covered her mouth, cheeks red from more then just the last of the sake. "I mean... well..."

"You can tell me," Soujirou beamed, and Kaoru looked up at him, offering a slight smile after a moment - and then she began at the beginning, with her wish to be desirable, to her encounter with Kenshin and Sanosuke and Saitoh and rest of the stupefied city, to the chase from the shrine and forest and into the city.

"Mou," she sighed, "I really want to know what's going on with everyone - especially Kenshin! To think, he'd go from calling me 'Kaoru-dono' and ignoring every blatant pass I ever made at him to trying to crawl into the same tree as me, that suddenly - not that I didn't like it at all, but, honestly, if everyone just went around sleeping with whoever they wanted in whose ever tree they wanted, what kind of world would this be!? Aah," Kaoru whined, putting her hands over her eyes, "this is all too confusing for me!"

"So... Himura-san," Soujirou mused after a moment, "wouldn't have saved you as I did...?"

"Well, he's still Kenshin," she mumbled off-hand. "He wouldn't be being the gentleman you are, though, that's for sure."

"What would he be doing?"

"Oh, I don't know." Grumbling, Kaoru scrubbed at her eyes for a moment, then threw her arms up above her head in exasperation. "He'd probably be holding my hand and doing that absolutely wonderful thing he does with his thumb, and giving me those adorable this-unworthy-puppy dog eyes and - yeah, just like that, and he'd-..." Trailing off, Kaoru glanced beside her, where Soujirou had taken her hand in his. "... what're you doing?"

"Well, I asked myself what Himura-san would do, but you said that it was this, right?"

"... y-yes, well, but - I thought you didn't care about me like that," she moaned sadly - the peace and quiet had been too good to last.

"Well," Soujirou laughed, "I am an eighteen-year-old boy, and you know what they say."

"No," she whimpered. And she was really enjoying her nap. "What do they say?"

She hoped with all her heart that she was just imagining that his smile had turned into a lewd grin.

"It's the age that men sexually peak."

Kaoru prided herself on her ability to stay remotely calm in any situation, but at that moment, she threw pride to the wind, and screamed louder and harder then she ever had.

As Soujirou went flying out into the hall of the inn, Kaoru sat up and sniffed back her pained tears, "and you looked like such a nice, innocent boy, too!"

She only realized belatedly that when she had punched the boy, she had advertantly sent him crashing into the other man standing outside the door.

"Kenshin no BAKA," she screamed, crawling over to the swirly-eyed red-head and picking him up by his pinched nose, "you were there the entire time?!"

"Se-sessha just got here to save you," he stammered, and then smiled sweetly up at her. "Sessha didn't know that you thought I was adorable."

"AAAAARG!!!" Her fist moved of it's own accord - but that wasn't to say that she wasn't surprised or relieved when it did.

Getting to her feet and storming out of the room, Kaoru swore that she would figure out what was going on, even if it meant that the rurouni who was oro-ing himself silly on the floor never got laid.

"K-Kaoru, love, that isn't fair at all- ororooo," he managed, before receiving another punch in the face and drifting off into a painful nap of his own.

Sighing, she leaned over and dragged the redhead by his hair along for the ride. It might’ve hurt a little, but she figured he deserved it.

Her beauty was truly too much to be handled by a mere mortal. Her eyes widened with fear as a thought suddenly struck her – she truly hoped the dead did stay dead. She wasn’t sure if she could have some mummy running after her.

With a muffled shriek, she ran off promptly again, and was greeted by the sounds of loud screams down below.

“Let me go you moron!!! I’m going to kill that bitch!!!” The voice sounded distinctly familiar and had her crouching in fear for some unknown reason.

Laughter boomed, sounding suspiciously like Hiko. “You think a skinny thing like you can go against someone as womanly as Kaoru?”

She wasn’t sure if she had been insulted or not. Her fingers tightened around Kenshin’s lovely red locks, causing the redhead to whimper.

“You certainly couldn’t,” the woman scoffed.

“Ohohoho! You tell her sister!”

She could almost hear Sanosuke smirking at Hiko. Kaoru groaned aloud. Quite possibly, this woman could be the only sane person left in Japan. She wasn’t even sure if she could travel any further – surely she didn’t feel like spreading mass hysteria all across the land. She banged her head with her other fist.

“I’m gonna find her,” she threatened. “How dare she touch my Aoshi-sama…”

“Misao!!” she whispered, eyes brightening up before her face became crestfallen. Oh crap. The weasel girl had thought she had hit on Aoshi when in fact it had been the other around. How the hell was she supposed to have known that her beauty would cause the frigid icicle to turn into a pervert? Meditating – hah! She knew what that was truly about. It certainly gave new meaning to self-gratification.

Snickering, she nearly didn’t hear the low “heh-heh-hehs” coming behind her. Kaoru twisted her head back to find Kenshin eyeing her derriere a little too enthusiastically.

“Waaaah!!!” she screamed, leaping away, and conveniently forgetting his hair was still entangled in his fingers.

He screamed in unison, causing the crowd below to pause.

“Do you think they’re doing it?!” Sanosuke yelled in outrage.

Hiko growled, “That baka deshi wouldn’t know what to do with a sakabatou.”

“Hasn’t it been years for him? Ohohoho…”

“Let’s go get her!” Misao shrieked. Kaoru had the mental image of kunai flying in the direction of her head.

“Kaoru, my love…” Kenshin whined.

Whirling around she glared at him and poked him none too gently on the chest. “This is ALL your fault!!!”

“Will you still love me when I’m bald?”

She realised that her fingers had come away with a clump of silken once attached to a scalp of red hair. “AAAAAAH!!!”

Then his eyes glowed and he grabbed her. “Sessha must protect you.”

With unearthly speed, he made for the closest window and leapt off. Thankfully, they landed a lot better than she had. All she could do was hang on to dear life as she latched onto Kenshin’s back, alternately strangling him and causing him much joy, with detached red hair blowing in the wind.

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Disclaimer: We own no part of Rurouni Kenshin or any other presences, other then Tenshi and Kirstian themselves, who will appear in this fic. If we did, Kenshin wouldn't be as clueless as he normally is, and he'd be called Tub-by. In any case, we have no money. We spent it all on Sesshoumaru's spandex Halloween getup. XD So don't sue. We'll sick Vash on you.