Love for the Sword

I do not own Rurouni Kenshin.

A/N: Ok where we left off is when Yahiko was showing Shizuka her room, which is the one where she was sleeping in. Yahiko is about to leave ok. By the way I'm sorry if this took so long it was just I had three projects due on Oct.31st so I was working really hard.

"Here," Yahiko said as he opened the door. Shizuka walked in and sat down on her knees, so she wouldn't ruin her clothes, on the bed so her back was facing Yahiko. The room was silent, not even the birds chirped as if they could feel the tension in the room. Finally Yahiko spoke up.

"Listen about earlier… I didn't mean to… it just kind of happened… so I'm sorry." Shizuka didn't say a word and took out some of the thin needles from her pouch and began to clean them with a cloth-well not really a cloth, more like a shredded piece of clothing that looked like a cat attacked it-that was in a pocket on the side of the pouch. Suddenly Shizuka felt a finger lightly tracing the lightning bolt shaped scare on her back and she dropped the cloth and needle and let out a gasp; and as quickly as it had come it was gone and she whirled her head around to see Yahiko with his hands at his side and a sad look on his face.

It was quiet for a few second as Shizuka glared at Yahiko but she just turned around and went back to cleaning her needles. When she didn't hear the door open and close she turned her head again to see Yahiko just…watching her. Though she preferred to be alone Shizuka turned back, once more, to her needles. It was very silent in the room that day, not even the wind blew or the sound of birds singing could be heard. Only the heart beats of the two people sitting in the room: Yahiko and Shizuka.

"What happened?" Yahiko asked from behind her. Shizuka turned her head and her face showed no expression, except her crystal blue eyes. If you looked closely you could see all of her emotions at once but only if you looked closely.

"What do you mean?" She asked back, returning to her needles.

"How…How did you get that scar? The one on your back." He answered. Shizuka stopped and placed the needle she was cleaning down on the floor. Again there was silence but not an awkward silence, no this silence was the silence that told people that they were thinking about the answer, not just blurting it out.

"When I was thirteen, I was kidnapped from my village and brought somewhere near the mountains. There people told me that I had to work for them, to assassinate other people, at first I didn't want anything to do with it so…they took a whip and whipped me. I still said no after ten lashes so they brought out a sword that…that had been in a fire for hours and cut in to my back."

The silence in the room was like being in space, and Shizuka's words hung in the air like dense fog on a fall morning.

"At that time I still didn't understand a rule that my village has 'whenever given the choice of death take it' so I agreed, but as the years went on I figured out what it meant. I hated my job and sometimes I would have to watch my friends being punished, and at those times I wanted to die but I knew that if I did that another person would have to take my place…would have to go what I went through…so I stayed alive." Shizuka never turned her face to Yahiko as a single tear fell down her check and landed on the floor but she continued.

"T-that's when I learned that my village had b-been attacked. My parents and siblings died protecting every body they could as they held the enemies back long enough so my village could escape…" Shizuka could not finish the sentence, as she remembered hearing the news. By now tears where streaming down her beautiful face.

"My parents are dead too."

For one second Shizuka thought she had heard a voice from out of no where but then she turned around and saw Yahiko, his expression sad, and his hands clenched into tight fists. In fact he was clenching his fists so hard they began to bleed.

"My dad was a swordsman so he went off to the war, but he died. Then my mother got sick and died." Shizuka was about to say something to Yahiko when he stood up and left, leaving Shizuka alone to finish cleaning her needles.

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Yahiko walked towards his room to retrieve his sword. As he past the kitchen he heard his name being called.

"Yahiko where are you going." Came Kenshin's voice from the kitchen.

"To practice." Yahiko retorted and he went to his room to meditate.