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Disclaimer: Rurouni Kenshin, and most of the characters related to and featuring in the following fictional stories are property of creator and master manga artist Watsuki Nobuhiro, and no copyright infringement was intended in any way in the creation of these projects. Used without permission.

Note: This is a vignette from Hikari's perspective, a few years (at least) after the following occurrences.

Light of the Snow-Red Village
Vignette Five: Phases of the Heart

~*~

I've always felt some fear when my father goes to fight; it's only natural. When you only have one person in the entire world to depend on — one that was constant rather than temporary — danger for them is danger for you as well. But it wasn't only that. I've wondered, sometimes, if I will see the change I saw in him in our time with Heiji-sensei... the change that made his eyes the colour of a golden sunset for the entire night.

I remember waking up that morning, and crying because I was so happy to meet the colour I was used to. I remember holding so tightly to him it seemed as if I would never let go.

Or was that him holding me?

I guess it doesn't matter. All I know is that when my father left with Sanosuke-san to fight this new enemy, this Kurogasa, my heart pounded in my chest so badly I thought it would burst. I tried to keep myself distracted... I practiced, I cooked, I argued with Yahiko, even Kaoru... but any distraction has always proven to fall before the thoughts of my father. He's always been too strong to be defeated.

Which makes it even stranger, I think, that it worries me when he leaves.

Maybe it's the thought of seeing Sanosuke returning alone. Like he did.

How my eyes burned, then.

"Kenshin... isn't coming back."

Thinking back, I can recall how unintentionally cruel Sanosuke had been, twisting the words for dramatic effect and giving me — and Kaoru as well, by that point — the worst scare possible. The thought of my father not coming back... ever... was too painful for either of us to bear.

One thing I remember hating the most was that Kaoru-san left to find him. Kaoru. Not me. Why didn't I go with her? Certainly I had faith in my father, but I was just as concerned as anyone... right?

Maybe it was the reason that she left.

"... if I'm going to be left alone again, I'd rather meet the danger face to face!"

She feared that he would leave... and not return.

Baka!

They always forget who I am. I think, sometimes, that there is a reason my father leaves me at the dojo when he fights. It angered me at first, knowing that he placed me in the same category of importance as the others — which makes his acceptance of Sanosuke even more infuriating — but slowly I began to see that deep down, in his heart, he wanted to stay with these people. He wanted to make this place our home, these people our family. Never before had we been so easily and completely accepted; his identity, and the inevitable trouble it brought, and even the sort of people we are, didn't matter to them.

No one has ever invited us to live with them so desperately.

It was a cry for help from Kaoru, quietly, not vocalized but implied, that made us stay with her. Not her method of convincing — that I needed a stable home; how do you miss what you never had? — but the so obvious need in her voice. She had tried to make herself strong and angry, but I had heard that sort of pleading before, and what she was missing was even more terrible and cruel than our lack of a home.

She needed a family.

My father is part of her family now; they are tied together, and those ties can never be broken. But when the Kurogasa came, there were no ties, as much as either of them would have wanted. There was only me.

So he left me at the dojo, to tie us together without anyone else knowing, to keep us at the dojo, safe and protected, while he dealt with whatever wanted him dead this time. He does it often enough, and truly, it's not difficult to understand.

Harder to forgive.

It took him a long time to tell me the truth about what had occurred in the woods that day, the day before he and Kaoru-san had returned to the dojo, red-faced and laughing, yet with an overwhelming darkness in their eyes that could not be ignored. I was patient with him - I try to be, really, when it's important - but I could tell it was something neither of them would easily discuss. I think Kaoru-san told Sanosuke, since it wasn't the sort of thing he and my father would talk about, but I really couldn't ask her either. My father and I were careful about secrets, especially when they could cause a distance between us. Either we spoke of it or it never entered our minds. That was just the way it was.

That day... when he told me, his eyes shadowed by the fire of his hair, I finally understood - in part, for I was not as old as I am now - why he really did want to stay here. He protected Kaoru-san. He was willing to kill to protect her.

In the war, he killed for the sake of my mother.

What did that mean? What did that change, that sudden, strangely dangerous revelation mean?

To me, or to him?

I didn't know what to think.

But I do understand, at least a little better than before. It was something he needed to understand, to recognize; that there was room in his heart for more than just me, more than just memories of my mother. There was room in his heart for a different sort of caring, a different sort of protection.

And it didn't bother me one bit.

~*~