A Choice of Roads
by
Anaphalis
Rating: R/M

Summary: A journey of a thousand miles may start with a single step- but what happens if someone walks into you? Battousai the assassin gets transported to feudal Japan. The rest of his year isn't looking very good either. Rurouni Kenshin X Inuyasha crossover. Romance/Drama.

Chapter Summary: Kagome finally gets in some good angst courtesy of a sympathetic Kenshin.
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Feedback: Much appreciated at [email protected]

Disclaimer: Inuyasha belongs to Rumiko Takahashi and Shonen Jump. Rurouni Kenshin belongs to Watsuki Nobuhiro and Jump. Brushes on this page courtesy of Pure Anodyne.

A/N: I actually did write the drunken rant that Kenshin mentions in this chapter. Unfortunately, it didn't really fit with the story so I've included it as an end of chapter bonus. So feel free to check out "Miroku's Drunken Ramblings or The Major Romantic Subplot of Inuyasha in 250 Words or Less", a very loose er... "summary" of the Kikyo-Kagome-Inuyasha triangle. Also, as a cover-my-butt disclaimer: personally I have nothing against Kikyo or Inuyasha, but I think that Miroku may not always be as happy with them.
Chapter 5: Paved with Good Intentions

With friends like these, I hope that my enemies have a spare bedroom.
As the weeks passed, Kenshin felt himself drawn to Kagome. The old priestess they had visited had been unable to think of a way to return him and truthfully, he was in no hurry to leave. The quest for the jewel shards had given him a purpose with a vengeance. All of the jewel shards were in the possession of either his new group or Naraku. This meant that the hunt had become a torturous tug-of-war. Naraku would send a puppet with jewel shards to try to steal Kagome's shards and they would try to take the shards of the demon. Apparently there had once also been pieces of Naraku called "detachments" but Naraku had grown paranoid and absorbed or destroyed them all. He was also determinedly hiding from their group and this meant that puppets showed up all over Japan. This in turn meant a lot of walking and a lot of opportunity to talk to Kagome. Kenshin grew to anticipate their conversations during the endless marches.

She never asked him about his life before becoming an assassin or his assassination assignments. He never asked about her life in the future. Otherwise, there seemed to be no limits on their subjects. She would tell him little details about the group, funny stories about their travels, about the difficulties she had had finding a youkai adoption ceremony that made Shippou her true "blood-son". He enjoyed these stories and would occasionally reciprocate with some of the stranger things he had seen in the teahouses of Kyoto. He would also do impressions of some of the more ridiculous wandering warriors he had met. "This unworthy one apologizes for sharing the same air as Miss Kagome. Please allow me to grovel at your feet in repentance."

Raunchy stories didn't bother her, she understood his jokes and she filled a need for thought that Kenshin hadn't even realized he was missing. She was intelligent, articulate and more than happy to debate any topic he could think to bring up to her. His brief time as an apothecary started to lose some of its bitter sting as they had lively discussions about various herbal remedies. It was during one of these conversations that he realized that he also enjoyed watching her during their debates. Her hands animatedly gesturing, carefully avoiding the fox child that crawled over her upper body, her flushes of enthusiasm had become important to him. It terrified him. But then she turned and smiled and the terror disappeared as if it had never been.

It was also during this time that he began to be disturbed by her interactions with the rest of the group. On his third night with the group, he had been given a brief history of the complicated Inuyasha-Kagome-Kikyo dynamics by a drunk Miroku. At the time, he'd dismissed his burning anger towards Inuyasha as the pent-up need to kill something and thought no more of it. That hadn't been the end of it. It had been uneasy feelings at first when Inuyasha insulted Kagome. Then it had been low-level anger when Inuyasha disappeared to visit the dead girl and returned to Kagome to compare her unfavorably to Kikyo. But Kagome had simply smiled wryly and rolled her eyes discretely at Kenshin when Inuyasha wasn't looking.

Kenshin had seen Kagome fight. He often saw her performing katas at night when the group was resting. He knew that she was a powerful staff fighter which, combined with her purification powers, made her a force to be reckoned with. He thought that the insults were a form of rough teasing that Sango and Miroku joined in occasionally. Especially since she seemed to prove her worth time and again in battles against Naraku's demon puppets that stretched all of his assassin abilities. However, one day it all came to a head and he realized with chilling certainty what exactly her place in the group was.

###

After a few months, Kenshin had given up trying to fight his need to watch Kagome during battle. This battle was particularly eye-catching. Kagome spun through the demons with her purifying staff like a whirlwind of vengeance. They dissolved around her in a shower of ash, making a clear path to the puppet with the shards. She was beautiful and graceful and deadly and made something in the Battousai's blood burn. Afterwards, when Inuyasha bragged about his killing blow to the puppet and about how the useless miko should have stayed out of the way, he wondered if he and Inuyasha had even witnessed the same battle. She didn't even say anything to correct him, just calmly caught Kenshin's eyes in warning and shook her head. He hadn't even realized that his fists were clenched.

That night, when they stopped at the inn, she quietly pulled Miroku over before they made payment. He couldn't stop himself from moving close enough to listen.

"I don't trust his ki. I think that he is planning something."

"Lady Kagome, you are the flower of my heart, but we are all exhausted. Perhaps your exhaustion is clouding your perception? Although I would normally do anything bid me by one so fair, this is the best inn in the area and I, for one, would like a comfortable futon for the night."

The priest smiled and lightly kissed the top of her head, as if he was calming a pouting child. Kagome remained with her head bowed long after everyone except himself and the kit had gone to their rooms.

Later that night, after Kenshin and Kagome's wakefulness had managed to save the group from the mob come to kill "the evil demons", he caught a strangely adult look from the young fox. He could see the shame in the kit's eyes for the group's treatment of his mother. Even then, she had not said a word about her earlier warning. The adults of the group only thanked Kenshin for his watchfulness. He was about to unleash his anger, when again she gave him a pleading shake of her head.

She took him aside after the confused grumbling involved in building the camp in the dark, after everyone else had stopped shifting in their bedrolls. She sat against a large tree in the abandoned orchard they had chosen, the half-moon making her ghostly, un-real.

"It's not their fault Kenshin. Even though you were very young when you first became an assassin, I assume that you were always deadly. My friends have known me since I was very young. I was not always deadly."

Looking into the deep sorrow in her eyes, he realized the truth in a sharp intake of breath. "You concealed your skills."

Her voice was soft, almost broken. "I was very selfish. My friends were willing to kill to protect me- I thought that my other abilities would be enough. I was a genuinely bad archer, but I have had staff training and hand combat training since I was a child. Dad insisted Souta and I know martial arts. I grew up in a Shinto shrine, Kenshin. I may not have been shooting purple light from my hands, but I knew that I was a miko. But my world is so quiet. It is very different to practice katas in a dojo than it is to really try to hurt someone. Besides, I was so much smaller, so much weaker than the demons we fought, what good would my silly martial arts do anyways?"

There was an almost bitter half-smile on her face.

"What changed your mind?"

"My friends nearly died because of my cowardice."

She didn't say anything else, but he understood. The first deliberate death, the kill which was no longer just in defense against an attack, it changed her into something the assassin understood all too well.

"They didn't understand my sudden improvement. Secretly, I had been practicing some of Sango and Miroku's moves at home as well as advancing in my dojo. They thought that it was a short-term thing, that I would revert back to being the terrible fighter that they had always known. When I didn't, they ignored it, as they have been ignoring it for the past two and a half years. In the heat of battle I am equal, otherwise I am young and na�ve. I consider it a penance of sorts for endangering them for so long."

"Does your penance include putting up with Inuyasha on a daily basis? If so, you should be let off early for ascension to godhood."

Her laughter was a tangible thing that made his breath catch in his throat. She looked up at him with moonlit eyes and his breath stopped altogether.

"He's too easy a fight. All I need to do to destroy him is to tell him that all the ramen is finally gone."

###

So here it is: Miroku's drunken rant to Kenshin. The author claims absolutely no responsibility for Miroku's opinions.


Miroku's Drunken Ramblings or The Major Romantic Subplot of Inuyasha in 250 Words or Less

"Basically- hic- Inuyasha was fucking crazy for this miko chick Kikyo fifty years ago. She was the one guarding the jewel then. Inuyasha's only half demon and he tried to steal it from her to become all-demon and they �hic- got all cuddly. She told him it was a no go unless he became human- wanted the jewel to disappear and get rid of her job. Naraku the asshole �hic- made them think they'd betrayed each other. Miko sealed dog-boy to a tree and died. Then Kagome shows up fifty years later, frees dog-boy who still wants the jewel to become demon, finds out she's the miko's reincarnation, finds out she's carrying the jewel and then proceeds to break the jewel. Just like �hic- Kagome. They go try find the jewel pieces and somewhere along the way someone tries to resurrect Kikyo in a clay body using Kagome's soul. They get most of Kagome's soul back, but a little piece is still inside Kikyo and she takes dead souls to keep going. Oh and Kikyo �hic- hated Inuyasha, wanted him to go to hell with her, kept stealing our shards, trying to kill Kagome and he was still crazy in love. Who knows how they feel about each other now, but he sure visits her a lot. The major kicker though was that Kagome loved the dog-boy and he felt something for her too, but as you will soon see, he treats her �hic- like utter shit."
Chapter 4                                                                                                                                                        Chapter 6
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