The next half hour passed in a long conversation. Aya told Kenshin about herself—how her parents died when she was little, becoming victims of the Third Shinobi World War. Although civilians were usually not targeted, her parents had been travelling in the same caravan with several Konoha shinobi, and the entire caravan was wiped out by a sabotage squad from Iwagakure.
Little Aya was left in the care of her grandmother and grandfather. Her grandmother was a seamstress and taught the girl the craft. Her grandfather was a carpenter and often worked in Konoha, bringing his little granddaughter lots of sweets and fascinating stories. Aya's grandmother died two years ago, and six months ago her grandfather died, leaving the young girl a complete orphan.
Listening to the touching story, Kenshin pulled her closer and hurried to comfort her, seeing two small streams of tears.
He conducted several experiments to determine the degree of control over her and found that the girl's personality had not changed, but she was ready to fulfil any of his requests or orders. Horrified at the prospect of unintentionally harming the girl by saying something that would be taken as an order, Kenshin discussed with her the main points of her submission, assuring her that she had the right to challenge his words or opinion but was obliged to obey immediately if his tone became icy and maximally serious. The young man decided that such demarcation methods were the only thing that would help them maintain at least a semblance of normal life.
While they talked, the vegetable soup on the stove was finally ready, and the couple began breakfast. Kenshin made a mental note to find at least a map of the area, preferably of the whole world. Unfortunately there was no such thing in the girl's house.
As soon as they finished eating and Aya began washing the dishes, there was a loud knock at the door and an impatient shout: "Aya, open up! The old woman from the shop blabbed that she saw you with some guy! Who is he? Open up, damn it!"
Anger began to boil in Kenshin's chest, and he headed for the door, wearing only trousers and no shirt.
"Get lost, Aya is busy and doesn't want to see you," Kenshin said, opening the door and seeing a fat man with a sweaty face in front of him. The man only opened his mouth in shock and froze with his hand raised for the next knock.
"You whore!" Kaito shouted and tried to step inside but received a fist to the nose and took several steps back, falling off the porch onto his backside.
The fat man stared at Kenshin in shock, unable to utter a word; blood flowed from his broken nose, running down his lips and chin.
"You… You! You're finished! Do you know who you hit?! Just wait, you and that whore will regret everything!" Kaito shouted angrily and, seeing Kenshin heading toward him, quickly jumped to his feet and ran off at full speed in a random direction.
"Damn, that's all I needed…" Kenshin muttered with a sigh, going back into the house and closing the door behind him. He realised that plans for relocation needed to be accelerated to the maximum, and entering the kitchen, he ordered Aya to get ready for the road.
The girl did not resist this decision at all and only asked where and for how long. Kenshin said forever and told her to pack light things, while he began loading bags with a small amount of provisions—just for a few days—but took all the salt and spices, not forgetting the first-aid kit.
He understood that he would inevitably forget something valuable, but there simply wasn't time. He terribly didn't want to be that "unskilled patriarch" who would be beaten to death by a few ordinary people. He didn't consider himself super-strong and soberly assessed his chances against a group of people with at least homemade weapons.
Half an hour later Kenshin and Aya finished packing two large backpacks and quietly slipped out of the house, leaving through the backyard into the "unknown direction".
Another half hour later Aya's house door was kicked in, and five thuggish-looking men burst inside. After turning the whole house upside down, they began questioning the neighbours but found no clues as to where the young girl and the "enemy village spy" who had taken the poor girl hostage, brainwashed her, and raped her had suddenly disappeared. That was exactly the story Kaito presented, wanting to find justification for the future reprisal.
****
Once outside the village, Kenshin stopped and asked Aya: "Is there any hard-to-reach, uninhabited area nearby? The harder to reach, the better!"
The girl thought for a few seconds and said: "Mmm, to the east of the village there is a large forest that turns into big impassable mountains, but it's several hours' walk to the forest…"
"Excellent, exactly what we need! Lead the way," the young man answered enthusiastically, pleased with at least this small success.
The young man and girl headed in the right direction, carrying large bags of things on their backs, but fortunately they didn't run into anyone. Three hours later they approached the forest and sat down to rest in a forest thicket. Kenshin berated himself for not taking more water for the road. The flask he had taken was almost empty, and it was still two hours to the nearest mountain.
He was very surprised when Aya said she didn't know about the existence of plastic bottles or technologies like television or refrigerators. He wondered why the anime he watched as a teenager differed so much from reality.
"Perhaps Kishimoto somehow obtained knowledge from this world or was able to see its history and added technologies known to our world himself? Or perhaps this world isn't real, and I ended up in a fictional world by someone's evil will… Or maybe I'm asleep and dreaming all this… Or maybe…" Without finishing the thought, Kenshin interrupted his musings, deciding not to clutter his head with nonsense.
Kenshin pulled Aya to him and began to rest, sitting with his back against a large tree. He felt that this young beauty could give him a charge of energy just by her presence, and he incredibly loved hugging her, inhaling her tender floral scent, and caressing her small fragile body. The girl gently purred and completely surrendered to the loving embrace of her man.