Disclaimer: I do not own Rurouni Kenshin or any other characters except for the minor, unimportant characters.
OOOOOOO
This Is Forever
Chapter 10: "Destined To Become Closer"
Battousai stared deep into Kaoru's blue eyes and the fallen goddess could feel her soul being dissected by his gaze. He was calm, almost ready to welcome the end of his existence with opened arms, had he not wanted to hold the goddess that stood over him in his arms first.
"Is it possible… that I can save you as well?"
Letting out a war-like, broken cry, Kaoru brought her Sword of Shinjitsu blade down with all the force her mortal arms would allow.
OOOOOOO
"It's late." Misao announced, more to herself than to her tall companion standing beside her.
"It is indeed." He replied; his ice-blue eyes staring up at the sky as the sun sank into the western horizon.
"Do you think Kaoru-sama and the others are alright, Aoshi-sama?"
Aoshi was silent as he watched the golden, hot orb sink further down, and then he finally answered, "Soujiro-sama and Akira-sama are alright, I suspect, but Kaoru-sama…"
Misao looked at her love, knowing he did not want to finish his statement. The priestess folded her arms across herself as the sun sank completely down, disappearing from view, and the cold winds started to arise.
"Should be get our shinobi on and help them?" Misao asked, wanting once again to fight like in the old days, using the old ways; her Japanese blood yearned for it.
"Not until we hear word from either Soujiro-sama or Akira-sama. Until then, we should be on our guard with our shinobi clothes on."
"Yatta!" Misao cried out in delight, and she stripped herself of her priestess clothes right in front of Aoshi's bewildered eyes, however, she revealed little; for she already had her shinobi outfit on under her previous clothes.
"Misao, that really wasn't a proper thing to do." Aoshi scolded with a scowl, not wanting to admit that the little girl he had known for most of his life was now a very desirable young woman.
Misao smiled through her perplex mood. "You never minded it when I was younger."
"That's because you were younger, and not… filled out."
Misao raised an eyebrow and shook her head; she really wished Aoshi would make up her mind. There were a lot of things she did back when she was a child that her companion would not permit now.
"I'm ready for anything, Aoshi-sama." Misao exclaimed with a grin that expressed thrill as her Japanese blood sang in her veins.
"Let's hope you're right."
OOOOOOOO
Kaoru opened her eyes and stared at Battousai staring right back at her; her sword was imbedded in the ground, but not through his neck.
Battousai calmly turned his head to look at the blade in the ground, not but a few millimeters away from his neck. He then looked back at the princess who owned the sword that almost had his name written on it.
Kaoru took her hands off her sword's handle as a sob escaped her throat. By now, the temporary paralyzing attack on him was now diminished, and Battousai sat up as the girl fell to her knees beside him.
"I can't do it," Kaoru said with sobs rising from her throat. "I can't kill you."
Battousai breathed in deep and then steadily released it from his lungs. To say he was scared shitless when Kaoru brought her sword down would be the biggest understatement in demon, mortal, and gods' history. However, he would rather go back to hell and have his father slowly lop his head off than to admit it; especially to her.
"Why can't I do it?" Kaoru asked herself aloud while shaking her head in dismay at herself. "Why can't I kill you?"
"Perhaps you weren't destined to." Battousai offered with a shrug of his shoulders. Hell if he knew about this whole destiny crap!
Kaoru finally forced herself to breathe more steadily, and then forced herself to look up at her foe.
"Maybe you're right." Kaoru agreed with a whisper. "Destiny controls even the gods, so it's more than likely that it controls me, and what happened."
"In case you didn't know, I don't believe in Destiny."
Kaoru's right eye twitched with annoyance. He is such an infuriating man, er, demon… thing! Here things were finally starting to make sense with the whole Destiny theory, and Battousai had to go and throw it back at her!
"You never know," Kaoru defended her belief. "Maybe it is that we're destined to do everything we're doing. Every action we ever took… us meeting, and finally to this result that we're playing out right now. My question is, since I can't kill you, what do we do now?"
A hundred thoughts went though Battousai's head at that moment as he stared at Kaoru, and none of them were pure.
"What're you smirking at?" Kaoru demanded, and instantly, Battousai's smirk faded.
"Well, we could always go and celebrate with sake." Battousai announced, and then drew his hand away from his side, revealing the hand with blood coated on it. He suspected that he got it from his fight with Enishi. "However, I think I should get this little problem fixed."
"I'll take you to Shin-Kawabata Hospital; it's closest." Kaoru announced, wrapping her arms around his waist, and tried to help him up, but with no avail; demon weight was heavier than even the gods' weight.
Battousai hissed in pain as the princess' arms tightened around his wounded side. "That hurts, bitch!"
For his rude comment, Kaoru slapped his wounded side, making Battousai hiss out in pain again.
"You're now under my guard," Kaoru announced. "I will not tolerate you calling me such names while in my company. Come on, let's go to the hospital."
"I'm not going to a stupid mortal hospital." Battousai protested, trying not to lean on Kaoru too much in case they stumble and fall.
"Then where do you want to go!"
"To a bar and get drunk would be my first choice," Battousai said with a smirk as he looked up at the rapidly darkening sky. "However, I suspect you won't like that idea, so I think the place I'm staying at would suffice."
"And where would that be?" Kaoru asked as they both walked very carefully.
OOOOOO
"Damn, he got away!" Akira exclaimed, watching Enishi run off.
"Cursing like that is not like you, Akira." Soujiro exclaimed, casting an accusing look at his friend. "What has you so worked up that you would spit out a nasty demon and mortal word?"
Akira hung his head in shame and said, "I apologize for my weak hold on my tongue, Soujiro-kun."
"Well, that doesn't matter now," Soujiro said with a nod. "All that matters now is looking after the Princess."
Akira gave his companion a side-ways glance and, with a smirk, dared to ask, "Are you sweet on Kaoru-sama?"
Soujiro blushed on his cheeks and shook his head. "I merely admire Kaoru-sama for her marvelous work over the centuries. She is very kind and considerate of everyone; god and mortal alike."
"Maybe even… to demons as well." Akira muttered, to which Soujiro gave him a fierce glare, and that made Akira nervous. He almost forgot that this was the same Soujiro that fought in the first Apocalypse thousands of years ago.
"How dare you cast accusations at Kaoru-sama like that? Honestly, Akira-kun, I sometimes don't know which side you're on!"
"I'm on your side, Soujiro-kun; I just have a horrible habit of making my thoughts known aloud. Yet some secrets, I keep only in my thoughts."
Soujiro looked at Akira and then side, shrugging his shoulders as well. "Let's see how Kaoru-sama is faring with Battousai."
A few moments later, the two gods were at the place where Kaoru-sama and Battousai used to be.
Soujiro stared at the blank spot where he temporarily paralyzed Battousai; but not a single drop of blood could be found, save for a few drops on the ground. Yet if Kaoru-sama decapitated the demon prince, there would have been a lot more blood than a few drops, which the ones that were there, hissed and burned the ground.
"Still don't think Kaoru-sama wouldn't show mercy to a demon?" Akira asked venomously, looking at the ground in anger. "I think she's sweet on him!"
Soujiro suddenly drew a blade out and held it to Akira's throat. "Kaoru-sama sweet on a filthy demon! Never!"
Akira held up his hands in submission, and when Soujiro eased his sword's blade off his companion's neck, he said in a tone less venomous, "Then where, my friend, did our sweet, darling goddess, and princess, take our demon friend?"
Soujiro shook his head, thoughts he did not want to acknowledge came into his mind. "She has her reasons, Akira-kun; but she's not sweet on a worthless demon prince."
OOOOOOOO
"You've been living here!" Kaoru asked, her mouth hung open as she looked at the slum building in slum town. "It suits you."
Battousai growled in his throat as the princess entered the building, pressed the button for the elevator, and then they waited.
The doors opened, and they went inside. Kaoru looked at the rows of buttons, each with a number on them, before asking, "Which one?"
"Fourth floor."
Kaoru pressed the button, and the elevator lurched, and they went up to the third floor. When they got off, there was a row of doors, and Kaoru once again asked, "Which one?"
"Fourth apartment."
They walked down the row of doors, and they got to the last, fourth door of the hallway. "How do we enter?" the princess asked, and as an answer, Battousai kicked the door opened.
"Oh." Was all Kaoru could say.
When they entered, Kaoru placed Battousai on the broken couch. The prince hissed as a sharp pain stabbed him from where his wounded side was.
"You think you can be a little gentler, Princess." Battousai complained, placing a gentle hand on his wounded side.
"Where do you keep your first aid kit, Prince?" Kaoru asked, sarcastically emphasizing the title of prince.
Battousai glared at the blue-eyed beauty with his startling amber eyes before he replied, "In the bathroom was where I found it when I explored the place."
"When you explored the place? You mean you don't live here originally?" Kaoru asked incredulously as she looked around the place. "What did you do with the original owners? Kill them and throw them out the window!"
Battousai smirked and he teased Kaoru by saying, "Might have."
"You're an unimaginable ." Kaoru stated, gullible enough to believe the demon, and then she walked to the bathroom and got the first aid kit out.
"I was jesting, Princess." Battousai said aloud so his voice carried into the bathroom. "No wonder you stress so much; you don't know how to play around."
"I do jest, Prince, just not with demons. It's strictly business between demons and gods." Kaoru said when she came out of the bathroom and kneeled before the wounded demon.
"And you treating my wounds is strictly business?" Battousai asked with a raised eyebrow.
Kaoru glared at the infuriating demon prince with her blue eyes, and she commanded, "Shut up and take your gi off."
Battousai smirked at evil thoughts swam through his head. "I wish you were demanding my taking off my clothes as a completely different reason from treating a wound."
"You keep your foul thoughts to yourself, foul demon." Kaoru commanded as she watched Battousai take off his gi and slide it down his shoulders.
Her heart rate increased as she watched a work of art come to life when the top clothing came down. This Battousai was perfectly muscular; not too muscular, but not too skinny, either. His arms bulged when he slowly got the clothing peeled off of himself, and Kaoru looked at his perfectly formed abdomen, which was accompanied by a rather nasty wound at the side.
Yet that did not take away the perfection. Kaoru was taken back when he thought of a demon as having perfection. She had to admit, however, that Battousai was deliciously sexy, and lust worthy.
"Are you going to gape at me all night?" Battousai asked, trying to keep the smirk off his face as Kaoru's cheeks burned with innocent shame. He wished he could read what her mind was thinking as she stared at him.
"I—I'm going to need hot water." Kaoru said after looking at the wound on the demon's side, and then got up and walked to the kitchen.
She rummaged around until she found a large, metal bowl. The princess cleaned it out, and then started filling it with hot water.
Kaoru had to grip the counter with her hands to steady herself. Thoughts went back to the very desirable demon sitting on the couch behind her, waiting to be touched and ravished by any hapless female that came along.
Shaking her head to clear her mind of such impure thoughts, Kaoru looked at the bowl and realized it was overflowing with hot water. She quickly turned the water off, poured the access out, murmured a prayer to her father in the heavens, and then slowly walked to where Battousai was still sitting; still looking so damn sexy.
Kaoru sighed to herself in frustration and then got the clean rag that was in the first aid kit out, dipped it in the hot water, and started gently cleansing the wound. Battousai resisted the urge to groan when her gentle fingers moved the rag over his wound.
The princess looked so delicious on her knees in front of him, her short hair falling perfectly over her face, her soft, blue eyes that ran over him made wonderful tremors flow through him. He had to grip the couch cushion to keep himself from pinning her on the floor and taking her innocence right there.
"So…" Kaoru began, trying to break the sexual tension between them. "How did you come to live here?"
"I came here after our first sword fight."
"Ah; and the place was empty?"
"As empty as a sad day in hell."
Kaoru looked at Battousai, his amber eyes piercing her now mortal soul, and she tried to be snappy and distant when she exclaimed, "Hell is the least you deserve." Yet it came out shaky and unsure.
"And Heaven is the least you deserve."
Kaoru looked sharply at the demon prince, trying to decipher if he was paying her a complement or insulting her.
"I was complementing you, Princess." Battousai said, as if he could read her thoughts.
Kaoru swallowed hard and put antibacterial liquid on the prince's nasty wound. "You really should go to the hospital for this."
"No, I much prefer you treating me; it gives me time to enjoy you touching me."
Kaoru slapped Battousai's wound again, and the demon forced a cry to hold in his throat.
"This is only a one time thing, and I'm not going to do anything else with you, so you can just keep your erotic fantasies to yourself!"
"I wouldn't call them erotic, Princess, for they're not exactly nasty as you would believe, but, oh gods, you're lust worthy material."
Kaoru blinked up at Battousai, trying to decide if she should be angry or glad at his comment.
"Do you not enjoy it when people look at you with desire in their eyes, in their hearts, and in their souls, Princess? Do you not enjoy it to know that they think to ravish you?"
"How would you know all this?"
Battousai shrugged, and with an indifference tone, he replied, "I'm a demon; I know when and what mortals are lusting."
Kaoru was shocked at herself when she found that she felt highly disappointed when Battousai told her, in a way, that he did not feel those lusts towards her. Feeling abnormally bold, she asked, "And what about you? Do you lust towards me?"
At first, Battousai did not know how to answer her, so there was a pregnant silence before he replied, "I don't know."
"How can you not know?" Kaoru asked, almost shouting and she did not know why. "You're a demon who knows lust, you said yourself, so how can you not know?"
"How do you want me to answer?"
Kaoru was taken back by Battousai's question, and she wanted to tell him to tell her what she wanted to hear from him. Instead, she said, "The truth, if that is at all possible for you."
Again, there was a pregnant pause as the demon closed his eyes, trying to form the truth in words.
"I want to spend hours just holding you and nothing else. I want to lean close to you and breathe in your sweet aroma. I live in hell around you because you're like an idol up on a pedestal, and I can't reach you; I don't dare touch you because I'm a demon and you're a goddess. No matter what shell you're in right now, that doesn't change the fact that you were a goddess and always will be."
Kaoru swallowed hard at Battousai's word because the demon prince had just spoken the truth. She felt the truth in his words and they pierced her sharply in the deepest chambers of her heart.
"Well, this conversation isn't getting your wound treated." Kaoru said, and she damned herself for pulling away so suddenly when the Great Battousai, Demon Prince had just told the truth for the first time in his life.
Battousai did not reply as Kaoru put a medicated patch on the wound, and got the ace wrap out to hold it.
"I need you to sit up so I can wrap this around you." Kaoru said softly. Her heart constricted when she saw the demon's amber eyes once again hard, cold, and unfeeling.
"Don't bother," Battousai said, taking the wrap from the princess' hand. "I'll do it myself."
Kaoru looked away from him as he started to wrap the bandage around his waist. "You're wound will reopen."
"Don't bother."
Yes, don't bother him and you won't feel guilty for pushing him away. It was the right thing to do; you can't be together. "I'm sorry for being so cold towards you." Don't say that; keep him distant. "I didn't mean to hurt you, Battousai." Take the words back before it's too late!
"Battousai is not my real name; it's a nickname given to me over the centuries for mortals to utter because, to them, saying my real name will bring my wrath upon them."
Kaoru turned her gaze back to Battousai when he finished wrapping his wound. "Then what is your real name, Prince?"
"I'm not a prince anymore, either." Battousai said, trying to seem indifferent, uncaring about the fact that he no longer has a home. "I was removed of that title by my brother, Enishi, when I couldn't… complete an assignment. I wouldn't complete it."
"What is your real name?" Kaoru asked again, her voice soft like a song bird's singing voice, and her beautiful blue eyes pleading.
"What does it matter, Princess?"
"Don't call me Princess because I'm no longer a goddess. I can't be a princess if I'm not a goddess."
"Then what do you want me to call you?"
"Kaoru; call me Kaoru."
Battousai opened his mouth, and whispered the one name he never uttered, "Kaoru." And all his hate and resentment towards her crumbled away from him and bled out of him like poison sucked away. "My real name is… Kenshin. You can call me Kenshin."
"Kenshin…" Kaoru whispered back and she laid her forehead on his bare chest.
"Dame," Kenshin whispered in Japanese as he tried to pull away from the beauty. "Don't do that."
"Just shut up and hold me like you want to." Kaoru said, getting up from her knees and sitting next to him.
Kenshin hesitated before he wrapped his arms around Kaoru and brought her closer to him. He sighed into the warmth that illuminated from her body as he rested his cheek on top of her head. For hours, the fallen prince and the fallen goddess held each other long into the night.
OOOOOOOO
"Okay," Misao thoughtfully said out loud as she looked over her list of possible places her goddess could be. "Maybe she'd be here."
After Soujiro and Akira showed up without Kaoru-sama and no idea where she could be, Misao took it upon herself to write out a list of where the goddess could be, and went in search for her.
Not knowing that another life form was watching her from the foliage behind her, Misao glanced around.
Enishi watched the girl with acute interest. Akira said that the girl, Kaoru, had short hair and blue eyes. Thoughtfully, the youngest demon prince bit his lip and wondered if it could be her. If not, the mortal girl before him could easily tell him, lest she lose her beautiful little head.
Grinning with pure evilness, Enishi waited for the right moment to pounce and kidnap the mortal girl, thus bringing him a step closer to his goal: Kaoru.
To Be Continued…
OOOOOOOO
AN: I'm so, so, so very sorry this chapter did not get out sooner. I've just been so busy! Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this chapter, and I hope you readers will give me the honor of telling me how much you enjoyed it! (anime smile)