YES! Whoop Whoop! The end is near (and when I say near I mean under 10 chapters to come)! I think this plot bunny has gone on for far too long and I have to sliver in some bits of typing between juggling real life and uni assignments from hell. Things are going to heat up now and there will be ACTION, ROMANCE, and more FUNNY. XXD.
Thank you to LordRandallsLady, WEIRDkittywwingz, Angie-san, miniwoo, Illegitimi (X 4 ! *cheers*) and blueagnel-maggie.
I am in the process of looking for a beta reader to help me go through the mammoth job of re-writing this monster so that it no longer acts like an absolute grammatical disgrace (which it currently is). So anyone who might possibly be interested in helping me out with this would be very much appreciated.
No I am not high. I am running on no sleep, 6 cups of coffee and 2 shots of espresso. I am positively BOUNCING!
Disclaimer: It ain't mine *whoop whoop*. Never will be *whoop whoop*.
Chapter 10 :Pass Along the Discomfort.
"Am I going to die?"
Megumi looked me in the eye. The steel in her gaze stabbed at my very heart with their calculating nature. Her face was as hard and cold as winter stone.
"Yes."
I had a mental trip.
I didn't expect conformation. No one would expect a blatant conformation of their untimely demise. It was like coming home after a days work and hearing 'Hello and welcome, your whole family burnt to a mangled bloody crisp in a tragic fire, but feel free to have some sushi on your way out'.
It just was not done.
"Yes?" I asked, a little shrilly, like an idiot.
Megumi just stared unblinking and unmoved. She obviously didn't have a change of opinion.
"You're lying!" In my numbness, I fell into the first refuge of the weak, denial. "You're bloody lying! No one can know things like that! There is no way you can be whatever the hell you claim to be. There. Is. No. Way!" I pounded my fist into the floor with every word.
"We do not lie. It serves no purpose. "She replied calmly.
Perhaps it was a trick of the light, but Megumi's face seemed to be changing. Her cheeks became sunken and the blacks of her eyes seem to be leaking out into the whites. Her pale skin took on a yellow tinge that made her look sickly.
I desperately combed my mind for anything I could remember about the Shinigami stories and was cursing myself a thousand kinds of stupid for not paying more attention to the tales when I was a child.
From that far away place my mind had traveled to, I vaguely noticed that I was shaking and that my nails were pushing painfully into my palms. Another, darker part of me whispered that I was the one who brought this on. It was only yesterday that I had claimed to have nothing to loose. Today death came down to tell me that I was wrong.
But I couldn't, I wouldn't accept it. I had too much to do. I still had a life to live. I still had to be here for my son, my students, my dojo. I still had too much to live for. I had Misao, Take and Even god dammed Enishi. I desperately wanted to know where that game with him could go.
"You, are a bunch of lying piles of shit." I hissed out. I wouldn't accept it.
My life, my choice; no half assed ghosts were going to tell me when I was going to die. I would goddamn choose it for my self. NO ONE told Kamiaya Kaoru what to do. Not even 'death'.
"You. Will. Not. Tell me how to live. You. Will. Not. Tell me how to die. I have fucking bigger fish to fry. If you are here to gather my soul for whatever, you're going to have to fight me for it!" I was at rock bottom, but damn this all, I was going to claw my way up.
I was expecting them to be angry, I was expecting to be killed on the spot but what happened scared me more than the first two options. As one, they smiled.
Like Megumi, Kenshin's face had changed too. His teeth were definitely sharpened and looked like knives lining the cave of his mouth. His golden eyes had bled out completely, covering the whites of his eyes with gold. It gave him the gaze of a lizard; Or perhaps a dragon.
Sano seemed thinner, taller, with a black fog-like smudge edging his figure. It made him seem like a beast of shadows. Though mostly hidden by the fog, I caught sight of what could have been bony claws at the end of his arms.
Yahiko lost what little height he had and shrank to about the height of my knee. He became round like a ball, but with pointy ears and eyes that were blood red. His teeth gave Kenshin's new set, a run for their money.
"Very good Kamiaya-san, that is exactly what we wanted to hear." They had given up all pretence of individual speech. None of their mouths moved, but I heard that same disturbing voice still.
These new, bastardized faces of my loved ones scared me more than anything else. These were faces I loved, faces were with me for years thought hardship and ease. It felt like watching someone spit on my fathers grave as they morphed into beasts. "Stop it! Whatever you are doing to their faces, stop it now. Go back to what you were. I don't want to see this!"
They paused, and Yahiko cocked his head in the way of a quizzical dog. "But did you not wish to know what we are? You did not believe us when you learnt of it, so perhaps we should show you."
"DON'T! I don't care what you are anymore. I just don't want this. Go back to how you were."
Kenshin shook his head. "What has been seen cannot be unlearnt. You have a guess as to what we are, but you know not our full purpose."
"But for your sake of mind, we shall do as you ask."
And just like that, they were back to who I remember. Their faces unchanged by any supernatural taint.
Sano, distinct and un-fogged, scratched at his chin. "Jou chan, you are playin' in deep fields." The booming voice was gone, and all that remained was a creature pretending to be Sano, right down to the voice and gesturing. I knew it was a pretence, an act if you will. I knew his real face was the stuff of nightmares. But I nearly burst into tears when I heard that old familiar drawl return.
Megumi scoffed, and her normal, white and maroon eyes flashed as they always did when she was annoyed. "Why is it humans always seem to have this amazing ability to ignore what is right in front of them? One shielding charm later and the world is its normal place again. You are aware Tanuki, that this shift of face changes nothing. You still have four death gods sitting in your presence?"
I swallowed thickly. "Yes. But at least now I can't think!" And it was true. Some primal part of me recognized those faces as 'safe' despite proof otherwise. And my mind, in this new climate returned to me to chew on a thought.
"Really? Thinkin' about what Busu?" Yahiko sneered.
I eyed all of them with distrust, waiting for any hint that could prove me wrong. "About why there are four 'shinigami' here to take one soul when my father only had one."
The thought had been niggling in the back of my mind. And if they couldn't tell me the whole thing, I was just going to have to tell them my suspicions and have them shoot down and agree with every one of them individually. "Unless there are four lives meant to go, not just one."
Sano smirked, and slumped against the wall. "Ten points to Jou-chan! There may be hope for you yet!"
I snapped my eyes shut and took a deep breath. The stabbing feeling of unease only got sharper in my chest. I had not wanted to be right about this.
"Why me?" I asked as I opened my eyes. "Why show yourself to me? Was it because I was not normal? Was a surrounded by too much death that I became tainted? Why Me?"
Kenshin cleared his throat softly and my eyes automatically fell to him, violet eyes and all. "Not all that comes to you is meant to be punishment Kaoru-dono. Fortune comes in strange forms." He did not speak through a mouth that was filled with knives, but he did speak in circles.
"Are you telling me this is meant to be a gift?!" In my ears, the loud thump of my heart got progressively louder with every word that seemed to be exchanged.
"Curses are only given to those who earn them Busu. You have no blood on your hands and no death on your conscience. You have no reason to be cursed, by death no less." In my ears, the thud of my heart grew louder and louder.
"If this is a gift, to see death. To foretell the deaths of those here, what kind of twisted god is this!" A strange voice whispered form the back of my mind. It sounded suspiciously like Enishi's and whispered to me to think. Think why the information was served to me at this point in time and not before.
"Think Tanuki!" Megumi ordered.
I could feel the puzzle pieces in my hand, all I had to do was put them in place.
"A gift is only good if you can use it…" I mumbled, trying to place my thoughts, "Information is used to change things…or stop something from happening…" The thunderous beating of my heart drowned out all thought….so close….I could taste the answer on the tip of my tongue.
There was a loud, earth shattering bang.
And I was blinded by sunlight.
"Sorry, Sorry, Sorry sensei. I tried to come as fast as I could, but my father wouldn't let me leave till I finished at the docks!"
I blinked away the sunlight and tried to make sense of the talking shadow blob in the doorway. The grey blob shifted, as though it was thoroughly uncomfortable and it seemed to be panting.
I blinked again a few times, squinted, and then blinked again. Finally the sharp stabs of sunlight faded to a bearable sight. The blob took a well recognized shape and color.
Take-kun.
I had forgotten that he was meant to come to the dojo at first light. Looking at the way the sun was streaming behind him, it was likely that it was now mid morning. He was three hours late.
"Take-kun?" I asked…my mind still somewhat hazy with shock.
"Sensei are you alright? Did anything happen last night? I met up with Misao-san said you were in the dojo, but you were running out and you shove hard sensei. I was running to your room when I heard you speaking to someone here….is there something you need to tell me?" Take spoke like a racing train when he was nervous or worried. It was only thanks to the years of listening to him, that I understood him at all.
I looked to the blank wall and now empty room around me. They had left. And I was supposed to put together the pieces they had given me all by myself.
"Damn it, you have to worst timing you know." I grumbled and glared at Take for good measure. The thought that I was so close to completing had long since evaporated from the fringes of my mind.
Take eyed me suspiciously. "Are you sure you're ok? Some idiot ripped through the sails of four of my fathers' ships and I had to stay back and organize the new ones to be delivered. I had to check up on Mana-chan on my way here. Sorry if I am late, but if the creepy white haired bastard was responsible for my fathers' ships, I'd eat my own bokken before I let him near her."
Kimihiro Manami(1) was Take's sweetheart for close to a year now. Her father, who also had a kendo dojo, approved of Take…about as much as a father could approve of a man trying to court his only daughter. Kimihiro-san insisted that Take take on the mantle of assistant master for two years before requesting Manami's hand in marriage. Take thought the man was being a pain in the ass. I knew Take was being groomed to take over Kimihiro-san's dojo.
Take's father did not like the idea one bit. He had plans for his son that involved ships, trade and the modern world. Take more or less told the man to go drown himself at every opportunity he could.
If Take thought Enishi had a vendetta against him, I was not surprised that he would check up on Manami's wellbeing before my own.
"I'm fine, I told you."
"Well you bloody well shouldn't be!" Take shrieked, obviously reaching the end point on his patience. "You have the head of the Shanghai underground lurking in your kitchen, you have the living version of a nightmare in your garden trees and you have a woman with more knives than half of Tokyo at your front door. What part of that is fine?!"
I blinked.
Take blinked.
I raised a fine brow.
Take blushed, "Ok….I might be a little high strung right now but doesn't mean that I'm wrong."
"Take-kun, you are so high strung, you are beginning to sound like a woman."
"Better a woman than dead! Why were you running from the dojo and who were you talking to, you didn't answer my question!" Take stomped. He hasn't stopped since he was fourteen and just had just been disarmed by a bare handed Yahiko in class.
I sighed. Keeping Take safe was going to be harder than I thought. "I was running from the dojo for my health as exercise and I was talking to myself. I do it sometimes to think." Both statements true. Running from a testy Enishi could only be good for me and the shinigami's themselves said they weren't a 'who' they were a 'what'. I love semantics.
"Really?" Sarcasm positively dripped from his voice. "That's great because Misao-san is freaking out outside because some weird guy is nearly here and I don't think he is coming here to sell you the latest type silk underwear."
"Strange guy?" my mind was already racing even as my body rose from it's kneel. "Did she say anything else?"
Take snorted. "Yeah, he said something about making sure that the ice-man was nearly here, and that he was running. Some fancy ninja code term for 'prepare for battle' I assu-"
I was out the door before he finished.
When I got to the front gate, an armed and ready Misao, and more surprisingly, a fully dressed Enishi were already waiting.
I tried my best not to look directly at him and focus solely on Misao. But I couldn't help but catch that feral twist of his lips that flashed teeth in either a very dangerous smirk or a deadly snarl.
Figures, the two emotions were probably the same for the man.
"What's going on?" I asked as I slowed down from my sprint. Behind me Take shadowed my speed.
Misao's eyes didn't move from its gaze on the upper edges of my closed front door. "Aoshi sent a pigeon ahead. He has company, and he's trying to waylay them with minimal damage." Her hand gripped a dagger at her hip so hard her knuckles were white.
I frowned. This did not sound good.
"Didn't you say that this Aoshi character was the head of a ninja clan of his own? Why would his own clan be hunting him down? Is it some kind of ninja mutiny?" Take asked. His eyebrows seemed to twitch strangely whenever he said the word 'ninja'. The poor boy was not used to so much drama at one go, and the addition of creepy gang leaders and ex-ninja's heads was making this day seem more and more like an excerpt of the two sen novels sold at the market.
Misao's eyes flickered to Take, and her lips twisted to a dark snarl. "The Oniwabashu is not responsible for this debacle. We don't know who is, but most likely it is another clan altogether. This is an attack, not a mutiny. Our ninjas' would die before they harm a hair on the Okashira's head, and have done so for generations. I would suggest you be very careful whose clan you insult."
Take took a careful step back from the steel in Misao's voice and I quietly noted the use of the word 'our ninja's' and saved it for later study. So perhaps Misao wasn't as free from her past as she would have liked us to believe.
There was a sudden flicker of movement. Nothing more than a brief flash of darkness form the peripherals of my sight, before it faded away to nothingness.
The only reason I was aware that Misao moved was because one moment she was there and the next she was not. I tensed, prepared for battle but fully aware that this was out of my league. This was like Kenshin's fights all over again. I knew that I was a decent fighter, but I was no war god. In flickers of black against the blue sky I saw the two points converge and disengage with rapid succession. If it wasn't for the fact that it was a battle, I would have sworn that this was a show of aerial gymnastics.
The two dots seemed equal in speed and strength and I found myself holding my breath and whispering out a prayer for Misao. I was so focused on the battle that I completely missed his movements until he spoke.
"Interesting moves you have there sensei." He whispered, lips inches from the shell of my ear.
I jumped, or would have if his hand hadn't been clamped around my waist. It was both a form of control and a method of discretion. From his position and at a quick glance, Take would have only seen Enishi standing behind me, a bit closer than usual, but nothing to shout home about. Any sharp twitch or move from me would have drawn Take's attention from the moving fighters. And if anything, I didn't want Take involved in this part of my game. So I was motionless and bound firmer than if Enishi tied me with rope.
Ironic that Enishi managed to get me in the identical state that he was only minutes earlier. This must have appealed to his sadistic side having me helpless in not only one but two ways. Helpless in the battle above me and helpless to stop him beside me. My eyes never wavered from their sight of the aerial battle, but my mind was very firmly on his body, on his heat.
And boy did he burn.
"How does the battle taste to you sensei?" Enishi's damp breath ticked the shell of my ear. "Do you feel their passion, their desire so very much like lust, but than again so much more. Or do you just see the outcome, the victor and the dead body." His hand, large and burning hot, moved down to the first bit of curve on my hip and then slid slowly back up to the very base of my bound breast. His slid this path over and over. "This is my world Kaoru. This is my game. We don't play with wooden swords, we don't shoot with empty guns. If you make a threat, you keep it. Either way you end up dead eventually. That is how the game works. Are you sure you want to join in?"
One of the two figures was thrown bodily against a tree, going cleanly through the branches and nearly though the trunk. The echoing wet crack drew goose bumps from my skin. There were a few broken bones, at the very least, in that body. Despite the gory display before me, I had made my decision this morning even as I gave him my offer. Enishi was giving me a way out, an escape route before I got in too deep in his 'game'. I had already made my decision this morning. My nod came easy, so did my cringe at the violence of the fight. With nothing more than a vague annoyance I bent my arm closest to him, so as to hide my shift from Take, and put my cold palm over his caging arm.
He wasn't expecting that. If possible he tensed further. I didn't have to hide my smirk at his discomfort. Enishi thought he could intimidate me by getting physical the same way I did with him. He couldn't, not after I figured out how much he needed my acceptance. Not after I figured out how much he needed me whole, willing and in any way he could have me. That need gave me a leash on this tiger, it was a delicate leash, but one that worked.
The second spot of shadow stilled but remained half hidden by the trees. It seemed to be waiting for the tree-smashed body to move. All of us waited on bated breath for any sign of movement, from either one of them.
"Game over." His voice was cheerful but his body still tense. His arm suddenly felt like a bone breaking vice on my ribs. Perhaps his hold on me was not as domineering as it seemed. With his arm around me and his back behind me, if some rogue ninja decided to become kunai happy in my direction, he was in a defensive position. Enishi was unsure of the outcome, no matter how collected he was attempting to be.
Everything was tense until the shadow came forward and the sunlight struck its face, highlighting the tiny shoulder length braid that was uniquely a part of the new Misao.
I released a breath I didn't even know I held. Thank god she won.
"It isn't god you should thank. Thank the bastard that thought her how to use those knives, and then threw her to the wolves so that she could master them." And as fast as he had grabbed me, Enishi moved away, disengaging my arm. I hadn't known that I had spoken the words out loud but perhaps Enishi was becoming a mind reader.
I took a shocked breath at his sudden unexpected departure and the sudden insurgance of cold air against my back. And as expected, Take picked up on my sudden shift.
"Are you alright sensei?" He asked shuffling his way beside me. He kept his eyes firmly on Misao. I felt nearly ill at the thought that I had perhaps caused my student to witness his first violent death.
I nodded. Not trusting my voice at the moment and not trusting myself to look behind me either. I could virtually feel the smug radiance of his smirk burning a patch in my back. Lord knows what he would have looked like if I had to look Enishi in the eye.
In the trees, Misao did a strange ninja hop towards Mr-possibly-dead-body and picked him up like a shoulder holster. She then promptly 'flickered' into a larger and larger spot of shadow until she finally jumped over the wall and landed smoothly on the ground.
Some small fickle part of me wanted to spit fire at her for the grace that I could never truly emulate.
"Looks like we have ourselves a hostage, ladies." Misao cheeked with a grin. She was no large woman, so the black clothed body she carried was either very small or very light.
"Hostage?" Take squeaked. "You mean breaking his back against the tree didn't put it out of its suffering?"
Misao snorted and began walking her way to the entrance of my receiving room, "Please, I gave him a baby tap. He's just being a pansy." She promptly threw the body on the wooden floor of the room. The figure let out a groan and curled itself into a fetal position. "See, perfectly alive. I could have taken him out halfway through the battle, but I prefer my trophies alive and of use to me. He is fast, but way too young to have gone through full training." Misao spoke as though she was commenting on a very interesting patch of cloud.
It was then I noticed how small the figure really was. He was no more than a child!
"And," Misao continued, raising her voice strangely, "It is impolite to stare and doubly so if you don't show yourself while you do it."
I frowned and the abrupt sentence, and somewhere behind me I could feel Enishi tense.
Like watching a man and a mirror they both appeared at both extremes of my sight.
To my right stepping out a pale lump of shadow provided by my garden wall was a very tall, very pale man. He was dressed, interestingly enough in a charcoal black western suite that looked slightly rumpled.
"Shinomuri." Enishi hissed.
To my left, a short, very well known red head popped up from seemingly nowhere. Kenshin strangely enough seemed to avoid looking at me entirely and seemed to have his attention focused on Aoshi. Having death appear in the middle of the day, could not, a good thing be. I did not feel the need to analyze this. I suspected I was a little high on hormones at the time to muster enough emotion to anything but vaguely worried.
Aoshi's eyes were as hard and as sharp as I remembered them from the last time Kenshin and I made a visit to Kyoto, which was years ago now. His eyes raked over everyone gathered there. Looking over Enishi and Take with equal amount of interest. His eyes stopped their roving when they fell upon Misao.
She smirked in an eerie way that reminded me of the first night I saw her. "I knew it was you. I could smell the zen all the way from the trees. How's the quest for enlightenment going for you Aoshi-sama?" She made 'sama' sound like a taunt.
I knew things had changed over the time they were appart. I knew years could remove a person's innards and replace them with a bitter, bitter poison. In my head I could see the Misao from years ago bounce up from her crouch and promptly shine her way to Aoshi as she often did in her youth. Her eyes would be alight with the brightness of youth and young love.
This Misao sounded virtually Sano-like in comparison.
Aoshi let out a shrug.
Misao smirked. "Figured as much. So are you going to just stand there or are you getting too old to move around without help?"
He didn't have to answer that one. One second he was next to the wall, the next he was in front of the doorway. There was no in between and the man clearly didn't need any help moving whatsoever, no matter what his age.
But what I didn't count on was a third shadow appearing right behind him when he shifted to the front door. In front of him, with raised naked blade and looking about as peace loving as Saito, Lee snarled. They appeared simultaneously. I was beginning to feel positively slow and bumbling compared to these lightning bolts.
Lee stood between Aoshi and Misao and seemed to be more than willing to put strategic holes in the head of the man who broke Misao's heart.
Misao rolled her eyes, ignoring how Take and myself looked like we were about to have identical strokes.
"Down boy." Misao grumbled and put a hand out to hold him back at the shoulder. But a second before she came in contact with him, she stopped and put her hand down as though touching would burn her. Looking at Lee, he looked high strung enough to snap at the first touch. "He is friend. Not foe."
Lee continued to snarl at Aoshi, not budging so much as an inch, obviously ignoring her.
"Lee. Stand down."
Enishi's voice didn't rise beyond its normal timber but one could catch the hint of 'or else'. "Shinimori, I would encourage you too keep a distance from both Misao and Kamiaya san. I will not be responsible for Lee's action if he should feel that his charges are under threat. And I will not intervene."
Lovely really, less than one minute here and Aoshi was already at the receiving end of two death threats. I think I was slipping up as a hostess. Aoshi turned away from the knife before him and raised a cultured eyebrow at Enishi as though to say 'him and what army'? Aoshi was clearly still a man of few words.
I sighed as Lee lowered his knife but very obviously did not sheathe it. I stepped forward because no one was doing anything polite right now and I figured since it was my house and I obviously had to remind them that I enforced a standard of behavior.
"Aoshi-san," I said, as cheerfully as I could. "It is good to see you." From this distance, I could see twin streaks of white hair at his temples and age lines beginning to deepen on his face. Aoshi was beginning to show his age of nearly 50, though not too much.
He turned his gaze at me. "Kamiaya-san." he nodded and then shifted his gaze for half a heartbeat to the corner where Kenshin's image stood before looking back at me. "It has been a while."
To my absolute horror, Kenshin smiled. "It is good to see you Aoshi-san. You have been away far too long." Aoshi gave a tiny acknowledging nod, so small that no one else was close enough to see.
I squeaked, I must have because suddenly all eyes were on me. But I turned, less than gracefully with a wide mouth to look at Kenshin and then to look at Aoshi. He could see Kenshin. This man could see death just as I could.
Somewhere between my ungraceful squeak, and my goldfish stare between the two of them, Aoshi figured it out. And his eyes widened nearly comically as he looked at me. I am certain there were quizzical looks all around, but none other than the two of us knew what was going on.
"It appears Kamiaya-san," Aoshi said stiffly but with a very curious flicker in his eyes, "We have much to discuss."
As Sano would put it…
No shit Sherlock.
Manami: "affectionate beauty" or "love sea."
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