Haruka kept on working but did look up at Kanako as she spoke. "Look ... I'm content to let the past be the past. I understand that you and Keitaro are partners in this unfortunate business and that the two of you have remarkable chemistry together, but I think you'll agree that you and I are unlikely to achieve anything much more than uneasy truce for the sake of our mutual friends. Believe it or not I'd rather not create any more unpleasant memories between us, I think there's quite enough already. So I think we'd all be better off if you and I just did our best to work around each other while you're here."
"I didn't come here to create more bad memories. And while I'm quite well aware that facing up to the unpleasantries of the past is not and has never been something that you've excelled at, I am not quite so content to just let the past stand as it is."
"Exactly why did you come here then, Kanako?"
"After a near death experience or two, you start to see the value in cleaning up your old messes and not leaving unfinished business in your wake. You of all people I know understand that concept, Haruka. I know it, you know it, and you know I know it, so even if you have no interest in perhaps patching up some old wounds surely you can at least grant me the courtesy of not playing me for a fool."
Haruka stopped what she was doing at her words and sighed. She stood still and silent for a moment, then purposefully set down the clipboard she'd been using and slowly walked over to the counter until she was standing just opposite of Kanako.
"Alright Kanako. I'm sorry."
Kanako was pleased that she'd won this small concession from Haruka. "Now, I'll return you the same courtesy - I won't pretend that I can make you either talk to me or listen to me because I know better than that. But I am going to say what I have to say regardless, and then my conscience will be clear. Whether or not you take any of it to heart or get a few things off your own chest is entirely your choice."
Haruka cocked an eyebrow and could not help but crack a thin smile. "I'm impressed, Kanako. Very smooth handoff of responsibility."
Kanako's eyes locked firmly into Haruka's. "Yeah, well, I learned from the best of them."
Haruka grabbed a stool herself and pulled it over to where she had been standing, leaning over on the counter and reestablished the eyeball lock that Kanako had made a moment before, although this time their faces were only a few inches apart. "Very well. I'll give this a chance. So, would you like to go first, or shall I?"
For the sake of what she was trying to do, Kanako resisted her immediate temptation, which was to give a sarcastic response. But she did crack a somewhat provocative smile. "For all your resistance, it would seem that you need this even more than I do. Why don't you go first."
Kanako's baiting of Haruka was working. The elder Urashima's face contorted slightly and signaled to her adoptive niece that her challenge was finally and unreservedly accepted even before she spoke. "Gosh, where do I begin ..."
Keitaro and Naru had gone for a walk, where Keitaro had more or less succeeded in encouraging pleasant conversation, if only after Naru succeeded in getting him to swear not to take 'unnecessary risks' in the fighting to come. By the time they got back home Naru was getting sleepy, but for the sake of maximum efficiency while working with his vampire partners Keitaro was on the night shift, and so he stayed with Naru until she was asleep, but then meandered outside to wait for Haruka and Kanako to return. By then the two had already been at it for several hours.
"... Now wait just a damn minute here! You're the one who went all-out bitch in the first place! What the hell did you expect me to do! Smile, do a little dance and walk away!" Kanako bellowed desperately. She had been quite sure of herself going into this little family therapy session and had planned on giving Haruka a good humbling, but she had underestimated her estranged aunt ... and, it seemed, overestimated the solidity of the ground on which she herself stood on the very issues she had intended to drag Haruka through the coals over. Haruka had defended herself much more successfully than Kanako had at all anticipated - far from driving Haruka into the ground, the intended 'humblee' remained firmly on her feet. As this was contrary to her plan thus far, Kanako was now the more agitated of the two, and Haruka would have been lying to say that she derived no pleasure from that fact.
"Yes, as a matter of fact, because putting your disgruntled, upstart ass in its place - going 'all-out bitch' as you call it - would not have been necessary had you not so grossly overstepped your bounds. For some reason you have no concept of action and consequence ... did you really expect me - or any of us - to smile, do a little dance and let you get away such an action as yours!"
Kanako seemed to ponder a response for a moment. Haruka let Kanako stew for that moment before driving her point home.
"You've got some prodigious nerve to stand here and accuse me of malice, you know that Kanako?" Haruka said, her voice low, quiet, and carrying her most menacing tone, the sort that may well have ended the argument right then and there against any lesser will than her adoptive niece. "Every single thing that I've ever done 'to' you was nothing more malicious than enacting the direct consequences of your own pompous and arrogant attempts to be the master of a family that is not even your own. Were it not for Keitaro's bond with you, and the perhaps insistence of a few others with patience greater than my own, I can actually assure you that many of those things would never have happened at all, as I would have personally seen to it that you were stripped of the Urashima name and sent on your merry way before half of them had ever gone down. Had you not left when you did, you'd probably be answering to a different name by now."
Kanako's expression darkened and her own tone and volume matched Haruka's menace for menace. "You flatter yourself, my dear Haruka. What could I possibly have ever done to leave you with the grave misconception that I would stop addressing myself as an Urashima just because you and your cronies within the family told me to? For someone who loves to claim 'protecting the family name' as much as you do, you sure presume an extraordinary lack of respect for it among everyone else."
"Let me tell yo..."
"No, let me tell you something," Kanako interrupted sharply, her voice changing again, this time to something more neutral. Almost audibly swallowing her pride, she decided to make her next move. "Though I doubt very much that you've ever thought so highly of me, I've never doubted the sincerity of your love for your family. Indeed, therein lay the heart of your problem - you love your family so much that you decided that no one else was allowed to. You thought that only you, and those personally approved by you, were worthy to be a part of it."
Most of the 'conversation' thus far could better be defined as an increasingly disorderly and angry exchange of accusations and even the occasional flat-out insult. Kanako's sudden shift in tactics took Haruka off guard. While she had certainly planned to blow off some steam, it had been Kanako's honest hope that by the end of their session she and Haruka might find some small measure of peace between them. Kanako's mind had for most of the night been running on the blow-off-steam mode. She smirked inwardly at leaving Haruka without a word on her tongue with her sudden shift away from angry accusation. Both of those things were items of exceptional rarity in the history of their interactions. Before her swallowed pride forced its way back up, Kanako continued.
" 'Pompous, arrogant attempts to be the master of a family that is not my own?' You're wrong. The FACT of the matter is that I loved this family even before I was adopted into it. Where you and I went afoul is when I moved for what I thought was best and it happened to conflict with your own ideas. Whereas any reasonable person would have recognized a simple conflict of ideas for what it was, you thought that the only way someone could have a vision for the family different than your own was for them to be a pompous, arrogant upstart. Or an idiot. Or a self-righteous bitch. Or any of the other words you used to describe it."
Haruka crossed her arms and bore her eyes even deeper into Kanako's in an effort to appear a little less off guard, but Kanako was not fooled. Encouraged though by Haruka's apparent receptiveness, she moved forward.
"You say I acted without thought? That my actions were selfish? My actions were not without thought. I knew exactly what I was doing, why, and what would most likely become of it. I was never taken by surprise at the backlash in my direction. I especially never had any doubt what you were going to do. Selfish? Over whom did we fight the nastiest - myself, or Keitaro? Or Benjiro? Or Setsuko? Or whichever family member happened to be the matter of concern at the time? And how do you perceive me as benefiting from making enemies with the most influential voices in the family? What on earth did I gain out of any of that? No, Haruka. If you stop for a moment to think honestly about it, you will see that it is you, not me, who acted most thoughtlessly. You never gave the slightest consideration or thought to why I was doing the things I was doing, you just ran with your automatic presumption that anything in opposition to you must be malignant in nature. Though you are no doubt at loathe to admit it, you may recall that almost every motion of mine that was carried against your kicking and screaming ended well for everyone involved. You probably caused everyone - not just you and I - at least as much stress as I did simply because you wanted to fight me over anything I ever did, said or suggested that involved another person. I'll admit that there were times when I should have backed down myself, I won't deny that I was just as bull-headed as you. Having said that, there were most definitely times when you should have backed off as well. But speaking of acting selfishly, sometimes you were more concerned with proving that you loved the family more and knew what was best better than me than with what was actually best for anyone - them, me, or even you yourself."
Haruka had slowly been absorbing Kanako's words as she spoke. Haruka seemed to be resisting, but Kanako thought she could see reluctant acknowledgement breaking through the stonewall in Haruka's demeanor.
"All of a sudden you have nothing to say? That's mighty hard to believe," Kanako said after letting the silence stand for a minute.
Haruka thought in silence for another minute or two before speaking. She took a deep breath before doing so.
"I have to admit, I'd never looked at things that way before. Much as it pains me to say it, I can't argue against your points."
Kanako thought prior to the moment that getting Haruka to this point would have left her brim full of self-satisfaction. Now that it had happened, Kanako felt no such thing.
"I have to accept my share of the responsibility for the way things turned out. I certainly could have handled some things better than I did, and I certainly did some things that I should not have done," Haruka continued solemnly.
"As did I," Kanako added quietly. "Speaking of which, I suppose I should take back some of the things I said earlier tonight."
Haruka huffed. "Don't go poking holes in your credibility after that little speech. That was good, honest, old-fashioned venting, as was the better part of what I said myself. It's only because of that we managed even as well as we did back in the day. Don't knock it."
Kanako was blank for a moment, but then smiled and let out a thin chuckle. "Right."
A moment of awkward silence.
"Well," began Kanako, standing up from her stool and stretching. "I'm sure you've got some work to do and it's getting late. I know that this might not have been the best time for you, but I thought this was indeed something that we should 'get over with.'" Kanako emphasized her last words in reference to what Haruka had said before Kanako had even set foot inside the shop.
"Anyway, I'm not operating under the illusion that years of anger and resentment can be swept away in one night, but may I at least operate under the assumption that it's something we can work on together from now on?"
Haruka regarded Kanako's question for a moment, then looked to her and smiled weakly. She said nothing, but offered her hand for a handshake. Kanako returned her smile and accepted the gesture. Their eyes stayed locked for the duration of the handshake, at the conclusion of which Kanako simply bowed politely and excused herself from the shop.
Keitaro had taken to pacing casually back and forth across the front porch as he waited. He heard the faint sounds of footsteps at about the same time he saw a solitary figure walking slowly up the path. Cocking an eyebrow, he broke his pace and walked down the steps towards Kanako. She seemed lost in her own thoughts, and didn't seem to notice Keitaro until he was nearly within soft speaking distance. She looked up and smiled at him as he walked up to her.
Keitaro allowed a moment's tact silence before asking the inevitable question. "How'd it go?"
Kanako chuckled lightly. "I'm surprised you didn't hear it for yourself from here."
Keitaro bore an expression of concern. "That bad, huh?"
Kanako shook her head. "It could hardly have gone any other way at first. As I'm sure you could have guessed, there was some steam to be blown off before any terms could be reached."
Keitaro nodded. "Yeah, I guess so."
They turned and started walking the remaining short distance to the Hinata Apartments.
"Where did Haruka go?" Asked Keitaro as they walked.
"She's still at the tea shop so far as I know. She didn't exactly get done whatever she had intended to do."
Keitaro looked over at her and smiled. "Well, I'm really happy that you did this. I was always in a difficult position with the two of you. I loved you both, and it always tore at me to see you guys have at each other the way you often did. I don't think Haruka would have taken the initiative here, so my hat's off to you for taking the first step."
Kanako just nodded silently and too Keitaro's hand in hers. They crossed the rest of the distance in silence. When they got inside, Keitaro took Kanako up to a guest room.
"The sun should be up in another hour or two. When exactly do you typically go to bed, anyway?" Keitaro asked as he helped Kanako put clips on the curtains to hold them shut.
"Within an hour or two of sunup when circumstances allow," she replied. She smiled wryly and looked at Keitaro. "I hope you Lycans are appreciative of having full run of the clock. It can be very inconvenient sometimes having to work around something as omnipresent as daylight."
"Well at least you vampire folk don't have to either find clothing that has about a ten size stretch or find yourselves naked at the end of a battle. Talk about inconvenient," Keitaro threw in with a smile of his own and a wink.
Kanako opened one of her bags and took out a laptop computer. "Do you guys have high-speed connections here?" She asked.
"We sure do. The connections are right over there by the desk."
"Good. Do you mind if connect to Gennai's network from here? Every part of the network and connecting to it is fully encrypted and secure, I can promise you that even if anyone tried there is no way they could trace it back here."
Keitaro laughed. "Go right ahead. Suu has tinkered around with our connections herself, also with the aim of making it impossible to trace something back here. Between her efforts and yours I'm not worried in the least."
Kanako smiled again. "Remind me to have at least one good conversation with her before we leave. I will check in and check for any new orders or developments or anything else that we should know."
"I'm quite confident in Suu's work to prevent our location from being automatically traced, but please don't tell them where we are, OK? Very few people even from my own Den know about this place, and I'd just assume no one else on your end know about it either."
Kanako nodded in understanding. "No problem. I doubt they'll even try to trace my location anyway. I habitually don't give them my precise whereabouts. They're used to it."
"Alright then, I'll leave you to your own business. I'll be in my room if you need anything."
"Thank you Keitaro. See you tomorrow."
"Good night."
Keitaro quietly closed the door to Kanako's room and made his way back to his, where Naru was sleeping. Silently slipping inside, he closed his door. Naru would probably be asleep for a good four or five more hours, and Keitaro really didn't think he'd get to sleep for at least another two or three, but after changing into some pajamas he nevertheless slowly snuggled himself under the sheets next to Naru, taking care not to disturb her. Once there, although he had not been especially tired, the heat from Naru's body and her slow, rhythmic breathing quickly soothed him, and he was asleep within an hour. Thus, he was not awake when about two hours after he had left Kanako's room, Kanako softly knocked on his door. Hearing no answer, Kanako had quietly opened the door a little. Peeking inside, she had stared at Keitaro for a moment, he and Naru now somewhat curled up together in their sleep, then lowered her eyes, looked away to the side, and closed the door again.