In the coldness and distance of the gray spaces Kenshin knelt, trying to find the peace that had been denied him. What horrible trickery existed that could fill his mind so full of lies? Kenshin, who had only ever desired the truth, no matter what it was, had fallen in love with the lie.

He breathed in through his teeth, the cold bite of the air across them fading against his warm tongue. He had stripped away the clothes and for a while had tried to cut off his wings. He knew he could be mortal again. He could live his life and die and would cross the bridge and it would be as if none of this would have ever happened. However, he forgot that he couldn't reach his own wings, even with the sword, with enough strength to actually cut them off. So watery red streams matted the feathers and dripped on either side of his spine to pool behind him and leave his toes pink with the attempt to escape this fate he had chosen.

Everything was cold, but nothing would numb. He felt only the stinging cold, and could not even find relief in the removal of sensation. So when a small hand rested on his shoulder, its heat surprised him, and he looked into a pair of soft brown eyes. Brown like earth, and hair that was jet, but not dark and shadowed, there was something reddish in there that gave it a warmth. Her skin was a deep reddish brown, and she smelled very distinctly of freshly tilled earth, rain, things that grow. When she spoke, the warmth in her voice seemed to warm to him, "You'll get cold out here."

He blinked at her. She was dressed so strangely, and he smelled another scent on her, and around her. She smelled like leather and tobacco. When she sat down, she crossed her legs and still she looked at him, waiting for his answer.

"I don't think it matters," he replied, "What can it do? Kill me?"

He tried to see past the illusion and into what she really was, as he had with Hikari and Firrin and Agape.

She shook her head, "You have a lot to learn." She didn't seem to change.

"Who are you?" he asked.

She shrugged, "I am what I am. A name won't change or improve that. Besides, should you be asking yourself that question?"

She had a roundish face with high cheekbones and thin lips. Her nose was a little broad, but her eyes always seemed to be smiling at him.

"Why?" he asked.

"Because that's the question you would really like to answer, isn't it?"

That was starting to get bothersome. She seemed to continuously answer his questions with more questions.

Like any of the kami, she seemed to read his mind, "That's because there are no real answers. Each answer only leads to more questions, each truth only leads to more lies."

She spoke as if she knew what he had seen, and he started to ask her, but she answered him before he could ask, "There is always more than one truth. What color is the sea?"

"Blue," he answered.

"Isn't it green, also? And gray?"

He thought about that. "At times."

"But isn't it just as true to say the sea is green as it is to say the sea is blue?"

"At times."

"There is always more than one truth. You choose which you can see and which you will not."

He was fascinated by her, this nameless thing that sat with him in place that could closely be called nowhere.

"I regret choices I have made."

She nodded, "And that regretting does something good for you?"

He looked at her in confusion.

She rephrased, "What good does it do to regret things you have done? If you have caused problems, does regret make them go away? Or would action make them go away?"

"I tried to act, but I can't reach my wings."

She shook her head, "That's running away. Escaping doesn't solve anything either."

"What am I supposed to do?" he asked, "There seems to be some sort of plan that I can't follow or understand."

She traced her fingers into the cold gray ground in front her, "Why can't you understand it?"

"If I knew that, then I would have the answer."

"If you had all the answers, you would be the master, and not the servant."

"You seem to have all the answers."

She shook her head, "I only understand that all I have are questions."

"Then what good are you to me?" Kenshin regretted the words even before they escaped his lips. The bitter cold did seem to be numbing something.

"You're getting cold," she answered, not the least bit phased by his remark.

As if outside his own will, "You have a penchant for pointing out the obvious." Why couldn't he shut up? Why was he saying such mean things?

"You have a penchant for not noticing the obvious, so we make a good pair right now."

"You're trying to evade me."

She shook her head, "I don't think your question is worth questioning. However, I must point out, as much good as you are for yourself, right now, little spirit, are you really in a position to judge what is good for you?"

"I have had enough of judging and finding the truth. I would rather live the oblivious lie than have ever had to face this."

"Which hurts worse, little spirit?" she asked, "That they were not the illusion you had made for them, or that you were not the illusion you had made for yourself?"

"I didn't lie to myself. She lied to me. She made me see things better than they were."

"Little spirit," she sighed and shook her head, "You have much to learn."

"I have nothing left to learn," Kenshin said, "Knowledge only brings pain. I can't bear to know anything else, it hurts too much."

"And yet, you know nothing. Is it not the nothingness that hurts, not the knowledge?"

He looked at her again in confusion.

"A very simple story. A man once had a beautiful golden cup. He showed his cup to his friends and family and they all agreed it was a very beautiful cup. Having the cup gave him great joy. He would take it out in the sunshine and watch the light dance off of it; he would take it indoors and smile into the warmth of it. And everyone he met, he showed the golden cup to. And almost everyone said that it was a beautiful cup and he should be very happy."

"Almost everyone. The man showed his cup to a traveling man one day and said 'See my beautiful golden cup! There is none like it in the world.' The traveler agreed and drank from his own plain wooden cup. The man with the golden cup asked what the traveler was doing. 'I'm sorry,' said the traveler, 'My cup is not as glorious as yours, but I am thirsty, and my cup is not empty.' The man with the golden cup suddenly saw that his cup was empty. He suddenly felt thirsty, but when he tried to drink from his cup, it was empty. Then he was miserable, as he had a thirst and a cup, but the cup was empty. He would never know relief or joy until that cup was filled."

"Just like you. You have a beautiful cup, and you know the emptiness, the thirst that can't be sated unless your cup is filled. Now you want to empty your cup, because the drink in it is not sweet?"

Kenshin looked down pensively, "I thought this was to be a life of true paradise. I could serve mankind, which makes me happy, and know love and happiness. I should have known it was all too good to be true. She lied to me."

She shook her head, "Not really. You heard the truth you wanted to hear. Yours is a life of service, not of leisure. Your joy is in service. So live in service, not in demand. Your misery springs from your demands."

Kenshin pondered that for moment. Hikari had always made it clear that this existence was one of service; even up to the minute he had made his decision. The stranger was right; he had fallen in love with a lie he created for himself. "But what about the…" He couldn't bring himself to say what he had seen.

She made a sort of face, as if she were trying to soften her look to hide her resentment, "It was the truth. But so was what you saw before that moment. Remember who was there. Truth opened your mind to another possibility. And frankly, Truth can be brutal and cruel. This is not good and evil, or beautiful and ugly. You are both things. If you were one or the other, you wouldn't be very real, would you? You can't be perfect. No one would ever pay attention to you if you were perfect. People don't like things that are perfect. They like things that are close. But everything must have a flaw."

Kenshin breathed deeply, "And what is your flaw?"

She pursed her lips together in thought, "Probably that I offer too much advice." Her eyes danced with laughter that never left her lips. Her smile was quietly serene.

Kenshin smiled in return, he couldn't have helped it. Despite the smile, he said, "I don't think I can go back to her."

"Go back to whom?"

"Hikari."

The name merited a mildly confused look, "You'll have to forgive me, I know you by your jobs, not your names. All of you tend to have so many names it gets confusing."

"Justice," Kenshin corrected himself.

"Ah," she sighed, knowingly.

"What?"

"There is more than one truth to Justice as well. Remember that they were all mortal before they were here. Everything and everyone was mortal before they came here. Perhaps if you knew what her mortal life had been like, you could understand her better."

"She was never mortal," Kenshin said.

"Yes she was," said the other spirit.

"How do you know?" he asked.

"Because Truth and Justice are not the oldest things in this neighborhood." She answered.

"You know?"

"I also remember."

"Tell me."

She shook her head in reply, "If they want to talk about it, they will."

"But I thought there no secrets here, everyone's heart is laid bare. Besides, Hikari says that she's forgotten."

"She probably has, not that I would blame her."

"You must tell me," he pleaded.

She shook her head, "If she says that I can, then I will. Until then, I think you should go talk to her. She brought you here, after all."

Kenshin sighed, and stood up, every joint crying out in protest. He felt the cold of his own blood under his toes. She stood up beside him and held out a robe to him, "Here," she said.

He accepted the robe gratefully, "Thank you. Who do I say has shown me what it means to do my job?"

She shrugged, "Names are unimportant. You have three. Shinta, Kenshin, Battousai. Does any one of them hold any more sway over you than any of the others?"

He shrugged as he pulled on the robe she had given him. The rough cotton stung over the wounds in his back. "I just wish I could know who you are."

"Why didn't you just ask?"

"I did."

"Oh. I was being enigmatic and got caught up in the moment."

He furrowed his brows at her and she smiled pleasantly, "I don't carry titles, I don't have names. I don't need to. But my job. I'm the voice."

She blinked at her, not in surprise, but in confusion. She confused him greatly, but somehow, he thought he had learned something from her. He wasn't trying to get out this place. He was trying to understand his place in it.