Whedon. Watsuki. Both names may start with W, but "wombat" still isn't either one of
them.
Edodale
By wombat
Chapter 7
A few afternoons later, Kaoru walked around Hiko's empty workshop. "Looks like that's
everything except for the dustbunnies under the sink."
"Excellent," Hiko puffed, setting down a set of shelves outside. The hallway was already
lined with cardboard boxes, all of them packed with containers of glaze mix or
newspaper-wrapped rakuware.
As Megumi started to help disassemble the shelves, Sano came back in from the parking
lot, dusting his hands together. "The Hikomobile is looking pretty full. You'd better drive
it over to the dojo now, or stuff is going to start falling out as soon as you turn the key."
"Well, we can't have that," Hiko said. "Very well, I'll return shortly. And I'm not to find
any of you playing catch with a vase this time, am I, Mr. Harris?" With one last carton in
his arms, he called back over his shoulder, "And ask Kenshin whether he needs anything
else. I have plenty of space on the return trips."
"Sure, if it's a space with interdimensional wormholes." Sano had taken Hiko's place at
the shelf frame, bracing it steady while Megumi detached the crossbars. "You heard the
man," he said to Kaoru, then snatched a pinched finger away from a wobbly shelf. "Go
on, scat."
Kaoru rolled her eyes at him, but went ahead down the hall to the empty kiln room. Even
without the kiln there any more, it wasn't a very big space, but it would have to do. After
all, they couldn't very well toss Kenshin back out for the flesh-puppets to hunt him down
again, so they'd decided to set him up in there. Despite the black sword's reaction,
Megumi's ofuda had held steady for everything else so far, and there wasn't any sign that
Kenshin's former associates knew he was inside the thoroughly ofuda-warded school.
When Kaoru knocked on the kiln room's door and opened it, Kenshin was sitting cross-
legged on his impromptu cot, nothing more than a sleeping bag laid out over Hiko's old
workbench beside the sink. Sano had actually brought in some of his own outgrown
clothing for him, and Kenshin was now wearing a rather baggy dark blue sweatshirt over
drastically belt-cinched and rolled-up jeans. However, he had stubbornly retained his
socks, and had even acquired more in the same color somehow. Megumi's theory was
that he dyed them with Kool-Aid powder, and there was certainly a faint, pleasant hint of
eau de fruit punch in the air, softening the lingering reek of raku-burnt sawdust. Kaoru
couldn't see enough of the sink to tell if it was stained mauve, but she had her suspicions.
Aside from the socks, he was looking almost respectable now, Kaoru thought. His
wounds had healed, he'd had the benefit of several nights' sound sleep in a safe place, and
he'd even showed back up in classes today. Even his hair looked happier, a russet tumble
falling cleanly from his topknot. He looked up from his notebook and took the pencil out
of his mouth, but Kaoru cleverly walked up to right in front of him, not leaving him
enough space to stand up to greet her. "Hey," she said. "How's the history chapter look?"
He moved aside a pile of textbooks to give her room to sit beside him. "I believe they
have some of the details wrong, actually. But as usual, it's likely better to give them the
answer they want rather than the answer that's right. Besides, it scarcely matters now."
"Should I ask?"
He glanced at her sideways. "Just one of those bits of historical trivia that are fascinating,
but completely wrong. As one of the better-known examples, there is no record of the
nursery rhyme 'Ring Around The Rosie' until the mid-nineteenth century, well after the
Black Plague had run its course. And this song is not a political allegory about religious
leadership in the nonviolent resistance movement."
She leaned over to read the page, nervously self-aware that it was only a pretext to hover
a little closer to him. Just yesterday, her mother had passed down the traditional warning
about the dangerously hapless (or was that haplessly dangerous?) charms of men from
Okusufodo, where both Hiko and Kenshin had been born and raised. And yet somehow,
that just increased the stakes. Kaoru had been ready to hate him to the point of vengeful
murder, but now after everything he'd said, all of that strong emotion had to find another
direction to flow.
"Um," she said. "This one here?" His handwriting had an archaic grace to it, with
beautiful loops and swirls that modern eyes were no longer trained to read. Her pointing
finger did not quite touch the notebook resting in his lap, but to see around her, Kenshin
placed a light hand on her shoulder and craned his head up until her ponytail was just
under his chin. When he recited the words, his warm breath stirred her hair.
"Three hunters went a-hunting
The falcon and the dove.
The falcon fell upon them
With talons from above.
The dove, she sang so sweetly,
She lulled the rest to sleep.
An angel flew to meet them all
And took their souls to keep.
"It started out as a drinking song," he said. "I first overheard it outside a tavern, not too
far from here. Later, someone set the same words to a softer melody, like a serenade or a
lullaby. I wonder how many children or lovers have gone to bed over the years while
listening to those words. But I suppose it's no worse than interpreting 'Every Breath You
Take' as a love ballad." His voice was low, with an undercurrent of past regret.
"It was written about you, wasn't it?" Kaoru half-turned toward him, only to find his face
inches from her own. He stayed perfectly still, moving neither forward nor back, but his
fingers tensed a little, causing the faintest rustle of friction between her shirt and her
shoulder. She couldn't stop looking at his mouth, the edges of his teeth a narrow pale
gleam behind slightly parted lips. "Kenshin?" she whispered.
"Miss Kaoru." Another delicate brush of warmth against her skin.
"Kenshin, I-- "
Someone knocked on the door, and they jerked away from each other as if bitten.
Megumi poked her head in. "Um, Sano and me got the shelves all taken apart." Kaoru
had a terrible feeling that her own face had turned as red as Megumi's or even Kenshin's
hair, but if so, Megumi was doing a wonderful job of pretending not to notice. "So we
were thinking, to save Mr. Hiko from getting charged under the child labor laws for
getting us to help him pack up and move all this stuff, we should make him buy us
dinner. Maybe at the Akabeko? Or would that be too awkward with your mom there?"
"The Akabeko sounds fine," Kaoru quickly said. "I should call Yahiko and see if he
wants to come too. I shouldn't keep leaving him stuck at home by himself in the
afternoons." She leaped up and fled down the hall to use Hiko's phone in the library.
---
After a few more weeks, the most significant change at school was that the library annex
entered a third phase of existence, having gone from office to workshop to mini-dojo.
Hiko seemed to take as much contemplative pleasure from helpfully thrashing Kenshin
around the room as he had from shaping pottery, but at least it was entirely without
malice, and either he was starting to ease up on him or Kenshin was improving after all.
Sano had also volunteered to be trained, but while Hiko had refused to initiate him into
Hiten Mitsurugi Ryuu, Kaoru decided that she needed to stay in practice as well.
To keep Yahiko company, she started to bring her friends home with her after school,
slowly drawing her brother back out by sparring with him with both sibling rivalry and
Kamiya Kasshin Ryuu. Megumi and Sano would join her there, but Kenshin never did.
He hadn't been alone with her since that day, and she wasn't sure which of them was
avoiding the other.
Kaoru wondered if he ever left the school at all now. He hadn't come with them to the
Akabeko that evening, he hadn't joined them in the three more night patrols they'd done
at the cemetery since then, and he didn't even have gym class as a reason to go outside.
She mentioned this to Megumi one Friday afternoon as they sat on the back step of her
house, watching Yahiko chase Sano around the big tree with his shinai.
"It can't be healthy," Kaoru fretted. "He never complains about cabin fever or anything,
but cafeteria food must be all he ever eats now, except when we bring him mochi balls
and treats like that."
"He's certainly getting plenty of exercise," Megumi pointed out. "I haven't seen his teeth
falling out from scurvy, and his grades are doing fine. Mens sana and also dens sanus in
corpore sano, which has nothing to do with our Mr. Harris over there, but what more
could any concerned parent ask?"
Kaoru shrugged. "Maybe a social life?"
"You mean like dating?" Megumi innocently asked. When Kaoru looked at her
reproachfully, she flashed a lopsided grin. "Oh, like you don't like him. He is awfully
sweet, and he can cook, and he can even dye his own socks without turning the rest of his
clothes funny colors."
"Aren't you forgetting something?"
"Like what?"
"Like the part where he wants me to kill him after we get the sakabatou back?"
"Oh yeah." Megumi's grin slumped with the rest of her. "Mr. Hiko took Kenshin's sword
to your old dojo, didn't he?"
"He locked it into the same case the sakabatou used to be in, since that already had some
major kami smackdown set up around it, and it's all hidden away behind some display
shelves. Did you get any Inari-type vibes from it before then?"
"It's not a happy sword." Megumi shivered. "It's hungry. And it's still linked to Kenshin
on a very deep level, but I haven't been able to figure out a good way to unlink them yet.
Or even if there is a way. Maybe I'll know a little more after tomorrow night."
"Patrol night? The last three have been pretty quiet, just a few flesh-puppets wandering
around in bad shape. I guess Kenshin said that Enishi can only bring up new ones at full
moon, so we're going to have a lot of them to deal with tomorrow. But what does that
have to do with the sword?"
"The guys didn't tell you?" Megumi looked a little panicked. "Mr. Hiko said he thinks
Kenshin should be ready to join us on patrol soon. I'm not sure if it'll be tomorrow
already, but pretty way soon. And the readiness thing sounds way past the typical Boy
Scout being-prepared drill."
Kaoru was puzzled by Megumi's mood. "Well, at least he'll finally get out of school.
Okay, so we give him the standard-issue silver-plated pointy fish and maybe one of the
crossbows he helped us put back together, or a wire-wrapped bokken and a steel weapon-
blocking thing. Or even just a lot of little sake bombs and a lighter. He'll be a lot of help
to us in a fight. Okay, so Hiko can still wipe the floor with him, but it takes longer now.
And every time he spars with Sano, Sano still gets TKO'd within a few minutes."
Megumi had been shaking her head all along. "No no no. Maybe we can give him our
weapons tomorrow night if he comes along. And if that was the only thing, I'd be total
happy happy joy joy here. But at some point, Mr. Hiko and Kenshin are thinking of
bringing the black sword out again."
---
"Are you completely nuts?" Kaoru demanded the next morning, still out of breath from
her bicycle ride. As before, she was confronting Hiko in her family dojo. A wall shrine
had been set up where her father had died, and a pattern of red camellias traced down the
hallway as a tribute to his fallen students, but otherwise the interior now looked more or
less like the artisan's gallery Hiko had converted it to. He only opened it on weekends,
selling most of his work online instead.
He finished poking at eBay or or whatever it was he was doing, powered down
his laptop, and stretched out his legs. "I've been discussing the sword with Kenshin and
Megumi for some time now. Tell me, do you still intend to avenge your father's death?"
"How can you even ask me that here?" She'd thought she was nearly over it now, but the
bitter grief threatened to rise up and drown her again.
"I'll take that as a 'yes'. Very well, how do you intend to do it?"
The painful lump in her throat dissolved out of sheer confusion. "I-- what do you mean?"
Hiko did the annoying glasses-polishing thing, settled them back onto his nose, and
sighed. "Kaoru, let me speak frankly. After what Kenshin told us, we know several things
about the culprits. They are almost certainly his four former associates, who were once
the same sort of creature that he was as Battousai. Like him, while remaining immortal,
they've been weakened, and no longer wreak havoc by devouring people's souls. Unlike
him, their reason for the last is not because they no longer wish it, but rather because they
have been rendered unable. If they can possibly recover that ability, they will certainly
attempt to do so, and will use it without mercy if they succeed. On the other hand,
Kenshin appears to be still fully capable of using his sword to regain his powers as
Battousai, except that his conscience has prevented him from doing so."
"And he's not going to," Kaoru insisted, then checked herself. "Is he?"
"If I may continue for a moment? As you appear to have noticed, Kenshin himself is a
delightful individual, if a bit morose at times, but one can hardly blame him for that. We
must assume that it was demonic possession that made this paragon into a monster.
"Now, what sort of transformation might we expect in the others? One of them, for
example, was once a miko rather like our Megumi: earnest, determined, and willing to
risk her life to destroy him. This Tomoe didn't seek out power for its own sake, any more
than Kenshin had when he went to confront that first warrior. The stories of the others are
much the same.
"So do you intend to destroy them entirely, or only the demonic element inside them
while sparing the humans they once were?"
"Oh." Kaoru sat down suddenly on the floor, stunned. "What should I do?"
"It's not my place to tell you." He folded his hands and contemplated them. "This is the
redress that you are seeking for your own rightful grievance; whatever you choose to do,
I think that all of us are willing to help you accomplish it. But we cannot tell you what
form of justice would satisfy you and the honor of your family. Only you can do that."
"I don't-- " She made herself breathe deeply. "So we could do either one? The sakabatou
dispels the demon by destroying the body it's in, right?"
"At least temporarily. However, we have not yet recovered it, and may be unable to do so
until we've defeated all of Kenshin's former followers. We may be able to do so with a
combination of tactics similar to what we've already used on the flesh-puppets: relatively
ordinary silver weapons, ofuda, fire, and the occasional divine intervention."
"So by the time we can get the sakabatou back, we won't need it any more."
He shrugged. "Except for Kenshin. As long as he and his sword still exist, his followers
will be able to recoalesce from their dust. It may take months or years, but eventually
they'll return to the world. To end the cycle, you must destroy the demonic presence at its
root."
"And that means him." She was not going to cry. Not now. "And what about the other
way?"
"That appears to be somewhat more permanent." Hiko picked up a printout with
Megumi's familiar scrawl in the margins, as well as some of Kenshin's flowing script. "If
it works correctly, it will prevent them from devouring souls ever again, and may even
return them to normal human status. At the least, they'll be rather like Kenshin, still
nearly immortal but with their own souls restored to them. However, their own weapons
will be destroyed in the process, removing the chance of returning to their former... mode
of existence, let us say."
"Break their weapons, give their souls back, kick the demons out. That doesn't sound so
bad," Kaoru said, feeling happier. "Will this work for Kenshin too?"
He handed her the printout and looked at her over the top of his glasses. "No," he said.
"And this method utterly depends on his cooperation. If he's been extremely clever all
this time, he will certainly use this opportunity to destroy us all. And even if he hasn't,
there's still a risk that it may happen, regardless of his intentions now."
Her eyes were blurring over again, and she couldn't read the words. "This is the part that
involves his sword?"
"Indeed." Rather to her surprise, Hiko took a jug off the shelf behind him, poured some
of its contents into a shallow bowl, and slugged it straight down. She knew that jug. It
was part of their patrol kit, and it was full of sake. If anything, though, the sake shot
simply made him more intense. "It will involve Kenshin, and his sword, and Kenshin
using his sword. In short, it will require him to become Battousai."
---
Kenshin whistled to himself as he washed Sano's donated clothing in the kiln room's sink,
saving his socks for last. He had a few more furnishings now: an electric hot pot for late-
night ramen, a bowl and chopsticks, a small set of shelves, and best of all, a laundry rack.
One by one, he wrung out each item and spread it out on the rack, where the draft from
the window would dry everything by the next day. He was down to his last pair of clean
socks, as well as his old wardrobe which the girls had convinced him was no longer fit to
be seen in public. "The worn knees are just so mid-80s," Kaoru had teased, and he had to
admit that it had been impossible to find thread that matched the color of his shirt. He had
been able to mend each tear in the fabric, but the repairs were all visible as neat lines of
stitches that were a little too pink, or purple, or blue.
When he heard footsteps running down the hall outside and then a knock at his door, he
was slightly startled, but dried his hands on his jeans and went to see who it was. "Miss
Kaoru? To what do I owe the-- "
She pushed past him and shoved back against the door, closing it. "What do you think
you're doing?" He looked at the laundry rack. She slapped his face back toward her, hard
enough to draw the taste of blood inside his cheek. "I just talked to Hiko about this brave
new plan. Tell me you're not serious."
"If I told you that, I would be lying." He made a half-hearted gesture encouraging her to
sit down, but she wouldn't budge, her eyes as hot as molten cobalt glass.
"Do you actually want to turn back into Battousai and make me kill you early?"
"Now that you've phrased it that way, yes."
That last word seemed to hang between them, sucking all the air from her lungs in a sharp
exhalation. Faltering, she turned away from him and slumped with her head bowed
against the wall. When he touched her arm, she slapped him away again, but she was
crying. Not flagrantly, but with a low moan in her throat like distant winter wind, and her
face was streaming wet.
"Miss Kaoru," he tried again, then shook his head and stepped backwards to the
workbench. He sat down with his elbows hard against his thighs, buried his face in his
hands, and waited for her to reach out to him again, even if it would be another attack.
After a while, he felt her touch on his head like a blessing. She was standing directly in
front of him, like the last time she had come to his room, and there was no escaping her
now.
She sniffled fiercely and wiped her nose on her sleeve. "You could've at least told me
yourself in the first place." Her voice was rougher now, more ragged. "I know you
haven't wanted to talk to me, but this should've been an exception."
Kenshin glanced at the bench as another invitation to sit down beside him, but she
wouldn't. He would have to state this directly, then, not hint around it any more in
sidelong conversation. He looked up at her, the deep blue eyes and lovely rose lips still
beautiful even when narrowed in anger. "You're right," he said. "I am sorry for any grief
I've caused. But it's not that I haven't wished to speak to you, or be near you. I simply
can't afford the risk."
"What risk?" she demanded.
How could he tell her in a way she'd understand? "Unless Mr. Hiko and Miss Megumi
can find a way to disentangle my existence from that sword-- and so far, they have not
found even a hint or a hope that it might be possible-- then all of this, no matter what we
do, will lead up to a time when you must kill me to remove that demon from the world
forever. You must be willing to kill me. And I must be willing to die."
Her hand made a little movement at her side, toward him and back. "So you don't want
me to get too attached? Like kicking a dog so it'll run away on its own instead of
following you?"
"No," he breathed, "no. Kaoru, I-- " He couldn't face her any more, and bowed his head
over the pain inside him. "When I'm near you, I want to live. I want to stay in the world,
living and breathing, with you. And as Battousai, I would fight you to the edge of hell, if
only to take you with me. We can't do this. I can't."
She dropped to her knees before him. Now her face was tilted up into the light, still
silvered over with the tracks of her tears. "Go ahead and say it. You can't what?"
It leapt out despite himself, and he cursed his heart for betraying him as he heard his
voice burst out. "Love you," it said.
Like a lioness, she sprang up from her haunches and pulled him down, her mouth
devouring and consuming his until there was no more breath for words.
---
"Well, don't both of you look perky," Megumi greeted them behind the cemetery gate.
"Too many green tea mochi balls again?"
Kaoru glanced guiltily at Kenshin, who did have that sort of strung-out overcaffeinated
look. It probably meant that she did too. As soon as she started to wrench the bottom of
his shirt up from his jeans, he'd broken away and held her at a distance. "We can't," he'd
said, his eyes dark and wild against his pale face. "Not ever again, and not even now." To
every objection she'd made, he'd simply shaken his head, refusing to acquiesce. No, and
no, and again no, even though every sinew in his body was straining toward her except
for the ones that were holding her away.
So there was nothing they could do after that except walk to the cemetery, even though it
was only an advance planning session. Hiko wasn't going to join them until nearly sunset,
when he closed the gallery, but Sano was already wandering around in search of trouble.
He waved at them from the top of the hill, the silvered fishbone in his hand glinting gold
in the early afternoon light. Megumi was sitting next to a pile of large test tubes, writing
on their sides with a magic marker to make her latest experimental ofuda.
"At least you won't be eating our supplies the way someone always does," Megumi
continued, jerking an elbow in Sano's direction. "If one of you wants to help make plugs
for these, I've got mochi dough in a plastic bag. All you have to do is add some salt and
knead it in from the outside of the bag so your hands don't get sticky. There's no point
rolling out the little balls until Mr. Hiko brings the sake to fill the tubes with."
Quickly, Kaoru grabbed the box of salt and shook some into the bag, squeezing the
mochi paste inside it. A second later, Kenshin headed uphill toward Sano without having
said a word, his pace quick and jerky. Megumi paused mid-ofuda. "Does he have his
cranky pants on today or something? I didn't even know he had cranky pants, but maybe
Sano gave him an old pair."
"Let's please not talk about his pants." Kaoru muttered, blushing furiously.
Megumi gaped at her. "No. You didn't."
"We sure didn't."
"Is everything okay with both of you? Or either of you, or even just you? I mean, if you
were squishing that mochi dough any harder, I wouldn't just be thinking, 'Why didn't I
just put unmochified sticky rice in there?', but possibly even, 'I bet she could squish
mochi out of dry raw rice'."
"I went to talk to him about the anti-demon plans, that's all. Hiko told me about the
supposedly temporary-Battousai one. What do you think?"
Though still looking concerned, Megumi went along with the change of topic. "Um, well,
that's really the beauty of that plan. I don't know if any of the Enishigumi have seen us
yet, but once they do, especially if we're waving around swords and fish, they won't want
to make nice with us. But they already know Kenshin and they'll want to see if he can
turn their soul vacuums back on, so they'll have to talk to him all friendly-like. So then he
can get them when they're not expecting it, and if the whole plan works, he can
undemonize them at the same time."
"But if it doesn't work, we'll have at least one live hellblade on the soulsucking circuit,
and maybe two."
"Kenshin sounded pretty sure he can do it, if he can hang onto his self-control long
enough." Megumi gave Kaoru another long look.
"Oh," Kaoru said, with mixed emotions. "In that case, it's going to work after all."
---
Kenshin kicked a rock back and forth with his new sneakers, hands stuffed into his
pockets. Walking beside him on the cemetery path, Sano flipped his fishbone in the air.
After a while, he said, "So what's the plan?"
"Plan?"
"Megumi and Hiko have been muttering to each other about your sword for weeks now.
They find a way to get rid of it yet?"
"We have a way. Miss Kaoru kills me with the sakabatou."
Sano smacked Kenshin across the back of his head, causing an "oro" to pop out. "I meant
a different way. Unless that's really what you want, even if they come up with something
better. Seems pretty lousy to force her into assisting your suicide, though. She doesn't
want to."
"I know." Kenshin rubbed the base of his topknot, a little reproachfully.
"Come on, there has to be another way. You've had three years to mess with it. What've
you tried? Freight train? Volcano? Industrial grinder? See, you haven't even started to
explore the possibilities."
Casually, Kenshin unbuttoned the cuff of one of his sleeves. "Mr. Harris, I believe there
was an incident last week when you put one of your silver-plated fishbones onto my
sword's blade to see what would happen."
"Megumi told you? We put the fire out before Hiko got back."
"No, Miss Megumi has not told me anything. I suppose the sword heated up to the flash
point of some paper nearby?"
"Yeah, after the fish melted. I was pretty bummed; it was one of my fav-- holy jeebus,"
Sano blurted.
Beneath the rolled-up sleeve, the pattern of a fishbone was still branded into Kenshin's
arm. "Any mechanical way to destroy it would almost certainly kill me as well, but both
conditions would be only temporary. In all the things I've experienced over the past three
years, it has always reappeared next to my side when I revived, no matter what had
happened to it or me. The only loophole I can think of is to transfer its ownership to
someone else, who would certainly not deserve the death that I have earned."
Sano shook his head. "Sheesh. Isn't there anything that might make you want to live
through this?" They had walked down the other side of the hill and come back around it
by now, heading back toward the girls at the gate. When Kenshin didn't say anything,
Sano poked him with an elbow and glanced down at him quizzically, followed the
direction he was looking in, and then absorbed the expression on his face. "Oh, holy
freaking crap in a sidecar," Sano mumbled.
Kenshin closed his eyes for a moment, nearly stumbling on loose pavement. "My
thoughts exactly, Mr. Harris."
-----
I was just going to have Kaoru bash Kenshin around a few times and then hand him to the
scantily-clad undead girl, but evidently Kaoru won the jello wrestling match this time.
Yet another weak "next chapter" pledge, while Yumi waves her naginata around
impatiently.
chapter title: the start of Romeo's last line in that play with Juliet.
Okusufodo: I got tired of just vaguely talking about their home village, and finally gave it
a name. (It's where they make Gileses.)
song tunes: While I make no claims for the poetic merit of the lyrics, they've been written
for the most interchangeable set of melodies in existence. Tee hee. Anything that
alternates lines of 8 (or in this case, 7) syllables with lines of 6 (or occasionally 5)
syllables can be sung to tunes ranging from "The Yellow Rose of Texas" and "La
Cucaracha" to "Ode to Joy" and "It Came Upon The Midnight Clear". Best-fit renditions
may require a certain amount of melismata (singing the same syllable over several notes).
Among my favorites in this genre are the alphabet to the tune of "House of the Rising
Sun" and the words of "Old MacDonald" to the tune of "Amazing Grace" (you get very
soulful EIEIOs).
them.
Edodale
By wombat
Chapter 7
A few afternoons later, Kaoru walked around Hiko's empty workshop. "Looks like that's
everything except for the dustbunnies under the sink."
"Excellent," Hiko puffed, setting down a set of shelves outside. The hallway was already
lined with cardboard boxes, all of them packed with containers of glaze mix or
newspaper-wrapped rakuware.
As Megumi started to help disassemble the shelves, Sano came back in from the parking
lot, dusting his hands together. "The Hikomobile is looking pretty full. You'd better drive
it over to the dojo now, or stuff is going to start falling out as soon as you turn the key."
"Well, we can't have that," Hiko said. "Very well, I'll return shortly. And I'm not to find
any of you playing catch with a vase this time, am I, Mr. Harris?" With one last carton in
his arms, he called back over his shoulder, "And ask Kenshin whether he needs anything
else. I have plenty of space on the return trips."
"Sure, if it's a space with interdimensional wormholes." Sano had taken Hiko's place at
the shelf frame, bracing it steady while Megumi detached the crossbars. "You heard the
man," he said to Kaoru, then snatched a pinched finger away from a wobbly shelf. "Go
on, scat."
Kaoru rolled her eyes at him, but went ahead down the hall to the empty kiln room. Even
without the kiln there any more, it wasn't a very big space, but it would have to do. After
all, they couldn't very well toss Kenshin back out for the flesh-puppets to hunt him down
again, so they'd decided to set him up in there. Despite the black sword's reaction,
Megumi's ofuda had held steady for everything else so far, and there wasn't any sign that
Kenshin's former associates knew he was inside the thoroughly ofuda-warded school.
When Kaoru knocked on the kiln room's door and opened it, Kenshin was sitting cross-
legged on his impromptu cot, nothing more than a sleeping bag laid out over Hiko's old
workbench beside the sink. Sano had actually brought in some of his own outgrown
clothing for him, and Kenshin was now wearing a rather baggy dark blue sweatshirt over
drastically belt-cinched and rolled-up jeans. However, he had stubbornly retained his
socks, and had even acquired more in the same color somehow. Megumi's theory was
that he dyed them with Kool-Aid powder, and there was certainly a faint, pleasant hint of
eau de fruit punch in the air, softening the lingering reek of raku-burnt sawdust. Kaoru
couldn't see enough of the sink to tell if it was stained mauve, but she had her suspicions.
Aside from the socks, he was looking almost respectable now, Kaoru thought. His
wounds had healed, he'd had the benefit of several nights' sound sleep in a safe place, and
he'd even showed back up in classes today. Even his hair looked happier, a russet tumble
falling cleanly from his topknot. He looked up from his notebook and took the pencil out
of his mouth, but Kaoru cleverly walked up to right in front of him, not leaving him
enough space to stand up to greet her. "Hey," she said. "How's the history chapter look?"
He moved aside a pile of textbooks to give her room to sit beside him. "I believe they
have some of the details wrong, actually. But as usual, it's likely better to give them the
answer they want rather than the answer that's right. Besides, it scarcely matters now."
"Should I ask?"
He glanced at her sideways. "Just one of those bits of historical trivia that are fascinating,
but completely wrong. As one of the better-known examples, there is no record of the
nursery rhyme 'Ring Around The Rosie' until the mid-nineteenth century, well after the
Black Plague had run its course. And this song is not a political allegory about religious
leadership in the nonviolent resistance movement."
She leaned over to read the page, nervously self-aware that it was only a pretext to hover
a little closer to him. Just yesterday, her mother had passed down the traditional warning
about the dangerously hapless (or was that haplessly dangerous?) charms of men from
Okusufodo, where both Hiko and Kenshin had been born and raised. And yet somehow,
that just increased the stakes. Kaoru had been ready to hate him to the point of vengeful
murder, but now after everything he'd said, all of that strong emotion had to find another
direction to flow.
"Um," she said. "This one here?" His handwriting had an archaic grace to it, with
beautiful loops and swirls that modern eyes were no longer trained to read. Her pointing
finger did not quite touch the notebook resting in his lap, but to see around her, Kenshin
placed a light hand on her shoulder and craned his head up until her ponytail was just
under his chin. When he recited the words, his warm breath stirred her hair.
"Three hunters went a-hunting
The falcon and the dove.
The falcon fell upon them
With talons from above.
The dove, she sang so sweetly,
She lulled the rest to sleep.
An angel flew to meet them all
And took their souls to keep.
"It started out as a drinking song," he said. "I first overheard it outside a tavern, not too
far from here. Later, someone set the same words to a softer melody, like a serenade or a
lullaby. I wonder how many children or lovers have gone to bed over the years while
listening to those words. But I suppose it's no worse than interpreting 'Every Breath You
Take' as a love ballad." His voice was low, with an undercurrent of past regret.
"It was written about you, wasn't it?" Kaoru half-turned toward him, only to find his face
inches from her own. He stayed perfectly still, moving neither forward nor back, but his
fingers tensed a little, causing the faintest rustle of friction between her shirt and her
shoulder. She couldn't stop looking at his mouth, the edges of his teeth a narrow pale
gleam behind slightly parted lips. "Kenshin?" she whispered.
"Miss Kaoru." Another delicate brush of warmth against her skin.
"Kenshin, I-- "
Someone knocked on the door, and they jerked away from each other as if bitten.
Megumi poked her head in. "Um, Sano and me got the shelves all taken apart." Kaoru
had a terrible feeling that her own face had turned as red as Megumi's or even Kenshin's
hair, but if so, Megumi was doing a wonderful job of pretending not to notice. "So we
were thinking, to save Mr. Hiko from getting charged under the child labor laws for
getting us to help him pack up and move all this stuff, we should make him buy us
dinner. Maybe at the Akabeko? Or would that be too awkward with your mom there?"
"The Akabeko sounds fine," Kaoru quickly said. "I should call Yahiko and see if he
wants to come too. I shouldn't keep leaving him stuck at home by himself in the
afternoons." She leaped up and fled down the hall to use Hiko's phone in the library.
---
After a few more weeks, the most significant change at school was that the library annex
entered a third phase of existence, having gone from office to workshop to mini-dojo.
Hiko seemed to take as much contemplative pleasure from helpfully thrashing Kenshin
around the room as he had from shaping pottery, but at least it was entirely without
malice, and either he was starting to ease up on him or Kenshin was improving after all.
Sano had also volunteered to be trained, but while Hiko had refused to initiate him into
Hiten Mitsurugi Ryuu, Kaoru decided that she needed to stay in practice as well.
To keep Yahiko company, she started to bring her friends home with her after school,
slowly drawing her brother back out by sparring with him with both sibling rivalry and
Kamiya Kasshin Ryuu. Megumi and Sano would join her there, but Kenshin never did.
He hadn't been alone with her since that day, and she wasn't sure which of them was
avoiding the other.
Kaoru wondered if he ever left the school at all now. He hadn't come with them to the
Akabeko that evening, he hadn't joined them in the three more night patrols they'd done
at the cemetery since then, and he didn't even have gym class as a reason to go outside.
She mentioned this to Megumi one Friday afternoon as they sat on the back step of her
house, watching Yahiko chase Sano around the big tree with his shinai.
"It can't be healthy," Kaoru fretted. "He never complains about cabin fever or anything,
but cafeteria food must be all he ever eats now, except when we bring him mochi balls
and treats like that."
"He's certainly getting plenty of exercise," Megumi pointed out. "I haven't seen his teeth
falling out from scurvy, and his grades are doing fine. Mens sana and also dens sanus in
corpore sano, which has nothing to do with our Mr. Harris over there, but what more
could any concerned parent ask?"
Kaoru shrugged. "Maybe a social life?"
"You mean like dating?" Megumi innocently asked. When Kaoru looked at her
reproachfully, she flashed a lopsided grin. "Oh, like you don't like him. He is awfully
sweet, and he can cook, and he can even dye his own socks without turning the rest of his
clothes funny colors."
"Aren't you forgetting something?"
"Like what?"
"Like the part where he wants me to kill him after we get the sakabatou back?"
"Oh yeah." Megumi's grin slumped with the rest of her. "Mr. Hiko took Kenshin's sword
to your old dojo, didn't he?"
"He locked it into the same case the sakabatou used to be in, since that already had some
major kami smackdown set up around it, and it's all hidden away behind some display
shelves. Did you get any Inari-type vibes from it before then?"
"It's not a happy sword." Megumi shivered. "It's hungry. And it's still linked to Kenshin
on a very deep level, but I haven't been able to figure out a good way to unlink them yet.
Or even if there is a way. Maybe I'll know a little more after tomorrow night."
"Patrol night? The last three have been pretty quiet, just a few flesh-puppets wandering
around in bad shape. I guess Kenshin said that Enishi can only bring up new ones at full
moon, so we're going to have a lot of them to deal with tomorrow. But what does that
have to do with the sword?"
"The guys didn't tell you?" Megumi looked a little panicked. "Mr. Hiko said he thinks
Kenshin should be ready to join us on patrol soon. I'm not sure if it'll be tomorrow
already, but pretty way soon. And the readiness thing sounds way past the typical Boy
Scout being-prepared drill."
Kaoru was puzzled by Megumi's mood. "Well, at least he'll finally get out of school.
Okay, so we give him the standard-issue silver-plated pointy fish and maybe one of the
crossbows he helped us put back together, or a wire-wrapped bokken and a steel weapon-
blocking thing. Or even just a lot of little sake bombs and a lighter. He'll be a lot of help
to us in a fight. Okay, so Hiko can still wipe the floor with him, but it takes longer now.
And every time he spars with Sano, Sano still gets TKO'd within a few minutes."
Megumi had been shaking her head all along. "No no no. Maybe we can give him our
weapons tomorrow night if he comes along. And if that was the only thing, I'd be total
happy happy joy joy here. But at some point, Mr. Hiko and Kenshin are thinking of
bringing the black sword out again."
---
"Are you completely nuts?" Kaoru demanded the next morning, still out of breath from
her bicycle ride. As before, she was confronting Hiko in her family dojo. A wall shrine
had been set up where her father had died, and a pattern of red camellias traced down the
hallway as a tribute to his fallen students, but otherwise the interior now looked more or
less like the artisan's gallery Hiko had converted it to. He only opened it on weekends,
selling most of his work online instead.
He finished poking at eBay or or whatever it was he was doing, powered down
his laptop, and stretched out his legs. "I've been discussing the sword with Kenshin and
Megumi for some time now. Tell me, do you still intend to avenge your father's death?"
"How can you even ask me that here?" She'd thought she was nearly over it now, but the
bitter grief threatened to rise up and drown her again.
"I'll take that as a 'yes'. Very well, how do you intend to do it?"
The painful lump in her throat dissolved out of sheer confusion. "I-- what do you mean?"
Hiko did the annoying glasses-polishing thing, settled them back onto his nose, and
sighed. "Kaoru, let me speak frankly. After what Kenshin told us, we know several things
about the culprits. They are almost certainly his four former associates, who were once
the same sort of creature that he was as Battousai. Like him, while remaining immortal,
they've been weakened, and no longer wreak havoc by devouring people's souls. Unlike
him, their reason for the last is not because they no longer wish it, but rather because they
have been rendered unable. If they can possibly recover that ability, they will certainly
attempt to do so, and will use it without mercy if they succeed. On the other hand,
Kenshin appears to be still fully capable of using his sword to regain his powers as
Battousai, except that his conscience has prevented him from doing so."
"And he's not going to," Kaoru insisted, then checked herself. "Is he?"
"If I may continue for a moment? As you appear to have noticed, Kenshin himself is a
delightful individual, if a bit morose at times, but one can hardly blame him for that. We
must assume that it was demonic possession that made this paragon into a monster.
"Now, what sort of transformation might we expect in the others? One of them, for
example, was once a miko rather like our Megumi: earnest, determined, and willing to
risk her life to destroy him. This Tomoe didn't seek out power for its own sake, any more
than Kenshin had when he went to confront that first warrior. The stories of the others are
much the same.
"So do you intend to destroy them entirely, or only the demonic element inside them
while sparing the humans they once were?"
"Oh." Kaoru sat down suddenly on the floor, stunned. "What should I do?"
"It's not my place to tell you." He folded his hands and contemplated them. "This is the
redress that you are seeking for your own rightful grievance; whatever you choose to do,
I think that all of us are willing to help you accomplish it. But we cannot tell you what
form of justice would satisfy you and the honor of your family. Only you can do that."
"I don't-- " She made herself breathe deeply. "So we could do either one? The sakabatou
dispels the demon by destroying the body it's in, right?"
"At least temporarily. However, we have not yet recovered it, and may be unable to do so
until we've defeated all of Kenshin's former followers. We may be able to do so with a
combination of tactics similar to what we've already used on the flesh-puppets: relatively
ordinary silver weapons, ofuda, fire, and the occasional divine intervention."
"So by the time we can get the sakabatou back, we won't need it any more."
He shrugged. "Except for Kenshin. As long as he and his sword still exist, his followers
will be able to recoalesce from their dust. It may take months or years, but eventually
they'll return to the world. To end the cycle, you must destroy the demonic presence at its
root."
"And that means him." She was not going to cry. Not now. "And what about the other
way?"
"That appears to be somewhat more permanent." Hiko picked up a printout with
Megumi's familiar scrawl in the margins, as well as some of Kenshin's flowing script. "If
it works correctly, it will prevent them from devouring souls ever again, and may even
return them to normal human status. At the least, they'll be rather like Kenshin, still
nearly immortal but with their own souls restored to them. However, their own weapons
will be destroyed in the process, removing the chance of returning to their former... mode
of existence, let us say."
"Break their weapons, give their souls back, kick the demons out. That doesn't sound so
bad," Kaoru said, feeling happier. "Will this work for Kenshin too?"
He handed her the printout and looked at her over the top of his glasses. "No," he said.
"And this method utterly depends on his cooperation. If he's been extremely clever all
this time, he will certainly use this opportunity to destroy us all. And even if he hasn't,
there's still a risk that it may happen, regardless of his intentions now."
Her eyes were blurring over again, and she couldn't read the words. "This is the part that
involves his sword?"
"Indeed." Rather to her surprise, Hiko took a jug off the shelf behind him, poured some
of its contents into a shallow bowl, and slugged it straight down. She knew that jug. It
was part of their patrol kit, and it was full of sake. If anything, though, the sake shot
simply made him more intense. "It will involve Kenshin, and his sword, and Kenshin
using his sword. In short, it will require him to become Battousai."
---
Kenshin whistled to himself as he washed Sano's donated clothing in the kiln room's sink,
saving his socks for last. He had a few more furnishings now: an electric hot pot for late-
night ramen, a bowl and chopsticks, a small set of shelves, and best of all, a laundry rack.
One by one, he wrung out each item and spread it out on the rack, where the draft from
the window would dry everything by the next day. He was down to his last pair of clean
socks, as well as his old wardrobe which the girls had convinced him was no longer fit to
be seen in public. "The worn knees are just so mid-80s," Kaoru had teased, and he had to
admit that it had been impossible to find thread that matched the color of his shirt. He had
been able to mend each tear in the fabric, but the repairs were all visible as neat lines of
stitches that were a little too pink, or purple, or blue.
When he heard footsteps running down the hall outside and then a knock at his door, he
was slightly startled, but dried his hands on his jeans and went to see who it was. "Miss
Kaoru? To what do I owe the-- "
She pushed past him and shoved back against the door, closing it. "What do you think
you're doing?" He looked at the laundry rack. She slapped his face back toward her, hard
enough to draw the taste of blood inside his cheek. "I just talked to Hiko about this brave
new plan. Tell me you're not serious."
"If I told you that, I would be lying." He made a half-hearted gesture encouraging her to
sit down, but she wouldn't budge, her eyes as hot as molten cobalt glass.
"Do you actually want to turn back into Battousai and make me kill you early?"
"Now that you've phrased it that way, yes."
That last word seemed to hang between them, sucking all the air from her lungs in a sharp
exhalation. Faltering, she turned away from him and slumped with her head bowed
against the wall. When he touched her arm, she slapped him away again, but she was
crying. Not flagrantly, but with a low moan in her throat like distant winter wind, and her
face was streaming wet.
"Miss Kaoru," he tried again, then shook his head and stepped backwards to the
workbench. He sat down with his elbows hard against his thighs, buried his face in his
hands, and waited for her to reach out to him again, even if it would be another attack.
After a while, he felt her touch on his head like a blessing. She was standing directly in
front of him, like the last time she had come to his room, and there was no escaping her
now.
She sniffled fiercely and wiped her nose on her sleeve. "You could've at least told me
yourself in the first place." Her voice was rougher now, more ragged. "I know you
haven't wanted to talk to me, but this should've been an exception."
Kenshin glanced at the bench as another invitation to sit down beside him, but she
wouldn't. He would have to state this directly, then, not hint around it any more in
sidelong conversation. He looked up at her, the deep blue eyes and lovely rose lips still
beautiful even when narrowed in anger. "You're right," he said. "I am sorry for any grief
I've caused. But it's not that I haven't wished to speak to you, or be near you. I simply
can't afford the risk."
"What risk?" she demanded.
How could he tell her in a way she'd understand? "Unless Mr. Hiko and Miss Megumi
can find a way to disentangle my existence from that sword-- and so far, they have not
found even a hint or a hope that it might be possible-- then all of this, no matter what we
do, will lead up to a time when you must kill me to remove that demon from the world
forever. You must be willing to kill me. And I must be willing to die."
Her hand made a little movement at her side, toward him and back. "So you don't want
me to get too attached? Like kicking a dog so it'll run away on its own instead of
following you?"
"No," he breathed, "no. Kaoru, I-- " He couldn't face her any more, and bowed his head
over the pain inside him. "When I'm near you, I want to live. I want to stay in the world,
living and breathing, with you. And as Battousai, I would fight you to the edge of hell, if
only to take you with me. We can't do this. I can't."
She dropped to her knees before him. Now her face was tilted up into the light, still
silvered over with the tracks of her tears. "Go ahead and say it. You can't what?"
It leapt out despite himself, and he cursed his heart for betraying him as he heard his
voice burst out. "Love you," it said.
Like a lioness, she sprang up from her haunches and pulled him down, her mouth
devouring and consuming his until there was no more breath for words.
---
"Well, don't both of you look perky," Megumi greeted them behind the cemetery gate.
"Too many green tea mochi balls again?"
Kaoru glanced guiltily at Kenshin, who did have that sort of strung-out overcaffeinated
look. It probably meant that she did too. As soon as she started to wrench the bottom of
his shirt up from his jeans, he'd broken away and held her at a distance. "We can't," he'd
said, his eyes dark and wild against his pale face. "Not ever again, and not even now." To
every objection she'd made, he'd simply shaken his head, refusing to acquiesce. No, and
no, and again no, even though every sinew in his body was straining toward her except
for the ones that were holding her away.
So there was nothing they could do after that except walk to the cemetery, even though it
was only an advance planning session. Hiko wasn't going to join them until nearly sunset,
when he closed the gallery, but Sano was already wandering around in search of trouble.
He waved at them from the top of the hill, the silvered fishbone in his hand glinting gold
in the early afternoon light. Megumi was sitting next to a pile of large test tubes, writing
on their sides with a magic marker to make her latest experimental ofuda.
"At least you won't be eating our supplies the way someone always does," Megumi
continued, jerking an elbow in Sano's direction. "If one of you wants to help make plugs
for these, I've got mochi dough in a plastic bag. All you have to do is add some salt and
knead it in from the outside of the bag so your hands don't get sticky. There's no point
rolling out the little balls until Mr. Hiko brings the sake to fill the tubes with."
Quickly, Kaoru grabbed the box of salt and shook some into the bag, squeezing the
mochi paste inside it. A second later, Kenshin headed uphill toward Sano without having
said a word, his pace quick and jerky. Megumi paused mid-ofuda. "Does he have his
cranky pants on today or something? I didn't even know he had cranky pants, but maybe
Sano gave him an old pair."
"Let's please not talk about his pants." Kaoru muttered, blushing furiously.
Megumi gaped at her. "No. You didn't."
"We sure didn't."
"Is everything okay with both of you? Or either of you, or even just you? I mean, if you
were squishing that mochi dough any harder, I wouldn't just be thinking, 'Why didn't I
just put unmochified sticky rice in there?', but possibly even, 'I bet she could squish
mochi out of dry raw rice'."
"I went to talk to him about the anti-demon plans, that's all. Hiko told me about the
supposedly temporary-Battousai one. What do you think?"
Though still looking concerned, Megumi went along with the change of topic. "Um, well,
that's really the beauty of that plan. I don't know if any of the Enishigumi have seen us
yet, but once they do, especially if we're waving around swords and fish, they won't want
to make nice with us. But they already know Kenshin and they'll want to see if he can
turn their soul vacuums back on, so they'll have to talk to him all friendly-like. So then he
can get them when they're not expecting it, and if the whole plan works, he can
undemonize them at the same time."
"But if it doesn't work, we'll have at least one live hellblade on the soulsucking circuit,
and maybe two."
"Kenshin sounded pretty sure he can do it, if he can hang onto his self-control long
enough." Megumi gave Kaoru another long look.
"Oh," Kaoru said, with mixed emotions. "In that case, it's going to work after all."
---
Kenshin kicked a rock back and forth with his new sneakers, hands stuffed into his
pockets. Walking beside him on the cemetery path, Sano flipped his fishbone in the air.
After a while, he said, "So what's the plan?"
"Plan?"
"Megumi and Hiko have been muttering to each other about your sword for weeks now.
They find a way to get rid of it yet?"
"We have a way. Miss Kaoru kills me with the sakabatou."
Sano smacked Kenshin across the back of his head, causing an "oro" to pop out. "I meant
a different way. Unless that's really what you want, even if they come up with something
better. Seems pretty lousy to force her into assisting your suicide, though. She doesn't
want to."
"I know." Kenshin rubbed the base of his topknot, a little reproachfully.
"Come on, there has to be another way. You've had three years to mess with it. What've
you tried? Freight train? Volcano? Industrial grinder? See, you haven't even started to
explore the possibilities."
Casually, Kenshin unbuttoned the cuff of one of his sleeves. "Mr. Harris, I believe there
was an incident last week when you put one of your silver-plated fishbones onto my
sword's blade to see what would happen."
"Megumi told you? We put the fire out before Hiko got back."
"No, Miss Megumi has not told me anything. I suppose the sword heated up to the flash
point of some paper nearby?"
"Yeah, after the fish melted. I was pretty bummed; it was one of my fav-- holy jeebus,"
Sano blurted.
Beneath the rolled-up sleeve, the pattern of a fishbone was still branded into Kenshin's
arm. "Any mechanical way to destroy it would almost certainly kill me as well, but both
conditions would be only temporary. In all the things I've experienced over the past three
years, it has always reappeared next to my side when I revived, no matter what had
happened to it or me. The only loophole I can think of is to transfer its ownership to
someone else, who would certainly not deserve the death that I have earned."
Sano shook his head. "Sheesh. Isn't there anything that might make you want to live
through this?" They had walked down the other side of the hill and come back around it
by now, heading back toward the girls at the gate. When Kenshin didn't say anything,
Sano poked him with an elbow and glanced down at him quizzically, followed the
direction he was looking in, and then absorbed the expression on his face. "Oh, holy
freaking crap in a sidecar," Sano mumbled.
Kenshin closed his eyes for a moment, nearly stumbling on loose pavement. "My
thoughts exactly, Mr. Harris."
-----
I was just going to have Kaoru bash Kenshin around a few times and then hand him to the
scantily-clad undead girl, but evidently Kaoru won the jello wrestling match this time.
Yet another weak "next chapter" pledge, while Yumi waves her naginata around
impatiently.
chapter title: the start of Romeo's last line in that play with Juliet.
Okusufodo: I got tired of just vaguely talking about their home village, and finally gave it
a name. (It's where they make Gileses.)
song tunes: While I make no claims for the poetic merit of the lyrics, they've been written
for the most interchangeable set of melodies in existence. Tee hee. Anything that
alternates lines of 8 (or in this case, 7) syllables with lines of 6 (or occasionally 5)
syllables can be sung to tunes ranging from "The Yellow Rose of Texas" and "La
Cucaracha" to "Ode to Joy" and "It Came Upon The Midnight Clear". Best-fit renditions
may require a certain amount of melismata (singing the same syllable over several notes).
Among my favorites in this genre are the alphabet to the tune of "House of the Rising
Sun" and the words of "Old MacDonald" to the tune of "Amazing Grace" (you get very
soulful EIEIOs).