Celle-ci ne suis pas Watsuki Nobuhiro ou Joss Whedon.
Edodale
By wombat
Chapter 17
Megumi flopped down onto the nearest bench in the gazebo. She wasn't sure what time it
must be by now, but she felt completely wiped out. Her latest outfit was getting awfully
uncomfortable, too; no wonder Tomoe had ditched it and gotten back into that nightgown
instead. She'd barely closed her eyes when Sano came crashing down the path, racing
right past her to follow the bright path of moonlight across the floor. Before she could say
anything, he lunged down toward the muddy red hair smeared across the opposite side,
dragged out the attached body from under its own bench, and shook it frantically.
"Megumi? Hey, Megumi!"
"You mooshed my origami foxes," she accused, making him leap all the way out again.
"Kenshin's been totally zonked for a while now, so I bet you can't wake him up either.
Where did Mr. Hiko go?"
Recovering, Sano peeked back in and around at her, finally spotting her in the shadows.
"He's out in the courtyard with Yumi. And that Tomoe chick. And a fishbone in his
shoulder. Is that Kenshin? What the hell happened to him?"
"I dunno, but I guess my foxes didn't chase off Tomoe after all. You fishboned Hiko and
lived to tell about it?"
"No, that Enishi guy did, just before he went up in a puff of smoke. Actually, it smelled
kind of like the incense you've got going in here. Did you do that?"
"Wow. I guess whatever I was doing worked after all. Yay me! Oh, speaking of which,
did you drop Kenshin onto the incense burner? That's gotta hurt."
Hastily, Sano rolled Kenshin around the floor to quench his smoldering sweater, which
ended up with fir twigs and crushed origami stuck all over it with little globs of mochi.
"Did Kaoru just leave him like this? That's pretty rude."
"Leave him like what? I bet he-- oh, yuck," Megumi blurted as she got a good look at
Kenshin. She'd only glanced at the back of his sweater before, and except for all the mud,
it had looked basically normal. This was so not true of the rest of him. "Is he going to be
okay?"
Sano grimaced. "Guess we should rinse him off and see if there's anything missing.
Kaoru must've been really mad at him. Did she have to watch him making out with
Tomoe this time?"
"Hiko said Kaoru left before I got here, so I dunno. I thought Kenshin just wandered in
and passed out, but maybe Tomoe dropped him off here on her way to the courtyard.
What's she doing over there?"
"She's kind of busy being dead too. And like I said, Enishi already went poof, so it should
be pretty safe now. Think we should go ask Hiko what to do next?"
"I guess. Just give me a moment to get up and barf, will you?"
Sano held her hair out of the way while she threw up onto the grass of the little island.
"By the way," he said, "you win that bet about not waking Kenshin up."
After a while, Yumi staggered into view under Hiko's unwounded shoulder. She half-
dragged him to the gazebo before starting to unsling the weapons she was also carrying.
Her knife was hanging at her belt, as usual, but Hiko's sword had been awkwardly tucked
under her arm and was getting snagged in her jacket hardware. "Hey, Megitsune-chan--
you okay?"
"Miss Rosenberg?" Hiko enquired, leaning heavily against a support post.
Megumi grimaced and spat out some last bitter strings of slime. "Oh, just go on in and sit
down. Never mind the origami foxes, Sano squished most of them already. Someone else
squished Kenshin, though."
Startled, Yumi took a closer look at the gazebo floor. "Oh, yuck!"
"Yeah, that was pretty much Megumi's diagnosis too. So, what the heck do we do with
him now?"
"Perhaps a good start would be to bring Miss Yukishiro here as well, if you would be so
kind as to assist Miss Komagata." As Sano followed Yumi down the path, Megumi made
her way over to the bench next to where Hiko was still standing. He didn't look in much
better shape than Kenshin. Well, actually, he did, but it was still pretty lousy shape.
"Those are some serious multiple compound fishbones in your shoulder. Should I try to
get them out?"
"Perhaps it would be prudent to seek out some form of anesthetic first. I don't suppose
there's any more sake left?"
"Nope. Sake all go bye-bye fall down. Like I bet you will if you don't sit down already.
Jeez, if you bleed much more, your shirt's going to look like one of Kenshin's."
Faced with these dire predictions, Hiko sat down. "I assume Kenshin himself will recover
shortly," he said, poking the muddy sweater with his katana and a complete lack of
concern.
"He'd better, or Kaoru's going to kill him. Sano said Enishi went after you? At least until
I managed to zap him somehow, but--"
"That was your doing? Good heavens. He simply evaporated. What did you do, and
how?"
"I don't know." Now that Megumi thought about it, she really didn't know. "It just
seemed like a good idea at the time," she said haltingly. "Almost like I'd done that before,
only different. I don't even recognize some of the words I was chanting. Do you think
maybe--" She broke off as Sano returned with Tomoe over his shoulder.
Tagging in behind him, Yumi set down the box of crossbow bolts and tossed a small rock
to Hiko. "Here's her topaz, boss. Guess we can give it back to her when she wakes up,
whenever that is. Too bad she doesn't have a health plan, unless you want to hire her on
the spot and give her a benefits package. On the other hand, all they really did with me
was apply the hospital versions of Gatorade and Pocari Sweat for a few days, so maybe
we can just try to pour that kind of stuff down her throat."
As Sano draped Tomoe over an available bench, Kenshin's coat fell partially open over
her nightgown. Despite the ethanolic drizzle that had fallen over them earlier, no smears
had spread from the neat script written down the line of buttons. "Dear me," Hiko said.
"Is that her own work? It must have been rather difficult to write out everything clearly
from that angle. Very robust ink, too."
"Well, she wrote it out when I was wearing that," Megumi said, edging away. "And she
used my blood to do it."
"Oh dear." Hiko winced in sympathy, and again when Yumi slapped his hand away from
the metal splinters in his shoulder.
"We'll have to get you to the hospital too, to take all those fishbone pieces out. Hope you
can think of some way to explain them, because I'm out of ideas for tonight."
"Are you?" He raised an eyebrow or two.
"Oh. That thing with Enishi? Yeah, maybe I could've handled that better." Yumi's fidget
intensified. "Sorry, I didn't mean to put it that way. Oh dang it, I meant--" Confused,
Megumi glanced at Sano, but he didn't look like he knew what they were talking about
either.
"I intended no recrimination nor offense," Hiko said, more awkwardly than Megumi
would've thought possible outside of librarian mode. "In any case, evidently his departure
was Miss Rosenberg's doing. But perhaps you might know where he went just now, or
when he may return?"
Yumi shook her head, loosening a few more dead leaves from her hair. "I've never seen
anything like that, except when we were hit with the sakabatou. But that left our weapons
behind, and he took his watou with him just now. Think he's still out there somewhere? I
did a quick run partway down the stairs and I didn't see him trying to scramble up the
torii again, but that doesn't mean he isn't waiting at the bottom for us."
Sano pulled the last few fishbones out of the box. "I'll go take a look. Back in a minute."
"Hey Sano, wait!"
"He'll be okay. At least if he has the sense to stay under the torii," Yumi called after him
as a reminder, then turned back to Hiko. "So if the kid says it's safe, can you handle the
stairs by yourself? Dunno if we'll all fit into your car, but I don't think you're going to be
shifting any more gears tonight. I guess we finally get to find out if I know how to drive
that thing."
"I beg your pardon, but perhaps that won't be necessary." The tentative whisper surprised
all of them, but nearly sent Megumi into blind panic as Tomoe sat up. "I'm terribly sorry
about what my brother and I did to you, Miss... Rosenberg, I believe you said?" Megumi
nodded, but didn't step back inside the gazebo. "And I apologize to you as well, Yumi.
I've been very poor company for the past few years, but I hope to make amends for that
now." Finally, she glanced shyly at Hiko, wrapping Kenshin's coat completely closed as
she rose to her feet. "I'm very pleased to meet you, Mr.--?"
"Rupert Hiko at your service, Miss Yukishiro."
The golden fire had left Tomoe's eyes, which now shone only with pale echoes of the
moon above their dark depths of sorrow. "May I take a closer look at your shoulder? The
original weapon seems to have been silver-plated, if I'm not mistaken?"
"Yeah," Yumi said, begrudgingly moving out from between her and Hiko "What're you
doing up so fast?"
"I'm afraid I used the energy from Kenshin's life-force while it was still linked to mine.
Otherwise, I would never have had the strength to bring myself and Miss Rosenberg here,
nor heal our wounds. By the way," she added even more quietly, "he loves Miss Kamiya-
Summers very much." She bent to scoop up some pale slush from the walkway outside.
"Well, duh," Yumi said. "So why are you putting snow onto the boss now?"
"Actually, I believe it's sake-dampened salt."
"Hey!" Yumi knocked it away from Hiko before Tomoe could put more than a dab of it
into the wound, but its effects were disproportionate to the actual amount. Like iron
filings jumping into the lines of force above a magnet, the metal splinters popped out of
his shoulder, reassembled themselves into a fishbone, and dropped neatly onto the
ground. So did Tomoe.
"Goodness me." Hiko flexed his shoulder. It appeared completely healed, with only the
jagged holes through his coat and clothing left as a reminder. "I don't know whether to
hope that she does or doesn't make a regular habit of this sort of thing."
"Whoa." Despite herself, Megumi was impressed. "Hey, Sano," she called out to him as
he returned, "You just missed the coolest thing ever."
"Did it involve free food and naked women?" He ducked the reassembled fishbone she
threw at him. "No Enishi, but the other car's still parked down there. Megumi, are your
parents around? Your stepdad called us at Kaoru's house to come meet you, so they know
you're here."
"Oh, that would've been from the airport. He and my mom have a medical conference all
next week and they took Ayame and Suzume with them, too. So at least no one's waiting
up for me, but it's going to feel a lot creepier staying alone in the house than I thought it
would."
Hiko gave her an oddly exasperated look over Sano's shoulder. "Presumably the other car
is completely irrelevant. I propose that all of us set up camp in the gallery for tonight. It's
reasonably well-protected and supplied, and we can stand guard in shifts if need be. We
can also keep watch on Tomoe and Kenshin until they revive again."
"Well, as long as they're not going anywhere, they can be the ones to wait here for the
second trip," Sano suggested, but Hiko shrugged.
"I see no reason why we can't manage everyone in a single run. Miss Rosenberg and Miss
Yukishiro both ought to fit easily into the back seat of my car, I believe, and Miss
Komagata and I will take the front. Mr. Harris can follow us on Miss Rosenberg's
bicycle." Sano did not look grateful at this solution.
Yumi patted Megumi's arm. "Don't worry, it doesn't look like Tomoe's going to freak out
any more. And if she does before we get there, you can always hit her over the head with
a fishbone."
"But Mr. Hiko, you forgot about Kenshin."
"Certainly not," Hiko said, bending to lift the limp body. "In his current state, I doubt
he'll object to being packed into the boot."
---
About fifteen minutes after going to bed, Kaoru realized her bicycle was still locked into
the back of the car. So much for that idea. Well, it was an awfully long way to walk back
to the shrine, especially this late at night, so she climbed back into her bedroom window
and went to sleep.
In the morning, she was already waiting in the kitchen for her mother well before
breakfast time. Her ponytail was still dripping down the back of her sweater, but she was
fully dressed and ready to go. "I already had some toaster waffles. Can I get my bike out
of the trunk and go back to the shrine now?"
"Don't you want to wait for me and Yahiko to come with you? I can help you put on a
festival kimono if you'd rather wear something nicer."
"That's okay, I'll just meet up with you guys when you get there. I can change into
something else around lunchtime. Besides, the kimono would get all messed up on the
bicycle even if I could pedal with the geta, and sneakers would totally clash with a
kimono." Her mother looked dubious at this logic, but agreed anyway.
It was still pretty early. The streets were practically silent, except for the flurry overhead
of birds fleeing south in the first hint of daylight. She passed the newspaper boy cycling
in the other direction through the frost. The shrine's parking lot was completely empty,
and the only thing on the bicycle rack was a note for her. Well, at least Megumi had
eventually come back and picked up her bike, so nothing could've gone that wrong, right?
---
Megumi's face was stuck to the floor again, or at least it might as well have been. When
she looked over her shoulder with the eye that wasn't squashed against the carpet, she
saw the silhouette of floppy hair points attached to the major land mass that was
weighing her down. "Sano? Get off me, will you?"
Sano mumbled something incomprehensible, burrowed his head against her butt, and
then tried to squeeze it around to make it fluffier. "Sanosuke Harris, you cut that out right
now!" she demanded, with a twinge of regret.
"Huh?" He rolled off her spine, sat up, and blinked at her a few times. "Oh yeah. Feeling
any better?" Yumi peeked over the counter at them from the main gallery space, waved,
and pushed two cups of coffee toward their side. "Hey, any donuts to go with that?" Sano
called back at her as she disappeared back into her room.
"Did anything new happen after I fell asleep in the car?" Megumi tugged at her clothing,
which wasn't what she'd had on last night.
He shrugged. "We already had to unload Tomoe and Kenshin as dead weight, though
Kenshin was still a lot deader, so you were like the bonus load. So we put all three of you
into Yumi's room, and she swapped you out of that suit into a set of spare pajamas before
rolling you out here. I was going to split up guard duty with her and Hiko, but I fell
asleep too."
"Oh, okay." They sipped at their respective cups of coffee, occasionally glancing at each
other over the rims. Halfway through hers, Megumi shyly added, "Hey, Sano? You were
really brave last night. I mean, I didn't get to see most of it, but attacking Enishi by
yourself with nothing but fishbones, after you'd already seen him take Hiko down-- brrr.
But I'm glad you didn't get hurt."
"Me too." When Megumi stuck her tongue out at him, Sano hunched his shoulders down
in embarrassment. "I didn't mean it that way. I'm glad you're okay too, after all the stuff
Hiko said you went through from practically the whole Yukishiro family."
She shivered at the recollection. "Well, 'okay' can be kind of relative, but I survived it,
anyway. Do you think Kaoru's here yet?"
"I don't hear her anywhere. Unless that just means she's with Kenshin, and in that case
Tomoe and Yumi probably wouldn't still be in there with them. Maybe some of them are
talking to Hiko? It's pretty weird how much Tomoe looks like him. Think they're
related?"
"Probably everybody's related in Okusofodo. Isn't she supposed to be something like
Kaoru's umpty-great aunt, for that matter?"
By way of reply, Sano's stomach made an amazing wildlife sound. Megumi poked him.
"Yumi's taking an awfully long time with those donuts," he complained. He sorted
through his jacket before locating some flattened packets of snack food. "Here, have
some Pocky sticks or something."
"I wonder what's keeping her?"
"Want me to go check?" Sano craned up over the counter with a candy bar still sticking
out of his mouth, but Megumi shook her head.
"That's okay, I was just wondering. Hey, you have chocolate all over your face already.
Jeez."
"I do not. Where?"
"Hey, don't do that, it'll just get all over your clothes. And that was the wrong side
anyway."
Guiltily, Sano lowered his sleeve. "Well, how am I supposed to know where it is?"
She leaned closer to point it out. "It's over here, at the corner of your mouth," she said,
just before they spontaneously agreed that the second course of their breakfast would be
chocolate kisses.
---
The ceiling of Hiko's car bashed against the top of his head. Blearily, he hunched back
into the seat and rolled down the window before Kaoru could knock on it again. "Ah.
Good morning. I see you received our message."
"Why are you sleeping out here in front of the gallery? Did you get evicted?"
"I had intended to remain on guard in case of more unwelcome visitors." Hiko unfolded
himself out the door, wincing at the pops and crackles of his joints decompressing.
"Evidently Miss Komagata elected not to relieve my watch. I take it that you haven't yet
gone inside to see her?"
"Not when I saw you out here first. So what's going on?" Her eyes widened at all the
weapons that had lain ready on the passenger seat. Hiko's sword and the usual crossbow
were supplemented by some hastily modified bolts with ofuda wrapped around the shafts
and fishbone heads jammed on as the points. A glob of sake-impregnated mochi napalm
wobbled wetly inside a plastic bag. "Whoa. What's all that for? Did everything work out
with Tomoe and Enishi?"
"Let's join the others now, shall we?"
Kaoru locked her bike to the fence and followed him across the parking lot with the small
box that had been strapped to the back. "I got you guys some breakfast food on the way
here. So what happened with Megumi last night? Was she out necking with Sano?"
"If I may say so, Miss Kamiya-Summers, I suspect you are scarcely in any position to
cast stones in that regard."
She quailed from his raised eyebrow. "Um. Did you talk to Kenshin?"
"Not as such. We were rather hoping you might do that for us." By now, they were inside
the gallery and down the entrance hallway, in front of the outer door toYumi's room.
Yumi pulled it open immediately, resplendent in her baggy pajamas. Evidently she'd
remained more alert than he himself had, though the immediate presence of a coffeepot
must have aided her in that regard. "Hey Kaoru. Sano and Megumi just woke up, so I
gave them some coffee and came back in here. Tomoe's passed out again, and Kenshin,
well, you know. Jeez, boss, you look half-frozen. Here, take a blanket."
He accepted the blanket, as well as a cup of coffee and Kaoru's idea of breakfast. Jelly-
filled mochi balls did not strike him as a particularly successful example of fusion
cuisine, but as Sanosuke was wont to say, it was food. "I take it that Miss Yukishiro's
work has remained purely cosmetic, then. It was remarkably imprudent for you to allow
me to fall asleep on watch. Why didn't you wake me?"
"Tomoe said she checked around for Enishi and Jineh, and they weren't anywhere nearby,
so I figured it was pretty safe. Besides, it felt like if I knocked any harder on your
window, I'd break something."
"I see. So there has been no further progress in any direction."
"Not really. You still look cold, you know. Want the other blanket? Kenshin sure doesn't
need it."
Kaoru had kept her eyes on Yumi's bed the entire time. She remained remarkably self-
possessed, Hiko thought. But perhaps by this point in her life, nothing could shock her
much further. "How long has he been like this?"
"He was a lot worse when we found him last night, but Tomoe's gotten him back to this
point since then. We figured that as far as the rest of it went, maybe he was waiting for
you."
---
Overwhelmed by the bulk of Kenshin's coat, Tomoe sat slumped against one wall. She
was pale and slender, and would've looked fragile even without being unconscious. But at
least she was breathing. Kenshin, though-- after the first horrified glance at him, Kaoru
had to fight hard to keep herself from screaming out loud.
The rest of his clothing lay at the foot of the bed in a heap of muddy, bloodstained rags,
with the silver rings of her gloves gleaming dully at one side. Yumi's sheets were tucked
up over his chest, leaving his arms and shoulders bare. Like his face, they were as pale
and cool as the surrounding linen, except for the vicious cutwork of wounds.
When Kaoru sat down beside him, the faintly stale smell of raw meat rose up. If she let
her vision blur, he'd be reduced to an abstract dark red scribble on a white background,
with nothing left of him except for his hair and the gaping patterns in his skin. "He was
worse? You mean he was even more dead before? Who did this to him?"
Hiko hefted up Tomoe and carried her out to the main gallery, shutting the inner door
behind him. Yumi grimaced. "There was some weird psychic cross-wiring between
Tomoe and Kenshin. So last night, she partially switched her knife to his channel
somehow so she could kill him with it and cut the link, but it turned neither one of them
could really die unless both of them did. Almost like exorcism by shinju? But before she
figured out that last part, she pre-killed him a little more than necessary before she came
over and let us kill her so he could die too, if that makes any sense. We had to be really
careful bringing him in so he wouldn't fall apart, but now at least he's mostly put back
together again. Or at least the damage that's still left on him shouldn't be fatal, just nasty."
"He's been dead since last night? He should be back up by now."
"Like we said, we thought maybe he was waiting for you. Any ideas?"
Gingerly, Kaoru leaned down toward the pillow. She'd teased him about his ear being
cold last night, but it was even colder now. "Hey," she whispered. "Kenshin, wake up. It's
me. Wake up, okay? Please? Kenshin?" She tried to shake his shoulder but shied away,
unnerved by its cool, waxy stiffness. "If-- if Tomoe's back to normal now, maybe he'll
wake up when she does. So she didn't need his sword to kill him with, just her knife?
Where is it?"
"Tomoe's knife is gone, just like my naginata. She's gotten up several times already, but
he's still down. And funny you should mention his sword. It's gone too."
Kaoru stared at her, even more in shock than before. "What do you mean, gone? Jineh
and Enishi came in again and stole it?"
"Hell if I know. When we got back here, the case was still locked and sealed, just like the
whole gallery, and Jineh's sword was still inside. But Bats' katana was just plain gone."
Yumi sat down on Kenshin's other side, her face grim.
"I've been talking to Tomoe a lot tonight," she continued. "Every few hours, she wakes
up, we try to figure out what's going on with Kenshin, and then she fixes him up a little
more until it makes her too weak and she passes out again. We came up with this theory
that we don't really want to believe, but it does makes sense."
"...So what is it?" Kaoru prompted reluctantly.
"It's kind of complicated. But to start with, his sword isn't a picky eater. It turned him into
Battousai the first time after he killed just some random guy, and these days, all it takes is
the blood from a fatal wound. And it was cursed to start with, too. The rest of us, we
started out with ordinary weapons that got converted by demon blood, and they went into
screensaver mode when Bats turned back into Kenshin. Ordinary human blood wouldn't
turn ours back on, either. My naginata needed another taste of demon-ade, and Tomoe
thinks she got mostly reconverted because of backflow through the connection with
Kenshin. Every time he turned into Battousai again, it was like the Grim Repo Man-- she
got repossessed a little bit more every time, until killing that creep from the Yoshiwara
was enough to finish the job. You following me so far?
"When Tomoe and me got reconverted and stabbed with our own weapons, they burned
up and we got permanently switched back into ordinary humans. But when you stabbed
him with his sword, it didn't go anywhere and it didn't kill him by itself. Not only that,
but he can still turn back into Battousai and he's not really normal the rest of the time
either, since he can survive getting killed in lots of other ways. So it's like he's got a
piece of demon stuck in him all the time.
"Whenever we smack a piece of silver onto that sword, it burns Kenshin instead, and that
never happened with any of the rest of us, not even in the old days. When we did the
temporary ruby transplant to my knife, it came looking for him outside the Akabeko, and
he popped back up from Jineh having killed him. So his sword, or at least the ruby, is
kind of a recharging system that goes both ways, right? It can pop him back and forth
from being Battousai, depending on which end of it he is, and it can bring him back to
life, but it can also hurt him if it feels like it. It's not just a part of his life, it practically is
his life.
"Now, all the times you guys have killed us so far, it's been when either you or the boss
are wearing those nifty silver gloves, like insulation that keeps you guys from getting
possessed. The demons get sucked back out of us into our weapons but they don't have
anywhere to go, so they just burn out; otherwise, they'd jump straight into you. But
Tomoe wasn't wearing anything like that last night. She'd turned her knife into something
that practically was his sword, or at least close enough that she could fool it into bringing
her and Megitsune-chan over to him, and then draw enough power out of him to heal
them both and leave him knocked out. There wasn't anything to stop her from completely
draining his batteries. But like I said, he couldn't die until she did too, or drowning him in
the pond would've been enough backup killage." She stopped again.
Kaoru stood up. "No. I know what you're going to say, but that can't be right. He said he
needed me to get the sakabatou back for that."
"He wasn't counting on a turbocharged miko who could morph both of them together, not
to mention pull some backup power out of Enishi and download some of her old rituals
into Megitsune-chan. Kenshin couldn't die until Tomoe did, so maybe when her tanto fell
apart, his sword did too. But I don't think Kenshin can exist without the sword anymore."
"He can't be dead. Not really. He said he wouldn't let anyone kill him except for me."
Yumi sighed. Her expression reminded Kaoru that the older girl had loved him too,
though in a different way. "Even when he was Battousai, he always tried to keep his
promises. But you know how life is what happens while you're making other plans?
Sometimes death is, too."
---
The crypt was just as unpleasant as Enishi remembered. Rotting leaves and rat droppings
were strewn all around him where he lay on the floor, and the cracked vault above him
seemed to be held together with cobwebs and mildew. And yet compared to now, he'd
been blissfully happy here before, despite the constant concern about keeping Tomoe safe
from herself and from Jineh. But he'd never have to worry about that again.
They'd taken her from him. He'd never forgive them for that. Never. There was no
forgiveness left in him, or anything else at all except for the dull torment of having lost
Tomoe.
It hurt to think about last night, but he couldn't abandon his last memories of her. The
fox-miko had sent him to the shrine in search of Battousai. Enishi hadn't seen the lizard
there at all, but he had met Yumi again, and the tall bloke who'd taken that silver-
wrapped katana from her. And then Tomoe had come to him there, with her lovely eyes
shining as bright as the sun, and-- no. She couldn't have done that to him in her own right
mind, not after all he'd done for her. Why, just that evening, he'd fed her the Yoshiwara's
doorman, and she must have finished off the vixen as well.
She came out to help him hunt for Battousai as well, his brave little dove. But that snake
found her first and poisoned her all over again, hurting her so badly that she didn't want
to live any more. That must've been it. Tomoe had been in so much pain that she couldn't
tell her own dear brother apart from the brat who'd ruined her life, and she'd struck out in
a last attempt to kill Battousai before putting an end to her own misery.
When her knife had burned into her heart, Enishi had felt as if he himself were dying.
Better if he had, rather than be condemned to live without Tomoe again. What good was
all of his work at the Yoshiwara, or the new nest that was already waiting for them, if
none of it had helped to keep her safe?
Nothing since then had mattered. The sweet-scented shroud of smoke that had wrapped
him away from her; the sudden, icy impact against the pavement in front of the torii; the
impossible thunder rolling from the statues at their sides as the stone foxes had snarled at
him-- he'd simply stumbled away, dragging the sword and scabbard that he'd
automatically gathered up from the ground beside him. He'd walked all the way around
the shrine in hope of another entrance, but the walls had remained impervious. He
couldn't even get near them without being burned again. His hands were still singed and
blistered, almost as badly as his face. They would heal in time. Unlike his heart.
By the time he'd completed his circuit and returned to the torii, he'd lost any hope that
had remained. He didn't know whether he'd gotten back into his car and driven here, or
simply walked back to the old cemetery on his own. It didn't matter. Nothing did.
For the first time, he thought to wonder whether Battousai was even still alive, or whether
something had happened to him, as with Yumi. Or Tomoe. Tomoe....
He curled up in the corner as she had once done. At his feet, the things he'd brought with
him lay forgotten in the debris: his watou in its long scabbard, and Battousai's unsheathed
katana.
-----
shinju: lovers' double suicide; http://www.japanpsychiatrist.com/Abstracts/Shinju.html
"while you're making other plans": John Lennon.
(grateful sob) You like me! You really like me! Frisky caperings of gratitude to all and
sundry reviewers, even the marginally snarky ones. Hey, a snark is still better than a
sharp stick in the eye.
Apologies for having taken so long with this chapter. I didn't expect it to take nearly this
much time, though in retrospect the key factors were defragmenting the Hikogumi so
they could all get in one place to share information, reassuring Enishi that he wasn't
going to stay lonely and miserable forever, and overcoming authorial guilt about making
Kaoru miserable in two parallel works at the same time.
Edodale
By wombat
Chapter 17
Megumi flopped down onto the nearest bench in the gazebo. She wasn't sure what time it
must be by now, but she felt completely wiped out. Her latest outfit was getting awfully
uncomfortable, too; no wonder Tomoe had ditched it and gotten back into that nightgown
instead. She'd barely closed her eyes when Sano came crashing down the path, racing
right past her to follow the bright path of moonlight across the floor. Before she could say
anything, he lunged down toward the muddy red hair smeared across the opposite side,
dragged out the attached body from under its own bench, and shook it frantically.
"Megumi? Hey, Megumi!"
"You mooshed my origami foxes," she accused, making him leap all the way out again.
"Kenshin's been totally zonked for a while now, so I bet you can't wake him up either.
Where did Mr. Hiko go?"
Recovering, Sano peeked back in and around at her, finally spotting her in the shadows.
"He's out in the courtyard with Yumi. And that Tomoe chick. And a fishbone in his
shoulder. Is that Kenshin? What the hell happened to him?"
"I dunno, but I guess my foxes didn't chase off Tomoe after all. You fishboned Hiko and
lived to tell about it?"
"No, that Enishi guy did, just before he went up in a puff of smoke. Actually, it smelled
kind of like the incense you've got going in here. Did you do that?"
"Wow. I guess whatever I was doing worked after all. Yay me! Oh, speaking of which,
did you drop Kenshin onto the incense burner? That's gotta hurt."
Hastily, Sano rolled Kenshin around the floor to quench his smoldering sweater, which
ended up with fir twigs and crushed origami stuck all over it with little globs of mochi.
"Did Kaoru just leave him like this? That's pretty rude."
"Leave him like what? I bet he-- oh, yuck," Megumi blurted as she got a good look at
Kenshin. She'd only glanced at the back of his sweater before, and except for all the mud,
it had looked basically normal. This was so not true of the rest of him. "Is he going to be
okay?"
Sano grimaced. "Guess we should rinse him off and see if there's anything missing.
Kaoru must've been really mad at him. Did she have to watch him making out with
Tomoe this time?"
"Hiko said Kaoru left before I got here, so I dunno. I thought Kenshin just wandered in
and passed out, but maybe Tomoe dropped him off here on her way to the courtyard.
What's she doing over there?"
"She's kind of busy being dead too. And like I said, Enishi already went poof, so it should
be pretty safe now. Think we should go ask Hiko what to do next?"
"I guess. Just give me a moment to get up and barf, will you?"
Sano held her hair out of the way while she threw up onto the grass of the little island.
"By the way," he said, "you win that bet about not waking Kenshin up."
After a while, Yumi staggered into view under Hiko's unwounded shoulder. She half-
dragged him to the gazebo before starting to unsling the weapons she was also carrying.
Her knife was hanging at her belt, as usual, but Hiko's sword had been awkwardly tucked
under her arm and was getting snagged in her jacket hardware. "Hey, Megitsune-chan--
you okay?"
"Miss Rosenberg?" Hiko enquired, leaning heavily against a support post.
Megumi grimaced and spat out some last bitter strings of slime. "Oh, just go on in and sit
down. Never mind the origami foxes, Sano squished most of them already. Someone else
squished Kenshin, though."
Startled, Yumi took a closer look at the gazebo floor. "Oh, yuck!"
"Yeah, that was pretty much Megumi's diagnosis too. So, what the heck do we do with
him now?"
"Perhaps a good start would be to bring Miss Yukishiro here as well, if you would be so
kind as to assist Miss Komagata." As Sano followed Yumi down the path, Megumi made
her way over to the bench next to where Hiko was still standing. He didn't look in much
better shape than Kenshin. Well, actually, he did, but it was still pretty lousy shape.
"Those are some serious multiple compound fishbones in your shoulder. Should I try to
get them out?"
"Perhaps it would be prudent to seek out some form of anesthetic first. I don't suppose
there's any more sake left?"
"Nope. Sake all go bye-bye fall down. Like I bet you will if you don't sit down already.
Jeez, if you bleed much more, your shirt's going to look like one of Kenshin's."
Faced with these dire predictions, Hiko sat down. "I assume Kenshin himself will recover
shortly," he said, poking the muddy sweater with his katana and a complete lack of
concern.
"He'd better, or Kaoru's going to kill him. Sano said Enishi went after you? At least until
I managed to zap him somehow, but--"
"That was your doing? Good heavens. He simply evaporated. What did you do, and
how?"
"I don't know." Now that Megumi thought about it, she really didn't know. "It just
seemed like a good idea at the time," she said haltingly. "Almost like I'd done that before,
only different. I don't even recognize some of the words I was chanting. Do you think
maybe--" She broke off as Sano returned with Tomoe over his shoulder.
Tagging in behind him, Yumi set down the box of crossbow bolts and tossed a small rock
to Hiko. "Here's her topaz, boss. Guess we can give it back to her when she wakes up,
whenever that is. Too bad she doesn't have a health plan, unless you want to hire her on
the spot and give her a benefits package. On the other hand, all they really did with me
was apply the hospital versions of Gatorade and Pocari Sweat for a few days, so maybe
we can just try to pour that kind of stuff down her throat."
As Sano draped Tomoe over an available bench, Kenshin's coat fell partially open over
her nightgown. Despite the ethanolic drizzle that had fallen over them earlier, no smears
had spread from the neat script written down the line of buttons. "Dear me," Hiko said.
"Is that her own work? It must have been rather difficult to write out everything clearly
from that angle. Very robust ink, too."
"Well, she wrote it out when I was wearing that," Megumi said, edging away. "And she
used my blood to do it."
"Oh dear." Hiko winced in sympathy, and again when Yumi slapped his hand away from
the metal splinters in his shoulder.
"We'll have to get you to the hospital too, to take all those fishbone pieces out. Hope you
can think of some way to explain them, because I'm out of ideas for tonight."
"Are you?" He raised an eyebrow or two.
"Oh. That thing with Enishi? Yeah, maybe I could've handled that better." Yumi's fidget
intensified. "Sorry, I didn't mean to put it that way. Oh dang it, I meant--" Confused,
Megumi glanced at Sano, but he didn't look like he knew what they were talking about
either.
"I intended no recrimination nor offense," Hiko said, more awkwardly than Megumi
would've thought possible outside of librarian mode. "In any case, evidently his departure
was Miss Rosenberg's doing. But perhaps you might know where he went just now, or
when he may return?"
Yumi shook her head, loosening a few more dead leaves from her hair. "I've never seen
anything like that, except when we were hit with the sakabatou. But that left our weapons
behind, and he took his watou with him just now. Think he's still out there somewhere? I
did a quick run partway down the stairs and I didn't see him trying to scramble up the
torii again, but that doesn't mean he isn't waiting at the bottom for us."
Sano pulled the last few fishbones out of the box. "I'll go take a look. Back in a minute."
"Hey Sano, wait!"
"He'll be okay. At least if he has the sense to stay under the torii," Yumi called after him
as a reminder, then turned back to Hiko. "So if the kid says it's safe, can you handle the
stairs by yourself? Dunno if we'll all fit into your car, but I don't think you're going to be
shifting any more gears tonight. I guess we finally get to find out if I know how to drive
that thing."
"I beg your pardon, but perhaps that won't be necessary." The tentative whisper surprised
all of them, but nearly sent Megumi into blind panic as Tomoe sat up. "I'm terribly sorry
about what my brother and I did to you, Miss... Rosenberg, I believe you said?" Megumi
nodded, but didn't step back inside the gazebo. "And I apologize to you as well, Yumi.
I've been very poor company for the past few years, but I hope to make amends for that
now." Finally, she glanced shyly at Hiko, wrapping Kenshin's coat completely closed as
she rose to her feet. "I'm very pleased to meet you, Mr.--?"
"Rupert Hiko at your service, Miss Yukishiro."
The golden fire had left Tomoe's eyes, which now shone only with pale echoes of the
moon above their dark depths of sorrow. "May I take a closer look at your shoulder? The
original weapon seems to have been silver-plated, if I'm not mistaken?"
"Yeah," Yumi said, begrudgingly moving out from between her and Hiko "What're you
doing up so fast?"
"I'm afraid I used the energy from Kenshin's life-force while it was still linked to mine.
Otherwise, I would never have had the strength to bring myself and Miss Rosenberg here,
nor heal our wounds. By the way," she added even more quietly, "he loves Miss Kamiya-
Summers very much." She bent to scoop up some pale slush from the walkway outside.
"Well, duh," Yumi said. "So why are you putting snow onto the boss now?"
"Actually, I believe it's sake-dampened salt."
"Hey!" Yumi knocked it away from Hiko before Tomoe could put more than a dab of it
into the wound, but its effects were disproportionate to the actual amount. Like iron
filings jumping into the lines of force above a magnet, the metal splinters popped out of
his shoulder, reassembled themselves into a fishbone, and dropped neatly onto the
ground. So did Tomoe.
"Goodness me." Hiko flexed his shoulder. It appeared completely healed, with only the
jagged holes through his coat and clothing left as a reminder. "I don't know whether to
hope that she does or doesn't make a regular habit of this sort of thing."
"Whoa." Despite herself, Megumi was impressed. "Hey, Sano," she called out to him as
he returned, "You just missed the coolest thing ever."
"Did it involve free food and naked women?" He ducked the reassembled fishbone she
threw at him. "No Enishi, but the other car's still parked down there. Megumi, are your
parents around? Your stepdad called us at Kaoru's house to come meet you, so they know
you're here."
"Oh, that would've been from the airport. He and my mom have a medical conference all
next week and they took Ayame and Suzume with them, too. So at least no one's waiting
up for me, but it's going to feel a lot creepier staying alone in the house than I thought it
would."
Hiko gave her an oddly exasperated look over Sano's shoulder. "Presumably the other car
is completely irrelevant. I propose that all of us set up camp in the gallery for tonight. It's
reasonably well-protected and supplied, and we can stand guard in shifts if need be. We
can also keep watch on Tomoe and Kenshin until they revive again."
"Well, as long as they're not going anywhere, they can be the ones to wait here for the
second trip," Sano suggested, but Hiko shrugged.
"I see no reason why we can't manage everyone in a single run. Miss Rosenberg and Miss
Yukishiro both ought to fit easily into the back seat of my car, I believe, and Miss
Komagata and I will take the front. Mr. Harris can follow us on Miss Rosenberg's
bicycle." Sano did not look grateful at this solution.
Yumi patted Megumi's arm. "Don't worry, it doesn't look like Tomoe's going to freak out
any more. And if she does before we get there, you can always hit her over the head with
a fishbone."
"But Mr. Hiko, you forgot about Kenshin."
"Certainly not," Hiko said, bending to lift the limp body. "In his current state, I doubt
he'll object to being packed into the boot."
---
About fifteen minutes after going to bed, Kaoru realized her bicycle was still locked into
the back of the car. So much for that idea. Well, it was an awfully long way to walk back
to the shrine, especially this late at night, so she climbed back into her bedroom window
and went to sleep.
In the morning, she was already waiting in the kitchen for her mother well before
breakfast time. Her ponytail was still dripping down the back of her sweater, but she was
fully dressed and ready to go. "I already had some toaster waffles. Can I get my bike out
of the trunk and go back to the shrine now?"
"Don't you want to wait for me and Yahiko to come with you? I can help you put on a
festival kimono if you'd rather wear something nicer."
"That's okay, I'll just meet up with you guys when you get there. I can change into
something else around lunchtime. Besides, the kimono would get all messed up on the
bicycle even if I could pedal with the geta, and sneakers would totally clash with a
kimono." Her mother looked dubious at this logic, but agreed anyway.
It was still pretty early. The streets were practically silent, except for the flurry overhead
of birds fleeing south in the first hint of daylight. She passed the newspaper boy cycling
in the other direction through the frost. The shrine's parking lot was completely empty,
and the only thing on the bicycle rack was a note for her. Well, at least Megumi had
eventually come back and picked up her bike, so nothing could've gone that wrong, right?
---
Megumi's face was stuck to the floor again, or at least it might as well have been. When
she looked over her shoulder with the eye that wasn't squashed against the carpet, she
saw the silhouette of floppy hair points attached to the major land mass that was
weighing her down. "Sano? Get off me, will you?"
Sano mumbled something incomprehensible, burrowed his head against her butt, and
then tried to squeeze it around to make it fluffier. "Sanosuke Harris, you cut that out right
now!" she demanded, with a twinge of regret.
"Huh?" He rolled off her spine, sat up, and blinked at her a few times. "Oh yeah. Feeling
any better?" Yumi peeked over the counter at them from the main gallery space, waved,
and pushed two cups of coffee toward their side. "Hey, any donuts to go with that?" Sano
called back at her as she disappeared back into her room.
"Did anything new happen after I fell asleep in the car?" Megumi tugged at her clothing,
which wasn't what she'd had on last night.
He shrugged. "We already had to unload Tomoe and Kenshin as dead weight, though
Kenshin was still a lot deader, so you were like the bonus load. So we put all three of you
into Yumi's room, and she swapped you out of that suit into a set of spare pajamas before
rolling you out here. I was going to split up guard duty with her and Hiko, but I fell
asleep too."
"Oh, okay." They sipped at their respective cups of coffee, occasionally glancing at each
other over the rims. Halfway through hers, Megumi shyly added, "Hey, Sano? You were
really brave last night. I mean, I didn't get to see most of it, but attacking Enishi by
yourself with nothing but fishbones, after you'd already seen him take Hiko down-- brrr.
But I'm glad you didn't get hurt."
"Me too." When Megumi stuck her tongue out at him, Sano hunched his shoulders down
in embarrassment. "I didn't mean it that way. I'm glad you're okay too, after all the stuff
Hiko said you went through from practically the whole Yukishiro family."
She shivered at the recollection. "Well, 'okay' can be kind of relative, but I survived it,
anyway. Do you think Kaoru's here yet?"
"I don't hear her anywhere. Unless that just means she's with Kenshin, and in that case
Tomoe and Yumi probably wouldn't still be in there with them. Maybe some of them are
talking to Hiko? It's pretty weird how much Tomoe looks like him. Think they're
related?"
"Probably everybody's related in Okusofodo. Isn't she supposed to be something like
Kaoru's umpty-great aunt, for that matter?"
By way of reply, Sano's stomach made an amazing wildlife sound. Megumi poked him.
"Yumi's taking an awfully long time with those donuts," he complained. He sorted
through his jacket before locating some flattened packets of snack food. "Here, have
some Pocky sticks or something."
"I wonder what's keeping her?"
"Want me to go check?" Sano craned up over the counter with a candy bar still sticking
out of his mouth, but Megumi shook her head.
"That's okay, I was just wondering. Hey, you have chocolate all over your face already.
Jeez."
"I do not. Where?"
"Hey, don't do that, it'll just get all over your clothes. And that was the wrong side
anyway."
Guiltily, Sano lowered his sleeve. "Well, how am I supposed to know where it is?"
She leaned closer to point it out. "It's over here, at the corner of your mouth," she said,
just before they spontaneously agreed that the second course of their breakfast would be
chocolate kisses.
---
The ceiling of Hiko's car bashed against the top of his head. Blearily, he hunched back
into the seat and rolled down the window before Kaoru could knock on it again. "Ah.
Good morning. I see you received our message."
"Why are you sleeping out here in front of the gallery? Did you get evicted?"
"I had intended to remain on guard in case of more unwelcome visitors." Hiko unfolded
himself out the door, wincing at the pops and crackles of his joints decompressing.
"Evidently Miss Komagata elected not to relieve my watch. I take it that you haven't yet
gone inside to see her?"
"Not when I saw you out here first. So what's going on?" Her eyes widened at all the
weapons that had lain ready on the passenger seat. Hiko's sword and the usual crossbow
were supplemented by some hastily modified bolts with ofuda wrapped around the shafts
and fishbone heads jammed on as the points. A glob of sake-impregnated mochi napalm
wobbled wetly inside a plastic bag. "Whoa. What's all that for? Did everything work out
with Tomoe and Enishi?"
"Let's join the others now, shall we?"
Kaoru locked her bike to the fence and followed him across the parking lot with the small
box that had been strapped to the back. "I got you guys some breakfast food on the way
here. So what happened with Megumi last night? Was she out necking with Sano?"
"If I may say so, Miss Kamiya-Summers, I suspect you are scarcely in any position to
cast stones in that regard."
She quailed from his raised eyebrow. "Um. Did you talk to Kenshin?"
"Not as such. We were rather hoping you might do that for us." By now, they were inside
the gallery and down the entrance hallway, in front of the outer door toYumi's room.
Yumi pulled it open immediately, resplendent in her baggy pajamas. Evidently she'd
remained more alert than he himself had, though the immediate presence of a coffeepot
must have aided her in that regard. "Hey Kaoru. Sano and Megumi just woke up, so I
gave them some coffee and came back in here. Tomoe's passed out again, and Kenshin,
well, you know. Jeez, boss, you look half-frozen. Here, take a blanket."
He accepted the blanket, as well as a cup of coffee and Kaoru's idea of breakfast. Jelly-
filled mochi balls did not strike him as a particularly successful example of fusion
cuisine, but as Sanosuke was wont to say, it was food. "I take it that Miss Yukishiro's
work has remained purely cosmetic, then. It was remarkably imprudent for you to allow
me to fall asleep on watch. Why didn't you wake me?"
"Tomoe said she checked around for Enishi and Jineh, and they weren't anywhere nearby,
so I figured it was pretty safe. Besides, it felt like if I knocked any harder on your
window, I'd break something."
"I see. So there has been no further progress in any direction."
"Not really. You still look cold, you know. Want the other blanket? Kenshin sure doesn't
need it."
Kaoru had kept her eyes on Yumi's bed the entire time. She remained remarkably self-
possessed, Hiko thought. But perhaps by this point in her life, nothing could shock her
much further. "How long has he been like this?"
"He was a lot worse when we found him last night, but Tomoe's gotten him back to this
point since then. We figured that as far as the rest of it went, maybe he was waiting for
you."
---
Overwhelmed by the bulk of Kenshin's coat, Tomoe sat slumped against one wall. She
was pale and slender, and would've looked fragile even without being unconscious. But at
least she was breathing. Kenshin, though-- after the first horrified glance at him, Kaoru
had to fight hard to keep herself from screaming out loud.
The rest of his clothing lay at the foot of the bed in a heap of muddy, bloodstained rags,
with the silver rings of her gloves gleaming dully at one side. Yumi's sheets were tucked
up over his chest, leaving his arms and shoulders bare. Like his face, they were as pale
and cool as the surrounding linen, except for the vicious cutwork of wounds.
When Kaoru sat down beside him, the faintly stale smell of raw meat rose up. If she let
her vision blur, he'd be reduced to an abstract dark red scribble on a white background,
with nothing left of him except for his hair and the gaping patterns in his skin. "He was
worse? You mean he was even more dead before? Who did this to him?"
Hiko hefted up Tomoe and carried her out to the main gallery, shutting the inner door
behind him. Yumi grimaced. "There was some weird psychic cross-wiring between
Tomoe and Kenshin. So last night, she partially switched her knife to his channel
somehow so she could kill him with it and cut the link, but it turned neither one of them
could really die unless both of them did. Almost like exorcism by shinju? But before she
figured out that last part, she pre-killed him a little more than necessary before she came
over and let us kill her so he could die too, if that makes any sense. We had to be really
careful bringing him in so he wouldn't fall apart, but now at least he's mostly put back
together again. Or at least the damage that's still left on him shouldn't be fatal, just nasty."
"He's been dead since last night? He should be back up by now."
"Like we said, we thought maybe he was waiting for you. Any ideas?"
Gingerly, Kaoru leaned down toward the pillow. She'd teased him about his ear being
cold last night, but it was even colder now. "Hey," she whispered. "Kenshin, wake up. It's
me. Wake up, okay? Please? Kenshin?" She tried to shake his shoulder but shied away,
unnerved by its cool, waxy stiffness. "If-- if Tomoe's back to normal now, maybe he'll
wake up when she does. So she didn't need his sword to kill him with, just her knife?
Where is it?"
"Tomoe's knife is gone, just like my naginata. She's gotten up several times already, but
he's still down. And funny you should mention his sword. It's gone too."
Kaoru stared at her, even more in shock than before. "What do you mean, gone? Jineh
and Enishi came in again and stole it?"
"Hell if I know. When we got back here, the case was still locked and sealed, just like the
whole gallery, and Jineh's sword was still inside. But Bats' katana was just plain gone."
Yumi sat down on Kenshin's other side, her face grim.
"I've been talking to Tomoe a lot tonight," she continued. "Every few hours, she wakes
up, we try to figure out what's going on with Kenshin, and then she fixes him up a little
more until it makes her too weak and she passes out again. We came up with this theory
that we don't really want to believe, but it does makes sense."
"...So what is it?" Kaoru prompted reluctantly.
"It's kind of complicated. But to start with, his sword isn't a picky eater. It turned him into
Battousai the first time after he killed just some random guy, and these days, all it takes is
the blood from a fatal wound. And it was cursed to start with, too. The rest of us, we
started out with ordinary weapons that got converted by demon blood, and they went into
screensaver mode when Bats turned back into Kenshin. Ordinary human blood wouldn't
turn ours back on, either. My naginata needed another taste of demon-ade, and Tomoe
thinks she got mostly reconverted because of backflow through the connection with
Kenshin. Every time he turned into Battousai again, it was like the Grim Repo Man-- she
got repossessed a little bit more every time, until killing that creep from the Yoshiwara
was enough to finish the job. You following me so far?
"When Tomoe and me got reconverted and stabbed with our own weapons, they burned
up and we got permanently switched back into ordinary humans. But when you stabbed
him with his sword, it didn't go anywhere and it didn't kill him by itself. Not only that,
but he can still turn back into Battousai and he's not really normal the rest of the time
either, since he can survive getting killed in lots of other ways. So it's like he's got a
piece of demon stuck in him all the time.
"Whenever we smack a piece of silver onto that sword, it burns Kenshin instead, and that
never happened with any of the rest of us, not even in the old days. When we did the
temporary ruby transplant to my knife, it came looking for him outside the Akabeko, and
he popped back up from Jineh having killed him. So his sword, or at least the ruby, is
kind of a recharging system that goes both ways, right? It can pop him back and forth
from being Battousai, depending on which end of it he is, and it can bring him back to
life, but it can also hurt him if it feels like it. It's not just a part of his life, it practically is
his life.
"Now, all the times you guys have killed us so far, it's been when either you or the boss
are wearing those nifty silver gloves, like insulation that keeps you guys from getting
possessed. The demons get sucked back out of us into our weapons but they don't have
anywhere to go, so they just burn out; otherwise, they'd jump straight into you. But
Tomoe wasn't wearing anything like that last night. She'd turned her knife into something
that practically was his sword, or at least close enough that she could fool it into bringing
her and Megitsune-chan over to him, and then draw enough power out of him to heal
them both and leave him knocked out. There wasn't anything to stop her from completely
draining his batteries. But like I said, he couldn't die until she did too, or drowning him in
the pond would've been enough backup killage." She stopped again.
Kaoru stood up. "No. I know what you're going to say, but that can't be right. He said he
needed me to get the sakabatou back for that."
"He wasn't counting on a turbocharged miko who could morph both of them together, not
to mention pull some backup power out of Enishi and download some of her old rituals
into Megitsune-chan. Kenshin couldn't die until Tomoe did, so maybe when her tanto fell
apart, his sword did too. But I don't think Kenshin can exist without the sword anymore."
"He can't be dead. Not really. He said he wouldn't let anyone kill him except for me."
Yumi sighed. Her expression reminded Kaoru that the older girl had loved him too,
though in a different way. "Even when he was Battousai, he always tried to keep his
promises. But you know how life is what happens while you're making other plans?
Sometimes death is, too."
---
The crypt was just as unpleasant as Enishi remembered. Rotting leaves and rat droppings
were strewn all around him where he lay on the floor, and the cracked vault above him
seemed to be held together with cobwebs and mildew. And yet compared to now, he'd
been blissfully happy here before, despite the constant concern about keeping Tomoe safe
from herself and from Jineh. But he'd never have to worry about that again.
They'd taken her from him. He'd never forgive them for that. Never. There was no
forgiveness left in him, or anything else at all except for the dull torment of having lost
Tomoe.
It hurt to think about last night, but he couldn't abandon his last memories of her. The
fox-miko had sent him to the shrine in search of Battousai. Enishi hadn't seen the lizard
there at all, but he had met Yumi again, and the tall bloke who'd taken that silver-
wrapped katana from her. And then Tomoe had come to him there, with her lovely eyes
shining as bright as the sun, and-- no. She couldn't have done that to him in her own right
mind, not after all he'd done for her. Why, just that evening, he'd fed her the Yoshiwara's
doorman, and she must have finished off the vixen as well.
She came out to help him hunt for Battousai as well, his brave little dove. But that snake
found her first and poisoned her all over again, hurting her so badly that she didn't want
to live any more. That must've been it. Tomoe had been in so much pain that she couldn't
tell her own dear brother apart from the brat who'd ruined her life, and she'd struck out in
a last attempt to kill Battousai before putting an end to her own misery.
When her knife had burned into her heart, Enishi had felt as if he himself were dying.
Better if he had, rather than be condemned to live without Tomoe again. What good was
all of his work at the Yoshiwara, or the new nest that was already waiting for them, if
none of it had helped to keep her safe?
Nothing since then had mattered. The sweet-scented shroud of smoke that had wrapped
him away from her; the sudden, icy impact against the pavement in front of the torii; the
impossible thunder rolling from the statues at their sides as the stone foxes had snarled at
him-- he'd simply stumbled away, dragging the sword and scabbard that he'd
automatically gathered up from the ground beside him. He'd walked all the way around
the shrine in hope of another entrance, but the walls had remained impervious. He
couldn't even get near them without being burned again. His hands were still singed and
blistered, almost as badly as his face. They would heal in time. Unlike his heart.
By the time he'd completed his circuit and returned to the torii, he'd lost any hope that
had remained. He didn't know whether he'd gotten back into his car and driven here, or
simply walked back to the old cemetery on his own. It didn't matter. Nothing did.
For the first time, he thought to wonder whether Battousai was even still alive, or whether
something had happened to him, as with Yumi. Or Tomoe. Tomoe....
He curled up in the corner as she had once done. At his feet, the things he'd brought with
him lay forgotten in the debris: his watou in its long scabbard, and Battousai's unsheathed
katana.
-----
shinju: lovers' double suicide; http://www.japanpsychiatrist.com/Abstracts/Shinju.html
"while you're making other plans": John Lennon.
(grateful sob) You like me! You really like me! Frisky caperings of gratitude to all and
sundry reviewers, even the marginally snarky ones. Hey, a snark is still better than a
sharp stick in the eye.
Apologies for having taken so long with this chapter. I didn't expect it to take nearly this
much time, though in retrospect the key factors were defragmenting the Hikogumi so
they could all get in one place to share information, reassuring Enishi that he wasn't
going to stay lonely and miserable forever, and overcoming authorial guilt about making
Kaoru miserable in two parallel works at the same time.