Yoh stared lovingly up into Amidamaru's eyes, still wrapped in the warrior's warm embrace. Their lips met in a chaste kiss, at first brushing lightly against each other, but then, before Yoh knew it, Amidamaru's tongue was coaxing his mouth open. It seemed that the samurai was healed, and no longer afraid.
Their tongues met and danced together once again. Yoh was shocked to find that he could taste blood in Amidamaru's mouth, but – surely it was logical? The young swordsman had just had his throat torn open; surely he would have coughed up some blood?
The shaman sighed as one of Amidamaru's hands roamed over his back like a lost dog; the other was supporting his head at the base of his cranium, cradling it to his chest as they broke away from the kiss.
Yoh screwed his eyes closed, remembering how close he had been to losing his samurai forever. Unconsciously, he executed the Mighty Grip of Death, a sort of very emotional hug, on the swordsman, who exhaled as his ribs were squeezed and looked questioningly down at the boy.
"I almost lost you..." The shaman spoke in explanation, "I'm never letting go of you again..."
The samurai smiled gently.
"I fear you may have to, Yoh. I fear that if you do not let me go sooner or later then you will lose me purely because of air loss when a crushed rib punctures my lung."
Yoh laughed and released Amidamaru, who staggered backwards a pace, still smiling. The smiles, however, were wiped off both their faces by a guttural, grating cough from behind them.
The vampire had awoken and was attempting to stand up, one arm clutching the gaping, bleeding wound that ran through his midriff and almost made him two vampires, the other hand clutching the wall for support. He flashed them a pained, hate-filled glare.
"I'll get you yet," He growled, staring directly at Amidamaru, who started slightly.
"Why do you hate me so much?" The samurai asked quietly, hugging Yoh to him protectively. The voodoo spat bitterly on the ground.
"Because you did this to me." He indicated his body, his fangs, the blood on his shirt. "I am like this because this is what you made me!"
"What?" Amidamaru's face was a mask of confusion. "How? How I could I have done that to you? I don't understand..."
"Then let me remind you of what seems to be so easily forgotten." The vampire sneered. "I was a samurai, a few years younger than you were, and under the same shogun," the fiery-haired man began, tears of anger forming in his eyes, the first real show of emotion other than rage or abject arrogant confidence that either Yoh or Amidamaru had seen from him, "I respected you. I looked up to you; I wanted to be just like you! You were the best and everybody loved you!"
Yoh looked up at Amidamaru to see the samurai frowning slightly in confusion, not sure where the voodoo was headed.
"One night all of us samurai were summoned by our lord. He told us that you were a traitor. He ordered us to kill you and the swordsmith Mosuke on sight." The vampire paused; his face closed and devoid of emotion, yet tears openly pouring from his eyes. "I couldn't believe it. I didn't want to believe it. I didn't want to believe that the person I admired so much could possibly have betrayed me, betrayed his own shogun."
Yoh smirked slightly, not believing a word despite the tears rolling down the sinister figure's face. Amidamaru's own face was clouded, as though he was struggling to remember something, but couldn't quite place his finger on it.
"We found you on Funbari hill," The vampire continued =. "We ordered you to tell us where Mosuke was, but you were willing to die to protect him, so we had no choice but to attack you." His voice dropped to barely above a whisper. "I had the perfect opportunity and, by god, I wish I had taken it!"
He turned, wild-eyed, to the samurai.
"I was standing right next to you, and one of your moves had left you wide open. I had a clear thrust to your heart – I could have killed you then and there, and been a hero among the samurai. But I couldn't do it. Instead, I ran in front of you, wanting to protect you, believing you were innocent. And you – you attacked me!"
Amidamaru's eyes widened as he remembered vaguely, through the distant fogs of time, his final battle on Funbari hill. At one point, there had been a blur, a flash of fiery red-gold in front of his vision, but then it had disappeared as suddenly as it had become visible. He had dismissed it as a dying hallucination and thought nothing more of it.
"I regained consciousness later, but you were already dead. They had just left you – left you unburied, for the carrion to pick over. I thought samurai were honourable, but that was just..." the voodoo swallowed, shaking his head. "I must have passed out again, with the giant wound across my back. I heard later that you had been buried, after all. I was taken down to the village, but my injury had been poisoned by something and I could not be saved. Yoh..." the vampire's eyes were suddenly crazed. "You betrayed me! I was trying to save your life and you killed me!"
"I had already begun to attack," Amidamaru protested, "by the time you stepped in front of me, I could not have stopped my blade."
"No matter," the voodoo leered. "I could not rest in peace so I vowed that I would have revenge. I found a way to continuously reincarnate myself quite by accident, though the side effect was most despicable, and also irreversible. It is this awful monster that I have become, and now it is a habit I cannot shake, that I need to survive. I have waited these long six hundred years, before finally training as a voodoo priest and successfully reincarnating you."
Amidamaru stared in horror and disgust.
"You were willing to kill the other man, Yokiama, and your son?" His eyes widened. "You were willing to kill your own son, just to get your revenge?"
"They were weak and expendable!" The vampire spat.
"Yoh," Amidamaru muttered out the side of his mouth, still staring in a frozen, fascinated horror at the shaking man in front of them. "This is just like Tokogeroh, only so many stages worse! I beg of you, do not try to give this man a second chance as you did with the bandit. There can be nothing redeemable about him."
"No worries, Amidamaru. The poison in his fatal wound and his desire for revenge have actually twisted his mind so much that he believes he's right. No doubt he was a respectable young samurai when he was alive." Yoh looked on in pure abhorrence at the vampire before him, whose thin face, twisted with hatred and rage, still had tears running down the cheeks. "I'll get Anna down here. He's technically dead, so he'll be rendered powerless against her necklace."
The vampire snarled and spat at them as they exited the basement, but the seriousness of his injury prevented him from doing much more damage.
Manta was beside himself.
"Can't you two go one day without getting hurt?" He screeched at a pitch that would have made any dogs within a fifty-mile radius whine pathetically. "I've run out of bandages!"
He glared at Yoh, who was clutching his shoulder almost apologetically, and then at Amidamaru, whose torn throat was hard to miss. It bobbed up and down as the samurai swallowed nervously.
"I am sorry, Manta, but this man seems to have a grudge against me."
"Yeah, that qualifies for understatement of the century!" Yoh grinned and Amidamaru smiled also, shifting closer to Yoh and putting one arm around him. Manta raised an eyebrow and looked confused, but Yoh's grin just widened as he leant further in to the samurai.
"O...kay..." Manta continued to stare for a moment, but seemed to realise that it was none of his business. He shook himself slightly and tied a makeshift tourniquet around Yoh's shoulder before glancing at Amidamaru's throat.
"I can't really do anything for the throat, Amidamaru. You'll have to leave that one. I imagine having a bandage round it would restrict your breathing."
Amidamaru inclined his head in a gratuitous bow.
"Thank you, Manta." He muttered before turning to Yoh. "I am going to have a bath and wash away my bloodstains – you do not mind, I hope?"
"Course not!" The shaman grinned, absentmindedly patting Manta on the head as they walked away, oblivious to the short one's cries of indignation.
A while later, Yoh swiftly padded to the bathroom to take a shower. He had looked in on the large, heated outdoor pool, but had fount it was empty, and so had assumed that Amidamaru had finished and gone somewhere private for some time alone.
He slowly opened the bathroom door and looked up to see the samurai lounging in the small, modest bath that lay, usually forgotten, in the corner of the room.
"Oh – sorry, Ami-chan!" He said in apology. "I didn't realise you were in here – I thought you'd finished."
The young swordsman made no move, no sign that he had even noticed the boy. Yoh frowned and quietly stepped towards the motionless samurai.
"Amidamaru?" He asked again. There was a small sound from the warrior, who stirred slightly, turning his head to the side. Yoh realised that he was sleeping, and, with a slight twang somewhere in his chest area, he realised also that this was the first time he had seen his samurai naked. True, the bubbles in the bath concealed the other man's lower regions, but still...
Water dripped down the gleaming, muscular torso and Yoh calmly stroked the man's wet, pale hair, trailing his hand down the warrior's back. The shaman gasped out loud. Amidamaru's back was ridged, as though there were great slashes etched deep in to the firm, sinewy flesh. He looked round and saw the scars and lacerations from the riding crop, the sight filling him with a red-hot anger – he had not realised there had been so many! He hated that stupid vampire. He had no right to do what he had done to Amidamaru.
The samurai awoke with a whimper as Yoh's fingers, though gentle, caused one of the particularly nasty wounds to flare back in to life. Yoh whipped his hand away, staring as Amidamaru arched his back and cried out once.
Just once.
"Sorry." Yoh mumbled, looking away. Amidamaru smiled bitterly.
"It is I who should be sorry." He exhaled gently, allowing the soothing water to lap over his scarred body. "I see you have discovered my whipscars. I should not have attempted to hide them from you."
Yoh stared silently at the lacerations, digesting the information, until Amidamaru, seeing how uneasy his injuries made the boy, sank into the warm, bubbly bathwater right up to his neck, concealing his entire body apart from his head. Yoh blinked and shook his own head, looking sorrowfully into Amidamaru's dark, baleful eyes.
"Most of them were punishment when I did not perform to the correct standard." The samurai answered the unspoken question that Yoh was almost certainly too nervous to ask.
"Perform?" Yoh asked confusedly. Amidamaru looked down at the water, trancelike, as he spoke.
"To him I was little more than a performing seal, a trained dog to play with." He added a small shrug to the end of the words, as though it was no big deal, but Yoh could see how the samurai's shoulders shook. The young shaman ran his hand gently along Amidamaru's scarred back under the bathwater, comforting the older man.
Amidamaru sighed and looked up at Yoh again before smiling weakly. Then he stood up in the bath, stretching water running in streams down his tanned chest. He laughed slightly and pulled a towel around his waist as Yoh blushed and closed his eyes.
"Sorry," He said in a rich voice, filled with humour. "I had to get out. I would have turned in to a prune if I had stayed in any longer."
"No, um, problem." Yoh responded, his voice slightly squeaky, his eyes screwed tight shut. He wasn't sure if it was modesty or a desire for suspense that made him react so – surely he would see Amidamaru naked soon enough anyway? There were lovers, after all.
"It's late, Yoh." The samurai's calm, serene voice cut through his mind. "You would like to go to bed?"
The young shaman straightened up. Had Amidamaru just made a sexual overture? No. Looking at the young warrior, who radiated only an honest innocence, Yoh realised that his friend would rather go back to being a slave to the voodoo than feel he was putting pressure on Yoh. He wanted Yoh to be in control, Yoh to call the shots.
"Yes." The shaman said at last. "Let's go to bed."