* - * - *

The first thought that drifted up from the sea of insensibility was that his cell had sprung a leak.

Icy water lapped against his legs and pelted his back through his thin shirt, making him shiver. A very big leak. Somebody must have torn a hole right through the damned roof. Maybe that was why the floor felt so gravelly…

A sharp pain in his arm wrenched him rudely back to consciousness, and Kyo woke up with a gasp, glancing around wildly. His eyes widened when he realized where he was. Not inside his cell, or even anywhere within the tower. He was lying sprawled at the edge of a lake, half in and half out of the water. Veils of gray mist floated above the lake's surface, and through the darkness and mist the tower was only a looming shape in the distance, illuminated by flickering specks of crimson light. Behind him was a forest, if one could call the menacing wall of twisting black trunks and strangling vines a forest. The air was bitingly cold and smelled of mud, but at least he wasn't breathing in the dank, fetid smell of ages-old decay and his own filth. The ground underneath him was pebbly and slimy, but he thrust his hands into the cool earth, feeling the sand and mud give way beneath his fingers. His mouth opened in a silent cry of exultation. He was free. No more walls and cages and humiliating iron chains. Only the vastness of the heavens above him and the earth underneath his feet. He was free.

He was also soaking wet. The rains came down in sheets, but for a moment he reveled even in that, forgetting how he'd always hated the rain even in the best of times. He turned his face up to the sky—funny how the storm clouds looked close enough to touch—and let the rain stream down his face and shoulders in icy rivulets, flattening his hair against his head. He was going to pay for this indulgence later, but right now he didn't care. Right now there was nothing but him and the elements, and not even Kami Itself was going to take this away from him.

His hand touched something that was both coarse and yielding at the same moment the stinging pain on his left arm registered, reminding him of more immediate matters at hand. He touched his upper arm, and winced as his hand encountered the ragged, though fortunately shallow, wound. How'd he get wounded anyway? A souvenir from one of his undead jailers? He shrugged, setting aside the problem of his injury for the moment in favor of examining the coarse object beside him. It turned out to be a burlap sack containing a sodden heap of uncooked rice in a smaller sack, a scraggly bundle of long, thin leaves whose stink made his eyes water, some leathery strips that smelled like salted pork and a small cooking pot. He brought out each object and turned them around in his hands as he puzzled over them, except for the leaves, which he threw away in disgust. The leaves were leeks, a plant he wholeheartedly believed was put upon this earth solely to punish those stupid enough to eat them. He thrust everything else back into the sack, wondering what the hell he was supposed to do with them. And while he was at it, what the hell was he doing outside his cell in the first place? Somehow, the idea that Yuki, perverse, cold-hearted bastard that he was, would set him free just like that, let alone be thoughtful enough to give him provisions for his journey back home, held even less water than one of Kyo's shirts after Kagura had wrung the life out of it in one of her fits of amorous domesticity.

Something glinted on the ground, drawing his gaze, and the memory of his last exchange with the son of a bitch who ruled the tower before he was electrocuted into oblivion crashed over him like a tidal wave. The glint came from a dagger whose hilt was carved in the shape of a bird of prey. Kyo looked down at the knife with extreme distaste, reluctant to even touch it.

There's a girl lost in the forest beyond the lake, a trespasser into my realm, just like you. Your business is with her.

"Choke on your business, you shitty, two-bit conjurer." Giving vent to his anger made him feel a little better, and Kyo stood up, intending to walk out of this forest and head back home or, barring that, find some relatively decent shelter from all this damned water pouring from the sky, as his body was starting to remember how much he hated rain. He stooped to pick up the sack—shouldn't waste perfectly good rice and pork—then went still.

Something was watching him from the edge of the forest. The crouching shape was long and sleek-looking and went up well past his knees in height. The proportions are all wrong, a tiny part of his mind pointed out with unnecessary fastidiousness, because everything about the shape was wrong. The long tail ending in a vicious-looking ball of spikes, the thick, bony armor on its back, the two pairs of red, slitted eyes glowing hungrily in the darkness, the rows and rows of teeth as it opened its mouth and hissed at him.

Those teeth. His other hand crept up to his wound, feeling the punctures marks around the edges. Teeth marks. "You bit me," he rasped. "You bit me, you damned rat."

The monstrous rodent stalked closer as it gradually lost its fear of him. Adrenaline flooded Kyo's bloodstream, effectively dispelling the sluggish feeling the rain gave him. He kept his eyes on the rat as it circled him, and as he met the four-eyed stare, Kyo had the sudden feeling that he'd encountered the creature before. Distracted by the bizarre thought, he almost didn't see the rat leap at him, teeth aiming for his groin. He twisted aside and swung out an arm, which happened to be holding the sack, and the metallic clang of the cooking pot hitting the rat's head was the most satisfying thing he'd heard in a long time. The rat fell back, and without thinking Kyo swept the dagger up. He didn't care if the blade had been given to him so he could slit his throat with it; right now the evil-looking thing was the only weapon he had. The dagger responded with an eager shiver, but he didn't have time to register the fact as the giant rat flew at him again, going for blood. He caught the rat by its fur, ignoring the pain as the creature sank its teeth into his arm, and sliced its throat open. Shaking with reaction and bleeding from two wounds, he dropped the rat's carcass and picked up the sack again, and was met by a sight that turned his blood into ice.

A swarm of glowing red eyes. An entire colony of giant rats was melting out of the forest, heading toward him. "Oh shit," was Kyo's succinct commentary, before he turned and ran.

The pattering of clawed feet pursued him. Shit, shit, shit, Kyo cursed as he sprinted down the shore with absolutely no idea where he was going. Not the lake, rats swam like fucking dolphins in the water. The forest? Not with every instinct warning him that the forest was the last place he wanted to be in. He couldn't fight all of them—they'd tear him to pieces within three minutes. Come on, think! Think!

A vision of greenish-gold grass and white and yellow flowers flashed in his mind. Clearing—safe—

Kyo stumbled. "What the hell?" In Kami's name, not these delusions again. A rat came within snapping distance, and he swiped at it with the dagger before pushing off again.

Clearing—nice smell—safe—

Then he saw it. A flickering blue light ahead, radiating as much welcome as anything else in this place, and even without his conscious command, his body was already making a beeline for it. A large gap opened in the forest's flank, like a slice cut out from a pie, and a sweet, clean fragrance filled the air. The blue light came from a small fire at the mouth of a smoothly conical cave. The cave had an unnatural look about it, and the fire even more so, but Kyo wouldn't have cared if the cave turned out to be an oversized wizard's hat and the fire spat little purple dragons as long as the people there had a weapon more substantial than his dagger.

In a desperate burst of speed, he lurched toward the cave, but his appeal for help died in his throat. A girl lay there, her hair spilling on the ground around her head in a dark halo. She was painfully thin, dressed in the shabbiest collection of rags he'd ever seen, even counting the rags he was wearing, and was as white as a corpse, although her restless tossing and incoherent mumbling proved she was still alive. Kyo's jaw dropped as he stared at her, momentarily forgetting about the horde of giant rats in his shock.

It was the girl that damned conjurer had sent him to kill. The dagger pulsed in his hand, and he dropped it revulsion. No way was he going to commit cold-blooded murder. No way in hell.

"Oy," he managed. "Oy, wake up. This is no time for you to be lying here—" He knelt beside her as he spoke, reaching out a hand to shake her, only to pull back from the waves of heat radiating from her. "Shit," he cursed. With a fever like that, no wonder she was insensible. He could practically dry himself out by just sitting near her. Belatedly, he noticed the slightly crushed leaf beside her head and the faint, green smears on her forehead, as well as a couple more leaves lying nearby with a few berries of some sort on them. He picked up the leaf beside her head. The sap felt cool against his fingers. Someone must have attempted to deal with her fever and feed her; somehow, he didn't think the girl was capable of standing on her own right now, let alone pick some cooling leaves off a tree and berries off some bush to have a snack.

Oblivious to his presence, the girl turned her head to one side. "Yuki," she whispered.

Kyo jerked back as if somebody had kicked him. Hatred and rage lashed at him like a whip, rising up in reflexive response to the name, and it took him a few minutes to calm down enough for rational thought to reassert itself. She knew Yuki. Had probably met the bastard. Which made sense, if the conjurer knew enough about her to want her dead. But if she had met Yuki, why was she still alive? The bastard had not been squeamish about killing before, and neither were his demonic servants. Why send Kyo to do his dirty work now?

He gazed down at the pale, heart-shaped face. "Who the hell are you, anyway?"

A chilling hiss snapped him out of his troubled musings. Kami, the rats! Wait a minute, why weren't they swarming over him yet? They weren't far behind… He stood up. Red eyes surrounded the clearing on all sides, peering from the edge of the forest. Not just rats. Other eyes stared at him hungrily, and something growled in the darkness. He and the girl were trapped.

The calm before an impending battle settled upon Kyo. He snatched up the dagger again, along with a burning fagot off the eerie blue fire, then frowned when the fagot turned out to be no bigger than a twig. He dropped it back in the fire disgustedly; he was only going to end up burning himself with that matchstick. He began to move away, intending to draw the rats and their friends away from the girl, when a soft voice made him go still.

"Stay in the clearing."

His gaze snapped toward the girl. She was pushing herself up on her elbow, her hair falling over her face, muffling her labored breaths. She turned toward him, and sea-blue eyes met his, weary but fairly lucid.

"Don't move, idiot!" he said sharply. "You're going to make yourself sicker."

She froze at his command. "Stay in the clearing," she repeated in a weaker voice. "You're safe as long you're in the clearing."

"How the hell would you know?"

She sank back down, as if the effort of warning him had cost her. "Yuki…told me."

He could almost feel every hair on his body stand on end in sheer outrage. "Don't tell me you're fool enough to believe that lying son of a bitch!" he exploded.

She made no response. Kyo scanned the edges of the clearing again, where the rats continued to hover. She had a point, though, he grudgingly admitted. None of the rats or their friends was venturing into the clearing to get at him, and judging from their frustrated hissing, it wasn't for lack of trying. Another voice in his head seemed to purr with satisfaction as a vague memory of the clearing in the daylight surfaced from the depths of his mind. Clearing—safe—

"Shut up!" he growled at the alien voice. Stay out of my head! Those aren't my thoughts, my memories…leave me alone! The pain from his wounds flared into his awareness now that it became evident that he wouldn't be forced to suffer something as ignominious as being gnawed to death by rodents as big as hounds, and his limbs began to tremble with fatigue. He was drenched to the bone and the chill was creeping over him and, on top of all that, he was starving. He stumbled back to the cave and after a vaguely irritated pause, squeezed in beside the girl as close as he could without actually touching her, trying to warm himself up by the fire. The cave was so small, he ended up with the entire left half of his body sticking out of the cave. It was damned uncomfortable, to say the least.

He scowled at the girl. "Oy, move over, will you?"

She turned and muttered something that sounded like "what a cute bunny, Momiji-kun." His eyebrows arched. So much for her moment of clarity. He squeezed in a bit more and, abandoning modesty for good sense, shucked off his wet shirt, wincing at the pain of his wounds. Blood had streaked down his right arm, making a ghastly mess. He cleaned the wounds as best he could with his shirt and considered tearing off strips to bind the wounds with, but he was reluctant to ruin what little clothing he had left. Besides, whispered the same disturbing instinct in his head, come morning the wounds would cease to matter. He shook his head in annoyance.

"I'm sorry, Shigure-san," the girl whispered beside him. "I should have waited for Hatsuharu-san like you told me to." She twisted restlessly, and to his alarm, she began to cry in her sleep, silvery tears trickling from her closed eyes. "I'm sorry…Shigure-san…look out!"

She moaned and twisted again, her face contorting in a mask of anguish. He stared at her, pity softening his gaze. "You're really sick, aren't you?"

She whimpered faintly in reply.

He pulled the sack toward him and brought out the cooking pot and the food. There was just enough rice and pork here for two meals. Or, he realized as a worm of unease burrowed in his spine, enough for two people. He recalled the other item the sack had contained, which was now lying trampled in the mud. Leeks were believed to have medicinal purposes, and some misguided fools back in the settlement sometimes made a sort of gruel with rice and leeks to cure fevers. He looked at the girl. What in Kami's name was going on here anyway? Had he been given a plant to rid the girl of her fever and a knife to finish the job where the fever left off? The confusion was making his head ache, and he decided to leave off figuring out that damned conjurer's intentions until later.

The girl thrashed again, calling hoarsely for someone named Touma-san. Her arm flailed out and he grabbed it before it hit his thigh, then nearly dropped it again as the heat of her skin seared him. Deciding quickly, he collected some rain water in the pot, then lifted her head and pressed the pot's rim gently against her lips. "Here. Drink."

She resisted feebly at first, but soon she was gulping down the cool liquid. He set the pot out for more rain water, and noticed the small clump of white and yellow flowers lying near the berries. He picked one up and sniffed at it, and the clean, herbal smell reminded him of the teas the old healer back at the village used to brew. Old Nana Asako had been big on teas, claiming that a bunch of dead plants boiled in a pot could cure anything except rigor mortis, and only because the right combination of plants hadn't been found yet. Kyo had tolerated Nana Asako's tedious lectures on herb lore only so he could get his hands on her superb meat pies—he half-suspected she'd seasoned those pies with some of her more addictive weeds—and because, despite what he was, the lonely old woman seemed to find some comfort in his presence. His eyes darkened at the memories. Nana Asako had been among the many who never made it to the ship. Kyo had found her charred body wrapped around that of a child—the poor old woman had been trying to shield the child with her own body when they'd set them on fire. But he was heartened to find that not all of Nana Asako had been lost. Bits and pieces of her sermons came back to him now, faced as he was with a patient in dire need of the sort of help she could have given.

He tossed the flowers into the pot and set it on the fire. Just before the water began to boil, he took the pot out, held both hands over the steaming brew, closed his eyes and muttered a simple prayer. Warmth flowed from the earth, through his body and down to his hands, which glowed briefly with a reddish-gold light. When he finished, he opened his eyes and nearly jumped when he found the girl's sea-blue eyes wide open and staring at him. "W-what are you looking at?"

"You know magic." Her voice was hushed with both weariness and awe.

Kyo's mouth fell open. "Magic? What the hell was so magical about that? That was just a dumb prayer of imbuing. Anyone with half a brain could do it."

"A prayer? But I—I felt it—from the ground—"

"Kami dwells within all of creation. The prayer calls upon the healing properties of the earth, that's all," he explained, before shooting the girl a crabby look. "At least you're awake. I won't have to pry your jaws apart and pour this tea down your throat."

She blinked. "You made tea?"

Her astonished tone set his teeth on edge. "Yeah, I made tea. It's for your fever. There were these flowers—are you just going to lie there gawking or are you going drink the damned tea?"

She obediently tried to push herself up but fell back with a gasp, and with a muttered curse, Kyo lifted her again then moved behind her so that she was half-lying on his lap, and he held the pot to her lips while she drank. The fragrant steam from the tea and the warmth from the fire combined to make the tiny cave seem almost cozy, and when she finally turned her head away and closed her eyes, Kyo found himself oddly reluctant to move. Besides, he said to himself, at least every part of him was out of the rain, and it was easier to keep warm this way.

He shifted so that he was leaning back against the wall with the girl's head on his lap. Her lips parted and a little sigh escaped her, although he wasn't sure if it was one of discomfort or contentment. His stomach rumbled the next minute, and he flushed in embarrassment. With her ear practically pressed against his stomach, the sound probably sounded like thunder to her.

Sure enough, the girl opened her eyes. "Thank you," she whispered. "I feel better now."

To his annoyance, his flush deepened, and he turned away to keep her from noticing it. "Yeah, well, hurry it up," he said ungraciously. "You're no lightweight, you know."

It was an out-and-out lie; the girl felt no heavier than a feather to him, and judging from her near skin-and-bones state, he had probably been fed better. A meal of hot rice and pork was sounding more and more appealing with each passing minute. He was about to move to start on that meal, when he felt a light touch on his arm. He glanced down, but she was too busy frowning at his wounds to notice his forbidding expression. "You're bleeding."

He checked his arm and sighed. He must have jarred the wounds when he moved her, although the pain wasn't so bad. He'd always been a fast healer, anyway. He opened his mouth to tell her, when she pushed herself up to a sitting position, biting her lip at the strain. Her hands worked at her skirt, hiking it up to her knees and pulling ineffectively at the hem.

"What're you doing?" Kyo demanded.

"Bandages," she answered. "We have to keep your wounds clean."

"What? Oh for crying out loud, I don't need bandages. It's just a scratch—will you stop that? I said I don't need it!"

"No." The girl tried again to tear a strip off her skirt, her efforts becoming increasingly frantic as the cloth refused to give. "No, we can't let wounds fester. I have to take care of them. They're depending on me now, and I can't let them down. I won't let them down—Tsuyoshi-san—"

She choked on a sob, her fingers still digging weakly into the cloth. Watching her, Kyo found himself wondering what had happened that led her to this godforsaken place, and who these people were who'd depended on her. His heart twisted as he thought about his capture and the murder of his companions. It seemed he and the girl had that much in common.

She started when his hands closed around hers, stilling their frantic movements. She turned to look at him over her shoulder, and he glared down at her. "I. Don't. Need. Them."

Her eyes widened as she stared up at him, her hair falling in a river of brown silk between them. She's pretty, a voice in his head whispered, half in surprise. He suddenly became aware that he'd encircled her in his arms to place his hands on hers, and that the feel of her body against his, warm and soft and solid, felt like heaven to his starved skin. It had been so long since he'd felt the simple, innocent touch of a human being…

Alarm bells rang in his head, penetrating the cobwebs, and he scrabbled away from her as far as the limited space allowed, his face glowing as red as his hair. "I—you—"

She wasn't looking at him though, but at his wounds, her brow furrowed with worry. He wanted to yell at her to leave well enough alone, but he had to admit, the wounds did look rather ugly. "I'm sorry," she murmured, and he wilted, knowing he was beaten.

"All right, already!" He crawled over to her, grasped her skirt, and tore off a couple of strips from the inner lining, carefully avoiding her eyes as he ruined her dress even more. He sat back to bind his wound, but a small hand touched him on his arm again. "Oh, what now?" he grumbled

She was looking at him earnestly. "Let me do it."

His brows snapped together. "Will you stop fussing over me? You're the one who was barely sane a while ago. Just lie down and go to sleep or something!"

"I'm sorry," she apologized again. "I don't mean to fuss over you but—but won't putting bandages on be easier if two hands do it?"

And while she was at it, he really wished she'd stop making sense. With an inarticulate snarl of annoyance, he shoved the strips of cloth at her and held out his arm for her to bind his wounds, which she did with a gentle, soothing touch that felt…almost maternal. His mind veered sharply away from that thought. It's because he'd been locked up for so long. That's why being in close proximity with this girl was affecting him so. That's all.

She gave his bandages a satisfied pat and smiled. The irritation drained out of him in the face of her happiness at having done the job. "Now will you lie down and rest?" he said grumpily, not quite meeting her eyes.

"Oh, but—wouldn't you like some dinner?"

What? He followed her gaze to the pot and the food. She made a move toward the sack, obviously intending to cook for them, for Kami's sake. He caught hold of her collar and yanked her back. "No," he stated implacably. "I'll do it. The tea may have brought you back from the dead, but you're still sick and I'll be damned if I'm going to let a sick person make dinner for me."

Properly chastened, she nodded and curled up on her side with her head pillowed on her arm. Kyo wished she'd go to sleep or something. The way her eyes followed his every movement was bugging the hell out of him, and he considered throwing his shirt over her head just to block out her disconcerting gaze. Finally, he turned to tell her to quit it, but her expression of open-mouthed wonder cut him short. "It is you," she gasped. "The Ashari prince. I saw your face in a flyer."

He tensed. "What did you call me?"

"The Ashari prince. A-aren't you? You're the chieftain's adopted son. But—but they said you were dead. They said you'd been killed by Mizakan soldiers."

"Well, I'm not dead," he snapped. "And I'm not a prince either. Kami, where'd you hear that crap?" Something she said struck him. "What do you mean you saw my face?"

She told him about the rising civil war in Mizaka and how the people of the Outer City had taken up the Ashari's cause as their own, about her travels through the villages, and how the Ashari had been attacking villages loyal to Mizaka, and how the people there believed that the chieftain's son was dead, not just kidnapped. Her story had more holes than a broken sieve—she didn't explain how she'd strayed so far northward and why she'd been on a caravan in the first place—but Kyo decided to let her selective reticence pass for now.

"Mizakan soldiers, huh?" he snorted when she'd finished. He thought about the demons that had ambushed them. At least eight feet tall, with glistening red skin stretched over their skeletons and gaping open along the back where sharp, bony spikes jutted out, limbs that dragged on the ground and ended in long, curving claws, and heads that vaguely resembled rabid wolves' that had been skinned alive. He shuddered, remembering the horror and helplessness he'd felt. "Your city's soul is black enough to spawn creatures like the ones that had massacred my companions, but no, they weren't from Mizaka. If they'd even been human once, there's precious little evidence of it."

She stared at him incredulously. "Then it's not true? There really was no Mizakan treachery involved?"

The look he gave her was enough to make her shrink away from him. "Oh, there was Mizakan treachery involved," he growled. "Plenty of it."

Her expression grew even more confused, and he was compelled to explain. "We spent more than thirty days on that ship after we were driven out of our homes," he said in a low voice. "Most of us were sick or injured, and there were too many of us for the ship's supplies. Some died on the voyage, but the others hung on, still hoping to reach the Promised Land in the old legends, where our true home supposedly lay. When our ship docked in Mizaka, we went crazy with joy, thinking we'd finally found a city that would take us in, so we could prepare ourselves for the journey to our Promised Land. Kazuma-cho, our chieftain—" he carefully avoided the word 'father' "—took some of us with him into the city to plead for asylum, and offered in exchange our services as guards. Our people breed damn good warriors," he couldn't resist adding smugly.

"We—Kazuma-cho and his companions met with one of your city's elders. Pretty high up, the servants called him Councilman or something. He told us that Governor Takei would be willing to grant us asylum if—" his voice lowered to a hiss at the memory of that pasty-faced old man looking down his nose at them as if they were servants who'd forgotten their place "—if we abandoned all practice of magic and the worship of our heathen god. That meant turning our backs on everything that made us who we are, but Kazuma-cho agreed to the terms. We badly needed food, shelter and medicines, and Kami would've understood. We left thinking everything was settled, but three days later city guards stormed in from out of nowhere and arrested us. Our crime was performing magic, and our sentence was public execution."

The girl gasped, but Kyo assumed it was out of sympathy to his tale. "We didn't do it," he bit out, his wine-colored eyes flashing with remembered anger. "We followed the agreement to the letter, and suddenly these twice-damned liars were accusing us of breaking the faith. A few resisted, and two were killed in the skirmish. The others were dragged off to prison—" the girl winced again, but Kyo didn't notice "—but the night before the execution, they were sprung out and led back to the ship so we could escape. That was the last we saw of your accursed city." He rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "Come to think of it, I never did find out who busted the others out of jail. We must've had a couple of friends in the city I didn't know of."

"I'm sorry," she said softly. "I didn't know. They never said—they just called you murderers and bandits, but they never explained what happened." She trailed off, recalling how the politicians in the Inner City swore up and down to capture the Ashari criminals, and conversely, the Outer City's outraged sympathy for the refugees who'd been treated so unfairly. "For what it's worth, a lot of people in Mizaka believe in you," she continued. "And a lot of the villages are actually friends with your people. How strange, though," she added, biting her lip.

"What's strange?"

"Just that I know your face and where you come from, but I don't know your name. Nobody seems to know what your name is, not even in the villages where they know your people."

"You actually asked people for my name?" he asked, stunned.

She nodded. "Most people know you by your death, or your kidnapping or—or whatever happened to you. What did happen to you, anyway?" When he glared at her, she wisely decided to continue with her original point. "You've become the rallying point for an entire rebellion. I—I just thought that you deserved to be remembered as a person instead of just a—a battle cry, and Mother always told me that names were important, and—" She flushed in embarrassment and bit her lip. "I'm sorry. I just meant to ask what your name is, that's all."

For some reason, he could feel a blush blooming on his own face, and he turned away in annoyance. Kami, what was wrong with him, anyway? "It's Kyo," he muttered.

"Kyo—?"

"Just 'Kyo.'"

"Kyo-san," she said slowly, as if trying the name out for size.

He glanced at her sharply. "What the hell's the 'san' for?"

"I-It's an honorific—"

"Well, drop the damned honorific. It's disgusting. I already said I'm not a prince."

"I'm sorry," she said again, then her face brightened. "How about 'Kyo-kun' then? It's a bit less formal than 'san.'"

He glowered suspiciously at her before relenting. "All right, 'Kyo-kun,' whatever makes you happy, just quit making a big deal out of my name."

"Thank you, Kyo-kun," she said, smiling. "My name's Tohru Honda."

Tohru. He stared at her, matching the name to her face. A heart-shaped face, a warm smile and eyes like the ocean on a clear summer's day. He gulped when he realized what direction his thoughts were taking, and he quickly became engrossed in producing their meal. "The rice is done. Pull yourself together and sit up. This enchanted fire's useful, I'll give it that," he added before glaring over his shoulder at her. "We'll share the pot. If I hear one complaint out of you, I'll eat everything up."

They sat side by side, scooping rice up with their hands and chewing on the rather tough strips of pork. Although she was obviously starved, Tohru only managed to eat little more than half her share before she leaned back with her eyes closed, breathing evenly through her nose. Kyo eyed what was left of her dinner. "You planning on eating that? We need the pot to catch water in. I could make some more tea—oy, are you listening to me?"

Her face suddenly went green. "E-excuse me," she gasped through a hand pressed against her mouth, before bolting out of the cave into the darkness to be noisily sick. Kyo gaped after her, then cursed roundly and followed her, getting instantly drenched in the rain. Again. He found her bent over a few feet away, still heaving up her dinner, and after a pause, he began rubbing her back in vaguely soothing circles. "Oy, oy, you better stop before you puke your guts out," he counseled. She straightened up and swayed, and his arm snaked out to catch her around the waist before she folded up. Sighing, he half-carried, half-dragged her back to the cave and lay her down on the ground. "Here, eat these to get rid of the taste," he said, popping a couple of berries into her mouth before she could protest.

"Sweetberries," she slurred, sounding absurdly happy. "I love sweetberries. He gave them to me."

Kyo, who'd been peeling her sodden dress off of her to keep her from relapsing, froze with his hands on her buttons. "'He?'"

Her eyes were drifting shut again, although the silly smile lingered on her face. "Yuki."

"Yuki." Kyo spat out the name as if it fouled his mouth. "That damned conjurer was here, wasn't he? What did he do to you? What did he say? Why didn't he—" —kill you? He managed to swallow the words before they formed themselves, but he really shouldn't have bothered. The girl was already fast asleep.

The answer to that is obvious, anyway, a voice in his head informed him scornfully. Yuki didn't kill her because that's your job. He thought about the dagger. Yuki would look like an angel of mercy to Tohru, while he, Kyo, would be her murderer. But why in all seven hells would that damned conjurer even bother to deceive this girl? What kind of game was he playing?

Another memory welled up from the tainted depths of his mind—a small, silvery-white mouse whose violet eyes glinted with surprisingly human-like contempt—and before Kyo became aware of it, his fingers had curved themselves into claws. He stared blindly at his hands as his mind struggled to deal with the abysmal possibilities opening up before him.

Cursed. A bitter laugh escaped him. Why had he been so afraid to even consider it? It could explain so many things. Why he never woke up to daytime anymore. Why his head was filled with memories of the sun he didn't remember seeing rising or setting, a lake he had never laid eyes on before, and a forest he had never been to all his life. Why his body felt all wrong whenever he woke up. Why the coming dawn always brought on spasms of pain that always ended in unconsciousness.

Something…happened to him during the daytime. Somehow, he would lose all sense of himself—his body, his mind, his senses, everything—and become something else. Child of sorrow. The words haunted him, filling him with a nameless terror that ate through his defenses like acid and left him as weak and helpless as a child again. What had Yuki done to him? He was cursed, as all children of sorrow were; Kyo's whole life had been defined by this curse and the utter shame and disgrace it brought upon him. And Yuki knew about it. Had he triggered Kyo's curse and released the being that had haunted Kyo's nightmares ever since he could remember?

What sort of monster did he become when daylight came?

Tohru shivered and moaned in her sleep, jolting Kyo from his grim reflections. He quickly finished undressing her, and when she lay clothed only in her thin white shift—don't look! don't look!—he hastily covered her up with his shirt. He frowned down at her sleeping face, wondering where exactly this girl fit in Yuki's plans. He'd let her sleep for a while, then wake her up later to get his answers, he decided. And when all this damned rain stopped, the two of them would get out of this place, and to hell with Yuki's orders.

Almost of its own volition, his hand lifted and brushed a few strands of hair off her cheek. His gaze softened. "What kind of idiot insists on putting bandages on someone else's wounds when she's too sick to even keep her own dinner down?" he muttered, although his voice held none of its customary heat.

Then he leaned his head back against the cave, and followed her into slumber.

Author's Excuse—er, Notes:

Oh lawd, I sincerely, sincerely apologize for the long wait for this installment. I know, it's been two weeks, and I'm sorry for making you wait that long. Er, that is, if you guys are still waiting for it… (Am feeling a Ritsu-like fit coming on.) I just had a really bad case of writer's block. I was writing the entire two weeks, but every word felt like a tooth extraction. I don't think the chapters are any good—too much mental Novocaine or something. I'm really, really sorry and to you guys who are still reading this (which makes you the absolute BEST, thank you so much), I won't let it happen again. Or die trying.

A few notes: To Saki-chan, continue with your story, "Tears of an Angel," please. And to Clymene, where would the world be without slackers like us? ^__^ (Let's just hope our bosses don't find out.)