"Tell me how to stop the spell, Ethan."

"And you said Ripper was long gone." Ethan couldn't tear his gaze from molten gold. This creature will kill me. Unless... if Bengal didn't know, perhaps Rupert doesn't as well. "You wouldn't force a child to kill, would you?"

"Battousai's killed more people in one night than you or I ever managed in all our arrogance and idiocy." Ripper's voice was hard, angry; a crust of stone over molten lava. "People are hurt. People are dying. I will stop you."

"There has been enough blood shed this night." The redheaded demon's voice was level, controlled. "Tell us, and live."

A killer. But then, Ripper is too, isn't he? And he's so much fun to play with. Ethan smirked. "Say 'pretty please'."

"Oh, the hell with this!" the Slayer snapped out, fishing something out of her jacket. Something small, and dark, and attached to a pin the Slayer pulled free in one swift snag of a finger in a ring. "Fire in the hole!"

Fire in the- dear gods!

Steel vanished from his neck. Something rattled off Janus' pedestal.

The back room exploded.

The world blurred. Sharpened. Blurred again.

Snapped back into focus, as Buffy kneaded her forehead and groaned. Where am I, and why are my ears ringing?

Halloween. The costume shop. Duo's grenade.

Ohmigod! "Kenshin!" Duo might have believed the redhead had enough sense to bolt before the blast went off, but having spent the last few hours submerged under the Gundam pilot's bloody mindset, Buffy could justifiably say Duo was just a little bit insane. Met his best friend by shooting him... why do I not think that's going to cut any ice with Angel? "Kenshin, if you didn't make it out of there, so help me, I'll kill you!"

Tired laughter tickled her ears. The redheaded swordsman picked himself off the ground beside her, eyes violet and gentle again. "It'd seem redundant, that it would." He looked her over carefully. "Buffy-dono?"

"Just Buffy." She looked away quickly; that odd softness in his gaze was doing funny things to her insides. "Guys? Giles? Ms. Calendar?" She swallowed. "Angel?"

Various groans, gasps, and more than a few curses reassured her that the Scoobies and their accumulated semi-innocent bystanders were intact. More or less. Angel was gingerly plucking splinters from his shoulders, giving her a wary, wild-eyed look. "Grenade. Wood. Not a good combination," the ensouled vampire pointed out.

Buffy winced. "Sorry."

"Oooo. Pretty fireworks," Xander said dazedly, wobbling up from where he'd been crouched protectively over a young kitsune kit. Shook himself, blunted shards of wood falling off his red haori. "Buffy, from all of our hearts, I thank you. You always care enough to bring out the very best." He helped the little girl to her now-human bare feet. "Kid? You okay?"

Fake fox ears attached to a hairpiece slid off a little brunette's head. She looked at them, up at the strange teen holding her, and shivered. "I want my mommy!"

"No kidding." White ears flattened against the piercing wail, Xander gingerly pushed her towards Ms. Calendar. "Um, Ms. Calendar? Maybe you could-?"

"I'm a computer teacher, not a den mother." But Jenny cradled the little girl against her green robes, drawing two fingers over her forehead. "Ssh. It was just a bad dream. It's all right now..."

The little girl sniffled. Yawned. Nestled into Jenny's shoulder, eyes fluttering closed.

"Boy, kids can sleep through anything," Cordelia said, amazed. Fingers found a splinter, yanked it out of the back of her hand with a wince.

"Save that terrified children usually do not succumb to slumber so easily," Jonathan noted soberly, brushing dust off his suit. Flushed. "That is - um - what I meant was-"

"Cordelia!" Willow squeaked, lowering her wand; the shield McGonagall had raised against flying debris for herself, Jonathan, and Duo vanished in a hum of silver magic. "Your hand!"

"What about my-" Cordelia looked down at the drop of welling blood left behind by blasted wood. Blood which was quickly vanishing, absorbed into pale skin as her flesh became whole once more. "Uh. Um?"

Face set, Giles pulled off his left glove, closing clawed fingers into a shaky fist. "Dear Lord."

"Dear Lord." From Giles. Buffy swallowed dryly, gingerly poking fingers into her hair to tug off Duo's chestnut braid. Encountering not the rough scratch of a wig, but warm, soft hair that stung when she pulled. As in, Sunnydale has fallen into the ninth level of hell. Again.

"But - the kid - uh - and I don't hear anymore screaming-" Xander protested, furry ears flicking back and forth as he listened to the night. "Oh god that feels weird."

"Ethan," Giles growled, striding through the shattered doorway.

"Long gone, I fear. His ki is nowhere near, that it is not." Kenshin stepped aside as part of a counter hurtled out the door, flung by a furious hellhound. "What is it you seek?"

"Ethan cast the spell here," Giles bit out. "There should be notes. Scrolls. Something."

"Right." Buffy gathered up the Scoobies with a look. "C'mon, let's see what I didn't blow up." Cloth bits, shelf bits, broken plastic swords - few more orc costumes, and Rayne would've replayed Helm's Deep for real...

"Here!" Willow called out a few minutes later. "It's kind of in pieces, but..."

"Bark? How very-" Giles frowned. "But it has the scent, yes - oh gods, that is disturbing."

"Weird woodcuts-are-us?" Cordelia craned her head as the pair started gathering pieces. "I thought, you know, funky spells were in those musty old books of yours."

"Not in ancient Roman Gaul." Giles took the box Xander handed over, started placing bits of slivered, ink-lettered wood glued to bark inside. "Which seems to be the origin of these pieces; the lettering is Roman, but the language is definitely of Brythonic derivation..."

"Rupert, we'll listen to the etymology lesson later, we promise," Jenny said firmly. "Can you fix it?"

"Not now, and not here," the Watcher answered. "We need to - assemble the puzzle, as it were. And I strongly suspect I'll need my books to make sense of it. Chaos spells are esoteric and highly idiosyncratic by their very nature."

"So we're library-bound? Good." Buffy took a deep breath. "Okay. Willow? Ms. Calendar? Can you two make with the research with Giles? The rest of us have some freaked-out kids to find." She let out a tired breath. "Don't know exactly how..."

"Xander's got a nose," Cordelia put in. "I've got pretty good ears. Red over there can pick out ki. And we've got Angel and Bond over there to bat clean-up. We'll find them."

"Kenshin, Cordelia-dono," the swordsman said politely. "Not 'Red'."

Buffy tensed, trying to figure out how to draw Angel's attention. He knew his own name? Outside of two Jedi mind tricks, none of us knew who we were. Not while we were under the spell.

"Whatever," Cordelia waved it off. "Where are you from, anyway? I thought I knew all the local losers by sight. Not that that means much at the moment..." She took a closer look at Xander. "Huh. Outside of the hair and fangs, you still look like you." Walking closer, she lifted a curious hand. "Only these are definitely cuter..."

"Hey! Not the ears!"

"I'm sorry!" Willow blurted as fingers scuffled with fur. "I'm sorry about the spell I forgot Gryffindors don't do subtle 'cause subtle's Slytherin and Gryffindors aren't Slytherin even if it kills them which, wow, you think it would, I read about basilisks in some of Giles' books and they're just nasty, only that's not how the Potter books are written-"

"Willow," Buffy tried.

"-And I didn't mean to, but I couldn't stop her and the professor was so sure she was right-"

"Wills!" Dodging out from under Cordelia's rubbing fingers, Xander grabbed her by the shoulders. "Breathe."

"But-"

"When one works undercover, the most unlikely acts seem rational," Jonathan said firmly. "This was rather farther under than any agent would strive for. No one blames you for your actions." He stopped. Shook his head, as if he could rattle Bond loose. "Mr. Giles, I really hope you can fix this. Sounding British in California - it's too freaky!" A speculative gleam touched green eyes. "Though you know, I think I know how to drive now..."

"No driving," Buffy said firmly. "Driving without a license is of the bad. Driving like Bond, without weirdoes in wheelchairs with white cats and razor-Frisbee hat-throwing henchmen in hot pursuit, is of the evil."

"Besides, we don't have a car," Cordelia pointed out practically.

Jonathan's gleam deepened. "Oh... that's not a problem..."

Buffy shot him a quelling look. It barely dented his grin. "And hotwiring a car is definitely of the evil." No matter how much fun it sounded like. At least I think I'd drive better than Heero. That guy's a menace in anything with wheels.

"Quite," Giles said dryly. "Your targets are on foot, in any case. Seeking them by vehicle would give you no advantage."

"Why not?" Willow asked, puzzled.

"I'll... explain as we sort this." The Watcher traded a firm look with Kenshin. "Look after them, Battousai."

Kenshin nodded.

"You, look after us?" Cordelia said sharply as they headed outside. "What's up with that?"

"Giles-san knows I have... memories of searching for the lost," Kenshin said quietly. "He is correct; a car would not be of aid. Frightened children will not stay near roads. They will flee them, flee from any source of strangers, and hide."

She rolled her eyes. "Then how is anybody supposed to find them?"

"Children believe parents can do anything, Cordelia-dono." A shadowed smile touched his face. "It is a hard lesson, to learn they cannot."

"So Giles knows who you went as," Angel said coolly.

"Hai."

"Who?"

Kenshin tensed slightly as they reached a sidewalk. Sighed, and shook his head. "The Hitokiri Battousai."

"Battousai the Manslayer?" Xander yelped. "You went as some kind of demon assassin? What the hell were you thinking?"

"You, too, went as a hanyou, Xander-san," Kenshin said mildly.

"Well, yeah - but not an assassin!"

"And not that assassin," Angel said grimly. "I'd like to know where you found any mention of him. I thought the Meiji government tried to bury any whisper of their Bakumatsu assassins in unmarked graves. Usually along with the assassins. Especially him."

"And especially him why?" Buffy said carefully. The Bakumatsu. Meiji. Hitokiri. I've never heard those words before, and yet - they're familiar. Somehow.

Angel looked at the redhead, obviously wrestling with his conscience. "Let's just say, he was really good at what he did."

"What Angel-san means to say, is that for five years, from 1863 to 1868, Battousai made the streets of Kyoto run red with blood," Kenshin said softly.

"Okay, that was a news flash I really could have survived missing," Cordelia grumbled.

"Oh, and Tatsuhiko Shido would have won the nice guy award a couple centuries back?" Xander put in. "Funny, the anime I saw seemed to say years of slaughtering people."

"That's different!" Cordelia defended herself. "He stopped. After he remembered he used to be human, not just a vampire."

"Details, details..."

"And like your Shido, Battousai, too, ceased to kill," Kenshin stated. "Once the Revolution was won, at the battle of Toba Fushimi, he left his sword on the field and vanished, never to be heard from again."

"Not by humans," Angel contradicted him. "I heard the local vampires tried to jump him a few times later, whenever rumors of a redheaded swordsman surfaced again. They usually didn't come back."

"And vampires would be going after an ex-assassin why?" Buffy cocked her head at Angel.

"He was a Hiten Mitsurugi master."

"Which tells me exactly zip," she pointed out. I think. It's weird. It sounds familiar - but not. And it's not from Duo. "You going cryptic guy again?"

"They're not just demon assassins," Angel clarified. "They're assassins of demons."

"Only in self-defense," Kenshin put in. "And defense of those who cannot protect themselves."

"Basically defined as humans in general," Angel stated. "I don't know how much of this is true, but rumor has it that somewhere back in the Warring States era, some hanyou swordsman took up with a bunch of human demon slayers. Between them they built a whole style just to kill demons."

"To protect," Kenshin corrected. "Human or demon."

"Whatever. Supposedly it's the reason Japan's almost never had a Slayer," Angel went on. "The masters tend to hide who they are. Battousai's only as well known as he is because he took sides in the Revolution."

"Well known?" A red brow went up, curious. "I believe you said not many had heard of him."

"Not many humans. In the night side of things? Everybody heard of him." Angel frowned. "Red hair, cross-shaped scar... okay, I see it. Sort of."

"Sort of?" Xander gave them both a sidelong look.

"Well... all the stories say Battousai drank blood like rainwater, shot fire from his eyes, and swung an enchanted sword that called down lightning. Not to mention, he was eight shaku tall. I think that's about an inch or so under eight feet, American - what's so funny?" Angel asked sharply.

Chuckling softly, Kenshin shook his head. "Nan demo nai..."

And either he's slipping into Japanese the way Jonathan and Willow are slipping into Giles-speak, Buffy thought, feeling a half-dozen wind-wisps of suspicion knot into one lump of not-quite-right, or-

K'so.

And that was definitely Duo.

He doesn't just speak Japanese. He moves Japanese. The same as when I met him. When Xander and Cordy - they're still not moving like them, but they got at least a little of their own bounce back.

So. Now what?

"Buffy?" Angel frowned.

"Later," she said, as Cordelia and Kenshin coaxed two little boys dressed as werewolves, a mixed bag of Maximals, and a very determined fairy princess out from under a hedge. "After we get the kids back."

"Word of warning?" Xander quipped, dropping back with them as Cordelia surreptitiously checked that the kids' costumes were just that. "If you want to pound Kenshin, which I have no idea why you want to do that, yet, but - anyway, you'd better stay downwind. Kitsune noses aren't as good as inu, but he'd have to have a face full of pepper spray to miss that."

"Thanks," Buffy said shortly.

"Hey, is it my fault you humans are all nose-blind? Not that you even pay attention to what you do smell." He snorted, folding clawed hands inside his haori sleeves in a very un-Xander-like, nose in the air pose. "No way could anybody whose brain wasn't smothered in hearts and flowers miss graveyard earth and bones over there-"

It's just the costume, Buffy told herself through a sudden red haze. It's just the costume... this is Inuyasha, after all. The classic open mouth, insert foot, get slammed down by 'SIT!'...

Only Xander hadn't worn a rosary, and they didn't have a helpful miko to put one on. Darn.

Guess I'll just have to improvise.

"Um... Buff? What were you going to do with that?" Gold eyes were bugged out wide, as Xander backed up from glowing green energy.

Let's find out. "Oh, Xan-der," she sing-songed.

No fool, the hanyou bolted.

Driving home from the Shelter Club gig - which had been way too much more interesting than usual, due to half the crowd suddenly deciding the other half constituted either "faboo clinging material", or "lunch" - a frazzled Oz pulled his van to a stop at a quiet intersection. At least it's over.

Though the wild-haired guitarist wasn't sure just what was over. At the time it'd been clear as daylight, but now the details were fuzzy, and getting fuzzier. Maybe somebody had slipped something into the punch? Probably one of the Bronze's post-fumigation party cockroaches...

"Are you sure we got it all?" A striking teenage redhead in Gryffindor robes hurried across the intersection, walking next to a brunette Corellian Jedi carrying a snoring little girl in a Shippou outfit and a dark-haired dog-demon with a WWI German outfit and a katana who was carrying... a box. A box?

Must be some haul of candy.

The dog demon, who Oz belatedly recognized as a familiar though very fangy librarian, sighed. "I am certain, yes, please try to calm down."

"Trust in the Force," Ms. Calendar nodded.

"Easy for you to say..."

Oz watched them go, dumbstruck. Whoa. I never thought about how much of a looker Professor McGonagall would have been as a student. "Who is that girl?"

The road was clear; the guitarist pulled out, heading toward home. Driving carefully; after all, even if trick-or-treating should have been over hours ago, Snyder's "volunteers" were probably still rounding up their sugar-hyped little kids-

Red blur foot brake!

"Um... sorry about that," a still-in-costume Xander said sheepishly, perched in a crouch on the hood of his van. "You okay?"

Oz took a second to breathe. Looked at the road. Looked at the characteristic red haori and hakama over the bare toes digging into his van's paint. Looked toward a vanishing flash of green, where Buffy was sheepishly folding up a rod of collapsible black metal. "I'm cool." Wait a second. Was that red hair off on the sidewalk, almost hidden by a gaggle of kids?

Oz turned off the van and jumped out, not sure how the redhead had gotten from there to here, but not really caring if it got him a chance to try when he wasn't tongue-tied. "Um - miss-"

Violet eyes turned toward him, and a red brow went up.

"Sorry," Oz said without skipping a beat. If the dark blue gi and gray hakama weren't enough of a clue, the paired swords were a dead giveaway. Not from Hogwarts. Darn. "Thought you were someone else."

"That is a problem on this night, is it not?" Violet narrowed a little, studying him; relaxed into a friendly smile. "It is good to see you."

Oz almost blinked. That smile... felt like the one his mother had given him once, years ago, when a leaf-stained and much-younger Oz had finally emerged from an hours-long unannounced trek into the wilds of a nearby park. "Do I know you?"

The swordsman gave him a minimal shrug. "Not yet."

Ah. New student, then. "Cool."

"Hey!" A gray-suited Cordelia in a surprisingly flattering lavender hairstyle waved at him, then pointed at the van, red ribbon cravat fluttering in the breeze. "Not like I care if you want to sabotage what little is left of your social life, but if the cops haul my ex-boyfriend's band partner in for illegal parking, the whole school is going to hear about it!"

"She's right, young one," the swordsman said firmly. "Don't get caught."

"Right." Stifling the odd urge to shake his head, Oz started up his van and drove off. Young one? From a guy who didn't look any older than he was?

And why did he feel like he ought to know that voice?

"...Don't get caught next time."

Pulling into his own driveway, Oz frowned at that whisper of something that wasn't quite a memory. Must've met him somewhere... he's out with Buffy and crew, Mr. Giles should know who he is. I can ask him.

Which had nothing to do with the fact that a certain redheaded Gryffindor was last seen walking with said sword-carrying librarian, and might actually be somewhere in the vicinity when he went to ask. Nothing. At all.

Not.

Whoa. Backtrack that thought. Mr. Giles was wearing a katana?

Hadn't looked plastic, either. Any more than Buffy's redheaded swordsman's daisho.

Maybe the library wasn't such an uncool place to hang out after all...

"Yes, yes, a very long night," Giles said firmly, handing the yawning little girl in a kitsune's blue and orange costume over to her dazed parents; just one of many sets of reunited families on this oddest of all Sunnydale nights. "Straight home would be best, I agree. Try to detour around the intersection of Laguna and Elm Street, there seems to have been some sort of - disturbance..." Which was, perhaps, the tamest word he could use to describe their confrontation with the three costumed Lilin and uncounted other true demons drawn to the fray.

Three innocents in costume, of which two were most likely dead at his children's hands.

I only pray it hasn't sunk in yet. Under the juvenile humor, Xander is as resilient as they come, but Cordelia... she's far more fragile than she would allow us to realize.

Which was precisely why he'd sent Battousai with them, rather than hauling the hitokiri into a handy alley and asking a set of very pointed questions. His children came first; and if anyone could protect them from their own wounded souls, Himura would.

Not a decision Saitou would make, Giles knew. But I am not Saitou. Not in this lifetime.

Though he could feel the Miburou's cold fury rising closer to the surface with each set of dazed parental eyes. Couldn't they see? Couldn't they hear? Didn't they know how close their flesh and blood had come to grisly death?

A hand that had been more familiar with a keyboard than a sword rested on his shoulder. Calm washed over him like spring rain, quelling the low growl in his throat. "It's not their fault, Rupert," Jenny said softly, alien fragrance still scenting her hair, though the flower itself now rested in a vial of rooting solution in the science lab. "And it's not yours."

"I never said-"

"You didn't have to." Jenny smiled wryly, watching Willow bustle about sorting shell-shocked teen supervisors and their straggling charges into more-or-less organized groups. "I can see the parents going pale all the way across the parking lot."

Belatedly, Giles reined in his ki. Sunnydale's adults might be blithely oblivious to the supernatural about them, but that wouldn't stop them from panicking in the face of a hellhound's rage. "Er... yes. Well. It's only, I'd hoped to be in the library by now..."

"The sooner we get the little darlings back to where they belong, the sooner we can dive into your stacks of dusty, musty, smelly knowledge," the computer teacher said firmly. "By the way. I've read Inuyasha. Have you thought about just how bad that dust is going to be with your nose?"

"...Oh, dear," Giles said faintly.

"And... we're back!" Xander pumped a clawed fist in the air as his small horde of children and teens rounded the corner into view. "Ladies, gentlemen, the quest for the sacred candy shards has succeeded, the bad guys have met the wrath of Shinigami, and the Jedi order has restored peace and justice to the galaxy. Boo-yah!"

Speechless, Giles could only shake his head in amazement as the children cheered, nightmares set aside by Xander's toothy grin. Not for the first time, he felt grateful Xander had been lurking in the stacks when he and Buffy had spoken of vampires. The Slayer might protect lives, but her band of friends helped patch together what was left after the Slaying was done.

They're distracted. Now is your chance.

He whistled low, a patterned cadence that had likely not been heard since the last Shinsengumi had left the dust of the world. A pale hand brushed by the redheaded swordsman's ear, as if batting away a pesky mosquito...

And Battousai vanished.

Giles slipped out of the crowd's view, leaping up to land lightly on one of the school's lower roofs. "Himura."

"Giles-san." A shadow detached itself from the darkness, the Bakumatsu's most feared assassin employing the skills of his trade as easily as breathing. "Or should one say... Saitou Hajime?" A miniscule shake of red hair. "Okita said we both had friends in peril, yet I did not expect to meet you; that I did not."

"Okita?" Giles sucked in a sharp breath, recalling the brilliant young samurai who would have fought the Ishin Shishi to his last breath, only to fall to tuberculosis. "Is he - well?"

"I believe so," Kenshin nodded. "Though if the Powers have seen through his and Han'nya's deceptions on my behalf... but he has the best of the Oniwabanshuu on his side. And we were careful to arrange my escape to look as accidental as possible. And if not accidental, only my own fault..."

"Your escape?" Giles said carefully. "You couldn't have been in Hell, Himura. Not you."

Silence faced him across the asphalt shingles. "Do you know what Hell truly is, Giles-san?" Kenshin said softly, not meeting his eyes. "Hell... is passing the final door, into light and life, only to find that the one you love beyond life will only share it with you for a heartbeat. For she has a destiny, she is Chosen, and she must return. And because you kept her from that destiny in one life - you protected her - the Powers' spite ensures she will be granted the worst of those Chosen lives they can find. For she, they say, has rested, when others have not; and what is fairness, but spreading pain evenly among those sacrificed to protect the world?"

"Battousai..."

"Hell," Himura went on, as if the words were torn from him, "is feeling her kiss you goodbye yet again, before she vanishes back into this world, knowing she will be born to grief, and rage, and pain. Hell is waiting, and watching, as friend after friend chooses to take their chances, hoping to be reunited with her. To spare her, if they can, some small measure of the pain Fate has decreed. Sano, Megumi, Yahiko, little Tsubame... I saw them all go. And I - could not. I could not."

"Himura..."

"Hell is feeling her soul come so, so near to yours once again, cold and lonely and frightened of the dark." A tear glistened in stray light from the parking lot, trickling down the long slash of the cross-shaped scar. "I felt her cry out, Saitou. I felt her drowning. And I - I could do nothing..."

"Kenshin." Giles forgot the deadly swordsman, seeing only a young man torn by grief too great to bear. He gathered the small frame close, feeling hot salt soak Dreizehn's uniform. So small. I'd forgotten he's so small.

"They told me I had earned peace." No hate in Himura's tear-choked whisper; just a bewildered, aching grief. "They said - I was too valuable to return to this life. That so few assassins had reached - where I had. That I should be grateful to lay aside my blade forever... or at least, until they should decide where I might be best used against their enemies..."

"Fools," Giles breathed. Use a Hiten Mitsurugi master? What were they thinking? The masters of the Hiten struck as free blades only; that was why Himura had vanished from Toba Fushimi in the first place.

But he let himself be used as Battousai. They must have thought they could convince him to make the same mistake twice.

Twice fools, then.

"I... do not recall much of that place, that I do not," Kenshin said quietly against his shoulder. "But I know I sought for others I had known. Okita, Han'nya, Koshijirou - any who might aid-"

"Kamiya Koshijirou?" Giles arched a dark brow at his past life's redheaded nemesis. "And what did your father-in-law, who developed the swords to give life, have to say about his daughter marrying an ex-hitokiri?"

"Anou..." Kenshin flushed, disentangling himself from uniformed arms. "I - um - would rather not say..."

Giles took pity on him. Besides, amusing as it may be to watch Battousai squirm, the others will miss us soon. And I want answers. "They found you a way out."

"Aa." Kenshin sighed. "An opening. One I might have taken long ago, if only I had known of it-"

"Enough guilt!" Giles growled. "You're here now. All I need to know is how, so I can ensure no one meddles to send you back." Bad enough that you've landed here when her heart is drawn to another; if Buffy loses you again- gods, I don't want to think about it.

Silently, Kenshin drew a scroll from his gi. Offered it with a slight bow.

Giles took it, unfolding the paper just enough to read the first few kanji. "This is a demon-summoning scroll." He sniffed, catching a trace of an ancient, faded scent. "Sealed with your blood."

The hitokiri inclined his head. "While the rurouni might have been bound to remain within that realm, chained to their gift of peace... the Demon of Kyoto was not."

"You lunatic." Giles couldn't help but smirk. "Have you any idea what you've let yourself in for?"

Kenshin straightened. "I would not have come if I feared this place's perils, Giles-san. Vampires, sorcerers, demons-"

"Demons? High school, Battousai. Coming here, day after day, surrounded by jocks, cheerleaders, and numerous other cliques who'll see you as fresh meat to be chewed up and spat out as yet another of Buffy's social rejects. Teachers who'll expect you to know American history and math and science all these young idiots can rattle off without thinking; yes, I know you had as much education as most samurai, probably more given you're too damn curious for your own good and every book that went through the Takani household went through yours as well, but Willow and I will have our work cut out just catching you up to Buffy's level. Not to mention a principal who believes children are active forces of evil." Giles paused, then drove the thrust home. "And you can't kill any of them."

Kenshin stopped. Blinked. Paled. "Oro..."

"And... that's the last of them." Xander flattened himself against the inside of the library doors with a drawn-out sigh. He gave Buffy a grateful look as she turned the lock, holding out the world for at least another few hours. "Man, that was worse than Kaede's village! At least there the little squirts know enough to give a demon some room-" He slapped himself in the forehead. "Shimatta. Damn. F- Giles! Please tell me you've got some way for us to hunt this spell down and kill it!"

"It's still in your heads?" Angel asked warily, turning over bark pieces as they tried to fit together their massive jigsaw puzzle. Willow had already sorted out the edges of the five slabs, Angel and Ms. Calendar were filling in gaps as they found matching pieces, and Giles had hauled out three or four musty tomes with similar weird letters, taking a break every now and again to sneeze.

"Oh man, is it ever." Xander sank down on his haunches, gazing morosely towards the floor.

"Xander?" Buffy knelt down next to him, suddenly worried. "What's wrong?"

Her currently white-haired buddy shook his head. Shivered. "Buff. We..." He trailed off, ears drooping, huddled in firerat-red.

"First kill?" Kenshin said evenly.

Buffy looked up, unnerved all over again by the redhead's uncanny silence. It's like listening for a ghost... when the heck did he get Giles' spare cups? And Twinkies?

"First human, anyway," Xander whispered. "Even if - he wasn't then - oh god, what did we do?"

"You survived." Kenshin wrapped unresisting, clawed fingers about a plastic cup of water. "Drink. Eat. Try not to think, not yet. Try only to be."

"You son of a-" Plastic creaked in Xander's grip as he growled, shoulders shifting as if he were a breath from throwing Twinkies and all back in Kenshin's face.

"If you believe it would make you feel better to strike me, you may try," Kenshin said, tone still as even as calm water. "You made your choices. They made theirs. You survived." Violet regarded the shaking hanyou, fearless. "You feel ashamed. Stained. Unfit for the company of those you believe guiltless."

"How the hell can you be so calm about it?" Xander burst out, voice shaking. "Shippou told me - you beheaded a guy-"

"Who nearly killed her. Who meant to bind me to kill more, to his will. I will not mourn his passing." Kenshin sighed. "I would there had been another way. But as a teacher of mine finally made me realize, mine is also a life worth saving. I will not throw it away."

"They were Lilin." Cordelia's hands twisted in front of her as she sat at a library table, green eyes dazed. "We had to stop them, Xander. No matter what it took. If we'd - let them go, if they'd found the Hellmouth... they would have tried to summon Lilith. And I - I don't know if they could have, but-"

"It's quite possible." Giles put his book down, rested his hands on her suited shoulders. "Lilith, the mother of demons, does truly exist in our reality. If any creatures had a chance of summoning her... you're completely correct. They had to be stopped."

Cordelia swallowed, barely registering the water and candy Kenshin set beside her hands. "So why do I feel so... so..."

"I believe they call it survivor's guilt, these days," the Watcher said matter-of-factly. "We may not like to admit to it, but humans have as much of a hunting instinct as any demon. It's simply buried, for the most part. Yet when one kills and survives... there is a certain thrill. A thrill that horrifies any sane being, of course," he amended at Buffy's stunned stare. "Nevertheless, it exists. And some of us are rather more prone to it than others."

Meaning you, Buffy realized, shaken. Giles? Tweedmeister himself?

"So. The fact that we feel like we want to throw up is a good thing," Jenny said dryly.

Giles smiled slightly. "I would say so, yes."

"We were deep under. Bad choices come with the territory," Jonathan nodded, fiddling with his onyx cufflinks. "My uncle could have told you that."

"Your uncle?" Willow asked, eyes widening as Jonathan slid one onyx stone aside to reveal a space large enough to hide a microdot. "Oh, wow!"

"Yeah, these were his. He was in... well, you know. The kind of job nobody admits you do? Kind of the black sheep of the family," Jonathan admitted. "Guess that's one reason I picked Bond. Knew I had something that went right with the costume... and you really don't want to hear about this, so I'll just-"

"You," Giles stated firmly, "will remain within these bounds until we've determined precisely why the spell has not broken for us. There must be some reason. Some factor we all have in common."

"Something you're not going to figure out as long as we've got a ringer," Buffy observed. And pounced.

Or tried to. Reaching hands only grabbed a dark-blue blur where a gi had been; the throw she'd meant to toss him to the ground slipped over him like water as Kenshin twisted and flowed with her. Man, this guy is fast! "Stay put!"

"One thinks-" Kenshin dodged. "That would be-" Ducked. "An incredibly foolish idea, Buffy-dono." Blurred upward-

"Hah!" Jenny flung out a hand, stopping the swordsman ten feet above the ground. "That should-"

Amber flashed in violet. "Hiyahh!"

Jenny flinched back, Force-grip breaking with an almost audible crack. Kenshin fell, relaxing into the impact-

Buffy snatched him first. "You. Moving. Stop!"

Flat on his back with her knee on his chest and her knife pricking his throat, Kenshin regarded her wrists. Lifted his gaze to hers. Let out a slow breath.

And deliberately turned his head aside, exposing his throat to her blade.

Say what?

"Buffy, stop." Xander's tone was odd, bewildered and angry at once. From the corner of her eye she could see his hands clenching, as if he would drive his claws through his skin. "You - he's - just stop. Please?"

"What the heck is wrong with you?" Angel took a quick stride toward Buffy, only to stop as Giles growled and stepped between them. "With both of you?"

"Kenshin is a kitsune hanyou, Angel. Of canine youkai blood, as Xander and I are at this moment," Giles said levelly. "Buffy's actions are those of a dominant female asserting her status over a pack male. He's submitting. If you interfere, if you attack him - Xander and I may well kill you." His hand twitched, too near his katana hilt for Buffy's comfort. "I doubt we'd be able to stop ourselves."

"But-" Buffy closed her mouth, thinking fast. Wolf pack. The alphas have the right to kill outsiders. But if they let them live... "You knew!" She glared down at wary violet. "You did this on purpose!"

"No," Kenshin said softly. "I know you will not believe. I know you are right to be wary. But I am as lost within the magic that has reshaped me as you are within yours."

Buffy shook her head. "You knew your own name. You say you know me. You laughed at what Angel said about Battousai." Half of her wanted to press the knife deeper; the rest wanted to throw up its hands in bewilderment. "You are not wearing a costume."

"True," Giles observed. "But neither is he lying. Kenshin is as enspelled as we are." Paper rattled in his grip. "It's simply not the same spell."

"That's not from Gaul," Jenny said bluntly.

"No. Modern Japan. Circa 1920 or '30, I believe. Though the blood which sealed it to its true purpose was added some time later. Hiko hedging his bets, I imagine." More, quieter rattles, as Giles unrolled whatever it was further. "Or perhaps he simply wished to be sure your soul had enough time to slip the Powers' surveillance... Battousai."

That hushed the room.

"You mean he's really-?" Xander gulped.

Dark humor rang through Giles' tone. "Oh, yes."

"But- he's short!" Angel protested.

"A truly stunning observation on your part, Angel," Giles said dryly. "Tell me. As Angelus, did you ever hear a firsthand, eyewitness account of a Hiten Mitsurugi master? Anyone in the darker side of the night who had actually met Battousai?"

"Are you kidding? He... killed them..." Angel shook his head, rallied. "Giles, I saw some of the results. Even a demon can't hit with a sword like that unless he's swinging down from over eight feet!"

"Try coming down, from over twenty," the Watcher stated. "Ryuu Tsui Sen. You'll see it eventually, I'm sure."

Why do I not like the sound of that? Buffy thought. "Giles. Short version."

"This spell was written to call forth the Demon of Kyoto. The fool who cast it most likely thought it was a simple demon-summoning." Giles set the scroll down on one of the few bare pieces of table. "But the Japanese, like the northern Inuit and the ancient Celts whose holy night this once was, have magical traditions of creating supernatural life, not simply summoning it across dimensions. This spell opened a path for a human spirit and wrapped it in a demon's form. Almost the opposite of a vampire's creation." He cleared his throat. "So do try to be a bit tolerant, if you would. Himura barely had a trace of demon blood before his first death. Dealing with a kitsune-hanyou's instincts is likely as difficult for him as our spell-wrought personas are for us."

"Not good enough," Buffy said tightly, glaring at wary violet. "You said you knew me. Giles knows you. How?" I know you. I want to trust you. Why?

Kenshin let out a slow breath. "The captain of the Shinsengumi's Third Troop, Saitou Hajime, had good cause to know his enemies."

"And later, his allies," Giles nodded.

"Saitou?" Angel looked paler than usual. "The old Shinsengumi who went by the alias Inspector Fujita Goro? The only police officer in Tokyo authorized to carry a Japanese sword? Who tended to leave closed cases and a trail of dead suspects?"

"He's heard of you, that he has," Kenshin observed.

"It's hard not to hear about a murdering-" Belatedly, Angel cut himself off. "That is... Buffy, if he's telling the truth, Giles-"

"Lived and died as a samurai, a lifetime ago," her Watcher said evenly. "As did a young woman who reshaped the art of the killing sword into a style of peace for the Meiji era. A Potential who, thanks to the work of the masters of Hiten Mitsurugi, was never called as a Slayer. A brave, stubborn girl who took in a wandering swordsman, and never cared that he had once been the most feared assassin in all of Japan." He laughed softly. "They do say your good deeds come back to haunt you."

He- I- Shaking her head, Buffy moved off her target, knife gripped loosely in her hand. No way.

"And yours have not, Giles-san?" Kenshin observed, getting his feet under him. "I did wonder why she had not perished so swiftly this time." A shy smile touched his face. "So once more the Wolf of Mibu infiltrates the ranks of those who think they rule, to hold them to the truths they have forgotten." He inclined his head, the tail of his red topknot whispering over his shoulder. "Domo arigatou."

Going on her hunts. Letting Xander and Willow know what the Slayer was, and help. Letting a vampire help him try to find a loophole, when the prophecy said the Chosen One would die and unleash the Master. Giles has been breaking Watcher rules. To keep me alive. "This time?" Buffy shot her Watcher a murderous look. She didn't miss Angel's twitch, either. What's he know that he's not telling me?

"Buffy... nearly fifty years passed between the time Kaoru Kamiya died, and you were born," Giles said reluctantly. "It would be... very unlikely... that you were not born as a Potential again within that time."

"Three times," Kenshin said, voice dark and chill with tempered rage. "Three times I have seen you pass through the gates of death, and could not follow..."

"I'm sensing issues," Xander said to the room at large. "Anyone else sensing issues, here?"

Giles sighed. "To condense a very complex story to its simplest form - Buffy, a great many people have cared about you, in every life you have lived. And some of them have chosen to give up... certain rewards... to find you again." He cast Kenshin a wry glance. "Himura simply had to take more extreme measures than most."

"You gave up being human to help Buffy?" Willow peered at Kenshin, wide-eyed. "Wow. That's just-"

"-The kind of impulsive, idiotic thing anyone would expect from the Slayer's crazy crowd," Cordelia cut across her words. "Could we please stay on mission here? I am not explaining a new liquid diet to my parents!"

"I think I've got this mostly pieced together," Jenny said matter-of-factly. "I can't read it, but I can get a sense of it." She held her hand flat, moving it a hand's breadth over the inked bark. "The odd thing is, it feels dormant."

"Hmm." Giles moved to stand beside her, scanning the piecework. "Meant to be cast on Samhain... I wonder where Ethan found this..."

"And I just went as 007." Jonathan joined Buffy and Kenshin as the two adults bent over Ethan's spell. "You really were someone like him? That must be so cool!" He stopped, and thought. "Or... not really. Oh man."

"Double-oh-seven?" Kenshin implored Buffy with a look.

"License to kill? Super-spy? Weird gadgets galore?" Buffy cocked her head. "You really have no clue, do you?"

"I assume this... Bond, was not known of in Japan by 1932," Kenshin said warily.

"Boy, are you behind the times," Angel said dryly.

"Um, no," Jonathan said, shooting the vampire an unfriendly glare. "Definitely not."

"He's popular culture-less!" Willow exclaimed.

"This, is definitely of the bad," Xander pronounced. Marched over, and slung an arm over the surprised redhead's shoulder. "I decree this an official Scoobie emergency. Willow, the Star Wars tapes. Buff, you go for pizza. Cordelia... well, you can instruct him in the finer points of endurance shopping later - what?"

Kenshin had slipped out from under his arm. "We've visitors, that we do." Frowned, as if listening; then took a surprised step back. "Oro?"

Buffy found herself with her hand on her gun, took it off with a hiss of disgust as she and the others watched the now-unlocked library door open. Sunnydale. Anything coming in this library is going to laugh at a gun-

A lithe woman in skin-tight white stepped into the library, black-tipped white braid flicking past familiar features. "Buffy?"

"Mom?" the Slayer said weakly. Oh no. Oh, man...

A tall, dark-haired swordsman with a wry smirk and a white-and-red cape that reminded Buffy of Spawn stalked inside in her mother's wake. "Ah. There you are, deshi!"

Kenshin blanched. "Sh-shishou?"

Thump.

Buffy stared at her arm-full of out-cold redhead. Glared at the caped swordsman. "And just who are you?"

"Kakunoshin Ni'itsu," the man answered levelly.

Piecing together a few last shards of inked wood, Giles snorted.

"But my friends often call me Hiko," the swordsman said without missing a beat. "I see my ward hasn't been taking care of himself. Again. Typical. Low blood sugar," he said over his shoulder to Joyce, deftly abstracting Kenshin from Buffy's grip. "I imagine he just hit the ground running and simply got caught up in the chaos like the rest of us. Do takeout places in this town still deliver at this hour?"

"Bad dream," Kenshin was muttering. "Bad dream..."

"As long as you order garlic breadsticks, usually," Joyce nodded, moving in to give her daughter a quick hug that was equal parts affection and motherly full-body check. "Last night, I would have told you I didn't know why." She searched her daughter's gaze, brown eyes worried. "Oh, honey. Are you okay?"

Buffy felt a sudden lump in her throat. "If I said no big, would you believe me?"

"In the interests of mother-daughter honesty, I'd have to say - not really." Smiling sadly, Joyce gave her another hug. "Cordelia? I know you'd probably rather not, but do you mind coming home with us for the night? Your parents are in the hospital, and I don't like the thought of you going back to an empty house. They're okay," she added hastily as Cordelia jumped out of her seat, face white. "They're just- concussed. Which is... sort of my fault..."

"Dad went as Casanova, right?" Cordelia rolled her eyes in disgust, picking up her cup of water with forced nonchalance. "Whatever you did, he probably deserved it. But Mom-"

Checking his ward over for missing body parts or blood, Hiko shrugged. "It's not the first time I've had to handle jealous kunoichi. For some reason I seem to attract them."

"It's the mysterious disappearing," Kenshin put in, violet eyes flicking warily open. "Show skills that rival the clan okashira, and they have to chase you. If you really want them to leave you alone, shishou, just step on a few sticks when you walk."

Jonathan snickered.

"Oh, he's your kid, all right. He knows you too well." Joyce hid her own grin as Hiko gave her a swift, surprised look. "So. Vampires are real, and all over this town. Magic is real, and we got mixed up in it. And zombies and monsters... were real, until just a little while ago. And we - dealt with them." She glanced away. "Anything else I should know about right this minute? We are trying to fix this, right?"

"Oh, Mom." Buffy snagged her mother's hand, gave it a quick squeeze. "It's going to be okay."

"Isn't that my line?" Joyce fixed Giles with a stern look. "Well?"

"A moment." Frowning, Giles traced a clawed finger a bare half-inch above contorted Roman letters. "Most of these sheets appear to be devoted to the necessary preparations and conditions to invoke the incantation - 'call upon those whose night this is' - not to its purpose, or consequences. And yet, there is something in the structure... not of the invocation, which is to Janus, but of the original Gaulish spells meant to be cast over the costumes well before the night they are used..." He stiffened. "Â cyflychwyr dan gyfaredd i galanas efo gras gan Morgannus ferch Dôn. 'With twilight be spellbound to blood-feud by means of grace from Morgan, daughter of Dôn.' Dôn, otherwise known as Dana, the mother of the Tuatha de Dannan. Which would make her daughter... the Morrigan. Of course."

"Whoa, whoa," Xander waved his hands. "I thought that funky statue was Janus."

"Roman," Willow nodded. "As you said, a force of chaos. But certainly not the Celt's Phantom Queen."

"He didn't have to be," Giles said abstractly, flipping through yet another weighty tome. "Ethan only needed to open the door to chaos. Sunnydale's observation of Halloween alone, the swinging of the old Celtic year between the Seleighe courts of summer and the Unseleighe of winter - those whose queen above all is Morrigan, she who is lady of death, battle, and the claiming of mortals to Faerie's own armies - would do the rest. If this spell is what I believe... Yet the druids almost never committed their knowledge to the written word! The odds of Ethan being able to find such an incantation..."

"Giles, meet Hellmouth," Buffy pointed out.

"Us, meet screwed?" Xander added weakly.

Jenny looked over the spells, worried. "This is... some kind of spell-cast bargain? With demons?"

"With the powers of the Other World. Fay, demons, ghosts - the Celts weren't inclined to discriminate," Giles nodded, flipping pages. "Above all else, the Celts believed in the power of the spoken word. Any creature in a legend, even a legendary human, was a Power. And that power could be called upon. Dealt with. Whether Seleighe or Unseleighe, that people often crossed the border between human and - not. They traded with them, married them, even sometimes hunted with them; at times, even other humans," the Watcher said darkly. "And they have made a bloody bargain or two. This appears to be one of them."

"That's my people you're talking about," Angel pointed out. "Good people. I grew up with them. They didn't make deals with demons."

"In the seventeenth century? No. Nor with the fay, either, thanks to the Church that took root there. More's the pity, I would say; your folk would have given the English a far better fight had they honored their old alliances." Giles turned one more page, scanning word by word. "But at the time of the Roman Empire, and before, those of Faerie were still powerful enough to wreak their will on humankind. And yet few enough that some could see their races diminishing, and take steps to avoid that fate." He met the vampire's gaze. "Do you know why vampires stay in on All Hallow's Eve, Angel?"

"Um... not really," Angel admitted. "It's just not a good night to be out."

"In the past few centuries, yes. As late as the 1400s, though, it was rather more." Giles frowned. "The dark night of the year. The time the worlds of the living, the dead, and the fay all stand open to each other. From dusk to dawn of this night, those of Faerie had the power to exercise their bloodthirsty tendencies on mortals and 'demons' alike - a very good reason for vampires to stay in, let alone humans." He tapped splintered wood. "Yet the fay are fair, by their own lights. They hunt and kill those within their dominion... but to counterbalance that, they granted a legendary spell - this spell, I very much fear - to be invoked as a rather gruesome protective measure."

You could have sliced the silence with a knife.

"Right. Enough stalling," Giles sighed. "In short, from sunset to sunrise, the spell binds you to become what you portray. And so for that one night, you join in the slaughter... and have as much chance as any other dark creature to survive the night."

"If you can't beat 'em, join 'em?" Jonathan asked wryly.

"So when the sun comes up, we'll be okay?" Cordelia ventured.

"Hang on, people," Buffy spread her hands. "I blew the statue to smithereens. Other people are walking around just peachy. Human all the way. Which you guys are definitely not. Giles?"

"And that brings us to the other half of the spell," Giles said reluctantly. "The teind."

Angel stiffened, laying a protective hand on Buffy's shoulder. "They are not going to Hell."

"Tam Lin's story aside, Angel, Hell might be easier to get out of." Opening yet another book on top of the others, Giles rubbed the side of his temples, obviously missing having glasses to polish. "Ah, yes. I thought I recalled... this is a copy of one of the older Watcher's journals, Buffy. From the early tenth century, writ by Hafren of Cas-blaidd. 'Night has vanished with the first light of day, and vanished with it have near two dozen of this small village we essayed to protect. We will not know the true count until the sun is high, and we may search out all those who did not pay magic's price. Those who cast this curse wished protection from those of Faerie. The Morrigan and her ilk wish to be certain there will always be fay for them to be protected from. So they have taken as their own those among the spellbound who showed themselves willing, though by what means such creatures gauge that willingness the villagers will not tell me...'"

"Giles?" Buffy said pointedly as her Watcher trailed off. "You're having a moment. And I am oh so hoping this is a moment of the 'oh goody, we win', and not of the-"

"I will hunt him down and kill him!"

"I'm taking a wild guess and saying 'oh goody' is not on the list," Xander observed as Hiko moved to block the growling Watcher's path.

Ruby gleamed in the hellhound's gaze. "Get. Out. Of. My. Way."

"And let you loose in that night, when you know what may be coming? For you and your charges?" Hiko raised a dark brow. "You've been many things, old wolf, but never a fool."

"What did Hafren mean, 'willing'?" Jenny asked, glancing around as if she could see through walls. "What's coming? It feels so cold..."

"The hosts of the fay. Coming to claim those newly their own." Giles grimaced. "You, Buffy, Willow, Jonathan - you're likely to be safe. Legendary humans are still human, after all-"

"I'm not entirely sure on that part," Jonathan pointed out. "I mean, I feel weird. And Bond's supposed to be over sixty just from the movies, not to mention when you go through the books..."

"Nevertheless, you are mostly human, and normally immune from fay capture save under special circumstances... some of which might hold in this library, you should get to a home and cross a threshold as soon as you can. The rest of us-" Giles looked away.

"No way. No way!" Buffy planted herself in front of him, fists on her hips. "No way am I letting some moldy Irish glitter-bugs grab you - and my Mom! - for a bill you didn't run up!"

"Oh, but I did. We all did." Giles touched the katana at his side. "My blade, a gift from a sensei when I turned away from the darker side of magic and set myself on the Watcher's path. Your cross. Jonathan's cufflinks. And I imagine the rest of us had something personally important, something that represented who we are, as part of our costumes as well." Clawed fingers clenched, straightened with an effort. "To those of Faerie, such items are part of you. To overcome that mystic weight binding us to our human identities, to change us along with the rest of those affected by the costumes... the spell had to transform us completely."

Dead silence.

"Space, you can't mean-" Jenny started.

"Bloody hell, we're-" Jonathan couldn't finish.

"Oh, boy," Willow whispered.

"Oh, fuck." Xander buried his head in his hands. "K'so, I did not just say that... oh, god..."

Joyce swallowed dryly. "This is-"

"Disaster?" Buffy broke in. "Catastrophe? Cataclysm? Lady Une having a glasses moment? Tell me when I'm getting warm!" Oh man, I know exactly what Une going glasses-maniacal looks like. Just like I know what it's like to shoot someone, to crush them under Deathscythe, to knife them from behind...

"Catastrophe?" Cordelia burst out. "It's Armageddon!"

Dazed, everyone stared at her.

"My entire wardrobe! Useless! Nothing goes with lavender hair!"

"Oro..." Kenshin sighed.

"Thank you for putting that in perspective, Cordelia, but I believe Buffy was referring to the more imminent catastrophe of losing us to the hosts of Faerie at dawn," Giles said dryly.

"Which means mall-shopping there will be none," Xander put in. "And not only will they grab you, but they'll grab you in dire and serious need of color coordination."

"Ohmigod!" Cordelia latched onto Buffy with a grip of steel. "You've got to do something!"

"Hand me a Morrigan, I'll slay it," Buffy pointed out, trying to detach her fingers. "Spells - so not my alley. Giles?"

"Er... well..."

"We can hide them!" Willow burst out. "I mean, if Ms. Calendar knows a spell that will work... and maybe I can help, and... no?" she whispered as the technopagan shook her head.

"Celtic lore is at the heart of a lot of the pagan movement," Jenny explained. "If I'm putting that together right with what I feel from this spell, hiding them won't work. Oh, it'd keep us from encountering the Hosts of Faerie, which would definitely be a good idea, but - Willow, they're not actively being looked for. They're fay. Their own nature will force them outside this dimension at dawn, just like the rest of the Unseleighe Sidhe." She swallowed. "And once they're gone, they might not even remember they want to come back."

"Like going full youkai." Xander shivered. "Without a miko to purify you - hey!"

Red haori yanked back to give access to his neck, Willow uncorked a sloshing bottle from her robes. "I'm sorry Xander really try not to kill me this is going to hurt-"

"Yeoww!"

Sizzling, damp, and breathing hard, a dark-haired Xander held out shaking, claw-less hands.

"When dealing with an unauthorized and hazardous portkey, the most effective option is to destroy the focus," Willow said in very professor-like tones. "If the powers of Faerie draw those affected in by the nature of their magical essence, then we simply needs must remove the magic." She swallowed, and smiled shyly, shaking the still half-full bottle of holy water. "No youki, no magic, no service?"

"By George," Giles murmured, stunned.

"Medic?" Xander said weakly. And toppled.

"Whoa!" Willow caught him as he went down, staggering to her knees as he shook. "Oh, no..."

"He'll recover," Giles said firmly. Sniffed the air, and relaxed. "Drastic as it may be, Willow, I believe your plan worked. His scent is human now."

"So why do I feel like hell?" Xander groaned.

"And just where are you going?" Angel asked pointedly, as Hiko headed for the door.

"To bring my car around," the swordsman said dryly. "If the pup's any indication, none of you are going to be in any shape to walk home."

Boy, did he ever have that right, Joyce thought later, breathing deep of the scent of buttery corn as a landspeeder raced over the sands of Tattooine. It hurt so much... I thought my heart was going to stop.

But it hadn't, and here she was, curly blonde hair still caught in a damp braid, lounging on her living room couch with her daughter snuggled up against her side, various kids and adults scattered around the chairs and rug, and a bowl-full of popcorn in her lap. She'd started out with the bowl on the table in front of them, then discovered the bone-deep weariness which had sunk in after that blinding moment of pain in the library robbed her of any desire to move.

Kenshin had rescued her almost before she realized the problem, deftly easing the wide bowl into her grasp with a shy nod at the both of them, then vanished like a shadow to reappear across the room near Xander, peering wide-eyed at Vader's dramatic invasion of the Rebel ship. "Movies in a box, with color," she'd overheard him whisper when the TV was first turned on.

"Japan had movies in 1932?" Brushing out her black hair, Cordelia looked skeptical. "If you guys had Hollywood, why'd you bomb Hawaii?"

"Bomb Hawaii?" Kenshin looked stricken. "I knew Manchuria had been invaded, yet I hoped the people would make the Emperor see..."

Sitting between, Xander had put a hand on each of them. "We'll catch you up on old, bad history later. For now, enjoy the bad-guy ass-kicking goodness that is Star Wars." He'd glanced out the windows as yet another source-less shadow passed by, and shivered. "And think good thoughts."

Recalling that feel of chill and searching, Joyce shivered anew. One thing to hear Rupert Giles say he wasn't sure they'd eluded all pursuit as their ragged band lurched and staggered out to the parking lot. Quite another to see an inhuman shadow sweep through Hiko's headlights, missing them by inches as the swordsman snarled and swerved, hitting the gas to get them back to the fragile safety of her home threshold faster than she would have believed steel and rubber could ever carry them. "Is Mr. Ni'itsu going to be all right out there?"

"Giles thinks so," Buffy said in an equally quiet undertone, glancing toward the Watcher where he'd huddled in an overstuffed chair, jacket discarded for a blue-and-white quilt, glasses draped over weary eyes. Willow was ensconced on the rug by him with a can of ginger ale, a pen and yellow pad, and a determined look on her face as she scribbled down various notes. "And we can't send anyone else out with Angel to look for people still under the curse. I'm not leaving you guys until dawn; Kenshin's good, but he can't be everywhere at once. Willow's an animagus; if they got her to transform, they might still grab her. And Jonathan's - well..."

Out cold on the patch of couch Buffy wasn't in, curled under a couple of blankets in dreamless sleep. Unlike the rest of them, the poor boy hadn't yelped, sworn, or screamed as the purifying water sluiced over him. He'd just flinched, turned white as a sheet - and soundlessly collapsed.

"Ms. Calendar's taking enough of a risk going out," Buffy said grimly, "and she doesn't feel like she got worked over by demons with clubs."

And that's not just a figure of speech, Joyce realized. Not from my Buffy. "Hiko seemed - well, not normal, he's an artist, but-"

"A nice guy?" Buffy shrugged. "Demons aren't all 'Grr! Arrgh!' all the time, Mom. A few of them - a really tiny few of them - can even be pretty decent people." Her gaze dropped. "Guess that would go for half-demons, too."

Joyce smiled, guessing what was on her daughter's mind. It was clear enough; just glance at the corner of the living room her daughter was determinedly Not Looking At. "He is cute, isn't he?"

"Mom!" Hard to tell through TV-cast shadows, but she thought Buffy's cheeks flushed pink. "He's not my type!"

"You have a type?"

"Do I ever have a type. And that type would not be of the short, redheaded, shy except when he's slicing bad guys into confetti, fangy half-demon variety," Buffy said firmly.

"More of the tall, dark, mysterious, fangy vampire variety," Joyce noted.

"Um..."

"We ran into a few vampires along with the Resident Evil zombies," Joyce stated. "I recognized the scent." She rested her hand against the still-warm bowl. "When were you going to tell me?"

"I was thinking not," Buffy admitted after a long, motherly glare.

You can say that again, Joyce thought wryly. "Is he living alone, or does he really have family in the area?"

"Kind of..."

I'm your mother, Buffy. I know a stall when I hear one. "Kind of?"

The front doorbell rang, and Buffy dashed off. "I got it!"

"Buffy-"

"It's all right." Kenshin was at her elbow before Joyce could do more than stand up. "It's only Ms. Calendar, that it is."

"How do you know?" Joyce pounced.

"He senses ki," Giles said tiredly, sitting up to look at them both. "You might think of it as auras, or life-energy. Much the way Slayers are supposed to detect the supernatural, come to think. Not so surprising, if the Hiten was originally meant to battle paranormal evil. It should be interesting to compare the two disciplines."

"Slayers?" Joyce asked pointedly.

"Er. Well. That would be a very long story, perhaps better told after the current crisis is past." Gaze sliding away from hers, Giles got to his feet and headed for the moving pile of brown paper bags and takeout coming in with an equally-laden Buffy. "I say, Jenny, can you even see past all that?"

"We found a nest of something nasty in Cordelia's neighborhood," Jenny reported, disassembling her pile. "So while Grumpy and Grumpier were trying to sort out unconscious types caught in costume from unconscious demons, I got the chance to grab a few things." She tossed a bag to Cordelia. "It's probably not in style, but it should do until you get home. I've also got some sweats for the guys, some sleeping bags, some of your clothes, Rupert, and-"

"Food!" Xander hit stop and pounced on the source of appetizing smells.

Jenny yanked her hand back, counting her fingers. "Right." Shook her head as the teens stirred themselves to descend on the takeout like a pack of starving wolves. "Anyway, I've pretty much had it for the night, so those two tossed me out here before - and I quote Hiko - 'I fall on my face and need to be rescued like one of the idiots on those ridiculous romance novel covers'."

"That's Shishou," Kenshin sighed.

"Grumpy?" Buffy asked, absently snatching an egg-roll from Xander's grip before his teeth could close on it. "Why was Angel grumpy? I mean, not that it's surprising, after tonight I think I'm buying stock options in grumpy, so..."

"Hiko's annoying him," Jenny reported.

"He excels at that," Kenshin nodded.

Jenny raised a brow. "I think Angel was about three sarcastic comments away from trying to punch him out."

Violet held an amber glint of mischief. "As Shishou has said, natural genius shows in everything one does."

Buffy rounded on him. "And just why is your guardian," the word dripped sarcasm, "trying to pick a fight with Angel?"

"Shishou does many things that don't seem to make sense. At the time."

Joyce watched, intrigued, as Kenshin faced her daughter in a bad mood and didn't back down. Tough kid. That's more than I can manage, sometimes.

"It is possible he wishes to see how well the human soul is held within the vampire body," Kenshin went on. "It is not a usual situation, that it is not."

"He died, the demon took over, he did some bad things for a century or so, he was cursed with his soul, he's a good guy now," Buffy ticked off on her fingers. "Like you have room to talk, Mr. 'I used to be an assassin'. You didn't have a demon take you over! What's your excuse?"

"I have none." Violet faded to steely blue, as his voice went cold. "I chose to kill. And I chose to stop." He nodded to her daughter, then turned and bowed to Joyce. "Summers-dono. You have windows upstairs. I will guard them."

"Hold it right there!" Jenny got in front of him, just barely. "Here. Take it," she insisted, pressing a white bag at him. "Hiko asked me to make sure you ate. Said he hasn't forgotten how bad you are at taking care of yourself when you're worried about other people."

"Arigatou," Kenshin said softly. Headed for the stairs, and stopped. "Buffy-dono."

"So not talking to you-"

"Curses have a tendency to strike - or break - when least expected," Kenshin went on. "Be wary."

And he was gone.

"I see Battousai's not lost his talent for dramatic exits," Giles observed. "At least this one occurred without blades flashing, blood dripping, or, gods help us, buildings set ablaze... er, what is that?"

"For you, Rupert, Hiko got a special order," Jenny said pointedly, shaking the last bag of takeout. "Plain soba. Whatever that is. What's so funny?"

daisho - "paired swords", katana and wakizashi.

Ryuu Tsui Sen - Dragon Hammer Strike.

Domo arigatou. - Thank you very much.

shishou - "Master". A term used in mostly in reference to teachers of old sword-styles.

Ni'itsu Kakunoshin - Hiko's alias as a potter.

kunoichi - female ninja.

okashira - leader, "boss".

teind - loosely, tithe, from Scottish Gaelic. Check out the ballad "Tam Lin"; it was believed in some areas that the fay folk had to pay a tithe of a life to Hell every seven years. Which they would sometimes "pay" with humans who'd been transformed into faeries.

The "spell" Giles notes is actually in rough Welsh; which, being Celtic of the Brythonic rather than Goidelic (i.e., Irish and Scottish Gaelic) language branch, is about as close as most of us non-language specialists can probably come to the words the Celts of Gaul would have used - especially since modern Welsh also includes a heavy Latin influence, as occupied Gaul would have. See Time Detectives by Brian Fagan for neat archaeological information on many subjects, including Roman writing.

For Buffy fans - plain soba (unflavored wheat noodles) was a characteristic, humble meal for Saitou. Usually before he tracked somebody down with malice aforethought. Also afterthought. And in-the-middle-thought... you get the picture. Giles burning down Angel's warehouse? Give the guy a sword, and that's Saitou Hajime.