Silver Cross Chapter 25: Remember, a rurouni kenshin fanfic

Disclaimer – I don't own Rurouni Kenshin or Star Trek or JurassicPark. But I got a new cell phone.

Silver Cross

Chapter 25 – Remember

Hey, won't you at least go in and pay for the gas?
No. You're the driver.
But we'd get out of here quicker.
I'm just a passenger.
I'll give you the gas money, if that's what you're worried about.
Nope. I'd rather just sit here.
But there are giant bugs that keep landing on me.
You shouldn't have worn a white shirt.

It's voice. It was playing tricks with his mind. How had it gotten into his mind so easily? He guarded himself better than that, better than most vampires, but it had still gotten in. His mind was being used against him, because its voice was impossible.

"Let me do it." Akira's hard voice entered Ken's mind from the left. "Let me kill the Battousai."

"Tomoe obviously didn't teach you who and who not to respect," the impossible voice said as it drew close to Ken. "Shut up."

"But she died," Akira protested mutely. He'd lost the will for revenge already. The dark one had stolen it from him.

"Tomoe said she forgives you," Ken told him, before he forgot to carry out Tomoe's last request. The force of the dark one's aura pressed down on him.

"It wasn't in her to forgive," Akira said quietly. "Did she damn me in the end?"

"Akira? I bet he didn't check your license plate number, stupid boy. Tell him I forgive him when you see him." She sighed, her exhaling breath a gentle puff of searing air on his skin.

"No." Ken replied. He wished he could say her last breath had been for Akira. But in the midst of the dark one's aura, the memory came back unbidden.

"Who betrayed Sano to the dark one? Why are you working for him? How long will he stay in L.A.?"

"They'll be here in ten minutes," Tomoe whispered. "Go." Her whole body writhed in his hands as she suppressed a bought of coughing. "It has something you want. Don't fight tonight."

Her last breath had been for him, not Akira. Ken found the strength to lift his head and meet Akira's eyes. Akira was changed, sunken into himself. The night Tomoe died, he'd been fueled by the desire to protect her. After she'd died, revenge was probably the only reason he still lived. Ken knew that story. And the dark one had taken revenge from him.

"I told you to shut up, Akira," the impossible voice said.

The pain intensified. Ken's head was forced down again. From the corner, Myojin let out a low moan. There was nothing but a low grunt from Shishio and silence from his nephew. A drop of blood dripped on the floor to Ken's left. Akira. Ken forced his head up enough to glimpse the vampire from the corner of his eye. Blood came from his ears. A drop. The carpet was stained. A trickle. A stream. A stream of blood fell from his ears as he crumpled to the floor. The carpet was ruined.

The pain lifted. Not all the way. Enough for Ken to look up. Enough for Ken to see the face of the dark one in front of him.

The dark one's aura was strong, but surely not strong enough to make him hallucinate. It couldn't be enough to make him see the face of his best friend from this second life he was living. It couldn't be enough to make him see Sano standing in front of him.

I don't know if that's such a good idea, Ken.
It's your fault. If a human's a drug user, you know it's in their bloodstream as well.
What can I say? I'm a sucker for a pretty face. You better drive.
Damn right I'm driving, it's my car. And if you puke all over it I will not be happy.
Can I get a bucket or something?

She floated. Low at first, then high through the air. Faster, the higher up she got. She couldn't see where she was floating. Her eyes were closed. But it didn't matter, because she could see the sun through her closed lids. She was hurling towards the sun now, and she felt hot with fever. But she wasn't afraid. Floating towards the sun wasn't that bad. Just as the light grew so bright it was as if her eyes were open anyway, they were open.

She was sitting slumped on the carpeted elevator floor, her head tilted up to the lights on the ceiling. People were staring down at her, faces adorned with weak smiles.

"I thought you weren't going to come out for a minute there," Tsubame said, holding her hand in front of Kaoru.

"What?" Kaoru automatically grasped the vampire's hand and was promptly hauled to her feet. She remembered now, that Tsubame had put her under hypnosis to dull her aura, but had all these people been there at the time?

The vampire who was even colder then Ken at his worst moments, Aoshi Shinomori, nodded to her from where he stood in the elevator doorway, loosely holding two kodachi. Didn't he live in New York City? How could he be here now? Where was Misao? Saitou stood facing away from her on the other side of the doorway, presumably guarding it, since he held a katana in a defensive stance. She wasn't too surprised to see him, since she was in Juppongatana headquarters. She was surprised to see the third vampire, the woman who'd kidnapped her from the apartment in Aliso village. She was clutching something in her left hand, but if it was a weapon, it was her only tool of defense.

"This is Yumi," Aoshi explained. Not much of an explanation.

Yumi nodded to Kaoru as well, dipping her head so low that a shock of brown hair covered her left eye. The rest of her hair was tied in the same messy bun, and her mouth was still green with lipstick.

"She attacked me in my apartment," Kaoru accused, knowing she was missing something. Yumi worked for the dark one. Saitou at least, should have killed her by now. And Kaoru had the impression that Aoshi Shinomori was the 'kill first, ask questions later' type as well.

"I was obeying orders," Yumi said. "But I'm on your side."

Seeing the doubt in Kaoru's eyes, Tsubame spoke. "It's true, Kaoru. Yumi used to openly work for the Juppongatana under me, as an integral part of our chemistry lab. Trust her tonight."

"There's no time for explanations," Saitou cut in. "Jam the radios, Shinomori."

Aoshi seemed annoyed that Saitou had given him an order, but he took out a black electrical device and began pressing buttons.

"We're going down the hallway to where the dark one is," Tsubame explained to Kaoru, disregarding Saitou's words. "Shinomori and Saitou will be first, cutting their way through the vampires guarding the hall. Yumi is unarmed. You and I will walk on either side of her. We must get her safely into that room. Do you understand?"

Kaoru didn't understand why Yumi's presence was so vital, but she nodded anyway. It sounded like the woman was some sort of double agent. Kaoru picked up her katana from the floor where she must have dropped it when she'd gone under hypnosis.

"It's my discovery," Yumi explained. "It's the key to everything." Her eyes were full of hope.

Tsubame was silent. Kaoru had the impression she didn't approve of whatever Yumi had discovered. But it had to be important if they were all about to sacrifice their lives to get Yumi in the same room with the dark one.

"Is Ken there too?" Kaoru asked.

"I sense his presence," Aoshi said, placing the black rectangular box in a convenient potted plant so that the plant's leaves blocked it from view. "Let's go now. Ladies, stay fifteen feet behind us at all times."

He and Saitou moved as one silent wraith around the corner and started down the hallway.

Kaoru felt like she was in one of those movies where the team of secret operatives infiltrate a terrorist organization. Everybody knew the operatives with no name or speaking roles always died. Just like the men from Start Trek who went with the captain to an enemy planet and didn't have names. Just like everyone in Jurassic Park who wasn't on the good side got eaten by the dinosaurs. It was always the unimportant ones that bit the big one. She hoped she had a speaking role in the drama that was about to play out.

Speaking role or not, she stood on Yumi's left as Tsubame took up post on Yumi's right side. Kaoru turned the corner first. Aoshi and Saitou were being mobbed a little ways down the hallway, but they looked fully capable of handling the situation. She waited for Yumi and Tsubame to join her, and they walked down the hallway slowly. Tsubame was the only one of them with a long distance weapon, so she helped out here and there with a shuriken when there wasn't any danger of hitting Aoshi or Saitou. Kaoru glanced behind them periodically, to be sure no one appeared in pursuit at their rear. Looking behind was a relief compared to the carnage being carried out ahead. Aoshi and Saitou worked together all too well.

Yup, she was going to have serious emotional problems after this was all over. Too much blood. Too many fangs. Too much death. She looked at the bodies they passed only to be sure they didn't pose a threat, which meant she had to look at each one. The fact that they were the bodies of vampires didn't help. It only meant they were various forms of disgusting. Aoshi's weapon must have been coated in a fast acting poison, because those bodies were in an advanced state of decomposition, withering away like the vampire who'd almost defeated her, the one who had looked like her cousin. The vampires struck with Saitou's blade were dead or about to be. It was like Saitou to give them a slow death, probably so he could interrogate them. The few vampires Tsubame killed were simply dead. Kaoru had a feeling Tsubame was finally running out of shuriken, and had to pick and choose her kills wisely. She had chosen carefully before, but now she didn't kill unless Aoshi or Saitou was in danger of receiving a bad wound.

Aoshi and Saitou stopped just beyond a set of double doors and let the rest of the vampires come to them instead of plunging into the enemy.

"He's in there," Yumi said. She'd been excited the whole time, as if the death around her had not touched her, not affected her in any way. Kaoru decided Yumi had been waiting a long time to test her discovery, and she knew it was complete. Her joy and anticipation triumphed over any other emotion she might have felt. Her smile was soft and radiant. She was so different from the smug woman who'd attacked her in the apartment that Kaoru found she could give her another chance. In fact, she had already given her another chance, and she kind of liked her. In any case, it felt right to guard her.

"Kaoru first, then Yumi, then me," Tsubame yelled over the sound of fighting and dying. "Shinomori and Saitou will guard the door."

Do you like piña colada?
No.
Do you like mango madness?
Juice?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Do you like sex on the beach?
The drink or the sex?
Which ever question.
Yeah.
Um. You know I'm not gay, right?
You're the one who asked if I like sex on the beach. I should be asking you that.
Then why didn't you?

"Soujiro, you can't keep doing this," Kaoru said. "You can't keep one person all to yourself. You'll feel like a babysitter."

"It's only until I get it together," Sou replied, breathing in the scent of her hair as he held her.

"You can't get it together like this," Kaoru said, leaning into his chest, because this Kaoru still loved him. "What's wrong, Sou?"

This Kaoru didn't know that she was what's wrong. What would she do if he told her? This Kaoru didn't know about the Battousai, had never met the man, wouldn't leave Soujiro.

"Tell me, Sou," she pleaded, pulling back a little to look up into his face. This Kaoru felt miserable when he was sad, ecstatic when he was happy, just as in love with him as he was with her. Was it so selfish of him to want this Kaoru?

"The Battousai," Soujiro finally said.

"What's that? A new TV show?" Kaoru asked, confused.

This was how it should have been, Kaoru not knowing about the vampire who'd changed both their lives. Sou almost smiled.

"No, a man," Soujiro corrected her gently. "Your Ken."

"I don't understand."

"His name is Kenshin Himura, the Battousai."

"You mean he has a title? What's a Battousai?"

"It means 'Master of Sword Drawing'."

Kaoru grinned. "I see. Is he better at kendo than you? Are you jealous or something? You don't ever have to be jealous, Sou."

"I know," Sou lied to himself. It was better not to tell her, not to ruin it.

"Is it really a guy who's got you so worked up? I haven't even met him. You don't have anything to worry about." Kaoru laughed and hugged him closer. "You're such a drama queen," she teased.

This Kaoru was happy. Her biggest concern was getting good enough grades to keep her scholarship, not surviving in the midst of vampires and hunters who killed each other to get what they wanted. This Kaoru had no clue vampires existed. This Kaoru wouldn't believe it if he told her they did.

This Kaoru was a fabulous dream.

Mirror mirror on the wall. Who's the sexiest one of all?
Um.
Ken!
I think I walked in at the wrong time. Excuse me.

"He's not dead," the thing with Sano's voice and Sano's body said to Ken. "He could've been, but I stopped just before."

Brain damage. Akira was better off dead. It would heal, but not for months. Akira wouldn't live unless another vampire took care of him for those months, waited on him hand and foot, talked to him, brought him blood, bathed him, stimulated his neural pathways to reconnect again. If he didn't have someone like that, he'd die from lack of blood. Or a hunter. Or the sun. He wasn't capable of taking care of himself. Tomoe would have taken care of him.

"I'm going to kill you," Ken said to the illusion. Perhaps the dark one had gained a new power. Maybe now everyone saw it differently, as the person for whose death they felt responsible, as the person who killing would be a personal hell on earth. He raised his katana in an offensive stance.

"No. I'm going to kill you," the dark one replied, raising its katana. It darted forward.

For a moment Ken couldn't defend himself, because it was Sano darting towards him, although as far as he knew Sano had never used a katana. In just over a hundred years with him, Ken had never known Sano to show the slightest curiosity in them. But maybe Sano had picked up the skill in the twelve years he'd been with the Sekihoutai.

It was just a moment. The moment was over by the time the dark one was within striking distance, so Ken blocked the high blow that had been aimed at his neck. The impact of the block pushed him, sliding, back a couple inches against his will, but Ken's strength held, even under the force of the dark one's presence. So he pushed back and for another moment he was staring into Sano's eyes. Furious eyes, cold as Sano's had rarely been, haunted eyes. If it was all in his mind, how could he have dreamt up these angry haunted eyes? They looked too out of place to be in the face of his best friend.

But it was just a moment again. They jumped away from each other and he wasn't close enough to see the emotions in the dark one's eyes.

Don't you remember?
No.
I was sad because we couldn't get a dog, so I got a pet crayfish, but it died and I buried in the yard underneath the pine trees.
What pine trees?
You know, the pine trees on the side of the house.
There were no pine trees. That was a giant bush to separate the yards.
A giant bush?
Yes.
Are you sure it was just a bush?
Yes.
That's not nearly as cool as pine trees.

Kaoru would never have guessed the sight that greeted her as she darted inside the double doors in a million years. She'd expected Ken to be winning, but a man had Ken pinned to the ground. At first, she thought it was Sagara from the cell, but this man was different. He took his eyes away from Ken's when he heard the door open and their eyes met. Yes, he was different. His eyes held an expression much harder than Sagara was capable of, and he held himself differently, more erect. He obviously wasn't nearly as sick as Sagara. Perhaps, before he'd gotten sick, Sagara had looked like this, radiated this much power, but never this much coldness.

Ken took advantage of the distraction she'd caused and somehow shoved the man off of him, managed to retreat a good ten feet before the Sagara look-alike looked ready to attack again.

"Kenshin." Kaoru let his name burst from her mouth. She'd finally made it to him. There was nothing else to say. He didn't take his eyes off his enemy. It disappointed her, although she was happy he hadn't. She didn't want to be responsible for his death.

"Its aura is too strong for me to sense you. I didn't know where you were," Ken answered, his voice devoid of emotion.

"That's the dark one," Yumi said in her ear, taking Kaoru's elbow with her free right hand, the one that did not grip the discovery she held in her left. "Get the Battousai away from him. I need him to show the world my discovery."

Kaoru didn't know which 'him' Yumi was talking about.

"Yumi, there has to be another way," Tsubame said quietly as she shut the door behind them.

"You know there's not," Yumi said angrily. "Kill the guards before the aura affects you any more than it has."

One of them was already dead. Kaoru noticed this with a wince as Tsubame let another shuriken fly towards its mark. Chaos erupted as the ten or so guards still alive in the room reacted by attacking Tsubame simultaneously. Kaoru watched as Kenshin used the distraction to confront the dark one. She didn't have time to try to split the two men apart then, because she was forced to focus on protecting Yumi from a couple guards who'd decided to go for Tsubame through Yumi and Kaoru. She was shocked at the lack of emotion in her when she defended Yumi by mortally wounding the two vampires. For the first time, Kaoru knew she didn't want to remember this.

I'm not even going to ask what you're doing.
There was a squished lightening bug in my sandal, so I used this stick to get it out.
Why not your finger?
It was squished in the side. I'd have had to get it out with my fingernail. I'm not scraping dead bug from underneath my fingernail.

In the way he sometimes did, Soujiro knew he was in a dream, but he also felt that what happened now, in this dream, had happened before, or might have.The starry night loomed outside the window, late last summer. He lay on his bed at home, flat on his back, and Kaoru lay beside him, talking. He couldn't understand what she was saying, couldn't pick out any individual words. She might have been speaking a different language, the sound of her voice pleasant as he let it wash over him.

He bought his first television this night last summer, a thirty-two inch Panasonic flatscreen. He'd brought it home earlier this afternoon and invited Kaoru over to share his first evening of quality programming. They'd had a late lunch with his parents and his sister and then gone upstairs to his room with plenty of snacks to enhance the television-viewing experience. They'd watched a little of everything: the last half hour of a comedy, an hour of HG-TV at Kaoru's request, a couple cartoons, an action flick. By the time night had fallen, they'd both gotten sick of commercials, so Sou had stuck a movie in. Kaoru had turned down the volume and taken a bathroom break five minutes into the movie. When she'd come back, he hadn't bothered to turn it back up, she'd started talking, and now he was lying here, listening to her.

Kaoru used hand movements when she talked. Even now, lying on her back, her hands were in the air, weaving patterns that reflected the words coming out of her mouth. Sou thought she liked the sight of her shadowed hands against the white ceiling. Kaoru loved contrast. Light-dark, sharp-smooth, pastel pink and black. He knew, if she didn't, that she liked opposites next to each other. She even liked contrast in people; subconsciously, this was how she chose her friends: demure-looking with fierce tempers, innocent pyromaniacs, successful with no self-confidence, smart but naïve, small but full of attitude, big and bashful, geeky and passionate. And Sou, too, was a contrast: smiling and full of the anger he vented through kendo, responsible only because he wrote down all his obligations on post-it notes, which he crumpled in his fist and threw away when he fulfilled those obligations. Even now his room was scattered with them, notes reminding him to send his friend from middle school the birthday present he'd bought, to make an appointment with his mom's optometrist, to buy that new pair of shoes he needed, to meet his friends at the movie theater, to call his cousin from Arizona.

Kaoru had laughed when she'd discovered this contrast, the first time she'd visited his dorm room in college. She'd been delighted when she'd seen the same spread of post-it notes the first time she'd visited him at his home. She still smiled every time she entered his room. The contrast between the randomly placed yellow notes and the otherwise neat room attracted her.

"I think I'll leave after the movie's over." Kaoru's words penetrated his thoughts. Her hands rested down at her sides now. She'd sensed his quiet mood and stopped talking.

"Alright," Soujiro agreed. He listened to the sounds of the television. The evil mastermind was currently revealing his diabolical plan to take over the world to the movie's main character. It was still nice, lying here with Kaoru's head against his shoulder, years of life ahead of both of them. Yes, it was a nice dream. Sou had the sense that the world didn't exist outside his bedroom, that once Kaoru opened the door to leave his room she'd be leaving into a world forever changed and alien from the one they resided in now.

What a dream this was. He could stay in this dream forever. Literally. He didn't have to think hard, only to drift along in and out of Kaoru's presence. He could forget what would happen a little less than a year after this point in his life, what had already happened.

Kaoru must be drawn to the contrast in the Battousai. His appearance was full of light colors, tans and reds and ambers, his eyes exotic in a way Soujiro knew Kaoru found attractive. Compare that light with the dark the vampire resided in. The Battousai's hair was too red, his gaze too intense, but just look at the contrast in that intensity: when he looked at Kaoru and when he looked at everyone else. And all you had to do was look to see the contrast. The purpose emanating from the Battousai made Sou feel the same as if he stood in the jungle with a wild tiger staring into his eyes, knowing it meant to kill him, but the Battousai was gentle in the truest sense of the word. Sou had seen him kiss Kaoru on the beach, before he'd known who they were.

It had thrown Sou off, seeing the vampire around Kaoru. It made him bitter that the man changed for Kaoru without either of them knowing it, and then she went and changed for him too. Soujiro and Kaoru had never changed for each other, never made those small, almost imperceptive adjustments it took to maintain a relationship. To see them changing together after knowing each other for a week while he'd known Kaoru for years, that had made him bitter. And so, in the end Sou had changed for her, if bitterness had anything to do with changing. But it came too late, and at the wrong time, and too far away from the right place, and it was the wrong change anyway.

In this room, time stood still a year ago, when their relationship was new enough and solid enough that neither of them had needed to change at all. And if he asked her to, she would stay longer. If he asked her, she'd come back tomorrow and spend the day with him and lay here against him and comfort him because she'd sense something was wrong and want to fix it. And if he let her she would fix it and then when a year rolled around he would have figured out how to change for her and she'd have figured out how to change for him and it wouldn't matter if she met the Battousai at all. It wouldn't matter that you weren't supposed to have to figure out how to change for the girl you loved, even back when she thought she loved you too.

He could stay in this room a year ago if he wanted, for as long as he wanted, for as long as it took until he felt that things might be right again. Until he felt that he might be right again. The possibilities were attractive.

I want chocolate. Do we have any?
No. And even if we did, it wouldn't be in the bathroom closet.
I thought you might have hidden it.

Stalemate.

Ken wasn't going to win unless he had a better plan. He didn't. But Kaoru was here, and that gave him hope. Before she'd come he had barely had the energy to lift his head in the face of the dark one. Now he could look the thing in the eye, the thing that looked like Sano.

He thought Akira was probably still alive. All the rest of the dark one's guards were dead except Yutaro Tsukayama, who he'd forgotten about. After the confusion had settled, everyone left alive stood frozen. Kaoru stood in a defensive stance with Yumi behind her in a corner. Ken stood alone about twenty feet away from them. Shishio had dragged Seta a good ten feet from Myojin and was shielding him from harm with his body. Tsukayama's sword was at Myojin's throat, but he wasn't watching his prisoner. Tsukayama was staring into Tsubame's eyes as she held a shuriken to his throat. The dark one stood behind Tsubame, ready to kill her if she lived, or her husband if she died.

Ken remembered. Tsukayama and Myojin had fought over Tsubame years ago. She was the main reason they'd become bitter rivals. A glace at Tsukayama staring at her and Ken knew the vampire loved her. There was no way to tell what would come of the confrontation, but Ken couldn't attack if he wanted Tsubame to live. She'd left her back completely unguarded. If Ken attacked, the dark one would kill Tsubame. Then Tsukayama would snap out of his daze and kill Myojin. If Ken stayed still, there was a chance one of the Myojins would survive. Not both. Not with Myojin sitting there trembling under the force of the dark one's aura. Tsubame had to do something soon, or her resolve would slip and she'd wind up just like her husband and Soujiro. She'd become lost somewhere in her mind.

"Put the sword down," Tsubame ordered, her voice clear throughout the room.

"I can't do that, Tsubame, not until you lower your shuriken," Tsukayama answered. From where Ken was standing, he could see Tsukayama's face and Myojin's blank stare. Tsukayama looked grief-stricken.

"We both know what stands behind me, ready to slit my throat," Tsubame answered.

"Why didn't you pick me?" Tsukayama asked, young and hurt again all at once, because he'd seen that she would probably die. "This wouldn't be happening."

Ken remembered. Once, he and Sano had met with Yahiko Myojin, back before he was the head of the Juppongatana, not long after he'd been turned. The young man had already been in love with Tsubame, and he'd confided in Ken and Sano that he thought the woman saw him only as a kid. She'd been a vampire ten years longer than he had.

"Yahiko, why are you telling us about your pathetic lack of a love life?" Sano asked.

"Shut up, rooster head," Myojin retorted. "I'm telling Ken. What kind of fool would go to you for advice?"

"He's right, Sano," Ken agreed with a smirk. "You haven't had much luck with women lately."

Sano stood indignantly. "I know when I'm not wanted. See you Casanovas at the bar. I need a drink." He rolled his eyes and shoved his way through the crowd.

Myojin didn't waste any time. "Come on, Ken," he pleaded. "I know you can help me. I don't have much time. I have to get back to headquarters before I'm missed. The guys would never let me live it down. How can I make Tsubame notice me?"

Ken sighed. The kid did look pretty desperate. "If this works out, you owe me."

Myojin nodded eagerly. "I owe you more than I can ever repay if you help me win Tsubame. She's the best thing that ever happened to me."

"Tsubame? That's her name?"

Myojin nodded. "Yes. She works with me, and also in the science department. She's very smart."

"Have you got any competition?" Ken asked.

"Yeah," Myojin's eyes narrowed. "Another guy who works with her in the science department. She clearly doesn't have any romantic feelings for him, but she's so nice she won't give him an outright no. You've got to help me, Ken. What if she gives in and goes out with him on a pity date and he slips something in her drink and seduces her and uses mind control on her to get her to keep going out with him and-"

"Yahiko," Ken broke in sharply, "If she hasn't said yes to this other man already, she's probably not going to unless you make her mad. Now how far have you gotten with her?"

"We spend our lunch hour together everyday, but I think she thinks it's just a friend thing."

Myojin was hopeless. For his sake, Ken hoped the relationship worked out. "She has other friends, doesn't she?"

"Yes." Myojin said slowly.

"She doesn't go to lunch with them, does she?"

"No, but she goes out to dinner with this woman Yumi sometimes. I think they like to talk about sciencey things." A new and horrifying possibility dawned in Myojin's mind. "What if I'm not smart enough for her, Ken?"

"Didn't you say you got your masters degree in business when you were human?"

"Yeah, but I don't know anything about science. I probably forget how to read the periodic table."

"Bringing up the lunch again," Ken stated, "If she thought you were dumb, she wouldn't eat with you everyday. I think she's waiting for you to ask her out to dinner. Does she like to dance?"

Myojin nodded.

"Then take her out for dinner and dancing."

"When should I ask her out?"

Ken shook his head. So needy. "The next time you eat lunch together. And you're paying for these lunches from now on if you're not already."

Myojin nodded.

"So, date one: dinner and dancing." Ken paused to laugh when he realized Myojin had taken out a pen and paper and was taking notes. "Date two, make it something fun, like ice skating, followed by dinner. Date three: bring her on a picnic instead of your usual lunch spot. Date four: dinner and dancing again, only at your house or hers. You cook. Try something Italian and bring wine if she likes it, so pay attention to what she orders for dinner on the first date. From there, you'll know what to do."

Myojin looked up from his paper and smiled at him. "Thanks."

"And don't worry about the other guy, Yahiko. If you worry, she'll notice and you'll seem insecure. Only tell her you were worried after your relationship is solid. Then she'll think it was cute."

"Women are strange. Thanks, Ken. You're a great friend." Myojin stood.

"No problem," Ken shrugged. "And I don't blame you for not listening to Sano's advice."

"I heard that," Sano yelled over the background noise of the other customers. He let his body drop into the vacant seat beside Ken, then slid a beer over to Ken and took a long swallow of the one he'd bought for himself. "Ken's advice may be good for getting the girl, but when it comes to keeping her," he winked at a waitress across the room. "I'm your man."

"Yeah, whatever, rooster-head," Myojin dismissed Sano's words. "Bye." He left.

"I'm underappreciated," Sano commented wryly.

"I love him. You know that," Tsubame told Yutaro Tsukayama gently, as if she didn't hold a poisoned shuriken to his throat, as if she were merely consoling him, letting him down gently in her living room, instead of here with the bodies around them and blood all over her clothes.

"I love you," Tsukayama said, "But it's twisted now." His eyes pleaded with her.

"My last shuriken," Tsubame said softly. "I love Yahiko," she said in apology as she drove the shuriken into Tsukayama's throat.

The dark one lunged forward to kill her, but Myojin had lunged first, and his body was in front of the blade instead of Tsubame's. His death was quick and he died before Tsubame turned around in confusion to see her husband lying at her feet. Ken could have seen her face now, but he kept his eyes averted, fearful of witnessing whatever expression rested there. Tsubame dropped to her knees, fell over her husband's body. She wept silently. Ken was struck by the sight of the woman collapsed between the two dead men.

It really bugs me that I never see the end of that movie,
But I've watched it five times in the past four nights.
And I never see the ending. I always fall asleep or have to go somewhere. Not cool.
Want me to tell you what happens?
Nah. If I knew I'd never watch it and even if I did, all the fun would be gone. That's why I don't go to fortune tellers.
Are you condemning me because I indulge in fortune tellers once in a while?
What makes you ask that?
You just gave me a high and mighty speech about how you don't like surprises ruined.
Maybe I did. And maybe I didn't.

Someone needed to take control of the situation. Someone who was not the dark one. Ken obviously wasn't going to, not that she could blame him, after seeing Myojin killed so quickly like that and then watching Tsubame with that expression of horror on her face, horror that she was still alive. Kaoru needed voices, voices to hear to block the faint sound of Tsubame's tears, voices to on which to concentrate, to block the sight of Tsubame lying there on the floor, of Myojin dead.

"Where's Sagara?" Kaoru asked the dark one.

"Right there," Yumi spoke up. She stepped from behind Kaoru's shoulder so she was even with her.

Perhaps Kaoru wasn't the one to take control of the situation after all.

The dark one turned to stare at them both, a bemused expression on his face. "Are you going to tell them, Yumi? The Battousai will not like what you're going to say. I think he's having enough issues with my appearance already."

"Please, sir," Yumi said pleasantly, bowing her head in submission. "Let me speak."

"What are you doing?" Kaoru hissed softly, grabbing the vampire's arm.

"Shh, Kaoru," Yumi commanded too quietly for the dark one or Ken to hear. "I have only your best interests at heart."

Kaoru wondered if her idea of her best interests and Yumi's idea of her best interests were the same. She didn't think so. But Yumi possessed an intensity that she admired. The woman still gripped the same small object in her left hand. Kaoru could see the top of it, and it looked like a vial.

The dark one smirked in their direction. "Speak, then, Yumi."

"Thank you," she said, her voice loud once again. "As I was saying, that right there is Sagara, or at least, his body. The dark one is incorporeal. It came into this world inside the body of the human who called it. Its summoning had been botched, so instead of possessing its own body, it was forced to possess the bodies of others in order to survive. When the human who called it to this world died, it switched to the body of a child. Children's brains are easiest to master. Vampires are hardest. The older the vampire, the harder it is for the dark one to take over its mind because each experience we go through enhances our sense of self."

"But what happens to the soul of the person whose body is possessed?" Kaoru interrupted. The whole thing sounded unbelievable, but the Sagara she'd met in the cell had been so different from this man that they were two different people. Unless he was a good actor. But could he have faked that illness?

"I'm not one hundred percent sure, but I think the soul is still there, repressed in the back of the mind. Notice the effect the dark one's presence has on those around him," Yumi explained sounding like the scientist she was. "His aura inspires fear, insecurity, and after prolonged exposure, madness." She paused. "Kaoru, you know that vampires are more sensitive to the world than humans. Right now, every vampire in the city can feel the presence of the dark one. It's much worse for the vampires in the direct vicinity. That's why a lot of vampires who come in contact with him join him, so he'll ease the tension, stop them from losing their minds. You saw Yahiko Myojin before he was killed, sitting there rigid against the wall, rocking repetitively, staring into nothing, otherwise motionless: classic symptoms of catatonia. He was protecting his sanity by withdrawing into himself."

"How'd he snap out of it?" Kaoru asked, because he had snapped out of it to save his wife.

"Meditation. My guess is that he wanted the dark one to underestimate him, so he pretended to fall under the force of its aura, or let himself fall under it and stored up his energy. We'll never know which. Then he waited for the moment when he could be most useful, knowing he wouldn't be able to form coherent thoughts for very long once he came up from the false catatonia."

"This is really Sanosuke Sagara's body?" Ken asked the dark one.

The Sano, Kaoru thought incredulously. The Sano that was supposed to be dead? The one whose death Ken was supposedly avenging? Ken couldn't be asking if it was that Sano. That meant Ken's Sano and her Sagara were the same person.

"Yes," Yumi answered for the dark one. "The dark one needed a new body after the fiasco ten years ago, so it wouldn't be immediately recognized by the hunters. It hadn't killed Sagara just in case things didn't happen the way it wanted. Sagara was tortured until he eventually succumbed to the aura. Then he was healed and the dark one took over his body."

What was the dark one? From the information Yumi had provided, she'd vote he was a demon. She'd read books with mention of demons in them. She'd seen movies. They usually didn't end well. If vampires were real, why not demons, although she'd had a sneaking suspicion they were real before all this had happened. But she'd never expected to have to deal with one, since she wasn't a devil worshipper and didn't have much interest in books on the 'arcane arts'.

"Sano's strong," the dark one put in, obviously enjoying the way Ken and Kaoru were staring at him in shock. "I can feel him in my mind right now." He was speaking directly to Ken, who was looking more disgusted by the second. He also looked like he might throw up. Or faint. Or charge at the dark one in a blind rage. Or start screaming and never stop. He saw something in the dark one's eyes Kaoru couldn't, and she was grateful for that, but she wished he didn't have to see it either.

"I let him take over sometimes, but he's fought me for so long that he's weak, right, Kaoru?"

Kaoru's gaze jerked from Ken to the dark one in surprise that it had addressed her directly. "In the jail cell, that was Sano?"

The dark one smiled. "Yes. Why don't you tell Ken how he is? He'll believe it if it comes from you."

Kaoru shook her head. No demon was ordering her around. She clutched the katana in both her hands. God, she could feel the aura now too.

"Tell me," Ken ordered her.

Kaoru shook her head again, in an attempt to clear her head of the aura. Then she nodded. "He's fighting, Ken, but he's sick. I was left unconscious in a jail cell downstairs after I got jumped in the apartment. When I woke up, he was there. Some vampires came and took him away. He told me his name was Sagara on the way out, but I didn't know he was Sano."

Ken smiled at her then. It was his way of telling her that he was going to attack, but there was no way you could just kill a demon. It wouldn't even work with a sword. It wouldn't matter if Ken chopped its head off or shot it in the heart or set it on fire, because killing a demon didn't work like that. You had to banish it or drown it in holy water or stab it with a giant cross or something. Something.

He was going to die. She knew Ken probably didn't see it that way, but he was too emotionally involved to be thinking straight. Kenshin was going to die.

Yumi must have seen him smile at her too, because she shouted. "Wait!" Ken normally wouldn't have listened to her, but her shout held desperation enough to halt a skydiver in midair from pulling the catch on his parachute.

"Battousai, as you are now, you can't defeat the dark one," Yumi said hurriedly. "Ingest this vial and you'll have a chance. This is my life's work."

"You may as well," the dark one shrugged. "I need a challenge before I take over L.A. and have to deal with everyone obeying me. Although satisfying, that can get a little boring," he informed them matter-of-factly.

Demons were selfish, arrogant, stubborn, vengeful, and prideful. And dumb apparently, since no one else would have been that stupid. Yumi put her life before that project on the ladder of things that mattered to her, and the end product of that project was the vial in Yumi's left hand. It must be enough to defeat the dark one.

Ken must have known, finally known, that he couldn't defeat the dark one as he was, tired, desperate, and oppressed by its aura. He'd just witnessed Myojin's death. Kaoru hadn't had time to understand their relationship, but she thought they might have been friends once. Ken nodded and walked towards Yumi. Yumi walked towards him. They met in the middle, ten feet away from Kaoru.

"I wish you weren't taking it on an empty stomach," Yumi fretted. "You're going to be hungry." She popped the cork from the top of the glass vial and handed it to Ken, no doubt watching him with eager eyes.

Yumi dropped the cork on the ground. Ken tilted his head back and drank the contents of a vial, a liquid the exact same shade of green as Yumi's lipstick, but clear. Light shone through it.

"It tastes like lime soda," Ken marveled as he handed the vial back to Yumi.

His face was calm. His eyes met with Kaoru's over Yumi's shoulder. He smiled at her again, his eyes promising her something intangible, something she craved more than anything she'd ever wanted, just before he collapsed.

A/N – Sorry about that Yahiko fans... You know, plot development. In my never-ending quest to be unpredictable, I wonder, did anyone see that coming? Just wondering.
Two chapters left, I think.
Thank you, reviewers. You make me feel good in the most breathtaking sense of the word.
Shout out to my cousin, Keefe, who died young.

Aryanne