Title: The Geas

Author: Dragon's Daughter

Fandom: Rurouni Kenshin

Disclaimer: I don't own Rurouni Kenshin. I am making no profit by writing this fan fiction. It is intended for recreation purposes only.

Pairing: K/K A/M

Rating: R / NC-17

Summary: Life hasn't been good for Kaoru since the day her father died and her evil witch of a stepmother turned her into a literal slave. A spell binds her every movement and hides her from the sight of the world until she happens across the path of Kenshin, a veteran of the Revolution who can not only see her, but is instantly smitten with her!

Archiving: Shattered Theories, Adult ,

Notes: The unedited version of this fic will be available at Adult and at my personal webpage, Shattered Theories.

Chapter Four: Consequences

Sunday was airing day.

In other words, every Sunday Kaoru stripped the tatami out of every room and beat them free of any embedded dirt. Every third week, the futons were aired out as well, and left on the roof to get as much sun as possible to keep them from mildewing during the wet nights.

On Sundays it was worth your life to be underfoot. There wasn't a flat surface in the entire dojo that escaped the righteous fury of Kaoru's dust-mop. Yumi and Shura naturally vacated the premises and spent the day shopping and lolling about the cafés and sweet shops. Misao, on the other hand, made the rounds among her informants and leads to see what popped up and who she could sell it to.

It was already noon and she hadn't turned up much except a nice bit of evidence that she could use in one of her blackmail cases. That particular 'client' had been resisting and the letter penned in his mistress's handwriting, kindly donated by the maid his son had been harassing would go a long way towards subduing him. The maid was due a cut of the proceeds, but she was welcome to it. Misao made a mental note to include a list of job openings along with it. The maid probably wouldn't want to stick around after that.

Other than that notable exception, the day had been fairly fruitless. Misao had exhausted nearly all her 'eyes' and 'ears' around town. The only other hint of something off that she could find was that a certain ship belonging to a notorious smuggling ring was still docked in the harbor. The captain ran a tight operation and she hadn't been able to find out any particulars, but the sailors he employed kept their traps shut and stayed on the boat. That worried her a bit.

Smugglers were usually the 'in and out' type. They made their arrangements by courier and remained in port for maybe half an hour. These guys had been hanging around for days. The only kind of smugglers she could think of who would have to stick around that long were slavers, but she hadn't heard any reports of missing people yet. Whatever they were doing, Misao had no information good enough to make the police move in on the ship.

Misao bought a couple sticks of dango and a waxed paper cone of tea from a stall and found one of the shady parks where her 'ears' knew they could find her. After finding all her usual spots taken by courting couples, she chose a spot on the wall under an elm tree where she could see the gate.

In her outfit she should have attracted attention, sitting with her legs akimbo on a wall for all and sundry to see. Luckily or unluckily, depending on whose point of view you took, Misao was often mistaken for a young boy. Even though she was already sixteen her body insisted on maintaining the narrow hips and flat chest of a thirteen year-old. Actually, her chest wasn't really as flat as it seemed, but breasts annoyed her and she bound them down. The illusion of being a male was too useful to throw away because of vanity. When she was younger she'd worn short trousers that had bared her thighs for the entire world to see, with a cunning little ninja-ko top that she'd loved dearly.

Unfortunately, that outfit had been highly eye-catching and she'd eventually learned to blend comfort with anonymity. These days she restricted herself to dark colors that weren't nearly so memorable. Deep navy trousers that ended just below her knees and a short-sleeved, dull violet gi served her much better. A low-brimmed kasa dangled down her back for when she needed to disguise her round cheeks and rosy lips. While her body could pass for a boy's, her face was all female.

Misao mulled over the smuggler issue as she sipped tea and nibbled on her dango. The fall sun was warm, although they'd pay once night fell. The temperature was going to drop faster than a hot rock.

"Oi!" A small stone zinged past her nose. Misao sighed and casually leaned back to greet one of her less mannerly 'ears'.

Kenichi was perhaps one of the prettiest men she'd ever laid eyes on. His flaxen hair and drowning-deep blue eyes almost made up for the fact that he was also the biggest coward she knew. An aspiring card shark, he knew the value of risk, but he'd run a mile before making a stand. He'd become one of her 'ears' around town when his gambling habits forced him to find additional sources of revenue. The only thing you could get more of at a card game than money or debts was gossip and Kenichi was religious about reporting every single rumor he heard to Misao. Whenever something new happened in town he was one of the first to know, because more often then not he owed money to the person who did it.

"I believe the phrase you were looking for was 'Good afternoon, Makimachi-san. I have something I'd like to discuss with you'." She smiled sweetly at him and offered him a dango. "Now try it again."

Makimachi Misao was her street name. Misao knew better than to use her real name in business; otherwise, it'd be too easy for potential enemies to track her all the way home. Then Kaoru and Yahiko would be in the line of fire. That was an unacceptable risk.

Kenichi made a face. "No time, O-baba!" He used the nickname her eyes and ears had given her as a joke. 'O-baba' was a particularly rude way of saying 'granny'. It was because she was younger than all her informants and prone to treating them much like a grandmother by correcting their speech or badgering them to tuck in loose gis. "This is something you've got to see; hurry up, or you'll miss it!"

He didn't need to tell her twice. Misao hopped down from her perch and followed him out of the park. If Kenichi was willing to pass up on a spot of flirting/witty repartee, then he had to have found something interesting indeed.

Misao followed him for three streets until they were within five blocks of her own home. That wasn't good, she reflected. If this was a bad 'something interesting' then she'd have to take steps to safeguard her little family from it instead of turning a pure profit.

"There!" Kenichi pointed and Misao followed his gaze to see something odd indeed.

A man was walking down the street holding a shinai, of all things. What was more, he was pointing it at each house he passed by. He'd wait for a second and then move on. This in and of itself was an odd thing, but Misao recognized the man doing it. That was what made it interesting.

He was no less than Shinomori Aoshi himself. The leader of the Oniwabanshuu: THE single most powerful group of ninjas in Japan!

A manic grin split Misao's face. Opportunities like this didn't happen every day. She was in a prime position to make a new friend for life, and a powerful friend at that. She spun around and planted a big kiss right on Kenichi's mouth.

"You are wonderful!" she praised him. "You'll see a great big 'thank you' in your next pay packet for this gem!" She kissed him again, lingering to appreciate the expression of pleased shock on his handsome face. Once Kenichi had been shooed off, to remove him from the possible line of fire, Misao scampered up to the rooftops to watch the man at her leisure.

Shinomori continued his meandering pace. Two things stood out almost immediately. First of all, even though he was a stranger to the neighborhood, no one seemed to be paying attention to him. Given the way he was acting, one would think that someone besides her would be eyeing him. The people seemed to pass right by him as if strange men pointed shinais at their houses everyday. The second thing she noticed was that none of the girls were noticing him either.

Even if there was a logical reason for him to be acting the way he was, Shinomori was good-looking enough to supplant Kenichi as the 'most handsome' man in Misao's book. However, they passed right by him as though he were plain as mud without even so much as a wink or a giggle.

"Guess the rumors are true then." She mused out loud. "He is a mage!"

There were similar rumors floating around about all the major players in the Underground, but there was rarely any basis to them. Shinomori, however, appeared to be using a 'notice-me-not'. It was a useful little spell that did exactly as the name implied. It shifted attention away from the caster, which made it better than a invisibility spell. Unfortunately, it wouldn't work on someone like Kenichi whose business was to look, see, and remember. Unlike most of the people on the street, he'd have been actively seeking out faces and comparing them to names, even if he hadn't been consciously aware of it. He knew Shinomori's face and had pointed him out to Misao, thus negating the effect on her.

Magic wasn't her strong point, although she did have a certain aptitude for shadow magic. Still, teachers were hard to come by after the butchery of the Revolution. If it hadn't been the Ishin Shishi killing off dark magi then it had been the Shogun's forces killing off every mage who refused to work for him. There weren't many magi of any variety left in Japan. Still, her tutors around town had managed to instill the basics into her. She had enough experience to appreciate the fine delicate weaving of his spell once she knew it was there and the power fueling it. To affect an entire street full of people at one time was no mean feat.

"Color me impressed!" The more she looked, the more she saw that she liked.

Even a novice like Misao knew the kind of time and effort it took to be able to cast a spell like that. Shinomori had put in a lot of hours without thought to power or influence, but rather for the Art itself. That was the kind of man she could work with.

Perhaps it was time to go down and make her presence known.

Afterwards, Aoshi would be extremely put out with himself for letting her sneak up on him. Later, after the initial surprise of suddenly finding himself nose-to-nose with a young woman hanging upside down from a tree branch had worn off, he'd realize that a ninja of his capabilities should have been aware of her existence long before she chose to introduce herself.

As it was, one minute he was secure in his cloaking charm and going about his duty and the next he found himself staring into the deepest pair of ocean-blue eyes that he could ever remember seeing. If he'd been standing on the beach in Okinawa where the waters were still clean and it was a clear, sunny day, then the sea would have been just as unfathomable as those eyes.

"Hello there." The voice was light and feminine, a soprano unless he'd missed his guess, but not a singing voice. Her pitch was strong and clear, but he could tell she'd never trained either. There was a natural quality about her voice, however, that made him think she'd be just as comfortable snapping off orders as making small talk.

Aoshi took a step back and the eyes reformed into a cunning little face dangling upside down in his path. The face belonged to a young girl of indiscriminate age who was currently dangling by her knees from the branch of a cherry tree. She winked playfully at him and the expression brought her lively catlike features to life. Those blue-green eyes sparkled with barely restrained mischief as though the entire world was a joke that only she was privy to.

Quick as a thought she flipped down from the branch to alight in a crouch at Aoshi's feet without scattering so much as a ruffle of dust to mark her landing. She grinned up at him and popped up to make an impertinent little half bow.

When she straightened he got his first good look at the rest of her. Her body was straight and narrow as a boy's, but no boy had ever had those supple limbs. If there was a word to describe her in between actions then it was 'willowy,' but when she moved every gesture she made was charged with pure energy, and she was always in motion.

"Who are you?" The words were out of his mouth before he thought better of it. Aoshi mentally frowned at his lack of control, but the girl's sudden appearance had set him off balance.

"That's a good question," she shot back with a sassy grin on her face. "But my Onee-sama always told me that only thoughtless men ask for a girl's name before giving their own."

Manners... there was a reason he despised them, and life was constantly reminding him of it. "Shinomori," he snapped, not willing to give his personal name. After all, he'd left his original family name behind in the dusty annals of history and no one was ever going to tie him to it again. The name itself wasn't enough to bind him to anything, even supposing a little girl like this would try.

"Makimachi," The reply was instant and as fallacious as his own. That glimmer in her eye told him that she knew that he knew and didn't care. If he wanted her real name then he'd have to work for it.

A thousand questions sprang into his throat. 'Why are you here', 'How did you track me undetected', and of course, 'Who are you really' numbered among the most urgent. As it was, he settled for: "Do we have business?"

She pondered that. A slim white finger tapped her small chin as she balanced her weight on one leg and cast hers eyes skyward. The gesture was unnecessarily dramatic, but seemed to fit in with her impish nature. "Perhaps." She said finally, drawing the word out so that it meant 'most definitely, but I'm not telling you what.'

Makimachi showed absolutely no signs of getting to the point and the damned shinai that Aoshi had been spending the entire day trailing after was getting impatient. He was near his target and the vibrations of the bamboo sword only confirmed it. "If you have a dilemma that concerns me then, state it and begone. I have no time to waste waiting for you to get to your point."

It was a point in her favor that Makimachi didn't even acknowledge the uncouth nature of his statement; in fact, he was fairly sure she hadn't even noticed. Instead, she looked right past the tone of his words to the meaning behind them. "You're in a hurry and I'm holding you up, do forgive." She stepped out of his path with another one of those semi-mocking, semi-respectful bows.

Misao grinned as Shinomori stalked past her.

He was every bit as brusque and taciturn as rumor described, although one would think someone would have mentioned how very good looking he was. Misao watched his rear appreciatively as he strode down the street. Oh yes, that was one fine specimen of the male species, and those eyes! She shivered at the memory of those icy blue orbs.

'I could get used to having that one around,' she thought as she jogged to catch up. After all, she hadn't said anything about leaving him alone.

Shinomori pointedly ignored her as he resumed the consuming task of pointing his bamboo sword at things. The passers-by continued to ignore the both of them; apparently his notice-me-not extended to cover his companions as well. Misao followed in silence, knowing that eventually he'd snap.

…or rather she would have, Misao corrected herself as her pocket watch chimed the hour inside her vest. She pulled it out. Sure enough, it had just struck six, and Kaoru had been expecting her home at five thirty!

"Whoops, looks like you're not the only one behind schedule!" she chirped and dropped a sisterly kiss on Shinomori's cheek before he could bat her away. "Another time? Ta!"

Misao could practically feel Shinomori's glare grinding into the space between her shoulder blades. She resisted the urge to peek over her shoulder and instead vaulted over the wall into one of her across-the-street neighbor's courtyards. An elderly woman sighed and clucked with disapproval as Misao darted through her laundry lines and out the front gate. Everyone was too used to the young girl's comings and goings to raise more than a token resistance. Now, if Shinomori had followed her, then the old bat would have started shrieking fit to raise the dead and her three large sons would have come after him with axes and clubs.

There were times when Misao really loved her neighborhood.

Kaoru was setting up the dinner trays just as Misao skidded into the door. "I can explain!" she wailed as she fell to her knees beside the older girl.

"I should hope so." Kaoru said coolly. "Your mother was looking for you." She didn't look up, but as she arranged the bowls and platters on the little lap trays Misao noticed a series of red stripes on her forearms, barely hidden by her tattered sleeves. Her stomach sank.

"I'm so sorry, Kaoru-nee, I lost track of time. Is she still around?" Misao asked glumly.

Kaoru shook her head. "She and Shura have gone out for a few hours. They'll be dining elsewhere." She paused to tug her sleeves down. "She was only going to make you go along. My arms… that's from something else, it's not your fault." She was lying; she always did when she took a beating for Misao or Yahiko. 'I fell down the steps' or 'it's just heat rash'. Misao had heard all the variants.

Misao tightened her jaw and didn't say anything. Talking about it would only upset Kaoru. Then she wouldn't talk to anyone for hours, preferring a brooding silence while Yahiko and Misao glared at one another. Instead, Misao helped set up the trays and then went to call Yahiko in for supper.

Dinner was a quiet affair, but that was hardly a change. Eating required a certain concentration and Kaoru had taught Misao and Yahiko both better manners than to talk with their mouths full. She'd enforced the lessons with a shinai.

After supper they all went about their usual chores. Yahiko swept the floors, Kaoru tidied the dishes, and Misao did anything she could manage without her adoptive sister noticing. That usually meant putting away the supper ingredients or tidying the shelves in the pantry. Once chores were done Kaoru took her mending into her bedroom, where she had a secret stash of candles. Misao and Yahiko inevitably began to amuse themselves in the one way they could share.

'Who's the Better Thief?' originally it had been Yahiko's way of teaching Misao his old pickpocket and house-lifting tricks. She'd been a quick study and these days they continually strove to out-do one another by stealing bigger and better things from the hated Mistresses of the house, keeping them for a few days, and then returning them in just such a way that it seemed they'd never been gone at all.

Sewing was perhaps the most boring task known to man.

Kaoru swore as she pricked her finger for what seemed the hundredth time. She set the kimono down before her blood could stain the fabric. The blood was coppery on her tongue as she sucked on the injury; not necessarily bad, but it definitely had its own unmistakable taste. Once the wound ran dry she dried her hand on her apron. That was enough self mutilation for the night…

As she repacked her sewing kit, the door to her bedroom slammed open and Yahiko threw himself inside. Being ten, his grin was a mile wide, and he temporarily forgot his 'samurai dignity,' sprawling at her knees to put his head in her lap.

"I am the greatest thief there ever was," he informed her.

She snorted and smothered a smile. "Are you now? What did you do; steal the Battousai's own wakizashi off his bum as he bent over to get his mail? Or perhaps you lifted Yamagata Aritomo-sama's wallet?" she guessed and was rewarded by a look of amused disgust from her apprentice.

"No!" He gave a long-suffering sigh and produced three elegant hair bobs that glimmered golden in the candlelight.

Her blood ran cold as she recognized Yumi's favorite hair pins. She only wore them on the most special of occasions and Kaoru had once heard her telling Shura that they'd been a gift from the only man she'd ever loved.

More importantly, they were kept in an ensorcelled case that alerted Yumi whenever it was opened by any hand but her own. Yumi hadn't been wearing the pins when she returned from her evening out, so there was nowhere else that he could have gotten them.

"Oh no…" she whimpered.

She was the only one in the house, with the possible exception of Shura, who knew what Yumi really was. Yahiko yelped in protest as she snatched the pins out of his hand and sprang to her feet. Yumi would be on her way already and the only hope there was… Kaoru squeezed her eyes shut and thrust the hair ornaments into the collar of her kimono. Yahiko came after her, but she shut the door on him and slipped the hidden lock. She'd never thought she'd be glad that Yumi had the thing installed.

By the time Yumi found her, she was behind the kitchen drawing water as though she hadn't been near her room. The knock-out spell hit her from behind and the last thing she was aware of before darkness claimed her was hands rifling through her clothing and the glint of gold as Yumi found her belongings.

She didn't really come to until after it was all over, but she had to have been awake for it or else she wouldn't have remembered everything that had happened.

He'd been thorough, that man Yumi had brought into the dojo. He'd come for the precise purpose of her punishment. The stinging blows from Yumi's riding crop weren't going to suffice this time and obviously she didn't trust her own restraint.

Kaoru's split-second decision had been correct. Yumi had to let her live or else she'd lose the dojo and whatever it was she'd gained along with it. Yahiko was a street brat. If he'd suddenly vanished and turned up as a floater in the river then no one would care except her and Misao… and neither of them could have stopped it from happening.

It had been a choice: her pain or his life.

Kaoru had always wondered what she'd do in a situation like this. She'd always hoped that this was the choice she'd have made, but she'd always known that there was no way to judge the depths of her soul until she was faced with the circumstances. It was a small comfort to know that she'd been right.

Pain was a distant thing, as though a dense fog separated her from her own body. Occasionally it would flash in the distance like lightening in a storm, but she was aware of it more intellectually than anything else. Each flash came closer and soon the shock was going to wear off. Then the pain would be hers once more.

At least two of her ribs were broken. She'd felt them give under his booted heel, and tomorrow her back would be a mottled crazy-quilt of black and blue bruises. Amazingly enough her arms and legs had been untouched, as well as her face, so that her clothes would hide the damage. No doubt about it, Yumi had hired a professional.

Kaoru tried moving, but that turned out to be a very bad idea indeed. Oh yes, the room spun in sickening whirls as she lay panting on the ground where she'd started after a single abortive attempt at getting to her knees.

"O-oohhh…" the groan made her stomach turn and not for the first time she wondered if she wasn't hurt on the inside beyond her poor ribs. Her stomach felt… well, tender, but also curiously empty. The tang of vomit echoed in the back of her throat, but she didn't remember heaving. Hands touched her and rolled her onto her back. Kaoru was positive that she screamed, or at least moaned. The pain in her chest lessened as her weight came off it. There was an incessant buzzing in her ears that she vaguely recognized as human speech.

"… it's bad… doctor! We have…" Kaoru couldn't make out more than one word in five, but the intent was fairly plain as a smaller pair of hands levered her up and onto the narrow expanse of someone's back. The movement cast her back into merciful darkness before the unfortunate individual carrying her hit the geas barrier.

For the second time in a single day, the little brat surprised him, although this time Aoshi had a hard time holding it against her.

It was late and the sun had set long ago, yet he was still combing the neighborhood. With ever step the shinai's vibrations grew stronger. The girl was nearby, so close he could practically smell her perfume. Supper had been a skewer of chicken and some bad takoyaki out of a stall. As the night wore on him, Aoshi began to grudgingly admit that if he wore himself out with the search then he'd be in no condition to handle whatever it was he'd find along with the girl. Odds were things wouldn't be pretty.

As things turned out, the situation wasn't as bad as he'd anticipated. Things were still pretty wretched, but he wasn't faced with a one-on-one spell duel.

As he weighed the choice between renting a room for the night and making his way back to his quarters, Makimachi rounded the corner ahead of him like the devil himself nipped at her heels. She was white as a sheet and was that… yes, there were blood smears on the front of her dark vest. She skidded to a halt when she caught sight of him and just stared for a minute before an idea visibly lit up her eyes.

"Shinomori! You're a mage, right?"

He didn't answer, but she didn't give him a chance to. The girl latched onto his arm and started hauling him away in the direction she'd come from. His first instinct was to break the hold, but something about the silent desperation in her pale face made him change his mind.

The girl was close and he was almost completely certain that she lived with or near a dark mage. What were the odds that whatever had happened to Makimachi and the mage were unrelated? As if in response to his thoughts, the shinai began to burn in his hand the further she brought him.

When they reached their destination, Aoshi wondered why he hadn't just gone there first and saved everyone the heartache. As he stood at the gate the power emanating from the house was enough to knock him on his ass. Even more so, the entire site felt diseased, fouled; there was no one way to describe it, but suddenly a lot of things began to make sense.

A Node, the bastard had found an uncharted Ley-line nexus! No wonder no one had noticed him raise the power necessary to cast a complete geas, he'd just tapped into the energy already supplied by the earth! "What's going on?" he turned to Makimachi and asked his question far too late.

"I don't know." Her shoulders were shaking with suppressed tension. "My friend… she's been beaten badly. I tried to take her to a doctor, but I can't get her past the gates. It's like there's a wall…" she paused, her breathing uneven, and then turned eyes towards him wide with hope. "Can you help?"

Hope… it blazed in her eyes, and although he wanted to be disgusted with himself he felt vague stirrings of gallantry. He turned away. "Take me to her." He snapped. It would take hours to tear down the geas, even supposing he had the power to do it. No point in telling Makimachi that, luckily for all concerned, he knew more about healing magic than he liked to admit. Makimachi didn't argue, protest, or even ask a question. She took his words at face value and led him inside.

The girl lay on a reed mat on the kitchen floor. A young boy knelt by her side with a bowl of water and cloth. The water in the bowl was flushed red from his attempts at cleaning her wounds.

Aoshi had seen suffering in all its varied forms during his career as Okashira to his Oniwabanshuu. He'd seen men literally cubed into square-inch bits and rent limb from limb, but those had been fighters, men of violence. The girl… someone had gone over her thoroughly, with a keen eye for detail. All the damage was located where clothing would cover it and none of it appeared to be lasting.

Still he didn't like the look of the purpling flesh over her ribs. The world receded into the background as Aoshi knelt at the girl's side. He noticed a glimmer of sapphire iris from beneath her smoky black lashes and the corner of her mouth quirked in what appeared to be a reassuring smile.

'She doesn't know who I am,' he realized, 'If Makimachi or that boy had been there when she opened her eyes, they'd have gotten the same smile.'

Head trauma? Aoshi scowled and cast a diagnostic aura over her entire body. It was a bloody waste of energy, but even professionals could make potentially lethal mistakes and he was no doctor to detect internal bleeding just by looking. Cool green light enveloped Kaoru's body (by now he was positive that this was the girl he'd been looking for); for a second, the light held steady before turning a sickly yellow around the crown of her head and at her back and sides. The area over her ribs was blood red, confirming his initial suspicion that they were broken.

Her confusion was the result of a nasty knock to the head. She would be disoriented and confused for a while, but she would suffer no more than a lingering headache, and the goose-egg forming on the back of her head reassured him that the bleeding was taking place outside the skull and not inside. Setting her ribs was a simple process and he used a spell on the bones to accelerate the knitting process.

All the while, Makimachi and the boy hung back watching anxiously as he worked over her wounds. The boy vanished when Aoshi ordered him to get her a change of clothes and returned with a yukata that wasn't in much better condition than the one she'd been wearing.

The recollection of Kenshin's troubles getting her to accept a new kimono even when he owed it to her stifled his initial urge. There probably wasn't a respectable clothing shop open at this hour anyway. The garment was clean and whole and at the moment that was what counted. Makimachi changed her and Aoshi turned his back in deference to her modesty. His mind was occupied by weighing the various merits of ointments to speed the healing of those bruises. His own blend would probably be best, but it had been formulated with a man's physiology in mind. Would it be as effective on a woman's softer skin?

"… how long's he gonna be here? We don't have much longer…"

The boy's voice distracted Aoshi from his thoughts, but he deliberately maintained his faraway expression while he listened to the boy whisper in Makimachi's ear.

"He'll be here as long as it takes." Makimachi was harder to hear. She knew how to modulate her tone and soften her sibilants so her voice didn't carry, but Aoshi's hearing had been permanently enhanced years ago. "If she gets back before he's done, then we'll distract the bitch somehow."

Makimachi's voice was calm, but Aoshi didn't need to look at her aura to know that the girl was fairly vibrating with rage. It was a cold, controlled kind of wrath: the killing kind. The intent bled off her in waves, but there was still something vulnerable about her.

'She's never killed before,' Aoshi decided. It had been so long since he'd been around someone who hadn't that he'd almost forgotten how it felt to watch a person make that fateful decision.

The conversation died the second he turned around as though he'd slit its throat. Makimachi watched him coldly through those ocean-colored eyes. He could feel the questions boiling inside her, but was grateful that she knew better than to waste precious time asking them.

"Do you know who did this to her?" Aoshi kept his own questions curt and to the point.

Makimachi nodded once. "My mother hired a man to do it. Kaoru-nee, ah... Kaoru is the housekeeper here. Something happened… it's not important what, but when I tried to take her out of the house, I couldn't get her within five steps of the outside walls. The air turned hard as stone and I couldn't move." She frowned. "However, when I put her down and came back the invisible wall was gone."

Aoshi nodded. It fit the theory; moreover, Makimachi had just confirmed the girl's identity and a soft groan from the direction of the pallet told him that his patient was coming to.

The pain that had been lingering in the distance of her head pounced on Kaoru with the ferocity of a thousand tigers the second she opened her eyes. A broken sob broke free of her throat as the dull hot throbbing in her chest reminded her of what had gone before. A cool hand came to rest on her brow. A low masculine voice spoke a word that resonated with sheer power and then emerald light suffused her vision. The pain fled in the face of that healing light and when the light faded the pain didn't come back. She sensed it lurking just beyond the edges of her awareness, waiting for the lingering effects of the green light to die away so that it might return.

"Tell me your name."

The voice was unfamiliar, but it wasn't the gravely voice of the man who'd beaten her. When Kaoru opened her eyes she found a tall man kneeling by her bedside. She could see the familiar fixtures of her kitchen behind him and while it was more of a feeling than actual knowledge, she knew Misao and Yahiko were somewhere nearby.

"Ka…" her throat went dry and she tried again, "Kaoru."

The man's pale blue eyes narrowed. "Your whole name, if you please. I won't be able to help you if I don't know exactly who you are."

"I can't…" Tear sprang into her eyes, but she blinked them back. Honestly, she'd done more crying in the past three days that she had in the past eight years.

The man was implacable. "Try." He commanded. His hand was still resting on her forehead and for the first time she realized that power was trickling through the contact. The only time she'd ever felt anything similar was when Yumi rearranged the restrictions of the spell binding her. Only… only Yumi's power felt like scummy water and this man, he felt like an arctic waterfall: cold, powerful, and undeniable.

"Kamiya Kaoru…" for the first time in a decade Kaoru heard her own name ringing in her ears. She repeated it just to be sure she'd really said it. "My name is Kamiya Kaoru. I'm the oldest daughter of Kamiya Kojishirou… I… my name is…" This time the tears really started to fall. "I haven't said that in a long time."

Something like a smile softened those pale eyes. "I imagine not. That is a very nasty geas you're under. How long ago was it set?" He kept his voice soft in deference to her ears, which were fairly sensitive at the moment, but nothing could drown out the strangled squeak that could only have come from Misao. None of the questions she expected came pouring from that quarter, though; the man silenced Kaoru's little stepsister with a single glare… neat trick.

"Um… it'll be ten years next spring." She said finally after a few moments' worth of laborious calculating. "When Yumi learned of my father's death."

His mouth thinned at the mention of Yumi's name. "This 'Yumi,' what relation is she to you?"

"My stepmother," Kaoru spoke quickly when she felt the flow of energy begin to falter. "She married my father ten years ago."

If anything his expression darkened even more. "Her maiden name?"

"Komagata," The reply came from Misao. Kaoru sought the source of her voice until Misao came to kneel at her other side. The younger girl looked strained, but picked up Kaoru's hand and held it between her own. "Why didn't you say anything?" she whispered.

"I couldn't. I'm sorry, Misao…" The geas tightened around her throat as the energy from the strange man petered out.

He sunk back on his heels and watched as Misao curled up in a ball beside Kaoru, still holding her stepsister's hand like she was afraid it was going to vanish. He was a little pale, making his long black hair appear even darker.

"Who are you?" The question was belated, but at that point she was pretty sure that he was trustworthy. Although it would be interesting to find out what a mage of his caliber was doing in their neighborhood.

"Shinomori." He said curtly. "Himura sent me to find you." He nodded to something just out of her field of vision. When she followed the gesture she found her lost shinai leaning against the doorframe.

Somehow, Kaoru just wasn't surprised. It was exactly the sort of hair-brained stunt Idiot-sama would cook up. With more money than sense it only made sense that he wouldn't limit himself to market days if he could find out her home address. "That moron…" she growled and squeezed her eyes shut. "How much would it cost me to have you go back and tell him I'm dead?"

"Who's Himura?" Misao looked from Kaoru to Shinomori and back. "Did I miss something?"

Kaoru groaned and rolled over on her side. She really wasn't up to explaining the convoluted intricacies of her relationship (or lack thereof) with Idiot-sama to Misao tonight, perhaps not ever. If she had her way, the foppish ass would drop off the face of the planet and leave her in peace. Unfortunately, the Gods would never be so kind. Nor, it appeared, were the absentee deities kind enough to let Misao drop the subject.

End Chapter Four

Seiyuu: Here's the new chapter! Thanks to the lovely JaneDrew for editing!