A.N.: Thanks for the feedback!

A.N:…I really hate writing down fighting and training, because it's really hard…it always ends up sounding too short and too easy…ok…after this fic I'm back to writing parodies…I seriously can't write even a semi-serious text….I 've been a quick updater recently cause...right now I don't have a full day job...just a part time job...and I don't have a place to stydy, yet...just entrance exams...that I fail...

Disclaimer: You know the drill…if you don't: go and read the disclaimer from chapter 1…

-The hardest kill-

Ayame woke up with something furry touching her face. Opening her eyes she could see Oni watching her face intensively with those deep red eyes as the cat touched her face with it's little pawn. Ayame was happy that the cat had decided to wake her without using claws.

"Still five more minutes..." She mumbled closing her eyes and burying her head under the pillow. The cat seemed to have other plans for her as it mewed loudly and started to wriggle itself under the pillow too.

Ayame let out a defeated sigh "Fine…I'm up…I'm up." She mumbled moving into a sitting position. She hadn't needed an alarm clock since Oni had moved to her rooms. Somehow the cat always got past the locked door to wake her up.

She glared at her pet. "How did you get in here anyway? I closed the door when I left you to sleep in the living room."

Oni didn't answer her question, just glared back at her with it's glowing red eyes.

Ayame suppressed a yawn and dragged herself to the bathroom. Why was it that every Monday morning she could sleep until the noon, but in Saturdays she was up before dawn?

"Must be a Murphy's law…" She thought, as she filled the bathtub with hot water. Then she turned to the small shelf with different soaps and oils. She wanted a nice smelling bath; no she needed a nice smelling bath this morning. She corrected herself.

It was Monday morning, which meant school, which meant that she needed to get relaxed. She hadn't showed up there over a week, and she just knew that it would take a lot of crawling and begging before the headmaster would take her back to the student list.

She ended up, in a vanilla scented soap bath. Ayame could feel her muscles relax as she slipped in to the steaming hot water. Closing her eyes Ayame inhaled the sweet scent of vanilla, and started to feel better. She was starting to fall in love with her bathtub.

"I don't know how I would survive without it anymore." Ayame confessed to herself, as she laid there in her big, beloved tub covered in warm water and vanilla scented bubbles.

Demanding knock from the door yanked her from her happy vanilla scented zombie-state.

"Ayame, if you don't get up now, you're going to be late from school!" Emi shouted trough the door, making a great imitation of an average mother.

"I'm there in a minute!" Ayame shouted back, left a mental farewell to her bath and climbed reluctantly off the tub, and got dressed. She stood in front of the mirror, battling with her hair as her eyes noticed a scar on the side of her neck. It was pretty faint, but looked distinctly like a human bite mark.

"How on earth did I get this?" She wondered tracing the scar with her fingers. Tesshu had said that the amnesia was her mind's way to protect her from what had happened, and her memory would come back when she would be ready.

"Did I get raped…or robbed?" She wondered trying to force her mind to remember.

"She was walking from her apartment, carrying her stuff. It had taken longer than she had expected. The janitor had changed the lock and gotten himself drunk. It had been already dark when she had entered the forest, but she wasn't scared. That was something the little kids did, and she was an adult. She had been calm, until she saw something ahead of her in the dark dirt road…what?"

Ayame's memory started to get blurry here…she concentrated harder; she needed to remember, needed to know….

"…A figure in the dirt road… a man? …yes, there was a man ahead of her…but something was wrong…Something about the way he moved…what? The movement was stiff… jerky…"

Loud sound of something metallic hitting the floor interrupted her thoughts, making her drop the comb to the floor in surprise. Oni had jumped to the table and accidentally pushed the key of her rooms from the table. Ayame removed her sore hands from the table before her. She had been clutching the table so hard that her finger had turned white, and she hadn't even noticed it.

Looking around for her books and backpack, Ayame realized that her backpack, along with the most of her other possessions; such as some of the schoolbooks had been missing since the day, she had been injured…

Mumbling something incomprehensible under her breath Ayame, ran out of her room to the corridor.

She turned to the direction, where she estimated that the front door might be. She wandered along the torch lid hallway, trying to find something recognisable, without success. It didn't take her a long time to realize that she was lost, somewhere in the maze like network of narrow corridors. There were massive stone statues of dragons guarding this hallway, and she was sure that she hadn't encountered them before.

"Great, just great…" she thought and expressed her feelings by sending a spinning kick to one of the dragon statues that stood near the walls.

The statue of a dragon let out a hollow sound and fell. She had thought that the statues were made of solid stone; big stone statues weren't supposed to fell down with a single kick. Ayame backed away till her back was touching a similar statue behind her. Out of curiosity she gave the still standing statue a little push, nothing.

She pushed it a little harder, still nothing. Then she kicked it, like she had kicked the other statue before. The stone dragon didn't even budge, even though Ayame wished for her toes, that she hadn't kicked it quite so hard.

"So only one of them is different…Why would that be?" Ayame thought ignoring her violated toes. Moving closer to the fallen statue, Ayame noted to her relief that the statue hadn't broken. She bent down to pull the hollow statue back up, as the hole in the floor caught her eye. It was right under the spot, where the statue was supposed to be.

Forgetting the statue she crept closer to study the opening better. It had stairs leading down to a black tunnel.

"Fake statues and hidden stairways, this mansion is becoming weirder every day…" Ayame thought as an exited smirk crept to her lips. "I'm lost anyway, so I can as well, study that tunnel…" She told herself, already reaching a torch from the wall.

The opening on the floor was narrow, but as she descended deeper in to the tunnel it got more spacious. In the light of the torch Ayame could see that the floor of the tunnel was covered in dust. No one had walked there in years, maybe even decades. The tunnel was made from the different stone than hallway above; these stones were smaller, rougher and not as evenly placed, like the tunnel had been made in a hurry.

Air was colder and moister in the tunnel, and the floor was slippery. Watching her step carefully, Ayame walked deeper into the darkness. Her heart was beating fast and her hands were shaking with excitement.

"What I'm going to find in the end of this tunnel? A hidden treasure chamber, maybe or a hidden gateway to …somewhere." Ayame wondered, her wild imagination getting the best of her.

Rikimaru was training Gohda, in the garden, behind the manor. The garden was bathing in an early morning sun and smelled fresh. It had rained last night. Rows of white marble statues and tall cherry trees lined the field, which was currently worked as a training-place. Rikimaru was in his true form, now that the human kid was supposedly in her own world, she had school. His true form didn't differ from his human form greatly, he was a tad taller, his ears were a bit bigger and his eye was brighter shade of yellow. The real difference was strength. He was noticeably weaker in his human form. Gohda was in his human form, like always. Rikimaru wasn't even sure did his master have another form, or was his human form also his true form…

Matsunoshin was becoming better with the twin swords of his, but his skills were nothing compared to Rikimaru himself or Gohda's father. Matsunoshin didn't simply have enough interest to become outstanding.

Rikimaru waited Gohda to attack, and he didn't have to wait long. The boy moved with, speed and ease that challenged some of the younger soldiers. Rikimaru blocked the swishing blades, with a dull training sword and smoothly moved to counter attack. To Gohda's credit Rikimaru had to admit that the young man managed to withdrew his swords fast enough to block Rikimaru's first attack and dodge the second one. As Rikimaru's sword slashed harmlessly the air, where Gohda's head had been a few seconds ago, a playful smirk appeared to Gohda's lips.

"The kid thinks this is some game." Rikimaru realized as Matsunoshin directed a risky kick towards Rikimaru's knees. Rikimaru jumped back and slashed the training sword downwards successfully, giving Gohda a painful reminding of his skills.

"That hurt." Gohda whined, rubbing his sore arm, but his tone wasn't serious. He was playing some stupid game of his once again.

"Serves you right; for not taking, training seriously enough." Rikimaru grunted and unleashed his favourite attack: a series of slashes, followed by two kicks and a mean shoulder thrust. The master of the house managed to block the slashes, but the second kick hit him, and before Gohda new it he was laying other side of the small garden a dull training sword pointed at his throat.

"You need to take the training more seriously, Matsunoshin. Life isn't some game, you can start over when you loose. And there will be opponents that won't hold back, because you are a Lord Gohda of the North." Rikimaru said looking down to the warm black eyes of his master. "..or because you are half human." he added in his mind. "They will kill you if they get the chance, do you understand that? He continued.

The boy was smiling a sad little smile, which made him look older than the 22-yars that had experienced. He was barely more than a kid, really, and yet he had been in charge for a kingdom for over 10 years. Some of his own men wanted him dead, because he wasn't pure blooded and over half of the counsellors wanted him to hand over the thrown. He had to have matured pretty quickly. Rikimaru had known the boy since he had moved from the human realm to the mansion 13 years ago to take over his father's kingdom.

At first Rikimaru hadn't liked the idea of babysitting a half-human kid, but something of the kid had reminded Rikimaru of himself as a kid. Maybe it had been the eyes that had seen too much; anyway he had taken the task to watch over a nine-year-old king. And he hadn't regretted it too often.

Rikimaru studied his master: Gohda had a pale skin and his unruly black hair fell to his handsome face like a veil, hiding his eyes. His slender body was dressed in a green hakama pants, and a white-green haori-jacket, a uniform of a high councillor. Matsunoshin Gohda stubbornly refused to dress in to robes of the Lord, telling that he was just replacement of a ruler, not a real one. He was a bit shorter than Rikimaru, but despite his height and slim appearance, he had stability of a fighter.

"Rikimaru…do you still remember what was the original duty uncle Sekiya gave you all those years ago?" Gohda asked in a silent voice, dragging Rikimaru's mind to the harsh reality.

"Yes…" Rikimaru answered, even though he would have gladly forgotten it. He was due to protect Matsunoshin Gohda until his sister Kiku, the true heir of Gohda family, was ready to take the thrown.

Then his duty was to kill Matsunoshin, to prevent any problems he might cause in the future. Such as awkward fights of the position of power, and assassination attempts that might lead the kingdom to a civil war. Rikimaru would kill him also, if the boy would try to harm or prevent Kiku's rise to power, in anyway. That he had promised to Sekiya, when he had met the Gohda the first time. His duty wasn't to serve Matsunoshin but the Gohda-clan.

"I was just thinking that…could you execute me quickly… in my sleep, when the time comes? And let my sister understand that I died in some disease…" Matsunoshin asked and flashed him a fake smile that wouldn't have fooled anyone. He was scared.

"Sure." Rikimaru answered with a voice drained from emotion, if it would ease Gohda's mind, he would promise him moon from the sky, and do his best to get it for him. Rikimaru didn't know why he couldn't ever bring himself to say those words to the kid …or any other kind words, for that matter.

"Thanks …" Gohda mumbled standing up. "…Now I must go and meet Sekiya, as I promised." He said and left to walk towards the manor, leaving Rikimaru alone to the training ground to watch his master's distancing back and to search the words of sympathy he hadn't been able to say...

"Don't get attached to the kid…It will just make it harder for both of you." Sekiya's warning from the past, sounded in Rikimaru's head. Sekiya had told the boy then…no doubt about that. Rikimaru had tried to obey Sekiya's advice, but somehow without realizing exactly when, he had grown harmfully fond of Matsunoshin.

It could take another decade, few years or only weeks, before Kiku would ready to take the thrown by Sekiya's standards. But the day would come…and then Rikimaru had to kill Matsunoshin, and he knew, without a doubt that it would be the hardest kill in his life.

"How do you kill someone you care for?" Rikimaru wondered watching the white clouds slowly moving in the sunny, blue sky. "How do you get over it, and continue your life as if nothing happened?"

The hardest questions were always the ones without answers…

-The end of chapter six-