Author's notes: Well the Gohda's-feelings-twist was clearly way more than you could handle...at least if I take it from the lack of reviews….well it can't be helped. I'm not going to stop now.

Warning: has bits and pieces of yaoi/slash/gay stuff

And since I haven't been able to contact my beta reader recently… this fic isn't as good as it was few chapters ago.

-The explanations -

Onikage woke up in the feeling that something was utterly wrong.

"I'm finally sleeping in decent bed…so what the fuck is wrong now?" He thought grumbling under his breath. Forcing his eyes open he studied his surroundings. The room was exactly how it had been before, except that the sun was already up and the human girl seemed to have wandered off somewhere.

"In other words...nothing worth getting up for." Onikage thought and snuggled deeper between the sheets that carried the human's intoxicating scent, before he remembered something with high importance.

"She wandered off while she was in heat! Is she stupid or just fucking ignorant! Every male in this fucking house can is lured into that smell like moths to the flame! And my mark isn't probably enough to keep them all away either! If a single one of those motherfucking bastards even tries to lay a finger on my property I'm going to beat the living hell out of them." Onikage thought jumping out of the bed. He was first to admit that he was highly obsessive when it came to his property.

Dashing out from the rooms he nearly bumped to Mimi who was strolling down the hallway with a satisfied little smile on her lips. Something had changed and Onikage doubted that it was a change for good.

"It's bold even of you to run around in your original form in this mansion." The petite witch chirped looking him with bright blue eyes. "May I ask what the occasion is?"

Onikage just shot her an angry glare deciding that the question wasn't worth answering.

"No, don't be like that… it's a happy day. Master Sekiya has finally decided to remove the trash polluting the throne, and make an end of this foolishness. You are no longer needed. Our deal is off." The blonde said giggling like a little girl.

"You should see yourself Oni-darling; you have frozen up." Mimi giggled

Onikage had frozen up, but it wasn't because of Mimi's words like the witch thought. He felt her presence getting fainter as if she had suddenly gone somewhere very far away.

"I have no time for this…" Onikage thought clenching his hands into fists and pushed past Mimi and towards the. He would deal with the witch later, when he would be absolutely sure that the human would be safe.

"Run fast and run far Onikage!" Mimi shouted after him. "…because an hour from now the whole mansion will be after you and your little pet."

Emi wandered rather aimlessly the hallways of the east wing to clear her thoughts. The bright sunlight that shined trough the tall windows wasn't enough to keep her warm and she wished that she would have taken her shawl along with her.

The meeting of Matsunoshin and Sekiya had been like she had feared; the boy had been completely emotionless, like something would have sucked all the life out of him already. Matsunoshin had been more like a puppet than a living creature.

His cold eyes had just stared blankly to nothingness as he had voluntarily given Counsel Sekiya a permission to destroy his reputation in front of his staff, and agreed to move to the dungeons at the nightfall and get chained into the wall like a true criminal. He had said that he had already taken care of everything that needed to be done, said that he would accept his duty without a scene.

Maybe it was easier for him to seem like cool and calm outside, but for Emi it would have been easier to handle if he had broken down and begged for his life or cursed them, anything that would have shown them his true emotions.

"Well, what's done is done. I've made a promise not to chance the path of events, in change of this refuge." Emi thought and looked the eastern wings leaf patterned wall decorations.

She had been here when the first Lord Gohda had build up that wall and when his grand daughter had decided to decorate it with leafs. Actually it was a small wonder how little the original mansion had changed along these hundreds and thousands of years, she had lived here.

"You shall help the first of the family to this world and You shall also be the one to bury the last one of them. They shall be your curse and your blessing, your punishment and your reward…" Emi mumbled silently to herself.

It was part of the prophecy that had tied her life to the families of Gohda and Azuma. First it had seemed like an unpleasant duty, but with time she had started to get attached to them. Sometimes she almost reflected them as her own children. She had hoped that young Matsunoshin would have gotten chance to mature a bit longer.

Emi was so deep in her thoughts that she didn't notice the running figure until it was only few feet from her. If she had been able to die she would have probably done so from pure shock. Onikage the thousand-killer, the betrayer, who had been once her lover and more, was running down the hallway towards her at full-speed, dressed in uniform of a young soldier, black Hakama pants and dark grey Haori-jacket.

Thousands of different expressions from shock to melancholy played on her face, until she finally settled to grudge filled rage. Breaking towards one of the most basic rules she had sworn to obey in every situation. She released all of her powers to direct a killing spell towards the creature she hated the most in the whole universe.

Onikage's blood red eyes reflected surprise and something, unreadable… maybe fear, in the few seconds that it took for him to recognize Emi and realize the intention of the power released towards him.

The spell tore a hole to the universe itself, destroying the wall behind Onikage as well as part of the mansion's garden and miles and miles of forest, that were also situated at the same direction. But to Emi's surprise she noted that after the ground stopped shaking and the smoke and dust settled Onikage was still standing before her, shocked but unharmed.

"How?" Emi stuttered in disbelief. Even though he was practically immortal the spell should have at least gravely wound him. Only protections spell, greater than her attack, could have kept him completely unharmed.

"It's fucking nice to see you too." Onikage spit sarcastically. "If you are referring to my new clothes, I got them from a nice girl called Rin... Everything else is probably the work of my fancy new collar." He said and pulled a silver medallion under his Haori. It was similar to the one that she carried around her neck, but there were differences too. For one Onikage's medallion forced it's bearer to obey the master of the house one way or other.

Emi's mind begun to race: "Onikage had the medallion that identified him as a servant of Gohda family. Only one person could currently grant him an item like that, and it was the master of the house. But there was no way one could have chained Onikage against his will and there was no way Onikage would carry the medallion voluntarily, because it made him a slave for the one who had chained him.. Basically if Matsunoshin would order Onikage to jump the vampire would jump, and keep doing so until Lord Gohda would give him a permission to stop. "

Then suddenly she remembered something Matsunoshin had said the earlier. He had asked her to take care of the human servant Ayame, when he had mentioned something about a man, who shared a bond with the girl.

"What had been the exact words? " Emi thought trying to remember, as they suddenly came to her.

"…Oh, and please look after that guy too…I chained him to me and made him a part of the staff too. He is a bit rude and scary looking, but the spell bounds him to the human's will after I'm gone." The boy had said with a faked smile.

Emi's big bright green eyes widened in shock, Matsunoshin had somehow been able to chain the thousand-killer not only to him self, but also to the human girl. Her knees felt weak and she had to battle against a sudden need to sit down to the velvet rug.

Then something with even shocking occurred to her: She had personally promised to look after a thousand-killer, the man who had taken so much from her. She could have shouted from frustration.

Shooting a dirty glare towards Onikage, Emi noticed that the man was gone. She had been so deep in her own thoughts that she hadn't even noticed when he had left her alone with her messy thoughts.

"Heaven help me…" Emi muttered and buried her face in her hands.

Rikimaru was in the garden watching as Lady Kiku chatting with one of the maids, a young, perky girl with short black hair. Currently they were talking about some soldier that the maid had encountered in the eastern hallway earlier in the morning.

Rikimaru let their words flow from one ear to the other with no interest whatsoever, as he leaned to a strong tree. His seemingly relaxed pose was a deceiving façade; actually he was ready to draw Izayoi from the smallest disturbance, but until the danger represented itself he would lean to the tree and let his mind wander.

The meeting between Lady Kiku and Matsunoshin refused to leave his thoughts. Something had seemed off. For one the boy hadn't looked him once in the whole time nor talked to him. And what was it been with his outfit. Rikimaru couldn't remember a when Matsunoshin had used royal robes before, or combed his hair back for that matter.

Rikimaru knew him too well to know that the boy's wide smile he hadn't been real. The boy used smiles like masks, the wider the smile the unhappier he was under it. But the thing that bothered him was the fact that he didn't know what Matsunoshin had been hiding behind that cheerful expression.

And after the incident he hadn't been able to leave Kiku's side long enough to locate Matsunoshin. They needed to talk. He needed to make sure the boy was alright; otherwise his conscience wouldn't leave him alone.

Suddenly a dry tree branch snapped somewhere behind him. With a blink of an eye Rikimaru unsheathed Izayoi and moved himself between the noise and Lady Kiku. Rikimaru recognized the cause of the voice to the same young soldier that had brought him the message from Emi earlier the same morning.

The boy seemed not gotten over his fear of Izayoi, yet and he was looking the unsheathed sword like it could turn to poisonous snake any moment.

"What is it this time?" Rikimaru asked sheathing the sword with a mildly angry gesture.

"I-it is a-another cryptic message from t-the mistress Emi." The boy stuttered. "The price of the wager has been found and it's shall be paid along with the rope, and you'll be the one to do it..." The boy was getting calmer and more confident as he spoke. "And the one that escaped has been chained again. And then she requests your visit as soon as possible. That's it." The boy said and turned to walk away.

"Wait a moment." Rikimaru said in a quiet voice. "Stay here and look after these two ladies for me for a moment." Rikimaru ordered. "I'll be back in a half an hour." He assured the nervous looking boy as he left.

"I especially asked not to be the one to execute him! I'm not sure can I even do it, let alone live with the consequences!" Rikimaru's mind raged silently. "And what was that about the capturing the one that escaped? Had they captured the thousand-killer? But when …and how and why hadn't I known anything of it?"

Rikimaru shook his head to get rid of the question swirling in his mind. He would get the answers soon; he would make that sure.

Onikage ran past the stone mausoleums in the grim front yard to the front gate.

She was somewhere beyond that gate. His human, was dying somewhere in there, alone. An unknown pain dwelled in his chest and something had risen to his throat, making it hard for him to breathe. Saying that he was worried would have been an underestimation; saying that he was terrified was much closer to the current state of his mind.

As the girls powers weakened he felt similar weakness in his own limbs. The throbbing headache had come back to pierce his head, but he hardly noticed it from the horrible scenarios that his mind was constantly coming up with.

Speeding up his steps Onikage ran past the gate and found him self in a snowy mountaintop. His legs sunk deep in the snow, but it didn't matter. He could feel the girl's presence closer than in hours. Studying his surroundings Onikage gazed the white fields with is sharp crimson eyes, trying to see a glimpse of the human, but all he could see was more snow.

Then his nose caught a whiff of the familiar scent in the air. The girl couldn't be far.

"Wench, where the hell are you hiding!" he shouted hoping that the girl would hear him and react somehow.

As he walked further and further away from the gate he saw a glimpse of black in the middle of the blinding whiteness. As he got closer Onikage recognized it as the part of the girls' weird uniform. The snow has almost buried her out of the sight leaving only a glimpse of her other sleeve in above the surface.

Kneeling down he dug the girl out from the snow. She was pale and could to touch and her bare feet were in countless little wounds and bruises, but her pulse was strong and she was breathing calmly. Onikage was so relieved that he burst swearing.

"Who the hell gave you permission to fucking try to die behind my back!" Onikage shouted to her as he lifted the limp girl in his arms.

To his surprise he saw a little faint smile in her lips, but it vanished so quickly he wasn't sure had it really been a smile or just a shadows playing on her face.

First thing Ayame registered when she woke up as the first time was sound it was stable, strong beating against her ear. Something in the sound calmed her fearful mind assuring that she was safe now.

The next sense that started working was the touch, despite the warmness against her cheek she was feeling cold. After pondering her problem a moment Ayame's tired mind found a perfect solution. She needed to get closer to the warm sound.

Ayame moved her arms that were heavy like they would have made of stone and found that there was some kind of thick fabric between her and the warmness. Gathering all her strength she tore the fabric away from the warm object and pressed against it, letting out a content sigh.

Her mind registered a soft voice taking something, somewhere near by, but she didn't have enough concentration to understand the meaning of the words.

Accepting it as an unfortunate, but incurable fact Ayame snuggled into a better position, which meant being as close to the warm object as possible and fell back to sleep.

As Ayame wandered back awake several hours later, she felt much better. She wasn't cold anymore and she was leaning into something warm and comfortable. Inhaling deeply Ayame inhaled a weird, but pleasant scent that seemed to linger in the air.

Yawning widely Ayame opened her eyes and saw something that she didn't recognize at first. After a moment of vigorous brain work Ayame recognized it as a partly a blanket, partly of a bare male torso and an equally bare shoulder against pale blue wall of her bedroom. Shifting her gaze higher, she met a pair of dangerously glowing red eyes in a very familiar face.

She had slept in a sitting position leaning into the man's chest. The thought was like a slap in the face, and she tried to snuggle away from him, but his arms pulled her back to his embrace, in a way that her back was pressed against his chest. His hold of her was gentle, but firm and Ayame soon noticed that despite how much she would twist she couldn't move away from him.

"No, no don't move so much… you are just getting me excited…" A husky voice murmured her ear and Ayame's eyes widened in shock as she completely understood her current position.

She was in her own rooms, sitting in a bed leaning her back against his chest, not in his lap, but between his legs, which meant that his private areas were pressing against her lower back.

"Oh my ..." Ayame breathed out. Was she feeling something hard pressing against her lower back? "No, don't go there it's a very dangerous course of thought…" Ayame mumbled in her own mind suppressing a need to gasp as she felt his hot breath against her sensitive neck.

"… And we can't play until all these people leave us alone…" The man sighed in her ear drawing her attention to the pair that was standing next to her bed. The Healer looked rather friendly, but Emi had a scary emotionless expression on her face and eyes fixed upon Ayame.

"It's good to see you are awoken Ayame." The bald healer said, smiling gently. If Ayame remembered correctly his name was Tesshu or something like that.

"How much do you remember?" Emi asked eyeing Ayame suspiciously with her bright green eyes.

"From the mountains or from before?" Ayame asked and unable to hide the growing irritation from her voice.

"Actually I was meaning to ask you about the creatures I met in the forest in the other day… they looked like men, but they smelled like rotting flesh and their eyes glowed white. And about the moving empty suit of armours…" Ayame stopped to take a deep breath. "So, could someone please be so kind and explain to me where am I and what is going on, before I loose the rest of my sanity?"

"Oh, dear…This is going to take a while…" Emi sighed. "I'm going to tell you the short version; because frankly I don't think are you ready to hear the whole truth." Ayame felt the pale man's hands tightening around her, giving her strength. Sighing she nodded to Emi. She would have to settle for the short version for time being. She could find out the missing parts later on.

"I was actually hoping that I could explain these things to you with time and in private." Emi said directing a dirty look towards to the man behind her. "But because of your current situation …we have to do some compromises."

"I want you to throw away the world impossible out of your dictionary right now. It'll make things easier for you later on. As you have noticed some of the things you have used to take granted, don't necessarily exist or are as unchangeable as you think. It's because this mansion doesn't exist in your realm. Or actually not only there, it's simultaneously in three different realms or dimensions, whichever word you like to use." Emi said, stopping to think how she would explain the rest in the best possible way.

"One of them is the mortal realm, that's where you and other humans are from, the second is the five kingdoms, or hell, as you people like to call this place, the world of demons. And the third one is the Celestial realm. This mansion works as a gateway between all these realms, everything that moves between the realms must pass trough here." The red haired witch continued.

"So, the snowy mountain peaks…" Ayame started eyes widened.

"Those were the northern parts of the five kingdoms, where the Gohda mansion was originally built. The reason you weren't able to go back to your own world is because you lost your medallion. It works as a key to the gate and identifies you as a part of the mansion staff. That was the reason the suit of armour attacked you, the magic that keeps it alive mistook you as an intruder." Emi interrupted her.

"Magic..." Ayame started in disbelief, but fell silent as she started to think about it. The existence of magic could explain most if not all the weird events and encounters she had had this far. "So if you give me another one of those magic medallions, I can go home right?" Ayame asked hopefully.

"I wish that it would be so easy, but I'm afraid that it won't work like that. Person can acquire the medallion only once, and before you ask you can't borrow medallions of others. They are personal and work only for the one that they have been granted, so until you find your own medallion, you are stuck in here."

Emi's words effected Ayame like a kick to the stomach. All air escaped her lungs as all hope of ever getting back home left her.

"I- I think I've heard enough for one evening…" Ayame mumbled in a weak voice. She wanted to be alone.

"Very well then, I'll see you again in the morning." Emi said and glided out of the room, leaving Ayame alone with the pale man and her own chaotic thoughts.

Rikimaru was returning to his body-guarding duty from the meeting with Emi, as he caught a scent of blood in the air. It came from the rarely used narrow corridor that crossed his current path.

Most likely it wouldn't be anything more serious than maid with a nosebleed, but his long years as a soldier and as an assassin had taught Rikimaru that ignoring the little hints of violence could be fatal, so he drew Izayoi from it's sheath and wandered to the dark corridor to check the situation a it closer.

The scent got more powerful as the corridor got darker and narrower and Rikimaru took a tighter grip around the hilt of his sword. Something was wrong, the corridor was too quiet. There were no hurried footsteps or cursing that would have suggested that there had been an accident.

The source of the smell was almost in his reach as the corridor suddenly made a sharp turn to left. Cursing his bad luck Rikimaru pressed his back against the wall and crept closer as quietly as possible. He didn't want to lose the advantage of surprise against the possible enemy, by stomping around the corner like a drunken sailor.

As Rikimaru stepped around the corner he encountered a sight that he wasn't expecting. There hidden in the darkest shadows, collapsed against the cold stone wall, was the current head of the house. Matsunoshin's hands clutched the left side of his royal robes, and Rikimaru could see that the boy's hands had dyed red from his own blood, but he was still breathing.

Letting the Izayoi to slip from his suddenly numb hands to the stone floor; Rikimaru closed the distance between them and bent down to bury the younger man into a gentle embrace. He didn't notice that his own clothes got stained in blood, and frankly he didn't give a damn. Matsunoshin was safely in his arms, where he belonged, and that was everything that mattered to him right now.

"Why can't you stay out of trouble…?" Rikimaru though and briefly wondered what had the boy done this time…or were these wounds something he had gained as he had captured the most dangerous man alive.

The younger man's unruly black hair pressed against his cheek, and Rikimaru was surprised to notice how soft it felt against his skin. It was almost like black silk.

. The master of the north felt small and fragile in his arms, and Rikimaru had hard time in believing that this was the man that had chained the legendary thousand-killer all alone without any help. Even though he knew that the red haired witch wouldn't have lied him about something as serious as that.

"I can't…I won't let them kill him…" Rikimaru promised to himself as he lifted the younger man in his arms with ease.

-The end of chapter twelve –

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