Chapter 12: Honesty

The lightning and thunder might have passed, but the rain continued to drum its melancholy beat on the roof and windows of the Hinata Sou. A continuous monotony of sound that filled the deafening silence the permeated the rest of the building.

A fitting atmosphere considering the moods of the residents as they gathered in the dining room, all nursing a cup of hot tea provided by Ayu, the blue haired girl in question the only one not seated, instead hovering near the door to the living room nervously.

Yui ran a hand through her long blond locks, trying to make sense of what they had all seen as she observed how the others were taking things.

Chii was sitting with Chiho on her lap, stroking the puppy absently as the snow white animal keened and yapped consolingly, not sure what was troubling his mistress but sympathetic to her plight regardless.

Mizuki was caught somewhere between yawning and fidgeting, clearly wanting to do something, anything, to help, but unsure as to what she could actually achieve if she tried.

Natsuki simply sat, attempting to reassure everyone by providing a stable and calming influence, sipping at her tea quietly and smiling whenever she caught one of the other girls' eye.

Ema by comparison seemed halfway to a breakdown.

She had been asleep throughout the entire…incident, and as such had no idea what had really happened or why, having only recently been woken and confronted with the aftermath.

Not a particularly sturdy woman by nature she was all but leaning on Natsuki as she fretted about what all of this meant for both her tenants and herself, having forgotten that as the oldest woman present, she was supposed to be doing what Natsuki was doing for her younger peers.

Ayu was still pacing, her small hands playing with the front of her nightdress unconsciously, and Kanna…

Kanna hadn't said a word since they all moved in here, just sat and stared at the tabletop lifelessly, her face void of any expression.

Yui wondered if she should try and rouse the girl, but a soft shake of the head from Natsuki as she made to stand killed that idea.

She couldn't blame Kanna for being a little shocked. After all, what they had seen…

--- Yui shielded her eyes as the scouring flare of white light threatened to tear away her ability to see.

She heard the gasps and cries of the others as they similarly protected themselves from blindness, but above it all were two very clear shouts.

"RYU!"

It was easy to discern who amongst their group had cried out. Just as it was obvious who the first two to leave them as soon as everyone could see again would be.

Kanna and Ayu, two girls that couldn't have had less in common when it came to physical prowess, matched each other perfectly as the raced across the distance towards where the explosion of luminescence had originated.

Squinting to clear the last of its effects, and swiping rain clogged tresses of blond hair away from her face, Yui felt her eyes go wide as they relayed to her what they saw.

Where Ryu and the purple haired boy had been fighting, there was now a shallow crater, not much bigger than the living area of the Hinata Sou, smoking lightly, the scorched earth hissing as the rain pelted it.

"This isn't…", Yui couldn't find words to explain what had happened and so trailed off into silence.

"Oni-chan!", the girl identified as Satomi almost knocked Yui over on her daze as she rushed past her and away from the protective embrace Natsuki had shielded her with when her brother did… whatever it was he had done.

Yui recovered as Chii lay a questioning hand on her arm, her small face clearly worried and not just for her cousin.

"Ryu…", was all she said, Yui taking the unvoiced cue and nodding, leading the smaller girl by the hand toward where Ayu, Kanna and Satomi stood, the others trailing after them.

When they reached them, Kanna and Ayu were trying to pierce the smoke, and Satomi was yelling for her brother at the top of her lungs, babbling something about not being able to sense them.

For many anxious minutes, the residents waited for the smoke to clear, the unnatural heat of the depression slowly sapping their collective hopes of finding the pair alive and undamaged.

When the grey cloud eventually cleared, the first thing they all saw was a shock of purple hair.

"Oni-chan!", Satomi leapt across the intervening distance with a grace and ease most athletes would envy, landing on the ground near her brother, surprised to find it was cool, and cradling her brother's head on her tiny lap.

"Oni-chan, oni-chan wake up", she sniffled when he didn't respond to her non-vocal ministrations.

She looked up as she heard a gasp of pain to see Kanna picking her way over to where she knelt, Ayu close behind her.

"Is he…", Ayu tried to ask as Kanna brushed straight past the small redhead without pause, the Sword of Two Souls held tight in her white knuckled grasp.

"He won't answer me", Satomi was clearly on the verge of tears, openly crying when Ayu enveloped her in a comforting hug.

As if she couldn't hear or see any of it, Kanna ignored them, her search for the second member of this dual continuing unabated.

"Come on Ryu", she muttered, what she told herself was rainwater stinging her eyes as her pulse raced, "You can't be dead. Idiots don't die; they live forever and bug you".

Stumbling around in the dark, Kanna's feet hit something solid and unmoving.

Crouching down her hands fumbled before they found it. Something soft yet unyielding, something that smelled faintly of burnt meat, still slightly warm.

Eventually her hands found the things chest, her tears falling unchecked as she felt movement, slow and steady.

Something alive.

A light snapped on behind her as Chii lead the way over to them, one of her small torches lighting their way and happening upon her and Ryu for a moment as it searched.

"Over here!", she called, waving to the others as the torchlight swept back to her, "I found him! He's alive".

She smiled down at him, wondering just what had happened to him but relieved he was ok for now at least. He looked different, and she was sure it wasn't just the torchlight or the rain playing tricks with her eyes.

His hair was no longer blond. Instead rain plaster ebony locks of hair clung to his face over closed eyes.

"Someone help me get him inside", she began repositioning him as best she could while carrying the sword, trying to sling one of his arms over her shoulder.

"Don't…touch…him", a pain racked voice hissed over the sound of the rain, shocking everyone as one of Kyosuke's sea grey eyes opened to a slit.

"Oni-chan!", Satomi hugged her brother fiercely, relenting only when he couldn't stop himself crying out from the agony of his wounds, the savage looking gash in his stomach and the multiple angry looking burns.

"Oni-chan…", Satomi sniffled, smiling with lipid eyes.

"Don't…touch him", Kyosuke forced out, ignoring his sister when she told him not to speak for fear of aggravating his injuries, "It's…not safe. It wants…the sword…the only reason it has been near you this…whole time. Stay away from him".

"But…I-", Kanna protested, feeling something wrench in her gut.

"No!", the level of Kyosuke's objection shocked them all, and he swooned for a moment as if he would pass out at any second, "…no…just…no…".

Kanna followed numbly when Natsuki led her aside so that the others could help Ryu, holding the sword across her chest like a small girl might clutch at a doll.

As the residents carefully moved the two injured boys, Satomi coordinating their efforts from the side of her once more unconscious brother, Kanna stood, the rain stinging her eyes.

"Kanna-chan", Yui's voice was gentle as she placed her hands on the soaked shoulders of her young friend, "We're all going inside now. Ryu is going to be fine, I promise, I'm sure you can talk to him at least later, so lets go inside… ok?".

Kanna didn't respond, just allowed Yui to steer her back toward the house…---

The door swung open slowly and a tired looking Satomi came in, rubbing at her puffy grey eyes, stopping and giving a small smile when she noticed all eyes upon her… all eyes except Kanna's.

"How are they?", Ayu asked, peering at the younger girl intensely.

"Oni-chan is sleeping, he'll be fine eventually, the cut to his stomach wasn't very deep".

"What about Ryu?", Yui asked, seeing the real question Ayu wanted to ask.

"…His wounds are gone…", she glanced at her feet to avoid seeing the varying expressions of the girls around her.

"…What do you mean Satomi-chan? He was burned just as badly as your brother. That sort of thing doesn't just vanish", Ayu pointed out, concerned that the stress of the whole thing might be getting to the young girl. Very bad news for the rest of the group, as the red haired girl was the only one of them that seemed to have any understanding of what was going on.

Satomi's small face scrunched up at the unintentional tone Ayu had used, but she calmed herself quickly.

"It's part of Ryu-ni-chan's…condition…", she appeared to be having trouble deciding how much she could tell them.

"The same 'condition' that had him tearing up the house and attacking Kanna?", Yui asked bluntly, ignoring the looks Natsuki gave her, "Don't look at me like that. If he's going to go psycho on us at any moment, I think we have the right to know".

"It's more…complicated, than that", Satomi said, coming to the defence of her cousin as best she could without revealing any of the things her brother had told her not to talk about.

"Perhaps you'd care to enlighten us", Yui drawled sarcastically.

"I can't. Oni-chan said not to talk about this with anyone outside the Clan", the way she grimaced showed she'd already given something away.

"Clan?", Yui asked, opening her mouth to press the girl for more information when nothing else seemed forthcoming.

"I don't think she will tell us anything else", Mizuki pointed out, trying to calm her friend.

"Please Satomi-chan", Ayu spoke up, taking the redhead's hands when she tried to look away, "You won't be in trouble, we just need to know what's wrong with Ryuuya. We all care about him…"

Yui noticed the glance the timid girl threw the near catatonic Kanna.

Satomi shuck her head sadly, "No one cares about Ryu-ni-chan except me and Auntie".

"Why do you say that Satomi-chan?", Ayu asked, her voice kindly rather then offended.

"…", Satomi bit her lip, "…Because they all think like Oni-chan, they can't see it's not his fault…".

"What's not his fault?", Yui asked.

Satomi seemed to go through another struggle before coming to a decision.

"Onee-chan", her direct and forceful address took Ayu aback for a moment.

"Y-yes?"

"Do you love Ryu-ni-chan?", she couldn't help but grin as the older girl flushed from head to toe and began to mumble noncommittal sentences to herself while attempting to hide behind her bangs.

"I do", the younger girl stated, blushing a little herself.

"I know how Onee-chan feels", she gazed between Ayu and the unresponsive Kanna, "but what about everyone else?".

The other girls looked among themselves questioningly.

"Ara, of course we do, he's our friend", Natsuki stated.

"Like she said. It's certainly been more entertaining since he moved in", Yui added, Mizuki nodding her agreement.

"Chii likes Ryu", Chii announced without looking up from where she was still playing with Chiho.

"It's my job to care about all of my tenants", Ema voiced, wondering where all of this was going.

Satomi smiled to herself for a moment before her face became more solemn.

"Ok… Oni-chan is going to be very angry with me, but all the people who care for Ryu-ni-chan deserve to know the truth", there was an expectant silence in the small room as everyone focused their full attention on the young girl as she visibly braced herself.

"Ever since Ryu-ni-chan was little, he has been shunned by all the people of our Clan. I come from a family that exists outside of the normal channels and lines that most peoples follow. We are a group that passes on and continues to perfect the Special Arts, protecting and advising the country in secret", she paused to gauge the residents' reactions, ploughing on when no one tried to interrupt her, "Our people deal with things most of you think are just myths and stories, developing techniques to deal with evil-".

"You mean those snake things that were coming from your brother's sword?", Yui asked.

"They made no echo on Chii's instruments", the younger of the cousins said, sparing Satomi a curious sidelong glance.

"They are one example, yes. We are taught from an early age to control our Ki, the life force that sustains each individual, and harness it as a weapon. Most things are easier to damage with spiritual as opposed to physical energy… and some things can only truly be killed with it. We call these creatures demons".

"What are you trying to say?", Ayu asked, not liking the implications of this conversation.

Satomi gave her a look that pleaded understanding and Ayu fell silent again.

"Such techniques have been used over the centuries as our way of destroying evil demons… that is why Oni-chan used them on Ryu-ni-chan… he is possessed by a particularly vengeful beast", she braced herself as she saw Yui building up to an objection, cutting in before she could speak, "It sounds strange I know, but can any of you explain what changed his personality so much and so suddenly? Or gave him such strength and speed, or made him attack one of his friends without warning?".

The residents looked amongst each other, but none of them could offer up an alternate answer.

Unseen by the others, Kanna clenched her hand beneath the table.

"Where did it come from?", Ayu asked quietly.

"Only Ryu-ni-chan and Auntie know… there was one other person…but he died…", Satomi glanced back over her shoulder toward the living area where Ryu and Kyosuke lay.

"How?", Yui asked, sensing there was more to be told.

"…Ryu-ni-chan killed him", the atmosphere could have been cut with a knife after that announcement.

"R-Ryu, he…no…no I that can't be true", Ayu stuttered, shaking off Natsuki's hand when she tried to calm her, "Ryu wouldn't do something like that".

"No, he wouldn't", Satomi agreed, glad that no one had decried Ryu's name or tried to suggest he be removed from the building, "But the thing inside him would, and it has".

Satomi leant back against the wall; her hands held behind her back, her head bowed.

"When Ryu-ni-chan was ten years old, the creature took possession of his body for the first time, seeking the sword it went after again today", she glanced at Kanna through her fringe before returning to her story, "The guardian of the time tried to stop him… there was a fight and he was killed. The demon had used up too much of it's strength however, and it lost control, finding itself forced back inside Ryu-ni-chan".

A single tear struck the floor.

"For him, it had been like going to sleep…and then waking up covered in blood as the guardian's corpse cooled in front of him", she swallowed back a sob as the others gasped collectively.

"Oh Ryu…", Ayu felt her own eyes tearing.

"There's more…isn't there?", Yui asked, grimacing as Satomi nodded numbly.

"The person he killed…was someone very important to both Oni-chan, and all the people who already didn't trust him. The only person who had never had second thoughts about him, and someone very dear to Auntie…", she paused to collect herself.

"His Father… he killed his own Father, didn't he", Yui felt a tightness in her chest.

Satomi nodded again slowly.

"Uncle was the head of our Clan, so when he was killed by his own future heir, a boy the majority already though should have been 'taken care of', leaving him as Head, the Clan revolted. If not for Auntie, he would probably be dead right now. She managed to convince the others that he could learn to control the creature, turning its strength to our advantage", she looked up, "They watched him like vultures, waiting for the slightest slip, and Ryu-ni-chan killed each little piece of himself that made him human in attempts to convince them he was in control, but it was never enough. They could never forgive him even though it wasn't his fault…Oni-chan, couldn't forgive him".

She remembered the day Kyosuke had learned that their Uncle was dead. Her earliest memory was of her brother screaming in anger and sorrow.

"Uncle was a hero in Oni-chan's eyes, someone who took away all the bad things in our Clan. It was because of him I was able to train alongside Oni-chan and Ryu-ni-chan when I was old enough. So when Ryu, someone Oni-chan already hated because of all the attention Uncle gave him without us knowing why at the time, killed him. Kyosuke devoted all of his talent to becoming strong enough to avenge him on the thing inside Ryu…but somewhere along the way he forgot whom it was he was meant to be fighting as he saw Ryu getting private tutoring once again, and growing stronger and stronger because of it", she let out a long breath, "If this keeps going, one of them is going to die some day…".

Ayu sat alone in her room, hunched over on her futon as she and the others tried to sleep and process everything they had just learned.

Ryu was the Head of a powerful family. He had a cousin who hated him because he had killed his own Father and then been protected from punishment.

He harboured a creature of unbelievable malignance and evil inside of him…

What did that mean for them?

The floorboards creaked as the wind buffeted the house before the old structure settled again.

Ryu had committed an unspeakable atrocity.

No, she corrected herself. Not him, but the thing lurking inside his body. She had seen the real Ryuuya, blushed for him, cried over him, laughed with him, shared quiet moments and comforted him when fear clawed at his heart.

Nothing could convince her to turn on him now, but still, she needed time to figure out what to do about all of this, they all did.

Did she still feel the same about him knowing what she did now? That there was a monster sleeping inside of him, and that many of his own family wanted any excuse to kill him.

It occurred to her that after an incident like this, such people might get their wish.

Somewhere a door opened and closed loudly, the pounding rain temporarily getting louder before returning to its normal volume.

Ayu was gripped by a sudden and powerful panic.

What if Kyosuke had been wrong, and he was not the only person who had found Ryu? Even now there could be someone who had witnessed the fight and was preparing to carry out the will of their superiors.

She was up and out of her room before she realised she had even stood, heedless of her attire as she raced down the hall, taking the stairs two at a time when she reached them.

She was panting slightly when she reached the living area where they had left the two unconscious boys, none of them strong enough to move them upstairs and all agreed that if either took a turn for the worst, dropping them down the stairs in the rush to get them to a hospital wouldn't be very helpful.

Though in Ryu's case, it was doubtful he would need treatment.

After listening to Satomi's tale, they had been allowed to visit the two boys briefly, and though Kyosuke still looked as if he should by all rights be dead, Ryu seemed only to be sleeping.

The burns that had marred his skin were gone without a trace, not even a small scar to mark were they had once been.

He appeared fine, although he was sweating as if the room were sweltering rather than cool, but Satomi had said she didn't think there was anything they could do to help that.

She padded across the wooden floors, breathing a little easier when she found Kyosuke exactly where they had left him, sleeping soundly if somewhat uncomfortably.

She walked around the sofa, checking on him momentarily, before turning her attention toward where the second 'patient' lay.

"No…", she breathed, her eyes darting wildly about the room.

Ryu was gone.

The blue haired girl screwed her eyes up, hoping that perhaps because of the recent changes in his appearance, that she had just missed him in the darkness.

When she looked again, the place he had lain was still absent.

Where could…, she gasped as she remembered what had brought her down here in the first place, The door!

Treading swiftly but carefully, Ayu moved to the door, fumbling around in the dark in the entrance way, counting the objects she encountered.

"No…", one set of footwear was missing, "No!"

"Ayu?", Yui's groggy voice spun her on the spot, the older girl massaging the growing bags under her eyes as Mizuki and Chii descended the stairwell behind her, "What are you doing? They'll be fine till morning, go to bed".

"Ryu's gone!", she blurted, suddenly ceased with a worry for him that surpassed anything she had ever felt.

"Calm down, perhaps he just when to the toilet or something", Yui said, issuing the first possibility that came to mind, while she shuffled on her feet, the house suddenly feeling a lot less safe than it usually did for some reason.

Ayu shook her head vehemently, "That's not it, he's gone. I know he is".

"Why is everyone up? We shouldn't be in here, they need rest", Satomi said, bringing up the rear of the group in an oversized t-shirt Chii had lent her.

"Ryu's missing", Yui informed her, watching the small girl's expression carefully for any signs of fear.

Surprisingly to Yui, she saw only concern in the younger girl's grey eyes.

"Then we have to find out where he went, and fast. I don't think the demon can do anything after using up all that power, but it wasn't supposed to be able to get out at all in the first place", Satomi admitted, "We should split up and search this place quickly".

Although Yui objected at first they swiftly paired off, rousing Ema and Natsuki to aid the search, but forced to leave Kanna when none of them could rouse her and scouring the building from top to bottom.

"Anything?", Ayu asked when they all met back up in the living room.

"No", Satomi answered with a small shake of her head, a similar response coming from Ema and Natsuki, " What about you two?".

"Only this", Mizuki pointed to the empty guitar case that Yui was holding.

"You know, I've always wondered what was in this thing. Seems a little anti-climatic…though in this case that might be a good thing", Yui said.

Satomi eyed the case curiously for a moment, "But Ryu-ni-chan doesn't play guitar…so why would…".

Her eyes lit up happily for a moment, "Auntie's sword! So he did take it with him!".

Yui paled a little, "Sword? Oh great, we have an unstable, demon possessed guy who's just had the crap beaten out of him by his rival, running around somewhere with a sharp weapon!".

She gulped a little when Ayu glared at her fiercely, surprised that the small girl could actually produce such a reaction and wondering why she had chosen to evoke such a response from her.

"Don't talk like that about Ryu!", she shouted, her small hands balling into fists, "You're making him sound like some sort of dangerous animal".

"And isn't he?", Yui fired back, her spunk and fear for both the safety of herself and her friends rising back to the forefront, "In case you forgot, he attacked Kanna a little while ago. I know it wasn't his fault, but if not for his cousin she might be dead right now, and maybe the rest of us as well. So forgive me if being told he's also armed now puts me a little on edge!".

The blue haired girl bit her lip but didn't back down, "I don't care what you say. Ryu would never hurt Kanna…or, the rest of us".

"He already has hurt someone though, and I'm not talking about his cousin", Yui pointed out, feeling dirty for using such a cold but abject reminder, but needing to pierce the rose tinted haze the younger woman was still viewing their friend through.

Yui wasn't trying to turn anyone against him, but she would do her best to protect her friends, her family. Just like her cousin these were important matters to her, and if she had to break one person's idealised image to do so…

"I think that's enough", Mizuki spoke for Yui's ears alone as Ayu fought back the tears that clearly wanted to fall.

"…He wouldn't…", Ayu sniffled.

"Onee-chan, don't cry, everything will be ok", Satomi piped up, "Ryu-ni-chan will be fine as long as he has that sword".

"Yeah, put what about the rest of us?", Yui yelped as someone pinched her, spinning and pinning the innocently smiling Natsuki with baleful stare.

"As long as he has that, we will be fine. The sword Ryu-ni-chan was given is a cursed blade, it has the soul of an Oni sealed inside of it", she pronounced, waiting for the others to understand but receiving only vaguely horrified expressions.

"Oh, right, none of you have been taught what we learn, have you", she slapped her head, berating herself as she realised how what she had said must sound to an outsider to the Special Arts, "Ok, you remember what I mentioned about Ki? Ki is an internal energy that exists in all things. Certain types of thing have certain types of Ki. Human spiritual energy has no real set restrictions or defining attributes. It can flow freely into mist places and merge with other things, which is what allows my family to focus it through weapons, taking on a little piece of the things being used, it's 'intent' and shaping the energy accordingly. In other words, focusing controlled Ki through something designed to hurt, makes it harmful to anything it encounters, though some people, like my Father, Brother and my sensei, have learned to do this without a medium object".

She sweat-dropped as it became clear she had only confused them.

"…Ok, the point is Ki is adaptable in people, but demonic Ki is not, it's like…it's like the field of a magnet, well, actually more like a single pole-", her explanation was cut off by Yui.

"Is anyone else both lost and wondering what the hell this had to do with anything?".

Satomi flushed indignantly, opening her mouth to reply, but being beaten to the punch by Chii.

"Magnets of like poles repel each other. If sword's demon is near Ryu, then the one inside him can't come out", she looked over at Satomi for confirmation, receiving a sharp nod.

"Exactly…but…"

"I knew there would be a 'but'", Yui groused.

"The one sealed in the sword Ryu holds isn't very strong, it's just a buffer really. If Ryu isn't strong enough, the demon inside him could still take over again", Satomi's childish face was pinched with seriousness.

"So we still need to find him", Yui deadpanned.

The red haired girl blushed and smiled, nodding weakly.

"Then let's go!", Ayu demanded, frustrated that they were wasting valuable time.

"But wait, if he already has one sword, why does he want Kanna's, is it valuable or something?", Mizuki enquired.

"That's not something…outsiders…need to know", a voice echoed over from the couch.

"Oni-chan!", Satomi rushed to her brother's side, "You're awake, how to do feel?"

"Just great", Kyosuke spat sarcastically, ignoring her protests as he sat up, "How long has Ryu been missing?"

"A few hours we think", Satomi said, giving up on trying to restrain him as he swung his legs over the edge of the sofa, instead supporting him as he wheezed and panted his way into a sitting position.

"Then we have to go after him", Kyosuke said, "Where is the girl, the guardian?".

The residents looked amongst each other.

"Upstairs resting as far as we know, she wouldn't answer the door when knocked", Yui said, acting as spokesperson for the group by default.

"As far as you know? Ryu is missing and no one has thought to check on the girl he attacked first?", Kyosuke snorted derisively as the others paled.

Yui left them all in a hurry, returning a few minutes later with a panicked expression on her face.

"She's gone as well", that announcement set off a minor maelstrom of conversation throughout the room.

"Kuso", Kyosuke cursed, "If he's taken her we could all be in a lot of trouble. That thing wants my Uncle's Sword for a reason, and I'd rather not find out just what that is".

"He has Auntie's blade with him Oni-chan", Satomi pointed out, "So it's probably Ryu we're dealing with, not the demon".

Kyosuke's expression showed clearly what he thought of that reassurance.

"You will all wait here", Kyosuke ordered, sweating as Satomi helped him to his feet as he restrained the urge to curse in ways that would have had his mother disown him, pain blossoming in his stomach as he held an arm loosely over it, unable to shake the image of him doing so being the only thing keeping his innards inside.

"What? We can't, we can find Ryu and Kanna much faster if we all look", Ayu objected.

"And if it isn't your friend waiting anymore? What will you all do", Kyosuke's voice was pure venom and his gaze made Ayu shudder involuntarily.

There was such hatred in this young man, and worse, she could understand why he felt that way, even if it was directed at the wrong target.

"What will you do?", Yui asked stepping between Kyosuke's chilling glare and Ayu, "Bleed over him?".

The purple haired boy moved his arm to better shield the bloodstains covering his shirt and abdomen around the savage gash.

A little manipulation of his Ki had accelerated his healing as much as humans were capable of, scabbing over the open wound and taking the sting out of his burns, but it would be a long time before he was anywhere near full health again, and the possessed Ryu had fought him to a standstill without whatever it sort from the Sword of Two Souls assisting it.

"I'm better qualified than anyone here", he winced as Satomi 'accidentally' trod on his foot, offering her a withering look that seemed to completely pass her by, "So is Satomi".

"Please, everyone, just trust us. We have the best chance of finding Ryu-ni-chan before anything happens", Satomi looked at each of them in turn.

"…Fine, but nothing better happen to either of them", Yui folded her arms across her chest, her emerald gaze narrowing in on Kyosuke, "Do we understand each other?".

"Perfectly", he said, smiling sarcastically, probably the closest the purple haired boy ever came to giving an 'outsider' a genuine smile.

With Satomi assisting him he made his way over to the door.

Satomi glanced back over her shoulder, hesitating for a moment before propping him against the doorframe and running back over to where Ayu stood.

"Don't worry Onee-chan", she said with her best smile, taking the older girl's hands in her own, "We'll bring him back safely, I promise".

The rain had long since plastered Kanna's hair to her head, but she didn't care. She didn't even really notice how the limp tresses clung to her face when they weren't being lashed around by the wind.

She was soaked and chilled, having only a simple jacket pulled absently around her thin night clothes, her feet particularly cold as the icy water seeped threw the thin protective barrier of her shoes.

She had come out here when the confines of her room threatened to close in around her, feeling the need, as she always did when she had something big on her mind, to move, to run.

She may not have been running right now, but she was certainly thinking.

She was thinking about Ryu. A popular subject for her these days, but with a distinctly different flavour this time around.

Ryu had attacked her. Or was that true? No, it hadn't been him, it had been the creature that hide inside him.

Ryu was a monster.

She shook her head, trying to come to terms with that fact, rattails of hair whipping back and forth.

He had killed his own Father. The man she…her friend, was a murderer.

Try as she might, she just couldn't fit such things in with her knowledge of the blond haired brooder. Ryu was a lot of things: he was an idiot, a moron, hopeless, helpless, clueless, cold, uncaring and the biggest jerk she had ever met…but he also had a sweet, kind side he tried so hard to ignore.

She'd seen that when they went on their date and before that when he had been attempting t mend things between them, the time in the basement with Chii and other times throughout his stay, like when he'd come watch her run, even if she didn't bug him to do so.

She admitted part of her liked his small smile of congratulations even more than the praise from her coach at times…

With all of this in mind, it was hard to reconcile the two images. Ryu the friend and Ryu the killer. Which one was right? Which one was real?

Kanna tripped as her foot caught on the lip of fractured paving tile, and she landed with a splash on a large puddle, just allowing herself to lye there unmoving as the water permeated her thin clothing.

Was it even really a question?

She knew the answer; she was just trying to hide from it, that was why she was out her, why she was running away.

Ryu, if there had ever really been such a person, was just after the Sword her father had asked her to take care of; the one those scabbard was now digging painfully into her gut where she had fallen on it.

All that time, all that laughter. The arguments, tears, joy and sorrow, making a fool of herself competing against her best friend for him, all of it had been a lie.

It had all been so he could get the Sword. It had never been about her, his cousin had said as much.

Ryu had never cared.

She curled into a ball, shivering. Ryu was an unfeeling killer… so why did she feel like she had just lost her best friend?

"Ryu…"

"Now what have we here?", a voice asked, but she felt to drained to look to see who it was, "I think someone up there still likes me after all. It's nice to see you again Urashima-san".

Kanna raised a weary head, her eyes going wide as she found herself looking into the bespectacled orbs of Toshima Takahashi.

"I was hoping to run into you and the young man in your acquaintance at some time or other, but I'll settle for you alone", he smiled snake like at her, standing back up and snapping his fingers.

Three large shadows descended.

Kanna screamed.

Ryu sat on the small park bench with his head tilted back so that the cooling rain could wash away the last traced of his healing fever.

A strange by-product of his possession, the demon inside him would actually accelerate his healing far beyond that which even specialists in the field could achieve, healing in seconds what might take hours or even days naturally, but leaving in its place a raging fever.

Why the demon bothered to do this Ryu couldn't say. Perhaps he feared that if Ryu died with him inside, he would perish also.

Death, he supposed, would seem a most mortifying concept for a creature that was supposed to be immortal.

Then again, it could just have been that it wished to keep him in perfect health until it could attempt another take over like the one he had just experienced.

Ryu held his hands up before him, inspecting them under the harsh glow of a nearby streetlamp for what must have been the millionth time, still fearful that he would blink and they would be covered with the blood of another person he cared for.

He let loose a shuddering breath.

He had been made to relieve the death of his Father while locked in his enforced slumber. To re-experience every soul shredding heart tearing moment of it as if he was actually there.

Closing his eyes he could still see it now.

--- Ryuuya woke with a start, unable to tell what had awoken him, but gripped with a stark and terrible fear, as if some beast with talons of ice were clawing at his very soul.

To the ten-year-old boy, the once comforting, familiar sight of his room, suddenly seemed dark and oppressive, as if the shadows hid some malevolent intruder, waiting to do him harm.

Try as he might, he couldn't contain this choking, smothering fear as it threatened to overwhelm his small mind and drive him mad.

None of the calming exercises taught to him by his tutors and senseis could stifle the sensation, and his breathing was becoming increasingly laboured as his heart pounded like a drum in his chest.

It hurt.

It hurt more than anything he had ever experienced before, a raging mental and physical anguish that eclipsed all that had come before, and making his grip on the now tenuous at best.

All of his limbs ached and itched as if they were trying to grow to maturity in one night and failing, his chest felt ready to explode, and his eyes, his eyes burned with an itch that made him want to rip them from their sockets just to be rid of the sensation.

He tried to call out but the air froze in his lungs and his vocal cords locked.

The darkness was closing in on him, getting smaller and smaller, trying to wall him off from something.

Scared and confused, he could only stare wide eyed as features of a pale, almost effeminate face seemed to melt out of the shadows above his bed, massive in proportion and yet that was not what made it so horrific.

Looking upon it, Ryuuya could tell that all this thing existed for was to harm, to maim, to kill, and all simply as a part of its natural state.

Then the thing that would haunt his nightmares of this day forever more happened.

Slowly, as if wanting to bring the full impact of the action to bare on its young audience, the creature opened its eyes.

Blood red eyes, full of malice and hate, glared down on the small boy as the things lips quirked into a sadistic expression of pleasure.

"Yes", it hissed, "Free at last despite all the fools efforts".

It focused on him, its toothy grin widening as Ryuuya tried to move only to find his muscles limp and unresponsive.

"Almost, but you will help me with the last thing I must do. It will be a most delicious revenge", an inhuman laugh reverberated around the room as the face seemed to plunge toward him.

Mercifully, or so he thought at the time, everything went black.---

Ryu's throat tightened as he recalled how relieved he had felt when consciousness fled, feeling safe and untouchable buried deep inside his own mind.

"Father…"

He had been so very wrong.

--- When Ryuuya woke next, his first thoughts were for the monster that had invaded his room, the young boy's gaze darting about fearfully as he dragged his strangely tired and aching body off the cold wooden floor on which he had woken, jumping a little as there was a crash of thunder outside, momentarily obliterating the soothing patter of the rain.

He stared, uncomprehendingly at the room with its high-beamed ceiling, unvarnished floors and musty smell.

This was not his room.

Before he could try to figure out where he was and why he was there, the door behind him burst inwards, startling the young boy, but he was soon on his feet when he saw who stood there.

Garbed in a kimono of pure white that blended seamlessly with her porcelain skin, her long raven hair trailing behind her and her sword gripped tightly in one hand, his Mother would have been a sight of awe and beauty to any who glimpsed her.

"Mother, what happened? Where am…I…", he trailed off when he spotted the others standing behind her, his youthful face turning cold as the council men he knew almost as well as his own family ushered themselves in in her wake, each man returning his expression with one of their own.

"So, it has finally happened", one of them said, his grave tone and hateful gaze unnerving Ryuuya in a way it never had before, "The creature shows it's true form".

His mother didn't respond like she usually would, she stepped past him, Ryuuya following her as she stooped in front of something partially hidden my the shadows.

Ryu crawled closer, feeling something fall in his stomach as his mother turned to him with a look of sorrow in her eyes, her look pleading and disbelieving at once.

Ryuuya's eyes when wide as he saw what she was cradling.

His Father lay unmoving, his head on his Mother's lap, her once white kimono stained a dull and vivid red.

At first, Ryuuya didn't understand what he was seeing. The older man appeared to merely be sleeping, his face set into an all too familiar lopsided grin and his eyes closed.

"Father?", he reached out one small hand drawing it closer to his face as it seemed to shine in the moonlight.

A thick, sticky crimson fluid dripped wetly from his small digits, his hands trembling as he came to realise what he was seeing.

The meaning of his Father's stillness suddenly became all too apparent.

"Father!", he tried to rush forward only to find himself restrained by gnarled hands as the council men moved to bar his way.

"Restrain the beast", the eldest of them ordered, Ryuuya struggling against their surprisingly strong and agile grasps.

"Father!", he called again, catching a glimpse through the throng of his mother standing and drawing her sword with barely a whisper of steel on wood.

"Release my son!", she commanded, the blackened steel glinting wickedly in the dim light, drawing back her weapon when she was ignored, "Now! Boulder Cutting Blade!".

The old men were scattered like leaves in the wind hurled against the walls and floor in ways that should have shattered men so old and supposedly fragile, but they were soon on their feet once more, though not as fast as they once would have been.

"You will not touch my son", she said icily, staring them down as she stepped in front of him, her sword held in one hand before her, the blood on her robes making her look like a vengeful angel.

"It is not your child anymore girl, we warned you that something like this may happen, but neither of you would listen to us", he shook his head sadly, his wrinkled face solemn, "Now the Lord is dead at the beast's hand".

Ryuuya looked down at his blood covered, trembling hands. Where these men really saying what he thought?

Had he…

"Shut up", his Mother's voice held all the warmth of an iceberg.

"You cannot change what has happened Aoyama. Lord Sagura is dead, and it was his own heir who killed him", that proclamation was like a stake to the heart for the dark haired boy.

"Mother…", he looked up at the raven haired woman, feeling the weight of the council men's gaze when she wouldn't meet his eyes.

The blood on his hands suddenly felt warm, as if he could still remember doing what he was being accused of.

From the darkness, a pair of glowing red eyes seemed to laugh at the carnage they had caused.

A terrible cry welled up in his throat.

"FATHER!"---

Ryuuya felt tears tracing paths amongst the raindrops on his face as he stared up at the cloud-covered sky.

He had been charged with the murder of Koichi Sagura, and would have been put to death if not for his Mother's interference.

As head of both the Gods Cry school, and custodian of the Oni's Bane school, she had used her influence to spare him from the sentence, laying out a plan of intense training that would enable him to control the demon and entrusting him with the Hina in order to both aid his struggle and to act as tangible reassurance for the council men.

He had promised after that moment that he would never again let the creature inside him make him hurt anyone ever again.

Only he had failed. He couldn't remember everything exactly, but as had happened the first time he had lost control, things were coming back to him in dreamlike flashes.

He still had only a fractured account of the events that had lead to his father's death, remembering brief moments of the fight that must have ensued between Koichi and the thing in control of his body, and seeing how his Father had held back to the point it had ultimately killed him, but nothing of why the demon had possessed him after waiting inside his body for so long.

This time was different however.

He could recall attacking Kanna, something that still made him cringe as he felt his hand closing around her throat, fighting against the imprisonment of his will as his body plotted to kill her.

Who knows what might have happened if Kyosuke hadn't intervened. Something that had almost cost them both their lives.

Why had he attacked Kanna in the first place?

The answer was abundantly clear, and almost painful in its irony.

The demon was after the same thing he had spent so many years seeking, it wanted the Sword of Two Souls.

Was it ever even I who wanted it, Ryu questioned himself. How could he be sure that his drive and motive for finding the ancient weapon had ever been a product of his own violation? There was no way to tell if the creature had been influencing his thoughts, as events seemed to suggest.

Or was it all coincidence?

Poor little human, so lost and confused, a voice in his head sneered, all of his muscles seeming to lock painfully for an instant before relaxing.

For a moment he didn't reply. The demon had never communicated with him directly; it had at best been a presence in the back of his mind, dark and twisted.

Something wrong Host? None of that icy wit I have so enjoyed watching you employ? Nothing from that oh so keen intellect?

What do you want?, Ryu mentally hissed.

I believe you already figured that out child, Ryu felt his muscles cramping again, And I was so very close as well… a pity, but I'm patient. I'll have control again soon

I think not, Ryu strained, searching with one hand until it located the black sheathed weapon propped up at his side, the cramps and stiffness vanishing as soon as his fingers closed around the blade.

He smiled as a deep growl echoed inside his skull, As long as I have this, you're staying where you are. You won't hurt anyone ever again.

That bound weakling can only delay the inevitable boy. I'll be free again soon enough, and this time there will be no one to save the girl, images of what the demon planned to do to her flashed through Ryu's mind, bringing the usually stoic young man close to vomiting with revulsion even as he trembled with rage.

You won't touch her, or any of them

Oh, but I will, first her…then the little blue haired one I think, a hollow laugh threatened to tear his mind to shreds, That's it my boy, get angry, bring me closer to what I desire.

Why do you want my Father's sword so badly?, Ryu asked.

You mean, why did I have you seek it out?, another malignant chuckle, I could torture you with your insecurity, but the truth is so much more fun. It was not I that sort the blade, I was still dormant after my first attempt to emerge. No child, you started your search all by yourself, desperately seeking clues as to the whereabouts of the very thing your Father gave his life to keep me from.

Ryu felt polaxed, No, that's not true

Oh but it is. All this time rushing to and fro, making pledges to yourself. It was all most amusing. To think all I had to do was offer a little prod in the right direction, and you would carry me of your own accord to your own demise, thinking that your goal would allow you to atone for your sins… Did you truly believe that just mastering that useless piece of scrap metal would erase all the loathing and contempt? That it would make you a better and more worthy heir?, mocking laughter drilled into Ryu, sapping his anger and resistance.

His entire reason for living for the past seven years, his plan to find his Father's blade and return it to his Mother after it had been hidden by the council having mastered its powers thus proving himself worthy of his position in the eyes of his Clan.

All of it had been for nothing, and had he succeeded, he would have played right into the hands of the monster that murdered his Father and turned his Clan against him since the moment he was born.

Your anguish is so exquisite, the creature taunted, You have failed at everything, just like the rest of your miserable race. Why not just let go? Perhaps I will even spare the females after I have what I want.

Maybe he should.

What was there to live for now that he had lost his only hope for absolving himself in the eyes of the elders, and the only way he could ever ask for his Mother's forgiveness now that the last reminder of his Father left to her was now untouchable for him.

Just let go…it is the only way

"Just…let…go…".

"Ryu-ni-chan!", he glanced around groggily, the world blurred as if he had just awoken from a deep slumber, unable to understand why his head suddenly felt so heavy as he lifted it in search of the source of the voice.

He blinked a few times to see if the image before him would vanish, but Satomi and Kyosuke stayed where they were, the latter with his arm draped over the shoulders of the former as if she were the only thing propping him up.

"Satomi…Kyosuke? Why are you here", he asked, not able to summon the energy to sit up properly to face them, his eyelids suddenly feeling very heavy.

"Still alive I see, and still in control", Kyosuke actually sounded disappointed.

Ryu just stared at him until his sneer faded into a scowl.

"For what it's worth", Ryu whispered, feeling an inviting tug at the back of his mind.

"Ryu-ni-chan… come on, I can help if you need it, Onee-chan is worried about you, we all are", Kyosuke snorted, glaring when Ryu didn't answer her, just allowed his head to loll back toward his lap.

"Giving up already cousin?", Kyosuke demanded, sounding somehow angrier than usual, shrugging Satomi aside and walking up to Ryu, planting his hands on his shoulders, shaking him violently until he looked him in the eyes.

"I'm talking to you Ryu-teme! Don't ignore me", his jaw tightened when Ryu still didn't respond.

Pushing away from him in disgust he stood awkwardly, his hand protecting his stomach.

"Not even a scratch huh? Must be nice to have everything going for you without having to do anything", still nothing from Ryu, although Satomi was tugging on his arm anxiously, "Answer me!".

"What do you want me to say Kyosuke?", Ryu's voice was quite but powerful, "That I'm everything you and all the others like you hate me for being? That I shouldn't even exist, that everything everyone ever did for me was worthless, just like the affections those few tried to show a monster?".

Ryu barked a hollow laugh, the rain stinging his eyes as he threw back his head.

"You're right…all of you were right all along…so either kill me now or f the hell off Kyosuke", in any other circumstance, he might have smiled at the slack jawed expression his fiery tempered cousin was sporting, but what little joy he felt was swallowed by the yawning hole that seemed to be threatening to swallow him whole, and the disenchanted look Satomi turned upon him.

He was a failure already, so what did breaking one more personal delusion matter now.

"…I hate you Ryu, I always have, but at least you never treated me with the same dismissal as the others did. Even those who hated you more than I payed you more attention than I ever got for all my hard work… I respected you for that even if I couldn't like you, same for your determination…", Kyosuke turned his back on his former rival, limping back over to Satomi and collapsing his weight against her once more, "Stay here an die for all I care Ryuuya, it will be a sad end to one side of our family. Come on Satomi, we're leaving".

"Leaving? But I promised Onee-chan-"

"I said we'd find him", Kyosuke silenced her, "I said nothing about bringing him back".

Satomi looked pleadingly at Ryu.

"Go", he breathed, allowing himself to sink back into his mind.

Satomi looked at him sadly before adjusting Kyosuke's weight on her shoulders assisting him as he limped away.

"Ryu", Kyosuke drew to a halt, addressing his cousin over one shoulder, "In case you care, one of the girls has gone missing, the guardian. I trust you'll stay away from her…".

"Goodbye Kyosuke".

There was a slight pop of displaced air and Satomi and Kyosuke blurred from existence.

Once more there was nothing but the steady march of the rain into interrupt the stillness of the small park he found himself in.

So this is how it all ends huh?, he thought bitterly, My 'glorious' quest of redemption turns out to be nothing more that a outright failure that almost costs me another person close to me, and leaves me a ticking time-bomb with nowhere to go… heh, sounds like a plot from one of Kei's stories.

Ryuuya felt something warm running down his face, catching one of his tears on his fingertip and watching as it vanished in the rain.

So Kanna was missing? He knew he should care, maybe he did but he was too numb from the cold and the rain to realise.

It didn't matter; there was nothing he could do to help out, and every reason to stay away.

Ryu felt his eyes drifting closed once more.

Kyosuke and the councilmen were right. It would be better if he had never existed.

The rain suddenly seemed to stop, sounding distant as if something were blocking it.

"I thought I might find you in a place like this sempai"

Ryu opened his eyes, startled to find Ayu standing over him with an umbrella, her thick coat wrapped around her small frame securely, and a sad smile on her pretty face.

"You shouldn't sit out in the rain like this", she chided him gently, "You'll catch a cold".

"Ayu…", how had she found him? Kyosuke and Satomi he could understand, all they had to do was follow the remains of the demon's Ki, a beacon to those sensitive, but Ayu…

"How did you…"

"Your not from a city sempai, so I thought you'd go somewhere with lots of trees, somewhere you liked. I remembered you took me to the park on our date, and seemed most relaxed there, so this seemed like the best place…", he paused for a moment, taking a second look at his eyes, "Grey…just like the colour of the sea on a cold day… I always thought forest spirits were supposed to be happy creatures sempai".

"Forest Spirit?", he asked confused.

"You know", Ayu said, taking a seat next to him and holding the umbrella over the both of them, looking out over the park, "I never did get a chance to thank that boy. He was always playing with Kanna-chan, talking to Kanna-chan, even in the brief time we knew him".

Ryu saw a flash of something, another woodland area far from here. Two girls, one with dark hair streaked with lighter highlights, small fists on hips, and behind her… a timid girl with short blue hair and a shy smile.

Two nameless strangers who had played with a lonely boy without knowing who he was and made him feel a little less unwanted.

"I wasn't sure until I saw your eyes sempai, you changed yourself a lot…", she glanced at him sideways.

It was true. He had enlisted the help of the famous 'Mistress of Disguise' a woman his father had convinced to work for the Sagura family as a private tutor. The 'Dark Angel' as she was known in some circles, Kanako Urashima, had been more than willing to help him when he had explained the reasons behind his plan, that he wanted to change someone's rigid opinion of him, though he didn't know why.

Dye for his hair and contact lenses for his unusual eye colour had rendered him unrecognisable to even his family as long as they didn't get too close, and he had left in the middle of the night after donning his disguise to avoid complications.

Looking back on it, it was staggering the amount of work he had put into this charade: changing his appearance, his name, arranging with the help of some of Kanako's contacts to have his records 'officially' entered so that they might be submitted for a student transfer, locating the Hinata Sou and gaining residency…all of it for a defunct, half-baked idea.

"I saw Kyosuke-kun and Satomi-chan… have they told you? About Kanna?", she asked when there was a lull in their conversation if you could really grace it with that title.

"…Yes", he responded, avoiding her gaze.

"Are you going to look for her when we go back?", she asked, the hope in her voice twisting his stomach unpleasantly.

"I'm not going back Ayu"

"Sempai? You have to, Kanna-chan is missing, and I-we all need you", she tried to get him to look at her, but his eyes were fixed on the floor.

"I can't help anyone, not even myself… it was all a lie, I thought I was coming here to help, to stop…everything! But all I did was come close to repeating a great tragedy", his eyes stung, "All I do is hurt people. My parents must curse my very birth…".

Complete silence descended upon the pair, weighted down by the mood that had surfaced and the finality of Ryu's last statement.

"…I used to think like that as well", Ayu said in a small voice, "I complicated a lot of things for my mothers when I was born".

"Mothers?", he asked, thinking she had just made a mistake.

"Yes, my mother has a…unique relationship. That caused a lot of problems for her partner already amongst her family… your family", she looked down at where she was playing with the bottom of her coat when he glanced up at her.

"My family?"

"Yes, I don't know any other that has the same dark hair and grey eyes, she must be a part of your Family, a Sagura, though she doesn't talk about it with me much… I used to think it was because she hated me for how I complicated her and Mother's already difficult lives, but she told me she could never hate anything that came from the woman she loved, especially not me", Ayu smiled wanly, remembering the joy she had felt on the day she had been told that after years of fearing what the dark haired woman must think of her, the by-product of one night of infidelity on her mother's behalf with a man she had loved for a long time before she met Kyoko.

Ryu was suddenly struck by a sense of familiarity, like he knew who she was talking about… when it hit him.

"Ayu, what is your family name?", he asked.

"Maehara", she answered, looking at him curiously as he began to laugh, "What? Sempai! It's not nice to laugh at someone like that".

"I'm sorry Ayu", he said when the last of the bittersweet mirth had faded, "I just figured out who you remind me of. Aunt Kyoko's lover, the one who vanished with her after it was discovered she was pregnant. That would have been your mother correct? Shinobu Maehara".

It figured, he'd been living under the same roof obliviously the whole time with the heirs to the Urashima and Maehara line respectively without knowing it.

Ayu nodded.

"So you know what everybody thought of her…and me. But it never effected what Mother or Kyoko-sama thought about me… Just like nothing you've been made to do will change what we think of you. It doesn't matter if you lo…like someone…", she blushed lightly, hiding her face behind the collar of her coat.

He didn't respond.

"Won't you come back sempai… if not for us, then for…for Kanna-chan?", he might have flinched for a moment, she wasn't sure.

"We all want her to be safe, just like we want you to be sempai… We love her…do…", Ayu took a deep breath, but she was shaking as she pictured all of his possible answers to her next question, "do you love Kanna, sempai?".

His voice was so quiet she almost couldn't hear it over the pounding of the rain.

"…I don't know".

Ayu felt her heart squeeze a little. He may not have said anything outright, or rejected her, but there was enough indecision in his voice, even after he had kissed her just a few days ago, for his hesitation to hurt.

RYU!

Ryuuya jerked in his seat as the image of Kanna, surrounded by three thugs flashed through his mind.

Perhaps it was just exhaustion working his mind, making him see things, but if that were true, where had that alien dose of fear come from.

"Sempai?", Ayu's voice was concerned, "Sempai, what's wrong?".

"Kanna", he breathed, not seeing the stricken look on Ayu's face as a final image crossed his consciousness. The oily, smirking face of Toshima Takahashi.

"I know where she is", he muttered, unable to shake this strange feeling that Kanna lay in a certain direction. Replaying the image, he could just make out the details of somewhere abandoned and old looking, the floor bare concrete as Kanna huddled in one corner, the Sword of Two Souls clutched to her chest as one of the street toughs reached for her.

The presence of the Sword brought up doubt.

Should he go after her?

The demon urged him to go, and that was reason enough for him to stay… but the stark terror he had somehow felt from her…

"I have to go", he took off, snatching up the sword at his side and running out into the rain.

"Sempai!", she called after him, standing in her haste but he didn't seem to hear her, just kept running.

She hung her head, tears already building.

Ryu had run away after Kanna yet again, leaving her behind. Perhaps some things would never change.

Ayu gasped when she suddenly found herself enveloped in a gentle hug, tilting her disbelieving head back until she could see Ryu's eyes peering down at her.

"Sempai?", she asked nervously when his face began to descend toward her own, her eyes fluttering closed of their own accord once more.

They opened again when Ryu's lips met not with her own, but with the centre of her forehead, still drawing a small blush from her as he drew back with that small smile, the one that now she thought about it, reminded her a lot of Kyoko's, tiny but utterly sincere.

"Thank you for what you tried to do Ayu", he whispered, still holding her, "I don't know if you're right yet, but it gives me some hope".

"Sempai…", she gathered the singed material of his shirt between her fingers, dropping the umbrella and moving as close to him as she could.

"Go back to the others, I'll bring Kanna back", he promised, carefully disengaging and moving away from her, "Wait for us".

With a curt nod, he took off once more, sprinting away before vanishing in a blur just like Kyosuke and Satomi.

Even as the rain began to drench her, plastering her hair to her pale face, Ayu smiled.

Ryu wasn't going to give up, despite everything he was going to keep going, and if he could, then so would she.

Just because Ryu and Kanna were always running ahead of her, didn't mean she had to stay behind.

"Gamberu Ayu-chan", she whispered to herself, picking up her umbrella and starting back to the Hinata Sou at a light jog, swiftly picking up speed, "Gamberu"

Ryu, Kanna…everyone was waiting for her.

Everything would be all right; it was time to go home.

Toshima examined the sword Kanna had been carrying with interest.

It was a fairly unique if not particularly flashy design. It had a nice weight, good balance even in the scabbard, but for some reason it couldn't be drawn.

Not even the strongest of his 'associates' could pull the weapon free, thus he had concluded that the blade must have rusted so badly it had sealed itself shut.

However, if this were the case, then why had the girl put up such a fight to protect it?

A family heirloom of museum piece perhaps? If that were the case then he could always find a collector willing to buy it for a high price.

It appeared he would get even more out of this evening that some admittedly satisfying revenge.

It had taken some time to locate a suitable spot to house the girl, in this case a abandoned storage building on the far side of town, but once the final arrangements were made, he would send a messenger to the Hinata Sou, the rumoured residence of the young Miss Urashima and her companion.

"All set here boss", Hero announced, crackling his mammoth knuckles eagerly, "You want us to go send out the invitations?".

Toshima chuckled at the brute's enthusiasm, but it was commendable seen as what had happened last time they had faced off against this stranger.

A glint of something, light reflecting off steel amongst the rafters caught his eye and his smile faded.

"I don't believe it will be necessary".

"Boss?"

"Why don't you come down Kisame-san, I know you're up there", there was an amused snort and a strange whistle of displaced air and suddenly their target was standing in the centre of the room, a wicked blade of sharp, blackened steel held loosely before him.

Toshima coughed to cover his surprise while Hero and the other two gawped openly.

"A most impressive trick Kisame-san", Toshima drawled casually as if bored, "I'm not sure how you got here so quickly, perhaps you really are the girl's bodyguard, how fascinating. I assume this change of appearance has something to do with your work?".

He tapped the pommel of the Sword of Two Souls against his chin thoughtfully, "You really must-"

"Where is Kanna?", his voice was emotionless, a chilling thing to hear, and only reinforced by the cold steel that was his eyes.

"Kisame-san don't you know it's rude to make demands on your host? I have a wonderful evening planned for us all, but first, a little warm up show", Toshima snapped his fingers, a dozen doors around the room opening to admit a variety of unsavoury characters of varying sizes. Each of them carrying both a criminal air and a weapon to match their deviant grins.

"Kill", he commanded, like offering an order to a pack of dogs, laying a restraining hand on Hero's massive bicep when he moved to engage with the rest of them, shaking his head and nodding back towards the smaller room at the back of the facility.

The thug nodded, grinning as he ducked out of sight, leaving Toshima to enjoy his entertainment along with his other two top enforcers and bodyguards.

Ryu's eye narrowed as the first of them reached him, swinging a baseball bat overhead with wild abandon.

"I don't have time for this…Serpent's Strike!", a wave of snake like spiritual energy tore from the tip of his blade as he bisected the air, taking his opponent and his confident smirk with it and blasting a hole in the wall to his left.

There was a pause, a halt in the charge.

Now if even one of them had any brains…

"Get him!", apparently not.

Not having time to use another technique, Ryu ducked the golf club that scythed around at where his head had been, lashing out behind him with his leg in a mule kick that crack two of his opponent's ribs and catapulted him into several others.

A quick pivot and a sharp tap with the flat of his blade across the back of the neck dropped another, while a third had his weapon sliced cleanly in two a Ryu somersaulted over him before placing a boot firmly to the base of his spine.

Ryu blocked hastily, parrying a new attacker so that he stumbled across the path of another, leaping over the confused heap that resulted to gain relief from the pair attempting to flank him from behind and almost rushing onto the knife of yet another thug.

Grabbing the flat of his blade near the tip and inverting the sword, Ryu was able to knock the knife aside, snapping his arms horizontal once more and stepping round in a pivoting arc that ended as his elbow connected with the base of the knife wielder's skull.

He staggered as one of them managed to sock him while he was still dizzy, blurring out of existence and reappearing as another swiped at him with what appeared to be an old meat hook, but not before they scored a deep gouge across his ribs.

You're wasting energy Host, you should just kill them all and be done with it.

I'm not a killer, I won't murder anyone else

There was a snort of derision as he parried a blow to his legs and one to his head, angling the weapon of his assailant up so that he could smash the pommel of his sword down on the bridge of his nose, kicking hi backward as blood sprayed everywhere.

Human's and their delusions, how utterly wretched…but still, you can only do this for so long before you tire yourself child, and when that happens…

Ryu shoved the voice to the back of his head, his next turn bringing him face to face with where Toshima stood just as the door behind him swung open…

"Ryu!", Kanna shouted as she recognised who it was fighting Toshima's men.

Ryu had actually come back for her, somehow tracking her down even after these men had taken her.

But was it Ryu?

Catching his eye she saw only grey, not a trace of red, and though his hair was black now, there was not a trace of silver.

So it really was him, and despite everything Kyosuke had said, he had still cared enough to want to save her.

Her eyes lighted on what Toshima was holding and her heart fell.

The sword. Toshima had that as well, so the question was, which of them had he really come here for.

Ryu took a step forward as he saw Kanna's smile vanish as she seem to slump a little in the grasp of Toshima's thug.

"Kanna…", he let out a gasp as something stuck him across the back of the head hard, a heavily booted foot, slamming down on his sword hand with near bone shattering force, kicking the blade across the room toward Toshima as soon as he released it involuntarily.

"Careless, taking your eyes off your opponent", Toshima bragged as Ryu was surrounded, a number of painful kicks and punches keeping him down, "Still, you put up a brave struggle, but now is the time to collect the spoils of war".

Through half lidded eyes, Ryu watched as Toshima stooped, his hand closing around the hilt of the Hina.

The cursed weapon pulsed darkly.

"Toshima don't!", to late Ryu cried out as the gang lord closed his hand around the hilt of the sword.

For a moment he seemed to freeze in place as the dark aura of the Hina vanished, and then, slowly, gratingly, he stood and turned a glowing red gaze on Ryu.

The creature inhabiting Toshima's body now, smirked with his lips, a smiled that bordered dangerously on the insane before adjusting its new hosts glasses so that the glare of the lights overhead hid its eyes.

"Step away frrrrrom the girrrrrl", it commanded, Toshima's enforcers looking between each other uncertainly, neither of them having missed the strange new set to their boss' voice.

"Boss? Aren't we supposed to keep her from getting away. You said not to let go of her no matter-"

"Release herrrrr beforrrrre I cut you down wherrrrre you stand", it hissed dangerously, raising the Hina for emphasis.

"Sure thing boss", they both agreed nervously, backing away, the tense atmosphere even bringing Ryu's attackers to a halt as they watched what they thought was Toshima advance on Kanna anxiously.

Ryu tried to stand only to find a swift blow to the ribs dropping him as soon as he tried.

"This won't hurrrrt forrrr long little one", it sniggered as Kanna tried to back away only to find herself frozen with fear.

It drew back the blade.

"Kanna!", time seemed to slow, each and every person moving bare millimetres a second at most.

Ryu attempted to stand, not knowing what was happening but grateful for it.

Pain racked his muscles, turning them to jelly and dropping him face first on the dusty, crack ridden concrete.

My, my, isn't this a dilemma child. It appears your 'insurance' is working against you, and free of his seal also. What will you do?

Let me go!, Ryu shouted in his mind, receiving only chiding noises in return.

You are in no position to make demands boy, so I suggest you listen to my humble opinion on our next course of action, its voice was thick with sarcasm, but Ryu forced himself to clench his jaw to prevent saying anything regrettable.

Fine, go ahead

You're too kind. The one serving as host to that lesser trash, he still holds the Sword. You need a weapon with which to seal him…

Ryu snorted, You basically just want me to retrieve the Sword of Two Souls for you. I refuse to do anything that aids my Father's killer.

Very noble young human, but can you do that if it costs the female her life?

Ryu looked up, the crawling passage of time making each and every change, every echo of terror on Kanna's face his to cherish in exquisite detail for all of eternity.

You can't can you?…You can either follow my advice, or…you can watch her die, each second passing like hours until your mind breaks and I take what I want anyway…now choose.

Ryu watched as the dark steel began its downward arc, Kanna's mouth opening in a scream he couldn't hear.

…I'll do it.

A wise decision.

Strength returned to Ryu's muscles and he found himself blink across the distance, time returning to normal as his hand closed around the hilt of the Sword of Two Souls.

Tearing it free, Ryu felt an odd pulsing sensation well up inside of him, a warm like he had never know, but one tinged with a icy malignance he needed no help to identify.

He would have to move fast.

"What is-", was all the creature had time to say before Ryu's foot launched it backward, several of Toshima's men crying out in alarm.

Ryu reached for this new strength unheeding, drawing as much as he could and lashing out at the thing in Toshima's body, fuelled by a righteous anger at what it had been planning to do to Kanna.

"Cutting Evil: Second Form!", there was a horrid cry of demonic anger and frustration as the creature inside Toshima was tore from its new home and sent screaming back into the Hina.

The gang lord collapsed like a puppet with cut strings, his men surrounding him anxiously while Ryu doubled over as if he might vomit at any moment.

"Ryu", Kanna helped support him as it looked like him might slump to the ground, "Ryu, are you alright?".

A low chuckle filled the air, bone chilling and definitely not human.

"Ryu…", Kanna felt fear welling up inside her. She had heard that laugh quite recently.

"I'm afraid your Mate is no longer present child", Kanna gapped as she was shoved backward, the thing puppeting Ryu once more smiling as it held the Sword of Two Souls up for closer inspection.

The ancient weapon seemed to pulse, a mix of warm inviting light, and a deeper ruby swirl that hid at the edges of vision, taunting the eye as it seemed to twist the space around it.

"At last", the demon hissed as if sampling food of a sublime taste, "This has dragged on far too long. I will be complete again very soon".

Thrusting the blade aloft the air seemed to ripple, hurling Kanna and the remaining gang members aside dismissively as the dull light blazed like a beacon.

"Come to me…", as Ryu's eyes slowly turned crimson once again, the air writhed and bend like a thing alive, tossing Kanna into a wall just as she regained her feet.

Kanna struck the floor with a yelp, struggling to keep her eyes open as the howling winds that had suddenly appeared tried to press her back against the wall.

All across the room, thugs and reprobates crawled limped or dragged themselves toward the doors as forks of lightning began to strike out from the blade, leaving charred craters wherever they landed.

She watched as Toshima's three lieutenants struggled through the buffeting gale toward the unconscious form of their leader, grabbing him by the ankles and between them, wrestling him free of the miniature tornadoes that tore through the room amongst the lightning.

At the front of the room, Ryu stood amidst the chaos as if it didn't exist, his crimson gaze locked firmly on the blinding weapon above his head, his expression almost blissful.

"Ryu!", she screamed, her voice lost to the winds, falling flat before it could reach even her own ears. With such intensity, she found herself forced to cling to whatever she could find to stop herself being swept away, her hair failing like a mad thing and blinding her view of Ryu more often than not.

The rafters above him yawned dangerously, one collapsing, scattering Toshima's retreating men as they hugged the walls and pitching them into the air as violent winds caught their hulking bodies like rag-dolls in the hands of an ill tempered child.

She peered at her would be rescuer through eyes that were almost squeezed shut.

That last move had proved to her his real reason for coming here, and it had nothing to do with the sword he now held.

The entire building seemed to groan, as if protesting all of the sudden activity, threatening its occupants with action unless they cease.

Kanna glanced at the ceiling nervously and then back to Ryu.

If he wasn't stopped, then the whole building would collapse around him, burying them both.

Kanna shook her head as part of her urged her to crawl to the door and escape.

Ryu had come to save her, so now she would return the favour.

Bracing herself as best she could, Kanna pushed away from the wall.

As soon as he had unleashed that last attack, Ryu had known it was over.

Using such a powerful technique before he had finished healing had drained the last of his resistance, leaving him mental and physically exhausted in a way mere adrenaline couldn't hope to cure.

Almost the moment he had released his power, he had felt it like a blow to the cut. An icy presence that stole his breath and left his very soul trembling.

The creature had surged into his mind, battering aside his pitiful defences and invading his body with ease.

Now it had the sword, and he could do nothing about it.

He had watched as it hurled Kanna and the others aside with a mere thought, before summoning this raging storm with the power held dormant within the blade.

Strangely, even as he watched Kanna, battered and bruised, call out to him, or saw yet another of Toshima's men casually or even accidentally struck down by the abomination of nature's whimsy, all he felt was a kind of serene detachment, as if it didn't, or very soon wouldn't, matter at all.

This must be what it feels like to die, he thought, still unable to feel anything but regret at all the things he had failed to do.

He had failed keep the demon inside him that night all those years ago, he had led it to the very thing it sort of his own violation after failing to contain it once more despite years of training he had thought were supposed to help.

He had failed to get away from everyone after he had decided they were better off without him, and he had failed to bring Kanna back as he had promised Ayu he would… now it appeared not only would she die, for he could see the telltale signs of stress as the building became weaker, closer to collapse, but he wouldn't even bring himself back.

The demon would not be denied again…

…Then, something very strange happened.

As Ryu contemplated his demise with a kind of melancholy irony, he felt it, the presence of the thing inside his mind, but not as he had ever before.

Whenever it had taken him over before, he had been put into a state of unconsciousness until it had been beaten back or exhausted itself, but for some reason, this time, he had been left awake.

Maybe the demon wished to torture him with this moment before destroying him, or maybe whatever it was doing required him to be cognisant for some reason, but whatever it was there was an unexpected by-product.

He could see everything the demon had ever seen, vast millennia of life that defied human experience, people, things and places long dead, and realms that could not be comprehended by the human mind.

He saw the creature's most prominent memories. The day it had come across a human man, begging it to lend him its strength so that he could better protect his family.

Intrigued that the human knew both that it could do such a thing and its name, it had agreed on a whim.

Yazuroph… that was its name, an ancient Oni, that had been tricked by its servant and betrayed. Sealed in a tomb by the Sagura family, the retaining family of the time to the early Aoyama's before the incident had ended their service and started their own quest for glory.

A search that had ended when the man he recognised as his grandfather had released the demon to destroy the heir to the Aoyama line… and been killed himself by the canorous creature.
The same beast had then found himself confronted by two of the most powerful Special Arts Blademasters in recent history. His Mother and Father, Motoko Aoyama of the Gods Cry school and Koichi Sagura of the Oni's Bane school.

So his parents had fought the creature before he realised, almost not recognising them, they looked so young.

His Father had used an attack of such awesome power that the demon had been overwhelmed, and worse to the prideful creature, it had had been unable to recognise the potential threat beforehand.

Wielding the power of Enishi Koichi had totally obliterated Yazuroph's physical form, but as the tidal wave of Ki had threatened to decimate his soul, the demon had fled along the astral plane, the realm from which Enishi operated.

Seeking a hiding place, it had discovered that the Red String acted as a spiritual conduit it could use to enter the body of one of those it was linked to.

Feeling that Motoko was the best choice, possessing the greatest power, it had fled into her body using the very thing intended to destroy it.

However, it had miscalculated.

True Motoko's strength might have originated from him via her ancestors, but it had been moulded and shaped by years of intense training, acting as a natural barrier to his intrusions.

He may have been safe, but he was also trapped.

He had also realised something else. In using Enishi as a pathway, he had bound a part of his own soul to it to make it compatible, and when Koichi had burned out the Sword of Two Souls, with his final attack the link to the Red String had been served, trapping a part of himself within the blade.

Even if he had been able to take control of Motoko, his possession would have failed without the sword to reunite himself.

He had been beaten after all it had seemed, he was trapped within one of the line that had turned against him by those that had sealed him… but then fate had dealt him the perfect weapon to strike back against his tormentors.

The girl had become pregnant, and her child's soul was two new, his dormant power unshaped, he had been the perfect host.

Of course he was immature, so Yazuroph had slept inside him until the boy grew old enough to carry out his will.

The time had come and he had taken control only to find his desires once more bared by the upstart Sagura Heir.

He had feared he would be beaten, but Koichi had been unable to strike down his own son, even as the possessed child had savaged his body with deadly claws of malignant Ki.

Father…, Ryu watched through the demon's eyes as the part of that night he had missed was played out before him. Koichi had called out to him, smiled at him reassuringly and promised that he would be alright, that he believed in him.

By the time he had finally killed him, the demon had been too tired to maintain his possession and Ryu had awoken.

So that was what all this was about. The demon just wanted to be free, free to avenge itself on his captors. It had never had anything to do with him at all. All these years, all this guilt, the isolation, the hatred… and ultimately it was all due to coincidence, a plan gone wrong on the creatures behalf.

Ryu would have laughed had he been able.

Wasn't that just the perfect end to a perfect life… now all he had left was death…

"Sempai!"

Ayu's voice seemed to shatter the void closing in around him, her violet gaze pleading him to fight back from inside the light that had suddenly replaced the darkness, pulsing, throbbing, and filling him with life and power.

What is going on?, he thought, glancing down at his naked ethereal form, noticing the thing red string that was tied to his little finger, trailing off into the light.

"Don't give up! Fight Sempai! You promised you'd come back, remember?"

…I… …did, didn't I…but is it worth it? I can't win…, he hung his head in shame, I'm sorry…

"Yes, you can. If you really were the failure you seem to think you are, then none of us would love you"

Love?

"Yes, me, Mizuki, Yui, Satomi, Chii, Natsuki…Kanna", an image of the dark haired girl crying out as the wind forced her to the floor, debris raining down around her, crossed his vision, "Won't you fight for us Sempai? For her…and me?".

What if I can't win? Someone will get hurt again…I can't allow that.

"People get hurt all the time Sempai", her voice was kind, soothing like the light, "You can't help that, bad things happen, but if you stop now, you'll never know why the good things are worth fighting for…will you try?".

Ryu's head was bowed as he spoke, I don't want anyone else to die…

"So what will you do?", Ayu's voice asked.

Ryu's head rose slowly, his gaze hard and determined, I'm going to keep my promise to you.

Kanna crawled across the floor on her belly, refusing to look up, her eyes almost closed as she inched closer and closer to Ryu, unaware of the things she muttered to herself as she held her fear at bay.

She had always been the strongest of the girls, or at least, she liked to believe that. Nothing ever stopped her for long no matter her goal, it was something she got from both her parents, a tenacious relentlessness.

Right now, her elbows grazed and bloody, the building wailing as it was stressed beyond its ability to cope, she was closer to giving up than she had ever come.

Risking a glance upward, she saw Ryu, still locked and immobile as he had previously been at the eye of the storm.

Almost there…

Suddenly Ryu jerked as if hit by lightning, his spine ramrod stiff, and his glowing eyes wide, his mouth stretched out in an unheard scream.

The sword above his head blazed brighter, forcing Kanna to shield her eyes for a moment.

When she could see again there was a thin red cord writhing around the blade, whipping at Ryu mercilessly as he snarled and swiped at it with his free hand.

What in the world?

Ryu and the string clashed, a thunderclap of light was released, washing away sight for a second time.

A section of the ceiling, already weak, gave in under this new assault, coming to a crashing halt bare meters from where the dark haired girl lay, Kanna curling into a ball instinctively to protect herself.

"I can't do this!", she shouted when her muscles refused to move, crying as she hugged herself, "I don't understand any of this and…and I'm scared! I just want everything to go back to how it was…please, somebody, anyone, just…make it all stop".

"I'm not going to give up so easily!"

Ryu's voice brought her head up. His eyes were still locked on the blade, and above the hollowing winds she knew she shouldn't have been able to hear him, and yet she was sure she had.

"Ryu…", her vision was streaked by tears.

"You…think this…can defeat me boy?", Yazuroph snarled back through the same mouth, "Your Father may have taken me by surprise once, but it will not happen again, and not at the hands of a failure!"

Ryu looked at Kanna, one eye a fierce red, the other a soothing sea grey, the red string that had been attacking him whirling around his body like the ribbon of a dancer.

"I am a failure, I acknowledge this…but I have decided that if I can protect just one person important to me…", Kanna felt her face warm, "Then I can die without regrets…expect no mercy".

The string seemed to pulse dangerously; the speed of its rotation increasing at the winds grew even stronger, the very sword itself singing a haunting melody of sadness and pain.

Ryu smiled sadly as his eyes began to close.

"Such an appropriate song. I always did love music…goodbye Kanna, tell Ayu I tried, just like I promised".

He didn't even flinch as the first of the cuts appeared on his body, a jagged gash high across one cheek that leaked slowly like crimson tears, soon followed by other, less harmless looking wounds on his arms, legs and torso.

In his mind's eye, Ryu saw Ayu weeping as he drew deeper on the power of Enishi, the Red String of Fate that bound them, that gave him a new hope even as he prepared to end it all.

His innards felt like they were being shredded worse than his outside as he battered back Yazuroph's control with his newfound strength.

What are you planning fool!, the demon spat, reduced to communicating through his mind once more even as it resolutely dug in its metaphorical claws, clinging to existence, You will kill us both!

Ryu's ghostly form smiled back at the glowing eyes in the darkness from inside the light as a fresh wave of agony staggered them both

I know, but as long as it gets rid of you, I don't care, he answered, his voice almost dreamlike.

Stupid boy! One such as I can never be stopped, not by the little power you have, all that will happen is this vessel will die, I will still achieve completion.

But you will never again be able to reach the physical plane will you? With the Sword gone, no one will wield Enishi after me, so you may never come back, the demon as silent, its terrible rage boiling across the distance.

Yazuroph lashed out, trying to strike him down, only to find his attacks blocked by the same red string that harried him on the physical plane.

I should never have been born…Let's die together, Ryu gather all the light to himself, feeling the unbelievable pain of feeling spiritual body being blistered from the inside out.

Crimson eyes rolled as inhuman eyes pierce the darkness.

Shadows seemed to lunge toward the light, tendils of darkness wrapping around Enishi as it struck out at them…locking it in place and stopping its deadly dance.

What have you done!, Ryu demanded as the sensation fled, Enishi's power seeming suddenly muted.

Hehehe… Did you really think it would be that easy? Make a choice and I fall... Stalemate Host. You have failed once more.

"…Goodbye Kanna", the dark haired girl felt a lump forming in her throat as he said those words, his eyes drifting closed as if they would never open again.

"Ryu", the light around him intensified as his wounds grew, inflicted once more by the thing that she had thought was saving him.

"Stop it!", she shouted, trying to stand only to be forced back down by the oppressive atmosphere, "Ryu! Stop it you big Jerk!".

She pounded on the ground impudently, tears flowing as she screamed at him, trying to make him open his eyes.

"Ryu…", she saw images, all of the moments over the past few months that had become so special to her without her really noticing. Their time at the amusement park, Ryu asking her out on the remains of the castle turret, the moment in the ferris wheel, the way she had felt when she found him in the cave. All of this and more, precious moments that could never be recaptured.

"Stupid jerk", she sniffled, forcing herself to her knees, "You think this is just a decision for you to make? What about us? Do we get a say in this?".

She winced as another cut was opened on his face.

"I know you don't think anyone cares", she placed one unsteady foot in front of another, a brief flicker of red distracting her for a second before it vanished, "That no one could after everything that happened to you…you must have been very lonely…".

She smiled beatifically, stifling her tears, her clenched hands slowly opening at her sides as she approached, staggering as the red string whipped out, cutting her cheek, but striving on undeterred.

"I can imagine what that would be like… things weren't always like this. My family had tough times. I was too young to know why, but my Mother and Father went through a rough patch after I was born. At times it was like they were too wrapped up with each other to notice me", her voice had gotten quieter as she spoke, taking a breath she continued, forcing herself to speak clearly, "If not for Ayu I don't know if I would have had anyone to talk to as a child. I shudder to think how I might have turned out…but you had no one…".

She drew closer still, wincing as she received several new cuts.

"When you came here, I didn't like you very much either…but the other girls came to. Even little Chii found something in you that helped her come out of her shell. You do have people that care about you now Ryu, who don't want to see you go", she felt her tears returning when he didn't respond, "Damn it, don't you get it yet jerk! We all care about you, we all l-…we all love you, I…".

She closed her eyes, clenching her fist at her side, not noticing the thin red string that flashed into existence, linking her and Ryu together via the sword.

"Why do I have to say this? Jerk…I…", Kanna tensed, reaching her breaking point, the moment she would either back down or push on… Bending her legs she hurtled herself with all the strength a budding track star can muster, "I love you!".

Two waves of Enishi collided as the string tied to Kanna's finger flared into action, weaving around her in a surreal dance.

As the two forces struck everything else vanished.

"Kanna…", Kanna sturred, mumbling sleepily to herself as the voice continued to call her name.

"What'a you wan'", she slurred, batting at the source of the noise irritably.

"Kanna, wake up, it's important", the voice insisted urgently, shaking off the last lingering dregs of her grogginess.

She blinked open disorientated brown eyes, slowly focusing on the steely eyes face peering down at her.

"Ryu?", he nodded slowly, coughing and looking away as she sat up and tried to hug him, "What's wrong?".

She blushed a little as she noticed his current state of undress, looking away herself.

Wait, if he was…did that mean…

Kanna yelped as she looked down, instinctively covering herself with her arms, her face ablaze, "Don't look! You hear me pervert, eyes that way!"

"I think there are more important things to worry about than your modesty", he said, his aloof sarcasm surprisingly pleasant to her ears, especially seen as it was heavily coloured by the even sweater tones of embarrassment.

"Like?"

"Like that", he pointed at something and she followed his gaze, barely biting back a scream as a pair of glowing red eyes glared at her from the darkness that defined the area of perfect white in which they both sat.

"Is that…"

"The demon, yes. He calls himself Yazuroph for all it matters…Kanna you shouldn't be here", he said, reminding himself at the last second not to look at her as he spoke.

"Why not?", she demanded, curling her knees up to her chest and turning so that she could address him over her shoulder.

"Because if this is where I think it is, then there is a good chance that when I die, so will you", he mirrored Kanna's posture, not missing how her shoulders hunched as he said that.

"So I was right, you've given up on us", she said in a small voice that cut him worse than Enishi ever could have.

"No, I decided to fight, that's why I'm ending it all now, before anyone else can get involved. It's best for everyone this way", he fell silent when she didn't reply, "…Come on, we need to get you-"

"Coward"

"Excuse me?", he asked.

"What gives you the right to decide something like that for me, for any of us. You're not fighting, it's just another way of giving up", her voice was cutting and he felt himself bristle in response to her tone.

"Do you have a better idea? I'm doing what I must to protect the people I care about, including you…".

"No, no you're not…forget it, go ahead, you probably didn't hear anything I said anyway right", she lowered her head onto her knees, "I should have known".

The silence between them stretched out, somehow seeming worse in the barren white landscape in which she now found herself.

"…I heard", his voice was a whisper but it might as well have been a shout, or perhaps Kanna's ears were just particularly sensitive for some reason. That would certainly explain why she thought she could hear her own heartbeat drumming in her ears.

"…I see", she said, proud that her voice had only sounded a little more subdued than normal, betraying no trace of the nervousness she felt.

How would he answer?

"And?", she prompted, smiling to herself when she saw him shuffle a little where he sat.

"And what?"

"Ryu!".

It was his turn to smirk and she would have hit him had she still not been too embarrassed to move.

"Jerk", she turned away, sticking her nose up in the air.

"I can't give you an answer Kanna", he admitted, "I'm not sure myself".

"Oh…", she felt a little disheartened by this news, but still hopeful of a positive outcome, "Then how do you know you there's nothing you'll regret if you go through with this?"

"I don't…", he wrapped his arms around his knees. It should have been a lot easier than this, there was only one real choice left after all, right?

He stiffened as he felt something press against his back and two slender arms wrap around his shoulders.

"Kanna-"

"Just shut up Ryu, ok, just shut up and listen for once…I meant it, I'm sure I did, and I think I still do…", The red string she hadn't seen before faded into existence, pulsing rapidly in time with her heartbeat, "Come back with me Ryu… I love you".

Ryu reached up slowly, placing his hand on Kanna's arm, marvelling at the smoothness he felt beneath his fingers, the literal softer side to this abrasive woman.

"…Kanna…"

Enishi flared violently, it's twin still locked in Yazuroph's grip echoing its light, resonating the shadows holding it melting and vanishing.

No

The demon hissed at the twin strings twirled around each other, spinning intricate patterning in the air that left glowing trails in their wake, weaving tighter and more complex patterns as they picked up speed.

Ryu turned where he sat so that he could see Kanna.

"Kanna"

"Ryu", her face coloured but she didn't try to turn away.

Enishi blazed, countless strings stabbing out into the darkness, accompanied by a roar of disbelieving pain.

This can't be happening!, Yazuroph struggled against his bonds as the red strings bound him in the darkness, searing into his spiritual body agonisingly their glow increasing beyond that which human eyes could have handled.

Haltingly, as if afraid this was all a dream, Kanna drew Ryu into a loose embrace.

Enishi flared once more, a blinding light that stripped away the world, all sight, sound and thought in an instant, compacted eternity into seconds and expanded seconds beyond the edges of time as the spiritual equivalent of a supernova scoured the astral plane clean.

Yazuroph experienced the very thing all immortals feared, something that left it unable to even scream as it's very souls was atomised and decimated, scattered across the vast eternity of the spiritual realm…

When Enishi faded from sight all that was left was white.

The demon that had plagued the Sagura family and its descendants, that had brought nothing but pain and misery for centuries to all it encountered, and destroyed one boys life since before he was born… was gone…and so were Kanna and Ryu…

Kanna wasn't sure how it had happened, but they were no longer in a world of endless white.

She had come back to herself with a start as a loud clang echoed through the empty walls of the storage warehouse she and Ryu had been in before her little trip.

The Sword of Two Souls, rocked, its scorched blade hissing and smoking, all traces of mystical aura in the blade gone.

However, none of this held Kanna's attention.

She found herself held in a pair of sturdy arms, against a warm chest that felt strangely comfortable for all the hard muscle beneath the singed shirt worn over it.

She almost squeaked when she heard someone call her name, looking up slowly with wide brown eyes into a pair of smiling sea grey orbs.

"We're…alive", she finished lamely, blushing but unable to look away.

"Yeah…", was Ryu's equally inventive response.

Kanna swallowed when neither of them moved to release the embrace.

"Kanna"

"Yes", she answered a tad to quickly, her cheeks deepening in colour.

"Lets…"

"Yes?", her breathing was coming in shallow gasps.

"…go home".

Kanna almost face faulted.

"What?", her voice was low and dangerous, the look in her eyes equally so.

"Lets go home, there are people waiting for us, and I promised Ayu I'd bring you back…Kanna?", he gasped as her fist connected with his stomach, shortly before the world seemed to tilt as she kicked his feet out from under him.

"Jerk! You are so tragically clueless!", she shouted, crossing her arms and glaring down at him fiercely.

It started low and quiet, but before either of them knew it, Ryu's booming laughter had filled the expansive room with echoing mirth.

"What's so funny?", she asked, stamping her foot angrily when he just laughed louder, "Ryuuya Sagura! You better not be laughing at me!"

Still he continued to laugh, tears running down his face and his gut beginning to ache.

"Fine", she hrrmphed, turning her nose in the air and marching away, "Stay there for all I care, I'm going home. I'll tell all the others you tripped and got crushed under the weight of your own stupidity, jerk!".

Ryu's mirth continued unabated.

It felt strangely good to hear Kanna shouting at him like she would any other boy, so very…normal.

As Ryu marvelled at the blissful silence in his mind, and the absence of the gut churning presence in his soul, Kanna pouted and stuck her tongue out at him. It was the sweetest sound he had ever had.

It looked like everything was going to be alright after all.

While Kanna threatened to leave him for the foxes, Ryu lay back, smiling up at the ceiling.

In his mind he saw Ayu and the others waiting for them.

For the first time in his life, he had people who cared for him, he had friends.

He closed his eyes and took what felt like the first clean breath in a long time, the lopsided smile his Father had been famed for bubbling to the surface.

He may not have done exactly what he set out to do, but he had avenged his Father and destroyed the demon that had cursed his family.

"Hey jerk, you going to stare at the ceiling all day or what?", Kanna demanded testily, giving the impression that had she a tail, it would have been lashing.

"I'm thinking about it", he replied, taking her by surprise with a playful tone.

Gradually, a smile cracked her stern expression and she shook her head, offering her hand to help him up.

"You're even weirder now, you know that?", she asked, smirking at him.

"Perhaps", he shrugged, "Still sure you want me to come back?"

"Can't be helped, you know where I live", she sighed dramatically, her grip on his hand tightening as she helped him to his feet, "Besides, you owe me".

"Owe you?"

"Yup, come on", she tugged him along behind her, ignoring his indignant protests.

Kanna giggled playful as he tried to free his hand, taunting him in a singsong voice while the city slept on around them.

It was time to go home, theor friends were waiting.

---Author's Notes---

F yeah, last chapter up baby, and it's a whopping 33 pages, hope you enjoyed it.

I'd just like to take the time to thank the fans of the series, I couldn't have pulled this off without you, thanks for all the support/bitching etc, it meant a lot boys and girls.

Sorry about the long update wait, but I've been very busy lately, and lost internet access for a while to boot.

All that's left is a small epilogue then we're all done, so peace out.

See you on the flipside, Betweenheavenandhell

P.S: I'm hosting a small competition incidentally. Send in your Blademasters fics and the very best will be posted amongst the collection of oneshots and drabbles I'll be working on next between chapters of my Burst Angel fic.

Send em in my friends, all see you all later.