Disclaimer: I don't own Rurouni Kenshin or it's characters. Also we were cheated in The Final of a true island scene. I will stay mad accordingly.

Kaoru heard the bell chime at the door and quickly stowed her sandwich under the counter. Wiping quickly at her mouth with a napkin and cursing at the inability to reapply her gaudy red lipstick, the curtain of beads shifted and even in the low light she could tell this man meant business. From the sure steps over threadbare layers of her once expensive rugs, to the no nonsense stoicism of his expression Kaoru wondered if she should even attempt an accent. It had been a while since she didn't try to seem mysterious, and honestly she wasn't sure if she was up to it today in general after a shitty morning struggling with a flooded basement. It had taken all her energy to climb into her ancient car and drive over to her unassuming storefront. She would need every cent she could wring from people to address the water damage no doubt occurring in her lemon of a family home, though the very slowly draining water and the mosquitos it would no doubt breed also had provided a bit of motivation to get out.

Outside it was still raining torrentially as the man removed his glasses and wiped off the moisture before replacing them and finally addressing her. "Are you the medium?"

Clearing her throat, Kaoru snapped a professional smile into place. "Yes, that's me. Did you need a fortune read? I can do tarot, runes, palms, or tea leaves depending on your preference…"

"I sincerely doubt you can cold read me successfully. I'm not here for parlor tricks. Answer me one question: are you a real medium?"

She had certainly gotten this question before and smoothly answered. "I am. Are you looking to hold a séance? I have to let you know that I don't do home visits without another person present."

With an expression of distaste, the man looked at the various things she sold from the cheap crystals and prayer beads, to the incense and essential oils. Various glassware. Then there were all the clothes and scarves. Megumi said she was halfway to being a homeopathic goods store, with great disdain, and Kaoru had simply shrugged. It had been her mother's store, and there wasn't much left of her other than a few pictures so it helped Kaoru feel connected to the woman she never got to know even as the rambling historical house represented her father. Both were relics she couldn't step away from.

"I don't need a séance," He held eye contact for far too long without blinking, Kaoru thought, that was part of this man's problem. Other parts probably included thinking far too well of himself given his cultivated good looks, and also having too much money judging by the tailored clothes and expensive watch. "I need an exorcism."

Crazy. He was also crazy.

The spike of alarm and aggression could have easily been from the look that the psychic gave him, but it was getting harder to separate his emotions from hers. He had been willing to dismiss it as first a delusion, and then simply an inconvenience when he realized he had been losing time here and there. Most of the time she just wanted to cook a meal or arrange flowers—she was genteel in that way—but the blanks in his memory had been getting longer now that he'd been enduring the effects of that damned diary for more than a year. It couldn't continue like this.

"I'm no priest, sir, I think that it would be better to talk to a church and as it just so happens there's a couple around this part of town so if you just tell me your preferred denomination I can probably—" The phone was already in her hand.

"I don't want her harmed," Enishi shot in. He had considered approaching a church. There were plenty of fire and brimstone ministers out there who would leap for joy to be part of a genuine exorcism, but he felt protective of her in an inexplicable way. Perhaps blood ran thicker in the Yukishiros than he ever would have suspected given his largely lonely childhood. A single gourmet meal together at a long table every holiday he was returned from boarding school hadn't inspired much in the way of filial feelings before. Even now the messages at birthdays and high holidays that came to him had obviously been penned by personal assistants, and weren't any deeper than a grocery store greeting card. Arguably he had a closer relationship to her at this point than anyone else he was blood related to.

The psychic set down the phone with an expression on her face that made him feel even more like turning on his heel and leaving than ever. "Her?"

She looked like she wanted to back away from him rather more quickly than anything. Enishi took a deep breath and forced his fists to unclench. "Look, I'll pay you any amount of money to do whatever it is you do. If you are successful, then we both benefit. If you are unsuccessful, I'll pay you half of the agreed total regardless and move on to the next medium."

Honestly, he never in his life would have even come here except he had heard his subordinate Hyoko going on and on about getting her cards read at this shitty little shop and that everything that the woman had told her had come true. Hyoko was gullible in some ways, but cunning when it mattered and he thought that if a snake like her could be made to believe perhaps this bland looking woman in front of him had potential.

"An exorcism that doesn't hurt the spirit is very difficult. I'd need at least a week to prepare and, ah, fifteen thousand dollars minimum…" She trailed off when he immediately pulled out a card from his wallet.

"Charge me for five and consider it a deposit."

The pause was long as her wide eyes followed the path of the card as he placed it on the counter. If it smelled like patchouli after this he was going to throw it away and order a new one. Eventually, as happened with most people, whatever was causing her to hesitate crumbled in the face of cold hard cash and she slid the card through her card reader with only a hint of a tremble.

As he took back the card their fingers brushed momentarily and the world went white and black as if he'd had a sudden drop in blood pressure. Blinking hard a couple time dispelled the stars in his vision, and Enishi put on his best aloof expression while the psychic babbled nervously.

"…I'll need some way to contact you when I've finished making preparations." He produced a business card—sparse, professional—and then turned it over and grabbed the pen near her register that was attached to the plastic flower to sign both the receipt and the back of his card with his personal number.

"Only call when necessary. Don't leave a message if I don't pick up, I won't listen to it." He was too busy to keep track of social niceties. And he wasn't about to have any assistant of his take the psychic's call. Even this visit could be used against him if the right people knew he had wandered into this disaster of a storefront. It was one thing for a subordinate to be superstitious, but he was supposed to be above earthly or heavenly problems alike.

As he turned to go he heard her voice slightly break as she offered to let him wait out the rain. He shrugged off the feeling inside of him that begged him to stay, unsure if it was his own. He'd see more of the psychic soon enough, and this weird little space was already humid enough to give his skin an oily feeling that grated as the fabric of his suit slid against his sensitive skin. Enishi needed to escape.

The cold feeling of loss was surely just chill of the rain.

"No. I will pay a plumber, and not Sano—I mean someone with actual certifications, to fix your basement so please don't spend any more time sweating over this stupid thing you agreed to do." Megumi was looking glamorous despite circles under her eyes from long shifts at the hospital. When Kaoru had sent that tiny little text to her, mostly as a joke really, hoping to get a good laugh at the whole thing she hadn't expected her friend to take it so damn seriously.

Softly the radio played in the kitchen, where Kaoru had been doing research about how one actually performed an exorcism so that she could fake it as convincingly as possible. Seances were one thing, after all, it was more about doing enough research about people to figure out what their family was like and then let people fill in the blanks and get a bit of catharsis. It was really quite draining, and she rarely took on a job like that unless the person looked absolutely grief stricken, in which case she was a sucker to help.

But this Enishi Yukishiro character didn't look grief stricken, and based on what little she could find on him he was part of some old money family that went back generations in this area. Digging around in the attic might even unearth some dusty documents that mentioned them if she really wanted to risk those crumbling magazines. Maybe if her ancestors had focused a little less on chasing fruitless athletic dreams she'd have Yukishiro money.

"It's not just that. It's enough money to wipe out that personal loan I took out to pay for that electrical work last winter, too."

Megumi sighed. "You should really get out of this money pit. I don't care how many generations have lived in this house. You don't need a five bedroom anything."

Kaoru flinched, knowing that Megumi was right but feeling that twinge of panic she couldn't suppress when people suggested she leave. It had passed through her mind before that she could offer to let her brother Yahiko buy her out but he had his own family and business a couple towns over. He had never been chained to the past like she was. Perhaps her cousin…

Suddenly, she realized Megumi was snapping her fingers in front of her face and Kaoru did a sour smile as she batted the offending digits away. "Space case! Order us some dinner and maybe I'll forgive you for being an idiot while we watch one of those criminal shows with the plotholes you love." It was a rare day Megumi was too tired to lay in to Kaoru's bad decision making. They both knew the nurse would end up snoozing on the couch after her belly was full, but Kaoru was grateful for the company.

"Ok, but you have to hear my plan first. I think I can get some props from the attic, some of those crumbling antiques, and get a whole little scene set. Cups and mirrors and things. I know I have at least one relative that took up ceramics and there's some gnarly stuff that I can probably use in a pinch along with some burning herbs."

Megumi groaned. "Going to get some special robes too? Practicing a dance? Seriously, Kaoru, you'll be lucky if Sano doesn't just burst out laughing in the middle of your little 'exorcism', and you can say goodbye to your payday."

"I don't think I'll really make all the money. You can't cure insanity with sage and holy words or whatever. But maybe if I can convince this guy that I tried really hard he'll at least pay the half he promised." Kaoru was grateful Megumi's boyfriend was free enough to be security when she didn't feel safe around a client, but his acting ability was nil. "And Sano better NOT laugh or I will take that money out of his hide."

"Less talking, more dialing the pizza place." Megumi was rubbing her temples and giving Kaoru that tone that said she was already entering hangry mode.

Even as Kaoru was placing the order from the kitchen, she couldn't keep her eyes off the laptop with the many tabs open and her hand written notes scattered across the table. Should she get her hair done? What did one wear to an exorcism? This felt more like putting on a silly pageant for one person than anything, and she had never felt more like a fraud. This wasn't how she had imagined her life would be at this age.

As the ceramic mug of tea shattered against the wall, Enishi contemplated if he should leave it for the cleaner or not. Probably not. He had broken that decorative mirror not long ago and he didn't want to seem as unstable as he was apparently becoming. It was all about appearance, after all, and control. Coming to while enjoying a cup of tea in his kitchen with a lovely home cooked meal waiting for him, cold, but elegantly presented didn't do anything to improve his mood.

She was trying to make him take care of himself. He had hit the gym pretty hard earlier, as he had found she didn't dare interrupt specific activities when he was in public. However, the last thing he recalled was contemplating making a protein shake for dinner and now here he was several hours later, judging from the stars in the sky outside of his condo's windows. Pulling at his hair, he settled for grinding his teeth and settling in to eat the fish and rice. She even made miso and put out some pickled radish that had been her project last weekend.

"Hijacking my body just because you didn't like my dinner plans isn't acceptable, and you know it." He said to himself out loud. Enishi had taken to talking to her more and more, unsure of how aware she was. He suspected that if he had been living with anyone this would have been much more difficult to keep under wraps. Maybe who he needed was a psychologist and not a medium, but as soon as he started working through any sort of clinical setting he knew news would reach both his parents as well as a number of executives who were just slavering for him to start delegating away his power.

He was one bad psych eval away from career suicide.

Even the supposed exorcism reeked of desperation.

The whole experience was bitter. How it put in stark relief the extent which he had been alone, and how he dreaded yet anticipated being free of the uncertainty she had inserted into his life.

Though cold, the food was still delicious, and it as he ate he felt the threat of tears burn his eyes. Surely her again, but why she might be sad he couldn't theorize other than what he had read in the damned journal. What had started out sentimental had become cold, purposeful and he knew they were related from the tone alone. He had been approaching the latter third when he passed out and presumably hit his head on the way down on one of the various Yukishiro family heirlooms next to him because there had been mostly dry blood oozing from both his nostrils once he hauled his lead weight of a body back to his condo from that storage facility he had been inspecting for cleanout. One of the first things she did was hide the journal, damn her, so he'd never know what she was protecting in that text. Perhaps she sensed Enishi's desire to burn the thing, since destruction was all he knew when it came to offenses against his person.

"Are you fucking happy now? Going to let me be myself for a while, this weekend?" Leaving the dishes on the table for now, Enishi wandered over to pick up the shards of expensive hand molded ceramic. He had a full cupboard of dishes, but they had never seen such use until the past year. Like everything else he purchased it was there to complete an image, to project affluence, maybe even normalcy. While she liked to cook she chose to leave the dishes to him, and Enishi knew she would inject him with increasingly elevated amounts of guilt if he didn't do his assigned chores. He was a grown ass man, but she didn't treat him that way.

While getting increasingly irritated reflecting on how he was being bullied to do domestic tasks, he didn't realize he had cut himself until he looked down and saw the blood all over his hand. He already knew how this would end.

"Shit…" was all he managed to exhale before the wave of panic engulfed him and the room faded to black.

Kaoru felt extra foolish in her many layers of colorful skirts and various necklaces with many continents of religious iconography emblazoned onto them. With her hair tied up in a high ponytail she could feel it pull against her scalp and she jingled over to greet her first guest. It had taken a while to clear out her consultation room and draw all the special symbols on the ground in chalk as well as light all the candles. Sano had sniffed and mumbled something about a fire hazard even as he sneezed when he walked too close to a burning incense stick and blew out a good half dozen candles in his wake. Judging from his red eyes and how he was reverently munching on a take-out burger he had picked up on the way over, her friend was not really taking this seriously. Then again, there had never been a time in which his services were seriously needed. Sano showed up to be a deterrent to clients behaving badly, given his tall and muscular frame, and why would he think today was any different?

Why did Kaoru think today would be any different for that matter?

"If you're going to show up blazed, you could at least have gotten me a burger too." She said as she adjusted the positioning of the chair again before turning to her makeshift alter and fiddling with the crystal arrangement again. Everything had to look suitably mystic. She had learned over the years that no one wanted life advice from a young woman in a sensible outfit, but they would hang on her words if she tied a bandana around her head and piled on some costume jewelry.

As the sweet smell of incense melded imperfectly with wafts of fried food Kaoru knew she was probably never living this down, even to herself. This poor guy really probably just needed a grief counselor or a vacation from his stressful job. Maybe Kaoru had finally gotten to the point where even clutching memories of a family she barely got to enjoy weren't enough to sustain her through yet another year of giving out love advice under the guise of fortunetelling.

The muffled jingle of her shop door opening reminded Kaoru that this was the wrong time to have a crisis in conscience, and dusted chalk dust from her hands once more before rushing out to meet her client.

"Mr. Yukishiro, please, if you could follow me." She darted past the beads and locked her shop door again. Not that anyone would be showing up on one of her scheduled closed days, but she didn't need to invite any more trouble than was already in front of her. Standing next to him, instead of talking to him on the phone, she felt their height difference viscerally. Even with Sano's help and her years of self-defense training, Kaoru wondered if they had a chance. "Everything is prepared in the back."

He sighed and rolled his eyes, and Kaoru couldn't blame him. The skepticism he was obviously feeling didn't speak well to her making the majority of that money, but even failure was a pretty good payday so she plastered a smile on her face and swallowed the increasing anxiety causing her muscle to twitch.

"I trust this won't take long."

What in all the hells was he even doing here other than he had made the stupidest business deal of all time and felt obliged to follow through on it? Sitting in a rickety wooden chair in a smudged chalk circle while a so-called medium loosely tied his hands and legs to 'help bind the spirit as well'. Vaguely he remembered those lessons he took as a child about how to escape abductors who wanted to random him. The unspoken implication was that he should be able to solve his own problems, even if they were life or death. A cold sliver of his mind wondered how much ransom he would have actually been worth to his parents before they did the cost benefit analysis and determined birthing a child through a surrogate was more advantageous.

And through it all, she couldn't contain a weird sense of elation every time the medium got close. Enishi knew he was scowling harder to make up for the bubbling happiness that sent waves of goosebumps up his back and over his scalp.

Gesturing to the alter that been erected with a long curving sword as the focal point, Enishi scoffed. "Planning on fighting the ghost yourself?" It took a lot of effort not to simply slip out of the bonds she had tied so poorly and walk out of this farce.

The medium went red from her cheeks to her neck, as she bristled. "It's not even sharp. I don't think that sword could hurt anyone, let alone a ghost. All these things are symbolic anyway. Please trust in the process, Mr. Yukishiro."

The woman began to chant in what sounded like a nonsense though he could pick out a word here or there in half a dozen different languages. Settling his posture, he felt his spine pop as tried to stay straight backed in the poorly built antique he had been strapped against. While the woman waved her arms around, bracelets jingling, he could admit she was at least putting her all into this. If nothing else she was trying with a sincerity that resonated through the charlatanry. Enishi was reviewing details of tomorrow's meeting itinerary in his mind when there was an involuntary jolt powerful enough to unsettle the glasses from his face.

The medium was unsheathing the sword and chanting her nonsense, but her back was turned to him. Enishi felt a burning pain crossing down his body and he heard a ringing tone in his ears which seemed to obscure whatever words he was mumbling. Whatever he was saying, it was increasing in volume because the medium kept twitching her head to look back at him with concern.

The blurring in his vision might have been tears, but it was hard to say. He didn't want to be here anymore, but he was trapped. All he had wanted was to move through life without making ripples. It was other people who had forced his hand. He had no choices. He was a pawn. Brought up to be an extension of the Yukishiro legacy he had made the mistake of wanting something and then it was taken from him, so isn't it right to take a new life for himself? Just, even?

In front of him, the medium's voice thickened and broke. Those damn spots in his vision were starting up again and as he welcomed the incoming relief from the pain, if nothing else. Had that woman done it? Would he be free? Even the parasite in him would abandon him, it seemed. At the threshold of success, he suddenly hoped she'd fail. He didn't want to be left alone again.

"I can't believe you smoked before you went over there, idiot." Megumi was towel drying her hair after her shower before she got out her hair dryer. Intimacy had been rebuffed until he relayed every detail of the day to her since, as she said, Kaoru wasn't saying anything via text other than it was finished and she got paid.

"I think I need to lay off for a while, because it was the damndest thing, Megs." Sano couldn't even focus on the action movie he had put on to wait for his sometimes girlfriend to get out of her shower. "One minute I'm trying not to giggle at Kaoru's weird little chanting thing she had cooked up, and then the dude is practically vibrating out of the chair. He knocked the whole damn thing over with him in it and it just shattered right there, poof. I know that's one of her dining room chairs but it's toast now."

Taking a moment to admire Megumi as she changed out towel for robe, Sano was struck all over about how he was really about as lucky as a washed up MMA fighter could be. Maybe he should actually try to make one of his many part time jobs a full time job, and try to get a little closer to that pedestal she resided on.

"Focus, Sano, I don't care that Kaoru needs a new dining set."

"Ok, so this business dude is all curled up into a ball and crying and shit. Wild right? And then Kaoru, like, runs over to him and starts like stroking his head and mumbling stuff to him for a while and then they kiss. Like, she tilts this dude's chin up before she does it and everything so it wasn't like a mistake or anything. And that goes on for way too long, if you get my drift."

While untangling the hair dryer cord, Megumi shook her head. "I have words for her. What the hell was she thinking? She's lucky you were there since she seems to have lost what little sense she had left. So? What then?"

Sano scratched at one of the tattoos on his arm that he'd been meaning to get covered for a while. Turns out getting inked with demons all over when you're eighteen and angry doesn't really translate super well as your priorities shift into adulthood. At least he passed on those neck and face pieces he had thought about getting. "And then it's like someone threw a bucket of water on both of them. Kaoru scrambled back like a crab right into her whole setup and knocked over all her crystals and shit, and business guy shoots straight up and marches out all stiff. Oh boy, that glare he shot me as he was exiting was something else. Guys who have that kind of intensity in the ring are shit to fight because they hold grudges, you know?"

Megumi made a noncommittal noise and turned on the hair dryer, effectively pausing the conversation. He wasn't sure if he should talk about what happened after that, really. Kaoru just… wilted. It wasn't like her, the woman who maintained a crazily positive work ethic despite living in the bones of her parents' life for as long as she had been. It was like she had lost her damn mind as she tossed everything from that alter into the trash and stomped on all the candles, then capped it all off by taking that family antique sword which was probably worth a bit of money and just yeeting it into her cleaning closet.

Something about the whole thing seemed off, but in the meantime he'd just lie low and see what Kaoru did next. From the way she had yelled at him to get out it seemed like her temper was perfectly intact, and that had actually been pretty reassuring.

Kaoru's leg jiggled as she contemplated the check that had arrived in the mail. She had to contact him and let him know she couldn't cash it because the name on it was all wrong. Himura was her mother's family name and she used it for business, but legally she was a Kamiya just like her dad.

Obviously, he had had it sent because the shop had been closed for weeks, and just a few days ago her sign had come down since the new owners were getting their own signage prepped and wanted to get some hype going. It was going to be a coffee shop now or something, she really could barely recall since she had let the building go for a song. It needed a lot of repairs and it seemed better to just let it go as is if someone was willing to swallow those costs. Somehow it seemed right the placed would be gutted and rebuilt.

She had been in the middle of packing up the last few boxes of antiques to ship to Yahiko and his family when she had gotten the mail on a whim. Surely Tsubame and the kids would think the old pictures and art were interesting, and most importantly it would all be far far away from her. For some reason now when she saw some of those old things she got this nostalgic pull that also upset her stomach. That first night after the exorcism seemed to come to mind over and over, skin tingling and muscles twitching.

The thought of contacting Yukishiro gave her that same anticipatory feeling of longing and she knew it wasn't natural. She still had his glasses, that he had left behind that day. They were broken as hell, but she figured he had a spare pair because it wasn't as if he had asked for them back. Just in case, she hadn't been able to throw them away and they were wrapped in bubble wrap and sitting in her bedside table. The frames were pretty sturdy, probably expensive.

Had the stress of her life finally just caused her to break? She couldn't explain the lost time between when she had unsheathed that sword and when she had come to with her tongue halfway down a stranger's throat. It had been way too long since she had gone on a date because that kiss haunted her, months later, and did a lot more to make this text message the hardest she had ever sent barring the one to Yahiko after their dad had collapsed.

Hey, it's Kaoru, the psychic. We need to talk. Check has the wrong name. And it looks like you made it out for too much, tbh.

Staring at it with an awkward feeling of helplessness, she resolved to finish packing things up to send to Yahiko when the phone rang. Heart hammering, she saw the name that popped up on the screen and begged her brain to stop replaying how she had mapped this man's tonsils as she answered.

"Kamiya speaking." She wrote down the address he communicated to her, and felt her brow knit as he told her he would be out of the country for a few days so she would need to hurry over tonight to get the name fixed but that the amount was perfectly correct as she had delivered on her promise.

It wasn't that she didn't need or want the money but she was tempted to throw it all back in his face for a hot second because of the words he had used. She had unbelievably delivered on her impossible promise.

While silently fuming and packing it occurred to her later that there wasn't really any reason for Enishi Yukishiro to meet her in person to do this at all. Thoughtfully, she taped some bubble wrap around a small enameled box and reflected on if she still fit into that one lavender dress with the deep vee in front.