Together, after pausing briefly to observe the shrine on the water and the gate as they passed them, Daphne and Rin headed up the mountain to the ryokan. Both of them had been quiet for a while after sensing that watchful presence. Daphne was thinking on it. She didn't know where Rin's mind was, but she suspected it was the same.
"Demon, definitely," he said out of nowhere.
Daphne came to a stop. Overhead, the rain finally started to fall from the clouds, pattering lightly down on the leaves of the trees all around them. The mountain was heavily wooded, the ryokan located about halfway up its side in the park. Daphne held Rin's eye, but only a moment more in the rain and he was tugging her forward to keep moving.
"Do you think it might have something to do with whatever Mephisto wanted us to check out?" she asked.
Rin shook his head. "I don't know. It could."
"It seems pretty likely," Daphne replied. "That they're connected, at least."
"We don't even know what Mephisto wanted in the first place."
The rain picked up, so they increased their pace, arriving a few minutes later at the ryokan in a full deluge. Chiba had evidently seen them coming, because he opened the door and welcomed them inside just as they stepped onto the porch.
"Quickly, quickly," he laughed. "You're just in time."
He stepped back inside and slipped expertly out of his shoes and into his house slippers. Rin and Daphne did the same when he gestured to the pairs set out for them.
"Your luggage is in your room. We will serve you dinner at seven o'clock," he said as they stepped in fully. "Do you remember where the private bath is, or shall I show you?"
"Just down the hall and to the left, yes?" Daphne asked.
Chiba nodded. "Yes, yes. Come this way, you are in the same room."
He led them down the hall into the inn, to the room they'd had during their honeymoon. The door was open, their luggage in the corner, and Daphne slipped out of her house shoes as she reached the threshold and stepped onto the mats. Rin followed suit and Chiba showed them that the key was in the lock should they decide to go back out.
It was exactly like Daphne remembered. The center of the room was set with a low wooden table, surrounded by cushions with cups and a kettle for tea on its top. At the far end, the sliding paper doors were open onto the engawa that overlooked a small pond and wooded garden. The windows were shut against the rain, but the gentle sound of it on the roof and the leaves was still audible. It was perfect. But it wasn't enough to settle the unease now rooted in Daphne's mind.
Rin slid both doors to the room shut, then stepped over to Daphne and put his hands on her shoulders. "You all right?"
"I don't know," she replied, leaning against him. "I can't stop thinking about that presence."
"Me either."
They went quiet, looking out the windows at the pond, at the blurred shapes and colors of the koi as the rain made ripples on the surface.
"I'm gonna take a bath," Daphne said. "Clear my head maybe."
Rin nodded and she moved away to collect the yukata the inn provided, then headed out the door and down the hall to the private bath. The air on the other side of the door was thick with steam. She shut and locked it behind her, shedding her clothing in too much of a rush to relax. She had only to dip one hurried toe into the water to remember how bloody hot it was, however, and immediately snap that toe back out.
"Goddamn it," she hissed.
Taking a deep breath, letting it out, and taking in another, Daphne stepped slowly into the water, careful not to make too much disturbance. She held still until the water no longer felt quite so hot, then eased in deeper, held still, deeper, still. Several minutes later, she was in the bath up to her shoulders, floating, her body in an almost trance-like state as it seemed to become one with the water.
It was in that state that the presence returned.
Daphne sensed it, but she was careful not to respond. Part of the reason it had disappeared so quickly before might have been her reaction to it, her panic and instant-defense mode. Instead, she kept her eyes closed, kept her breathing level. This time it hung around.
She could feel it observing her. Trying not to push back too much on that observance, Daphne returned the favor, probing, trying to piece out what it was. It was demonic, that was certain. She was intimately familiar with the feeling of Gehenna on so many different levels it was almost ridiculous.
The energy was dark, rumbling and powerful, but restrained or perhaps untapped. It felt…curious, almost innocent, but that innocence was not enough to outweigh the bloodlust Daphne could sense lurking just beneath the surface. She focused harder. It was kin of Azazel.
The instant that name came to mind, the presence departed. Daphne hunted after it, trying to locate the direction of its retreat but it didn't feel as though it had run away at all. It was more like a door had closed and then both it and the frame had disappeared altogether. Daphne got out of the bath.
She found Rin lounging on the engawa with his feet kicked up on a small table, his hands tucked behind his head and all the windows open to the outside. The man was a goddamn furnace, so now the whole room was cold. Shivering, Daphne walked over and slid one set of the windows shut.
Rin sat up. "I always forget how cute you look in a yukata."
"That demon came back."
"What? In the bath?"
Daphne nodded. "It's kin of Azazel. And it's powerful. Even if it doesn't have anything to do with the Hiroshima field office reports, it's probably good to have it on our radar." Unconsciously, she cinched the belt of her yukata tighter around her waist.
Rin stood and took her hands. "Can't catch a break, can we?"
Laughing a short and bitter laugh, Daphne shook her head. "Have we ever expected to?"
They smiled at each other for a moment—an ex-Army captain and the half-demon son of Satan. There wasn't a universe in which two individuals in their situation would ever have been given a break. Rin kissed Daphne's forehead and let go of her hands to collect his own yukata and head to the bath himself.
"I'll keep my feelers out for it," he said, poking his head back through the door. Then, "Maybe we should write all this down?"
Daphne nodded. "I'll start a log."
"You're the best."
She laughed. "I try—oh." Daphne suddenly remembered she was carrying Kurikara. Hurrying across the room, she summoned the sword from its seal and handed it to Rin. "Just in case."
"Just in case," he replied with a nod and departed.
Outside, the rain eased as Daphne grabbed a notebook and sat down on the engawa. She pulled up the table Rin had had his feet on, shivering even with half the windows closed, and went to work. She drafted a list of the times she'd felt the presence, made notes of what it had felt like at each occurrence. Eventually Rin came back from his bath and added his own thoughts to the mix. Daphne wrote them down.
"I didn't notice anything in there," he said. "I wonder if it's more interested in you."
She looked up at him, her eyes flat. "Don't say that."
He laughed, leaning over the back of the chair to kiss her. "Well, I mean, I'm more interested in you, so…"
A knock sounded on the door and Chiba said on the other side, "Dinner is ready, if you would like to come now," so Daphne got up and followed Rin out. They ate quietly in another room at the inn, and it was quite possibly the biggest meal Daphne had had in years. Rin somehow managed to clean all of his dishes regardless. When they returned to their room, the tea table had been moved to the side and bed rolls were laid out. The rain had stopped. It was just beginning to get dark.
"Kind of a funny juxtaposition, huh?" Rin said, going to the windows to shut them.
"What is?"
"We're here for our anniversary, but it feels more like a field mission." He chuckled, sliding the glass panes into place and locking the latches.
Daphne sighed. He wasn't wrong, but she didn't want to dwell on it. They still had the whole weekend ahead of them, and the work week would begin right after that, same as it always did. They would deal with the demon then, on Monday, when they were supposed to. Right now, she wanted to relax.
Stepping back toward the door, Daphne switched off the lights. The room filled instead with the reflection of the moonlight off the wet leaves in the garden. In front of the windows, Rin looked back at her, his blue eyes bright in the new darkness, and smiled. She reached her hand out to him, and they met in the center of the room, wrapping their arms around each other.
"Thank you," Daphne said with a kiss. "For everything."
Rin held her face in his hands, studying a moment while he stroked her cheek, then he kissed her—long and deep and slow.
"Thank you," he said softly, pulling back.
Daphne didn't let him stay that way for long, lifting her arms around his neck to press close. She kissed him, and he kissed her back, and all she could do was smile as their lips met again and again. His hands drifted to her waist, untied the belt. They shifted back to her shoulders to slide them free of the fabric while her own hands undid the knot at his hips.
"I love you, Rin," she whispered.
"And I love you," he whispered back.