"So much happening so fast at once. Even staying in the background, it was overwhelming."
- Shinobu Maehara; 'On a Wing and a Storm'

Chapter V:
Kyousei Fukuin

July 27, 2006
Hinata Apartments, Hinata, Japan
0713 hours, local time

Thunder rumbled across the hot springs city as a mass of black storm clouds swiftly filled the sky, moving as if under compulsion. The sky darkened as the clouds spread across its width and breadth, matching the dark mood at the Hinata. As another lightning bolt slashed across the sky, rain began to fall from the clouds, a steady stream of water that began to wash away the blood pooling on the laundry deck.

Motoko ignored the rain, paying no heed as her night shirt and hair were soaked through almost immediately. She stared down at Seno's body before her, and the only word that could have properly described her emotional state was numb. Tears flowed freely from her eyes, mixing with the rainwater washing over her face. Her hair hung around her face like a black curtain, and she shivered where she sat. One would be hard-pressed to tell if it were from the cold or her breaking heart.

She felt a hand gently grasp her right shoulder and looked up to see Naru standing over her, shielding the raven-haired swordswoman from the rain as much as she could with her own body. Keitaro stood at his girlfriend's side, and the others had retreated down into the relatively-dry building. "Come on, Motoko," Naru said softly. "We need to get you inside before you catch a cold."

"I don't care!" she sobbed, shaking her head violently. "If I freeze to death out here, it just means I get to be with him again."

"Don't say that," Keitaro said, kneeling down in front of her and tilting her chin up with his fingers. "Seno wouldn't want you to give up your life. He would want you to live on."

"That's easy for you to say," she whispered, not meeting his eyes. "You're not the reason he's…" She grimaced and tightly shut her eyes, swallowing hard. She refused to say the word, clinging to some futile hope that if she didn't admit it, it wasn't true.

In their shared grief, none of them noticed the presence of the new arrival stepping up onto the laundry deck, shielding herself from the rain with an umbrella. She had anticipated that she would arrive to such a scene, but the sight of Seno lying prone on the deck, and Motoko sitting in a pool of his blood, nearly pushed Mutsumi to tears. "I'm… too late…" she whispered.

Keitaro heard her. He looked up, blinking in surprise at the sight of their friend standing there. It seemed she had a knack for showing up out of the blue in times like these. "Mutsumi?"

Naru looked up at his query, but Motoko didn't. She lowered her head again, staring blankly at the deck on the other side of Seno's body. Her hands trembled as she clenched them tightly into fists.

Not responding to Keitaro, or to Naru's questioning expression, Mutsumi swiftly crossed the deck and knelt down on the other side of Seno's body, not moving until Motoko slowly looked up and met her eyes. "Motoko," she said calmly, "do you still love him?"

The swordswoman winced at that simple question. "Of course I love him," she replied. "I wouldn't be willing to die to be with him again otherwise."

At this, Naru discreetly sought Motoko's sword and hid it behind her.

"And so you would love to have him back, wouldn't you?"

Motoko took a deep, stuttering breath, feeling fresh tears sliding down her cheeks. "Mutsumi, please do not patronize me. It is difficult enough for me to even begin accepting that he is gone."

The Okinawan native smiled warmly. "I don't mean to patronize you, Motoko," she replied. "I simply wished to know how much you want him back."

A rueful smile twisted Motoko's lips for a moment. "I would give everything I have, and everything I am, to have him back," she said. "I never before realized how much I need him."

"Let me help you."

Motoko's face snapped up and she locked eyes with the older woman. "What?"

"We still have time," she said mysteriously. "I'll do everything I can to bring him back to you."

From anyone else, that statement would have been trite and utterly meaningless. But the calm confidence with which Mutsumi made it, coupled with the love and warmth flowing from the woman, touched something deep inside Motoko, causing her hopes to soar.

At that point, the physical and emotional stress of all that had occurred in the last several hours caught up to the swordswoman, overwhelming her stamina and dragging her into the black depths of unconsciousness.

Distantly, she felt Naru catch her as she fell, and heard Mutsumi say, "Naru, I'll help you get her inside. Keitaro, please bring Seno."

Motoko opened her eyes to find herself in a void. All around her was nothing but whiteness, as far as the eye could see. She could feel the solid surface that she was laying upon, but as she looked around, she noticed that there was no form of differential between the ground and the sky. For all she knew, she could have been in a room with immeasurable dimensions, or in the even-more-immeasurable depths of her own subconscious.

She stood up slowly, turning in a full circle in a futile attempt to get her bearings. She dared not even move; who knew if the ground was uneven, or if the complete lack of anything differentiating 'floor' from 'walls' would disorient her.

Suddenly, she felt a very familiar presence as a pair of strong arms enfolded her from behind. Her eyes widened in surprise and she let out a shocked gasp. "Seno?"

"It's me," his warm, comforting voice cooed into her ear. A strong shiver coursed down her spine.

Almost immediately, she realized that this could only be a dream. But even still, she could feel the warmth of his body surrounding her, feel the comforting embrace of his arms, feel his body pressed against her back. For a dream, it felt very real, and that only made it hurt worse. She lowered her head and squeezed her eyes shut, sobbing quietly.

"Why…?" she asked no one in particular. "Why must I feel this dream so vividly? Is it not enough that I won't be able to feel you hold me ever again? Why must I be punished so?"

Seno was silent for several moments as he began to sway back and forth in place, gently rocking her in his arms. He lowered his head and placed a soft kiss on her right shoulder. "The way I see it," he said, "this is like that part in Final Fantasy X-2 when Yuna fell into the Farplane and Tidus led her out." He paused. "Well, wait a second, no. He didn't get to say anything to her then; all he did was use his ghostly-ness to make a path for her out of the Farplane…"

Despite everything, Motoko smiled. "You're rambling again," she said, then took in a deep breath. "I guess it proves that I really am seeing you, though. Did you give me this dream?"

"Mhmm," he answered, nodding slowly. "I wanted to see you. I'm sorry if this is only hurting you more."

A solitary tear broke from her left eye, sliding down her face. "Damn it, did Keitaro learn his selflessness from you?" she asked rhetorically. "I killed you, for God's sake, and still you worry about hurting me."

"I love you," he replied simply. "Your happiness is all that will ever matter to me."

Shame flooded her body, and she instinctively leaned back into him for comfort. She felt his arms tighten around her. "I cannot begin to express how sorry I am, and how ashamed I am," she said. "I should have listened to you, Seno. You did nothing to me. I didn't realize this until after that, that thing came out of you and told us what it did."

"I forgive you," he said. "Please don't hold yourself accountable for my death."

The next question burned at the tip of her tongue. It was something she was desperate to know the truth behind, and yet, was also terrified of learning the reasoning of. "Why… Why did you kill yourself?"

He squeezed her once, gently, before answering, "Because as long as I was alive, that thing was bound to my spirit. If I lived, it would have only become more and more powerful, and it would have been an even greater threat to you and the others. I had to die to unchain it from me."

"But… I could have destroyed it with the Zanmaken Ni-no-Tachi…" she began.

"No," he replied, shaking his head. "Even though I didn't even know it existed until last night, I know that it was too strong for you to destroy it with that technique."

"And so you sacrificed yourself to protect us," she whispered, understanding. "God, even now I don't even know how blessed I am to have been able to love you."

The swordsman smiled wistfully. "Don't put me on a pedestal, Motoko," he chided softly. "I'm far from perfect."

She nodded. "Even though it hurts now, I don't want to forget you," she said. "Will you continue to visit me in my dreams?"

"For you, Motoko, I would rearrange the heavens," he replied, and she knew that he meant every word. "But there was something else I wanted to tell you. Something about Mutsumi."

Motoko pursed her lips. "Yes. I remember she said she would try to bring you back."

"I don't want to get your hopes up…"

Her eyes widening, Motoko tore herself away from Seno and spun to face him. "You mean she really can?" she exclaimed, her heart racing.

"I'm not sure," he replied, dead serious. "She's not your everyday girl. She has a special aura about her. The best way I can think of to explain it is that she's sort of like Aeris, from Final Fantasy VII. You know, the ultimate healer and whatnot."

Reaching out, Motoko took his hands in both of hers and squeezed tightly. "But if there's even the slightest chance that she can bring us back together in the real world, I would do anything to make it happen."

Smiling, Seno leaned forward and softly pressed his lips to hers. "Believe, my beautiful Motoko."

1022 hours, local time

She heard thunder rumble outside. The room she came to in was darkened, all its doors and windows closed, and was lit only by the faint glow of unscented incense candles. As she laid quietly wherever she had been set, she heard rain pelting the building, and took a small measure of comfort in the soothing sound.

The first thing she took notice of was the fact that she was laying in a futon, with the blanket wrapped securely around her. A cold compress was on her forehead, and aside from the moisture it created, she seemed to be well dried off. That was a good thing, she decided. If Seno and Mutsumi were both correct in their belief that he could be brought back, she didn't want to be sick when it happened.

Looking to her right, she saw Keitaro sitting on the floor near her futon, leaning back against the wall with his eyes closed, obviously asleep. Naru laid on the floor beside him, her head resting in his lap, and was likewise asleep. By the looks of things, the two of them had been watching over her. She would have to remind herself to thank them later.

Turning to her left, she saw Seno's body laid flat on the ground a few feet away from her. On the far side of him was Mutsumi, kneeling down at his side, her hands clasped together in a praying position before her face, and her eyes closed. A faint, barely-visible white aura surrounded her, drifting through the air as she seemed to be trying to direct it toward the fallen swordsman.

In absolute silence, Motoko watched the watermelon-loving anemic as she prayed and guided the aura toward Seno. Looking at her positioning, coupled with her outfit and the length and style of her hair, Seno's description of her as a real-life Aeris rang through her mind. It certainly appeared to be a striking coincidence.

It's a good thing we don't know anybody with long, silver hair and an eight foot long sword, she thought dryly.

Knowing that she could do almost nothing to help Mutsumi, she laid back on the futon and stared up at the ceiling, blinking slowly. As her eyes drifted around the room, she caught sight of one of the posters hanging on the wall. It featured a formation of starfighters from the Old Republic in orbit around Coruscant, and brief data boxes pertaining to the pilots. It was a poster from the latest Star Wars movie, Revenge of the Sith. Clearly, they were in Seno's room.

For no apparent reason, she snuggled herself tighter in the futon, wrapping her hands up in the covers and pulling them tight underneath her chin. Her movements apparently caught Keitaro's attention, as the third-year ronin opened his eyes and blinked them into focus, then looked down at Motoko.

"Oh, you're awake," he whispered, trying not to disturb Mutsumi's actions. "Are you feeling any better?"

Motoko smiled then, a genuine smile. "Yes," she replied. "Thank you for watching over me."

Keitaro smiled as well. "Don't worry about it. Anything for a friend in need."

Nodding silently, she returned to watching Mutsumi's attempt at…whatever it was she was attempting to do in order to bring back Seno. She had no righteous idea what the older woman was doing, but she could clearly sense a large amount of energy emanating from Mutsumi. It was similar to a ki aura, but substantially different in that it couldn't possibly be confused for ki.

Outside, she heard a final rumble of thunder, and then the omnipresent patter of the rain against the building vanished. Mutsumi opened her eyes slowly and focused on the other three figures occupying the room. She frowned slightly, seeming to be thinking about something.

"Is everything alright, Mutsumi?" Keitaro asked.

She looked up at him and tilted her head to one side, smiling in that way of hers. "I'm sorry to be such a bother, but we need to go outside again," she said. "So if you could please wake up Naru."

Even though she figured they wanted her to stay in bed, Motoko pushed back the covers of the futon and pulled herself up into a sitting position. Keitaro started to protest, but a threatening glare from the swordswoman silenced him, and he wisely turned his attention to awakening Naru.

Picking up on this, Mutsumi giggled. "Motoko can come with us," she said. "It will help her, too."

Just then, Naru drew in a deep breath and opened her eyes, looking around sleepily as she stretched. "Hm? What?"

"Mutsumi wants us to go back outside," Keitaro explained. "No idea why, though."

Nodding, Naru sat up, then climbed to her feet and stretched up on the balls of her feet, lifting her arms high above her head as she yawned. "Okay, then," she replied, then looked toward her older friend. "No luck yet, then?"

The Okinawan native shook her head. "No, not yet," she answered. "But I have one last idea."

Minutes later, the group had transferred back up to the laundry deck. Seno's body was laid in the center of the deck, with Motoko kneeling on one side of him, Mutsumi standing on the other. Keitaro and Naru stood against the railing nearby, out of the way.

"Let's see if I remember how to do this right…" Mutsumi muttered to herself.

As Motoko watched, she sensed that aura blaze up from within Mutsumi, expanding outward and up toward the heavens. Suddenly, rain began to fall again. Almost immediately, Motoko realized that the water falling on her felt different than a normal rainstorm. Each drop of liquid that hit her seemed to revitalize and strengthen her.

Mutsumi clasped her hands together in front of her once again, then lifted her eyes toward the sky. A brilliant light pierced the gathered storm clouds, shining down on the patio deck, chasing away all the shadows. Bathed in the light, Motoko and Keitaro felt immense, immeasurable warmth and comfort, more than they had ever even dreamed of being capable of feeling.

For Naru, however, not only did she share in those feelings, but she also felt an astounding sense of familiarity, as if this wasn't the first time she had experienced this. She looked up toward the sky, directly toward the light, feeling a sense of purpose wash over her.

Two separate occasions of ripping fabric broke the relative silence of the scene, followed shortly by Keitaro letting out a startled exclamation and leaping away from Naru. Motoko looked over to see the cause of the commotion, and her eyes widened in absolute disbelief. There, bathed in the light falling from the sky, Naru stood staring into the heavens, her arms spread out to her sides in a gesture of welcome and comfort.

And protruding from her back was a pair of beautiful, feathered wings. They were as white as pure sugar, and the tips arced half a foot above the top of her head before sweeping back down for the lowest-reaching feather to be even with her knees.

Needless to say, both Motoko and Keitaro were absolutely dumbfounded. "N-Naru…" the Hinata kanrinin muttered.

Naru lowered her gaze from the heavens and looked toward her boyfriend, her face almost literally aglow with a serene beauty that none had ever seen before. She smiled warmly at him. "It looks like you were right about me all along," she said. "I am an angel."

At that moment, Keitaro didn't know whether to prostrate himself before her or try to say something suave in reply. It was just as well that he couldn't decide; his mind had taken leave of its ability to form coherent speech, and his motor functions were in the process of rebooting.

Turning toward him with a soft sweep of her wings, Naru crossed the handful of steps separating them and leaned forward, wrapping her arms around his neck as she kissed him. The sheer amount of love flowing out of her and into him debilitated him even further. At this point, he was almost certain he would fail any government-sponsored sobriety test.

After just a moment's time, Naru pulled away from him and turned back toward Mutsumi, moving over to stand beside the dark-haired woman. She looked down at Seno's body, then lifted her head up and stared into the falling rain.

Suddenly, it was as if someone had pressed a universal pause button. The falling rain had been completely stopped wherever the individual drops had been falling. Naru reached up her right hand and gently touched one of the drops of rain about to land on Seno's body. The raindrop in question glowed white, and Motoko could sense a powerful holy aura now contained in that one drop of moisture.

With a long blink of her eyes, Naru unfroze the rain, and the enchanted droplet splashed down onto Seno's chest. For several moments, there was absolutely no movement on the deck except for the rain. Then, Motoko belatedly realized that she could sense something new, something very familiar. Tentatively, she reached out two fingers of her right hand toward Seno's neck.

As her fingers made contact with his skin, and she felt the pulsing beneath her fingers, her heart skipped a beat. "He's alive!" she gasped, then looked up at Naru and Mutsumi, her eyes once again overflowing with tears. "Thank you! Thank you both! I'll never be able to repay you for giving him back to me."

Naru smiled and laid a hand on the swordswoman's shoulder. "You do not owe me anything, Motoko," she said. "All I wish is that you two will be happy together."

Motoko slid her hand away from Seno's neck, reaching down to grab his hand and hold it tightly. She relished the warmth beginning to return to his hand, and felt her spirit soar when his fingers curled around hers. "We will," she said with a smile.

Beside her, Seno groaned and opened his eyes. He laid still for a moment while his vision focused, then he looked around the deck. "I guess I'm still dead," he muttered. "Motoko's with me now, Mutsumi just performed Great Gospel, and Naru has wings. So I guess this is my version of Heaven, with the pop culture generator working overtime."

Keitaro chuckled nervously and scratched the back of his head, finally recovered from the sight of Naru as an angel. "No, you're alive," he told his friend. "Thanks to Naru and Mutsumi. Welcome back."

The swordsman sat up and scooted toward Motoko, slipping his left arm around her neck and gently pulling her back against him. He rested his chin on her right shoulder and said quietly, "It's good to be back."

I missed this, Motoko thought, leaning back into his warmth as she let go of his hand and held onto his arm with both of her hands. "Everyone is going to be shocked," she said, "but at the same time, they'll be happy." She took a deep breath and leaned her head back, focusing on the simple sensation of the rain falling on her face.

"I hope they'll all forgive me for what I did," he said. "I hope you will, too."

Mutsumi took a moment to study the attentiveness of the couple, determined that they were no more aware of what was going on around them than the man on the moon, and motioned for Keitaro and Naru to silently follow her. The pair caught on immediately, and the three of them discreetly left Motoko and Seno to themselves.

"It is I who should be begging for forgiveness," the swordswoman replied quietly. "Theirs, and yours." A faint smile tugged at the corner of her mouth. "But, since you see yourself at fault, then know that I cannot but forgive you."

"Even hearing that, the knowledge of what happened to you still burns at my soul."

She went very still, moving only to look back over her shoulder at him. "Seno, that was not your fault," she said. "You had no way of knowing what that…thing was planning to do. I do not hold you responsible for what it did to me. In fact, I feel more secure, knowing that you love me more than life itself. So please, don't continue to condemn yourself over something you could not control. We will make the best of it, and it will come no closer to destroying us than it already has."

Gently, she pulled herself from his arm, then turned around to directly face him, staring into his eyes with a determination so solid that it matched the folded steel of her blade for strength. "I will not lose you again, Seno," she said. "You are too important to me. I love you. Now and forever."

Before he could reply, Motoko leaned forward and pressed her lips against his, kissing him with the full force of her relief that she had not lost him forever. As she closed her eyes, she could feel a shift in their positioning that indicated he was laying back against the deck so as not to suddenly lose his balance and fall. She wrapped her arms around him, not breaking the kiss, as the rain fell around them, ignored by the couple. For the two of them, it was a kiss of new beginnings. A kiss of how things should be.

A kiss of return.

Meanwhile, Mutsumi, Naru, and Keitaro had made their way down to the commons room of the apartment, where the other tenants were all waiting anxiously for news concerning Mutsumi's sudden belief that she could revive their fallen friend. Kitsune was the first to notice them coming down the stairs from the second floor.

"Well?" she asked. "Did it work?"

With a bright smile on her face, Mutsumi nodded. "Yes," she answered. "With Naru's help, I brought Seno back."

Su jumped up from her seat and leapt across the room in a single bound, perching cat-like on the stairway banister. "Really?" she asked in her usual hyper tone. "What did Naru do?"

"She used her special powers to help me, of course," Mutsumi replied, laughing lightly.

"Naru has special powers?" Su asked, hopping down from the railing to dart around the Tokyo University hopeful, poking and prodding at her randomly. "What special powers does Naru have?"

"Show them, Naru," Mutsumi said.

With a rueful smile, Naru closed her eyes and lifted her arms out away from her side. A barely-visible shiver coursed over her, and then without warning, her wings unfurled from her back, spreading out sideways until the tips extended farther out than her arms. Her wings retracted at the same time she lowered her arms, shifting in and down to their 'resting' state as she opened her eyes and took a deep breath.

"Whew, that's tiring," she said, then looked at the reactions of her fellow tenants.

Shinobu had outright fainted, and was sprawled on her back on the couch.

Kitsune stared with both eyes wide open, and was looking back and forth between her friend and the sake bottle in her hand. After a moment of this, she threw the bottle into the kitchen, where it promptly landed in the sink and shattered.

"I'm never touching a bottle again," she announced, as if that would explain to her why her high school friend had suddenly grown wings.

Su was already behind Naru, poking and prodding at her wings, and gently pulling on the white feathers. The attentions caused Naru's wings to twitch automatically, and her right wing brushed over Su's head. "They're soft!" the hyperactive girl announced. "Like pillows, only better!"

Haruka's jaw had dropped open, and her cigarette was currently smoldering on the floor. She stamped it out seemingly out of instinct, but simply stared at Naru and had to forcibly refrain from crossing herself. She shook her head as if to clear it, and managed to return her expression to its usual neutral look. "So, I suppose there's some sort of explanation for this?" she asked. "I mean, those wings are real, aren't they?"

"They are," Naru replied with a nod, awkwardly attempting to fold her right wing around in front of her. She was still getting used to having them, after all, and hadn't even begun to master the muscle control necessary to move them. "I feel as if I've been an angel my entire life, but it's just that my powers had been sealed until recently."

"That sounds accurate," Keitaro said, tapping his chin with his finger. "I never noticed the wing scars on your back before we started dating."

Naru's face swiftly reddened as she realized exactly how he'd managed to see her bare back before Mutsumi had discovered the scars on her back. Kitsune and Haruka caught the blush, and a few days ago, they would've expected Naru to flatten Keitaro just on principal. But instead, as they were coming to expect, she reacted in a more playful manner, flicking her right wing out to smack Keitaro lightly in the face with it.

"Hentai," she accused with a smile. "You looked pretty hard for them, didn't you?"

He sneezed as several of her feathers tickled his nose, then laughed. "It certainly wasn't my intention, but I never complained," he replied.

She shook her head and folded her wing back behind her. "I think my powers were probably sealed because I was so violent and distrustful," she said, her expression sobering. Then she smiled, and stepped to the side toward Keitaro, wrapping her arms around his neck. "But thanks to Kei, and Seno's intervention, I'm not as mean as I used to be."

"Ara, you weren't mean, Naru," Mutsumi said, smiling warmly. "You were just shy, and were afraid that you wouldn't be a good girlfriend for Keitaro."

"That was no excuse for being so mean to him all the time," Naru replied, stepping around to Keitaro's back and all but draping herself over him. "Always calling him names and belittling all the good things he did for us, and telling him he had no hope, and hitting him all the time." Her expression wavered, and she seemed to be about to cry. "It's…really no wonder why I lost my powers…"

"Hey, hey, hey, what's that sad face for?" a male voice that was not Keitaro's called from behind them on the first floor. "You're doing a bad job of convincing me I'm not dead."

"Seno?" Haruka called.

"Seno!" Kitsune and Su shouted at the same time.

At that, the swordsman appeared on the landing behind Naru and Keitaro, with Motoko at his side. He had changed out of his bloodied nightclothes and into his usual "Buddy Jesus" t-shirt and shorts, and there were no outward visible signs that he'd been dead just a few hours ago.

He grinned his trademark grin and raised his left hand in his usual greeting. "Yo," he said. "Sorry to worry everyone."

Haruka was the first to speak up. "What we really should be discussing is whether or not you are okay," she said.

"It's no big," he replied, waving it off. "Nothing a Phoenix Down couldn't fix."

Mutsumi giggled, Keitaro sighed, Naru and Haruka shook their heads, Kitsune snickered, and Motoko put her hand to her forehead. His death experience clearly hadn't changed his personality any.

He sobered suddenly. "Seriously, though, everything's fine now," he said. "Motoko and I sorted it all out. She doesn't blame me for what happened, and she managed to convince me to forgive myself."

"I would have rather been pulling teeth," the swordswoman muttered. "My own, with rusty pliers."

"Your wit's improving," he told her with a grin.

Kitsune chose that moment to butt in. "Well, Seno's back from the dead and everything's peachy here again," she said. "You know what that means…"

"Party!" Su finished, jumping down to the first floor and running around the room excitedly.

"What happened to swearing off booze?" Haruka asked, deadpan.

"Well…you know that I wasn't going to hold up to that in the first place," the fox replied, sweating. "So let's just get on with the fun!"

2108 hours, local time

Later that night, with most of the Hinata residents pleasantly smashed, Seno wandered outside to the front porch of the apartments, where Mutsumi sat staring up at the moon, nursing a bottle of fairly-weak Bicardi beer. The swordsman himself was a far cry from sober, but he mostly stuck to the same sort of liquor that Mutsumi was consuming, and thus still retained most of his higher functions.

"Get a little too wild in there for you?" he asked her.

The watermelon-loving anemic looked up at him and smiled warmly. "No, I just wanted to sit and think for a while," she replied, a serious note in her voice that conflicted with the intoxicated blush on her face.

"Mind some company?"

"Not at all."

The swordsman seated himself beside her at a respectable distance, then stared down into the partially-empty bottle in his hand. "Man, some of the mess that happened today sounds more like something out of one of those wacky fanfictions I read," he said after a few moments. "Some ghost thing takes my form and rapes Motoko, I get myself killed over it, then I'm revived by what I still swear up and down is Aeris' Great Gospel overdrive, and now Naru turns out to have been an angel all this time."

"It is rather confusing, isn't it?" she asked, still staring at the moon. "I wouldn't believe it, if I hadn't experienced it myself."

He gave her an evaluative stare. "You know something."

"Maybe I do," she answered cryptically.

"Tell me," he said softly, but there was no mistaking the urgency or the authoritative tone in his voice. "That thing is still a threat to us, to Motoko. I won't stand for it. I need to know about it."

Sighing, Mutsumi leaned forward and rested her arms on her upraised knees, looking down at the ground between her feet. "How good is your history?"

"Japanese, American, pop culture, or other?"

She smiled. "Japanese."

"Passable."

"Do you remember the Meiji revolution?"

He laughed. "Of course I do. Nobody in Japan doesn't know about that. What about it?"

"Do you recall the accounts of the hitokiri, the manslayers?"

"Are you talking about historical hitokiri, or the Rurouni Kenshin brand? Because I was never really interested in Kenshin. I just couldn't get into it."

"The historical hitokiri. Specifically, Kawakami Gensai."

Seno leaned back until he was resting on his elbows, looking off into the distance with an unfocused glaze to his eyes. "I remember vaguely that he's the guy they based Kenshin off of, and that he was supposedly the deadliest swordmaster in all of Japan."

Mutsumi nodded. "Kawakami Gensai was one of the four hitokiri manslayers that tried to prevent Western influence from making its way into Japan," she explained. "He was one of the few that actually lived past the end of the Meiji revolution, but a few years later he was executed under false charges."

"Sucks to be him."

"This is the part where things take a sudden turn toward the strange and supernatural," Mutsumi said.

"You really think after all that's happened today that I'm not willing to put a little faith into the things I can't see with my own eyes?"

The Okinawan native chuckled. "It seems that, after his death, Kawakami was filled with so much resentment that he couldn't rest. His spirit remained on Earth, and for reasons unknown, it binds itself to the souls of powerful swordsmen or martial artists."

"Wait a second," Seno interrupted. "You're telling me this guy is an Unsent?"

"More or less."

"Figures. Next thing you know, we'll be seeing summoners and whatnot wandering around."

"It does appear that a lot of your favorite games seem to have quite the substantial basis, or perhaps an affect on, reality, doesn't it?"

"Seriously. So, you were saying? Why does he bind himself to powerful fighters?"

"Presumably, it's to siphon their natural ki and empower itself. Most of the time, the host isn't even aware of its presence."

Seno scowled. "So I could've had this frelling parasite in me for my entire life and I wouldn't have ever known it?"

"It's very likely. After the host dies, sometimes through means that the spirit has caused, it is unbound and roams until it finds another suitable host. From what I can gather, its ultimate goal is to gather enough power to be able to fully manifest itself, and likely avenge itself on what it perceives to be a great betrayal by Japan."

The swordsman snickered. "Heh, if he hated Western influence so much, I bet he had to really be hating living with me for so long." Then a thought occurred to him, and he scowled again. "Any indications that he's ever done what he did to Motoko to anyone before?"

Mutsumi shook her head. "No, and that's troubling. The fact that it was able to manifest itself and even take on your form suggests that, if it isn't already at the full power, it's very close. You are correct; the spirit of Kawakami is still a sincere threat to all of us."

"We're going to have to fight it, huh?" he asked rhetorically, looking up at the moon. "I'm getting a bad feeling about this. I bet it'll be really tough. Some of us may not even survive."

"That's always a possibility," Mutsumi whispered, her voice carrying a deep note of sadness. "I don't want to lose any of my friends…"

"Neither do I, but it's something we have to deal with," he replied. He looked at the bottle in his hand, then tossed it aside and stood up. "Well, if there's the chance that some of us may end up dying while fighting this thing, there's something I want to take care of first."

Tilting her head to the side, Mutsumi looked up at him. "Something to do with Motoko, I wager?"

He chuckled. "You know, between the way you dress, your hairstyle, your attitude, your perceptiveness, and the fact that you revived me with a heavenly rain, now I'm really convinced that you're a living, breathing Aeris." He nodded to her. "But yeah, it has to do with Motoko. Starting tomorrow, I'm going on a little trip to Kyoto."