Ouoo. It has a second chapter. How thrilling. The ongoing following of the fishes...

My little lists of warnings: Mizunagi's being innuendo-laden, and Ama-Inu and Kasei have some really weird discussion habits. Not to mention Kaoru's possible magazines (Er. What?)...Still almost disturbingly clean compared to my usual fare, just with the little dark edges still on... (I ask you: Who else warns you of possible magazines? ...Whatever that means...)

Also, there are (almost) no fishes in this chapter. Guaranteed. Just a little sushi. (Huzzah for yellowtail.)

Note conspicuous lack of disclaimer in ongoing support of critical thinking skills and Nodjmet-san, both:

"Would you like me to make some pigeons?" --Dream of the Endless, in conversation with Death

Hark. I am a fascinating person with great tastes in graphic novel, though not in pets.

(To answer the semi-related question before it comes: My favorite is actually Despair, but she doesn't get the great lines. And my pets are cockroaches. American cockroaches. Largest indoor pest in North America. About the size of my thumb, the adult ones. Nice pets, though not exactly cuddly. And in semi-plentiful supply indoors during the rainy season.)

-o-O-o-O-o-

Tabula Rasa (n)

1. (In Philosophy) the mind prior to experiences:

the mind at birth, regarded as having no innate conceptions

2. Chance to start afresh: an opportunity to make a clean break or a fresh start

(Mid-16th century from the Latin

meaning literally "scraped table" or "blank slate")

-o-O-o-O-o-

-II: Electromagnetics-

-o-O-o-

Mizunagi rapped his knuckles against the closed door. He could make out dim strains of music within.

A muffled female voice wafted through the door louder than the garbled lyrics, "Who is it?"

Mizunagi blinked then smirked. "It's just me, Sweet Pea. Mind opening up?" A pause, then the door opened a crack to reveal a luminous eye.

The rings in her irises were dark against the foreigner-pale aquaeous color--such that her eyes appeared striped like the rings in a cut-down tree stump. She blinked, her tiny mouth pointing its darkened lips downward. Mizunagi beamed coldy but nonetheless almost amiably down at her. If the soldiers of a mindbreaker appeared before Kaoru's eyes as points of brilliance in the old days, Mizunagi would have been a light, yes, but an electric light--brilliant but with an utter lack of warmth.

"Something you're hiding?" Mizunagi asked almost innocently. The crack in the doorway narrowed. "No." Kaoru's voice was flat, defensive. "I wanted to sleep." She added in that same guarded and very deliberate, almost ominous tone she had. Mizunagi's eyes glittered. "Ah. Sleep. Yes. Magazines are good for sleep. Something more interesting than the Gothic and Lolita Bible this time?"

Kaoru was very quiet and the crack in the open door narrowed further, striped eye looking out suspiciously.

"Don't worry. I won't say a word to Kuga."

The door seemed to consider this, then opened quietly. Kaoru's lacy, petticoated black skirt was rumpled, and her eyes were rimmed in red. "You're making fun of me. Stop it." Kaoru muttered. Mizunagi's lips parted and he grinned, putting a hand to her head, the rumpled, flaxen curls slightly cool against his fingertips. "Don't be so worried. Porn's perfectly normal at your age. And I make fun of everyone, but I'd stop any time you'd like. You only have to ask." he said quietly, with his cold smile.

There was a faint tremor on his powers, the uncertainty of a tiny child handling a violin for the first time, a graceless fumbling on the strings, nothing like the sensation of being handled by his master's mind before... Then it stopped. All through it, his smile gave no tremor, no indication he'd even noticed.

How dull. How boring it all was. Weak women weren't his thing, that much was sure. He almost wanted to flood back at her with his psychic powers and try to reconnect the bond himself, but he certainly couldn't do that with the rest of the group so fearful. They would kill him for it.

What a pain. What a boring pain...

Kaoru peered up at him with that hostile, sullen suspicion of hers, then pushed away his hand. "What did you want, Mizunagi?" Mizunagi curled his lips into a smile, and raised his palms upwards. "There's no need to treat me so nastily, doll." Kaoru's eyes snapped up angrily. "Don't call me that. I'll never be a doll!" Mizuangi smiled through it all. "Oh. Sorry." He bent his knees slightly, resting his hands on them, more on the girl's level now. "Just such a pretty little woman, with such shiny golden hair and pretty little cheeks. I must've forgotten myself there." Kaoru's face twisted. "Stay back, Mizunagi. I'll tell..." She paused. "Kuga." Mizunagi grinned. He wondered dimly if the word, the name had a sense of rightness on her lips now. Remembering indeed. Not 'father' but 'Kuga'...

"Kuga wouldn't stop me. But I wouldn't do a thing to you, you know." He looked at her. "You're invincible, princess." Kaoru's face twisted and again, he felt a faint flicker as some part of her seemed to recall for an instant, and pick up all the strings, then...again the feeling faltered.

"Your words are worthless." She muttered with a scowl. "You're a liar, Mizunagi." Mizunagi's teeth flashed. "Oh certainly, but I'd never lie to you. You'd see right through me. You can trust me--I wouldn't dream of doing anything to you. And there's no harm in telling a woman she's pretty so long as its true and it doesn't go to her head." He peered at her with that unsettling, insidious smile of his. "Besides, I know well that you don't sleep with music on, princess." Kaoru's face twisted again. "Don't call me that either. It's...wrong." She hissed.

Mizunagi's eyes glittered. "Wrong?" he repeated with utter innocence wafting through his voice. Kaoru's brows knitted. "...Your words are worthless...and confusing." She muttered. "That's most ingracious of you." He replied with bemusement written in his lilting voice. "We all live for you in this house." Kaoru scowled at him. "You're giving me a headache."

"Cup of tea will take care of that, Sweet Pea. Kuga will have some ready quite soon in fact, if I am to be any judge." He proffered a hand. "Care to join us?"

Kaoru glowered at him. "...I want to talk to Father. I don't want to talk to you." She grumbled, massaging a temple with black-nailed fingertips. Mizunagi's teeth flashed. "You can do whatever you wish when you join us."

Kaoru looked at his offered hand, then scoffed, skirts swishing. "You make it sound as though I have no choice. I do what I please, Mizunagi."

"Don't you always..." He whispered bemusedly, and inaudibly.

Mizunagi watched her go, and grinned to himself before following her down.

If an average soldier was a light, then there was something to be said about the effect of that irresistably attractive force of magnetic charge upon your basic, everyday luminous mote. Photons were, after all, the energy that drove a molecule to movement and reaction.

But the difference was, Energy was neither created nor destroyed, and soldiers were not so fortunate.

She couldn't keep them captive forever and still expect the strength to move, and react, and exist.

-o-O-o-

Kuga noticed Kaoru's arrival so quickly it was almost sad. His eyes lit up. "Kaoru..." He looked at the pan in his hands. "Are you...hungry?" Kaoru frowned at him a moment, then glared back up at Mizunagi at the top of the stairs. "He didn't mention you were eating." Mizunagi grinned brazenly, eyes glittering. "The witty banter betwen us caused it to quite slip my mind." Kuga sighed. "He's been difficult all day. Pay him no mind."

"Even if she ignored me, she'd never leave my mind, Kuga." Mizunagi added with his heatless smile. Both Kuga and Ama-Inu tensed at that. Kasei ignored him. Kaoru gave Mizunagi such a look of annoyance that flowers would have withered, but...she didn't have her power any longer...a glare was simply a glare.

Kasei bowed his head formally. "Do ignore him. Welcome." He said softly, tonelessly.

She nodded back. Her eyes slipped to Ama-Inu. She frowned. "What happened to you?"

The massive man looked up, a cut of raw yellowtail halfway to his mouth. His lip twitched, exposing a fang. He scratched his matted hair. "...Sorta' slipped. Onna stairs." Kasei sipped his tea. "My fault, I'm afraid." He added quietly.

Kaoru looked at him. "What exactly did you do?"

Memory or not, age gaps and gender regardless, her voice was nothing less than imperious and commanding. It dictated obedience...

Kasei sipped at his tea again, and added without a change in his almost insubstantial flatness. "Arm wrestling."

But...the command no longer had a sting behind it, just as the striped eyes seemed to have lost a bit of their ferocity...

Ama-Inu's bruised and purpling nose twitched. "Tackle Arm Wrestling." He added in a growl. Kasei sipped, eyes shut, face serene. Kuga stared at them both, rather pale. The lie was so absurd that clearly his mind was formulating exactly what was the worst Kaoru could ask out of it. Mizunagi slipped beside her and with an easy smile added, "Aren't they funny? It's not actually fit for a lady's ears. He deserved it, though, believe me." Kuga actually groaned and Kaoru looked at him strangely. Mizunagi wasn't helping matters at all, and he knew it. Ama-Inu scowled at him around his fish. "Shut yor yap."

Kaoru actually glared at him. "I'm not some sheltered little doll. I already know." She glowered at Mizunagi savagely. "And how would you know what's fit for my ears? Don't make me laugh. I already know about them." The flippancy, the coldness of the statement made Kuga pale all the more terribly. Kasei actually lowered his tea. "Them?" He spoke simply.

"Why yes, whatever are you thinking of, sweet pea? The mind of a woman is both terrible and wonderful..." Mizunagi sighed almost dreamily, his smirk absolutely terrifying. Kaoru glared at him. "Shut up." She snapped.

Mizunagi's black eyes danced to her again, and he smiled, his maddening smile, never mind the fact that two of the other men present were sending him threats via the eyes--or at least trying to... Kasei was sipping his tea. His shoulder was bare of ink as though he had no care at all in the world.

Kuga placed a hand carefully on Kaoru's back. "He's...He's really been like this all day. You don't need to listen to him. I can't think of anything that might cause him to behave like this." He sighed almost helplessly. Kaoru only glared at him. "I don't care. He can shut up. I know all about those two, anyway. I always have."

Nobody dared to ask, 'How?' Kaoru wouldn't have been able to answer, and would have been angry, certainly, but worse still, they all knew, though she didn't. She was their master. But still, it was terrible on some level to hear a memory-free young woman could still have so much raw, uncontrolled insight. "I know all about them. So shut up." Kaoru added, glaring at Mizunagi, who gave another slient, congenial, maddening smile.

Kasei raised his eyebrows and lowered his dish of tea. His voice was mild, pleasantly questioning. "Do you really?" He murmured in his own little way, just barely above a whisper, but somehow more devastating than a shriek. "I wonder..." he whispered.

Kaoru looked at him, then her face flushed, and she stood, shoving aside the seat.

"K-Kaoru-!" Kuga exclaimed, hand out to stop her. She shoved it away--a child in a tantrum.

"I'm not hungry. I'm not going to sit with all of you if you'll just sit here and mock me!" Kaoru shouted, storming back up the stairs.

Her door slammed shut with a final creak, and all was silent.

Kuga stood there, hand still outstretched, staring at the staircase with a look of utter unhappiness. "...Why did you do that?" He whispered in a near-moan. Ama-Inu, despite his basic blamelessness in the whole thing, was the only one to really look down guiltily. One could sooner outstare a snake than outstare either Mizunagi or Kasei.

Kasei calmly picked up his dish of tea, blowing on it dreamily. "She doesn't remember. Until she remembers, she knows nothing of me." Kuga turned on him with a look of exasperated anguish. "You didn't have to press that on her-" Kasei's eyes fixed on him, cutting him off as effectively as a knife to the throat. He lowered his teacup with a thud, scalding tea sloshing over his fingers, but he didn't notice. "She knows nothing of me. She could sit in voyeuristic background, and watch me in my every act and still know nothing of me." Ama-Inu was tensed, staring at Kasei's fingers. "Until she remembers calling me, and knows how to do so again, she knows nothing of me." Kasei added frostily, his black eyes hard. "No pressing of motives required. I have no motives. I have no need to care. Until she remembers, she is nothing to me, and I am nothing."

Mizunagi grinned. "Nothing to her, you mean. Nothing to her."

Kasei looked at him, "No." He said flatly. "I said exactly what I meant to say."

Kuga's hands trembled, and Mizunagi could see outrage in the man's eyes mingled with concern. The two seemed to be battling. As ever, Kuga would be caught still deciding whether to be angry, or comfort the man. Kasei left before the other could rally words. He had no patience for Kuga's waffling.

Ama-Inu looked gloomily at his food while the swordsman rose from his seat without another word and vanished into the house.

The demon met Kuga's eyes after a long moment, and answered the question there almost thoughtfully. "...You pissed him off." He said simply.

Kuga sighed, and the anger left his body in a cloud of remorse. Kuga really was too soft of a person, Mizunagi noted. His quietness hid that--always the first to apologize, and the first to give in. No backbone at all. Kaoru, even thinking she was his daughter, had no more respect for him than a queen had for a servant. "...I don't think he'll let me apologize." Kuga said in a sigh. "I still don't...agree with him, but I really didn't mean to upset him." The man looked down. "This must be hard for him...Deep down...he has the same fatal bond to her...that...can't be cut." He glanced at Mizunagi, who nodded in affirming, keeping his own thoughts of how pitiful the man was, how easily he came up with an excuse to make Kasei more human. How easily he tried to empathize and ended up always thinking his companions were more human, more gentle.

Like he was.

...Kuga was no soldier. He never would be. He too readily made soldiers into humans again.

"You only get one master." Mizunagi agreed in reply. That seemed to hearten Kuga. How pitiful he was...

Ama-Inu shrugged. "He'll be pissed for a while. Gotta let him be by himself then." Mizunagi grinned. "By himself? Not even with you?" Ama-Inu scratched his head, and opened his mouth to reply, then shut it, thinking for another moment before answering, with what seemed, unusual tact, uncertainty... "He doesn't...act right when he feels like that. It's...sorta not right to come in on him. I jus' leave him alone." Mizunagi pressed it. "So what? He can cry and think he's a horrible person? Beat on the mirror? Hate himself for all of it?" Ama-Inu looked at him, and scowled, gulping down another strip of yellowtail. "Tha'ss his business. None f'yours. I get him. Understan' n' stuff. Don' need to explain it. He'd wanna be alone." He scratched his head. "Wouldn' wanna be seen like that." Mizunagi's lip curled. "Seen? Showing emotion?" He pressed in a sickly saccharine tone.

The demon glared, and revealed a lethal yellow fang. "No. None 'f your business anyway. Kasei's not like that."

"Then what don't you want to see?" Kuga asked quietly, worry in his eyes.

Ama-Inu stopped, wiping his mouth. He seemed to think for a moment before he replied. "...Him bein' nothing." He said finally.

Kuga looked to Mizunagi, then sighed, shaking his head almost irritably. Clearly he couldn't make sense of that statement. "I'm going to go speak to master...Ama-Inu...if...Kasei feels better later, please tell him, I'm sorry." Ama-Inu gave a grunt and a nod. "Pro'lly not you. He's jus' like that. M' gonna tell him anyway, though..."

Mizunagi didn't move, only smiled, like a strangely malevolent, statue but for the movement of cigarette to lips, and the flow of smoke gushing from the end. Even when Ama-Inu stood and lumbered off after Kasei, he didn't move, only sat and smiled.

Particles in motion, tend to stay in motion.

And to cease that motion...was all but destructive trauma to a particle, even the coldest and most rigid.

-o-O-o-

The instant the door opened a blur of motion armed with a sword hurled itself at the intruder, but Ama-Inu was already ready, barelling him aside with a swipe of a brutish hand, sending the much frailer man stumbling. His massive fingers picked the sword out pf the other's fingers like it was a toothpick. Kasei didn't move, made no effort to defend himself when the much larger man pinned him, hands over his wrists, making them look tiny, inconsequential. Ama-Inu stared at him for a few moments. Kasei didn't even look at him, face blank, dull, perhaps even pretty. He seemed without will to even make the slightest show of struggle or life.

Ama-Inu looked at him, blinking his dark ruby eyes. "...You okay?" He muttered finally in his gruff, low voice, stinking breath on Kasei's face.

Kasei said nothing, face still turned away. His black eyes were fixed on the wall, unblinking.

"Fight with me." Ama-Inu growled, gripping his wrists. "Stop being stupid and sissy. Kuga said he's sorry."

Kasei finally made a faint noise that could have been a single, ironic laugh, and spoke, his tones monotonous. "Kuga wasn't the one I took issue with, as you well know." Kuga didn't have the heart to insult anyone. He meant well, in a quiet, and rather simple way. He was boring, and nondescript, only differentiated in his quiet tenderness. They both knew it. They all knew it. Kuga lived in his own world, thinking all people were basically good, and tender as well, at their cores. It was hard to take issue with a man like that...

Ama-Inu shrugged in annoyance. "So what? Why'd y'even care? He's sorry. Means he wants y' to feel better an' stuff." Kasei's eyes suddenly narrowed, and his face contorted in unusual anger. "I am emptied." He snarled, fingers curling into fists, head tilted to the side still. Ama-Inu snorted. "So? I'm empty an' stuff, too. Jus' some stupid stray. You an' me? We both did that. Bein' hungry..." Kasei's laugh was cold, mirthless and high. "The emptiness that surpasses physical hungers, Ama-Inu. I want to be used...brutalized, torn, flung out like a piece of meat and nothing else." There was an almost painful, wistful, angry edge to Kasei's faint voice. "She is nothing to me...and I am nothing. I am sick of all of this...sick to death... I have no use."

Ama-Inu frowned faintly. "Fight with me." He repeated in a more urging growl. Kasei's lips played a terrifying smile. "...Is that an offer?" Ama-Inu only looked at him blearily. "Fight with me!" He bellowed "If y'beat me..." He paused and shrugged. "Feels weird, really, so I don't wanna lose. Sofight with me." Kasei's eyes brightened, and he nodded, the strange curve of a grin to his lips. "When I beat you, then you'll...dominate me? Is that your atempt at consolation to me, Ama-Inu?" Ama-Inu shrugged, a fang biting into a lip. "I don't wanna lose." he repeated. "I'll do whatever." he said with a hint of reluctance. "Isn't really right, though, I mean...it's you. Shouldn't hafta bitch for me..." Kasei's lips twitched a mite higher.

Though he'd never say it, that was the exact reason Ama-Inu appealed to him--one person who wasn't interested in using him but still was interested. He didn't really quite understand why, or even really care about the particulars--whether it was something like love, or lust, or boredom, or whatever. It made no difference to him. Something about that reluctance, or that amibivalence for him made the demon an appealling choice to him. And he wanted to be used suddenly--that compusion he had, the hateful compulsion when he felt the inadvertant rejection of his unremembering master. He had a compulsion, a dreadful lust to feel a man use him again. Just to feel something...

...To forget that without his master, he had no purpose at all. Nothing to make him do anything...

Ama-Inu's staring ruby eyes were on him he could feel the dumb almost-animal look. He didn't rise to meet it, but he felt it nonetheless, felt the heat of the other's body close to him, smelled his stinking breath, and grimy skin. One man, one demon who could tear any of the men who'd ever had him to pieces. Somehow using him to fulfill those urges had a neatness, a pleasance to it, a fitting sort of vengeance. The mastery and subduing of all forces of might...

He'd won before--it was rare, but he'd won before... Ama-Inu was powerful, and ruthless in pressing his advantages, but hardly innovative and prone to stopping for a good gloat...

"And that is your...reason you give to me?" Ama-Inu shrugged, letting go of his hands. He peered down dumbly at Kasei. "Don' want y' to act all weird. That's all." Kasei's lips curled into a smile and his hands twisted in Ama-Inu's matted hair, bringing his head close enough to whisper in his ear. Ama-Inu grinned, and the roughness of a patch of stubble on his cheek grated like sandpaper on Kasei's skin. "Come on. Fight with me!"

"Alright... I'll play, puppy." Kasei whispered, lips against an ear, just as he planted both palms on the demon's chest and shoved him ruthlessly, leaping for his sword, tattoo flickering to life on his shoulder.

-o-O-o-O-o-

Chapter notes:

Kaoru's angry-girl-spoiled-child-edge really came through well in this I think. I was terribly pleased. And Mizunagi's being especially deviously playful here in his stir-the-pot way. (He's starting to sound like a mean sort of Tracer, though, which I hope to kind of tap down later.)

Kasei and Ama-Inu are weird together--kind of violent and kinky more than fluffy and tender. They're both pretty hard-edged characters after all...

Kasei's background as I see it pretty much gets filled in more or less effectively via mention in both Gluttony and Wrath. I gave him a pretty rough life--the brutal edges of his character are irreversably affected by that. There's no way about it. He's more fun that way.

I also liked making Ama-Inu kind of socially clumsy but still sort of discreet nonetheless. "I can't go back to master like this" pretty much inspired that. He seems to have a funny sort of pride which totally works out in compliment with Kasei's reclusive emptiness. He sort of gets it that you can't go in and just sit down like girls--sorry. I know. I am one, remember?--and talk it out. Sometimes you just leave people alone. Other times, you give them something to hit, or some way to deal with it without that whole 'express your feelings' business. And you don't ask for explanations, you're just there as a means to deal with it. And that's that. In some ways, that makes him pretty awesome. He doesn't ask what Kasei's feeling. He doesn't worry about him. He just gives him a way to deal with it, keeps him moving...

I also think I've somewhat discreetly, but effectively messed up most of that seme-uke "positions" thing with this too, which gives me a kind of devious pleasure... (bwahahaaa! Convert, ye uncreative--no matter how much I befriend some of you--yaoi fangirls!)

Kuga's obviously going to go off to talk to Kaoru next chapter. That much I'm sure of. (This is going well...unusually well.)

The way all Kaoru's soldiers relate to her...I wanted to make that different for different people. So you can have Mizunagi, who's used to having women in charge and never showing all his cards, and you can have Kuga who's strangely optimistic about the good in everyone but has no backbone to stand up and make things right, and you can have Kasei who's messed up and "empty" and wants to be filled without getting too close to anyone, and Ama-Inu, who's basically bored and violent and wants home and food, and people around him as a sort of atmosphere, and you can have her mean different things to all of them. And then take away her influence so they're all...missing something. And who's boss in a house where none of those people being "guided"? Fun stuff. Really fun to write, too--try to write it so effectively that it becomes "real" to people...

And now I'm as disconnected as my seven-foot-tall demon. (heh.)

If you don't know what I'm referencing with the "electromagnetics" theme here, you need to take a science class, yo. There's just no way around it. I think fourth graders with a mild background in particle physics could get it. (Florida is not known for its education system might I add, so there are very few fourth graders with a background in particle physics.)

Please leave me feedback. It always helps to know what stands out and what people like or dislike in a piece I work on--the best way to get better at everything. And fast, too.

See you in chapter three. Let's keep this going!