"Yukishiro!" Tachibana greeted Enishi warmly, an easy smile flitting across his face as he stood and gestured for him to sit. His hands moved broadly, expansive and welcoming. Enishi's greeting was more restrained. It was the most he was able to muster, under the circumstances, but Tachibana paid it no mind. As Enishi had known he would; Tachibana had known him for a long time.

"It's good to see you," Enishi said, settling into the stiff western chair. The little café was one of the handful of 'western-style' teahouses that had sprung up in the new capital, mostly around the Diet and the other government buildings. Raised tables and chairs, outdoor seating under striped silk awnings, and tiny cups of strong coffee offered alongside the more traditional teas. This one – the First Spring Blossoms – had just about mastered the art of the western pastry, which made it Tachibana's particular favorite. He'd always had a sweet tooth.

"How are things?"

"Oh, ticking along." Tachibana dismissed the question with an idle wave of his hand, nodding to a waitress. "What can I get you?"

"It's not necessary. I'll pay."

"Nonsense! I haven't seen you in what, a year and a half? The least I can do is stand you a coffee. Black, wasn't it?"

"Please."

The coffee arrived, accompanied by a crumbling attempt at a madeleine. The sweetness melted on Enishi's tongue like a kiss. He chased it away with a long, bitter draught. They exchanged a few more pleasantries, two friends chatting in the oppressive heat of a late Tokyo summer. Nothing unusual here.

"I hear you're working for Military Affairs, these days?" Enishi asked, when the air had been sufficiently cleared. Tachibana made a face.

"Yes, under Itome. Secretary to an undersecretary. But it's a start, don't you think? And you're in the Home Office, as I recall. Special assignment?"

"Aren't I always?" Enishi said with a wryness he did not feel, anticipating the next move.

"Well, no point using a dagger as an arrow, isn't that how Motokawa put it back in the day? The right tool for the right job." Tachibana looked smug as he said it, his assumptions confirmed. Correctly, in this case. Enishi was currently on special assignment for the Ministry of Home Affairs, a rather transparent euphemism for domestic spying. There was a certain irony in it. Pretending to be a spy in order to be a spy, faking loyalty to country instead of cause, to the future and not the unshriven past…

The black coffee swirled in the paper-thin china. For a moment he glimpsed his sister in the shimmering surface. Her eyes were dark, unreadable; then she shifted and blurred, and her black eyes were suddenly blue and wary, her chin newly pointed and raised in uncertain defiance.

Kamiya.

He tilted his cup, shattering the vision, and attended to his purpose. Tachibana had received his confirmation and doubtless felt himself clever for realizing the obvious. Now was a good time to move.

"I got a look at the budget proposal for next fiscal year. It's a bit strange, don't you think?"

"How do you mean?" Tachibana blinked, naïve, and squinted in the light. Enishi didn't doubt that he was sincere. Tachibana had never been bright, but he was loyal. A true samurai, faithful unto death and incapable of questioning his superiors. Not a clever thing to be, in this half-born world.

"The military's asking for a rather large allocation," Enishi said, keeping it light. Just gossip. Shop talk between two old government hands. Nothing to see here. "They want domestic spending cut for it?"

"Oh, that." Tachibana rolled his eyes. "You should hear the Freedom Party shriek over it! I know, I know," he said, raising his hand to stave off the objection he expected to hear without checking to see if it was forthcoming. "They have Katsura's deathbed endorsement and all the rest of the old idealists behind them. But they're just not being practical."

"Oh?"

"Look, it's not like we didn't try," Tachibana continued, warming to his subject. "But the unrest is getting worse! There was a riot in Kyoto last week, did you hear? The police calmed it down before any serious damage was done, thank god, but some very valuable property was destroyed. A few people were injured. And all because of the freedmen's movement."

"I wasn't aware they were involved," Enishi said, mildly. "Didn't it start in one of the freeborn neighborhoods?"

"Because of anger over the aid priorities, yes. Freedmen and their families are given special consideration over the freeborn. It makes for bad blood. And honestly, with the foreign situation as it is, we can't afford to keep focusing on minor domestic issues. They're free, now, they have the same chance as anyone. Anything else is a gift, and we've already been more than generous."

"I see." Enishi sipped his coffee. A solid play, traditional but nonetheless effective. Starve the dogs and sooner or later they would turn on each other in a snarling mass of fangs and flying fur. From that chaos, opportunity would rise. "I haven't been focusing much on foreign affairs, lately," he lied,

"America's been making noises. We've finally managed to force a revision of the treaties and they don't like losing their foothold out here, let me tell you. Britain wants them kept out, so they're on our side, for now – though that may change if the Freedom Party doesn't stop pushing for sanctions over the sugar plantations. The rest of Europe's waiting to see what happens."

"And China?"

Tachibana shrugged. "They have their own problems. Between the British and the rebels, they're stretched too thin to care about us."

"That's a relief, at least." It was good to have some confirmation of what he'd expected – that he'd judge the purpose behind the shifts in play correctly, at least on the domestic side. China, though…

China would be difficult. All signs pointed towards the mainland as a staging-ground for what was increasingly resembling a nascent coup, and he had very few connections there. He needed insight; Qing Yao's latest reports had been frustratingly unclear. Not her fault. The situation was always difficult in China. A few free provinces in the mountains did not a new nation make, but try telling that to the rebellion's leadership.

She did what she could, but her cause came first. It was something Enishi could understand. Still, the lack of firsthand information from Shanghai was troubling: most of the slave-masters who had fled Japan during the war had settled there, and the gods alone knew what that nest of vipers had managed to cook up.

"It could be worse," Tachibana said in agreement. "But it's not good, either. We need that funding."

"I can see how difficult it is," Enishi said, and turned the conversation towards more pleasant topics, such as courtship. Tachibana's mother had been sending him out on matchmaking dates since he'd been appointed to his new position, and one of them had finally borne fruit. Tachibana was effusive in his praise. Enishi let him talk, responding with interested noises at the appropriate intervals as his mind wandered.

Tomoe's face. Kamiya's face. His sister hadn't wanted him to seek her out – or him, the boy who'd led her to her death (a man full grown now). And it didn't serve his purpose here, so he hadn't. It had been an accident, and perhaps that was why his sister seemed to approve. Or at least, she didn't disapprove.

Himura was a known quantity. The role he'd played was understood, and his fate decided, but Kamiya…

She was still an unknown. She'd kept her head down during the war, her reputation growing by word-of-mouth, and he'd assumed based on her history that she was precisely what she appeared to be. A kind, charitable woman and a true believer, acting solely out of her own conviction, without concern for the game. A bit of a wild card, but not terribly so: she could be relied upon to react in certain ways, and the corner of the board that she could affect was vanishingly small in the scheme of things.

And then she'd given that interview.

It was the first and so far only time she'd made any public statement. The reporter from the Daily Free News had asked some very pointed questions, and Kamiya's answers had been in line with some of the most radical thinkers in the abolitionist movement. Reparations, universal suffrage, debt forgiveness… it had been a minor coup, given the role she'd played in the war and the sheer number of people she'd helped. Such things did not go unnoticed… and Himura, an object of curiosity wherever he went, had not been shy about the role she'd played in his story.

Yet he'd never been able to find any association between her and the radical leadership. As far as he could tell, she'd arrived at these views on her own. She was, and remained, independent of any political party and without any particular influence in the game.

It was an anomaly and he'd noted it as such, filing it away in case it became useful one day.

Perhaps it was useful now?

He put the question silently to his sister, and she said nothing. Only looked at him, grave and calm.

This was his choice to make, then.

Her eyes had been a remarkable shade of blue. Like his own – no, darker. More intense.

He had not come to Tokyo to seek her out, or solve her riddle. But he had found her nonetheless, and perhaps that was fate. If he happened to cross paths with her again… well. It was a foolish man who ignored the proddings of the universe.

If they happened to find each other again, there could be no harm in speaking with her.

"All right, all right, hold still." Kenshin craned his neck, counting silently under his breath as the children milled excitedly in the courtyard. One, two, three, four, five, six…

"Where's Suzume?"

"Still looking for her ribbon," Mayumi reported with a toss of her head and an exasperated roll of her eyes. "She says she won't go without it."

Suzume had several ribbons, but only one had been a gift from Kaoru – the blue silk one that had matched her eyes – and therefore only one was the ribbon. Suzume wore it for luck, and on special occasions. Which, Kenshin supposed, a trip to the theatre qualified as. Especially for a nine-year-old girl.

Almost ten! he could hear her protesting, and smiled.

"We're going to be late if she takes much longer," Soujiro commented, straightening Buntaro's shirt. "Shall I help her find it?"

"Please." Kenshin nodded his thanks. Soujiro stood, brushing off his knees, and went inside. Kaoru and Yahiko passed him as they came out. Kenshin gave them a carefully casual glance, trying not to let his eyes linger on Kaoru. Trying not to let her see his worry.

"Everyone ready?" Yahiko asked, absently scooping up Mariko to rest on his shoulders. She squealed in delight, grabbing at his hair, and he only winced a little.

"Not yet." Kenshin could see Kaoru in the corner of his eye, standing slightly apart from the group. "Suzume's looking for her ribbon. Soujiro went to help her."

"Uncle, uncle." Buntaro tugged at Kenshin's pants, his small face creased in misery. "Itches."

"Let me see, then."

He crouched down to fuss at the little boy's clothing, grateful for the distraction. Kaoru so rarely went out these days. She'd almost declined this trip as well, except that the tickets had been a gift from Tae. So she'd agreed to go, though he didn't doubt that the fact that the invitation was for everyone played a large part in that.

He'd tried inviting her places before, just the two of them. She always had an excuse. Even if it was only a quick run down to the market for extra tofu.

It didn't matter, he told himself as he arranged Buntaro's clothing. The important thing was that she was getting out in public, doing something fun with her family. Small steps, that was the trick; it had taken him months to get to the point where he could even speak easily, after all. There was no point pushing her faster than she was willing to go.

He'd had good reason, though, some dark corner of his mind muttered rebelliously. Kaoru had never –

Kenshin forced the thought back, swallowing shame. Whatever Kaoru was going through had a different cause than his own struggles. That didn't make them less painful. No one had emerged from the war unscarred, and everyone bore those injuries differently. It was important to remember that.

Especially now, when he could feel her eyes on him, that complicated absence ringing in her gaze. He didn't look up to meet them.

It might scare her off.

"We're back!" Soujiro announced cheerfully, emerging from the house with Suzume's hand clasped in his. Suzume was beaming, Kaoru's ribbon tied neatly in her hair. "Everyone ready?"

"I think so." Kenshin gave Buntaro's clothing one last tug. "Better now, li'l Bun?"

"Buntaro," he insisted, pouting.

"Buntaro, yes. I'm sorry." The boy had decided, recently, that he was too old for baby names. Which, at all of five years old, he wasn't – but it was helping him feel a little more confident, and that was a fine thing.

Kenshin stood and made a final count. Everyone going was present – Mr. Tanaka and Mrs. Nakamura had declined, saying that it would be nice to have the house to themselves for a while – and everyone present was ready to go. Ribbons found, clothing straightened, odds and ends safely stowed in various bags and pockets.

No point delaying.

"Okay! Let's get going then, shall we?"

The mob straggled out from the gates, the older children watching the younger while Kenshin kept an eye on all of them. Kaoru hung back as they passed through and Yahiko stayed with her, catching her easily up in conversation with himself and Soujiro. Mostly, Kenshin knew, to make sure she didn't have second thoughts halfway to the theatre.

Kenshin didn't bother trying to join in.

The servant onstage recoiled, singing his horror at what he'd seen in his master's bedroom. The narrator stepped forward, keening out a summary of the play thus far – the promise between the student and the maiden, the aunt's treachery, the joyful rediscovery of each other, and the shock of the servant's discovery: that the maiden was indeed dead, and the student had been embracing a corpse all these long nights. It ended with a plaintive cry for mercy, begging the gods to show pity to these two lovers, whose feelings for each other endured beyond death and dared to violate heaven's laws.

Then the act was over. The audience shuffled and muttered, people rising to their feet for a walk or taking out lunchboxes where they sat and digging into their dinners. Kenshin shifted, gently lifting Buntaro and Mariko from where they'd fallen asleep on his lap.

"Does anyone want anything?" he asked.

"You heading to the snack stands?" Yahiko looked up from where he was busy helping Soujiro get their own lunchboxes distributed.

"I thought I might." Kenshin shrugged. "It would be nice to have some sweets, don't you think?"

"There was a stand selling a variety pack," Soujiro suggested. "That might be best."

"That sounds good." Kenshin stood. "Kaoru, do you – "

But when he turned to where she had been sitting, she wasn't there. Yahiko gave Kenshin a helpless look.

"I think she went to the bathroom," he said, somewhat feebly. Kenshin smiled, or at any rate managed to get the corners of his mouth to turn up. It wouldn't do any good to worry the younger students; they already had the sense that something was wrong, though so far Kenshin and Yahiko had managed to keep most of it from them. The war had touched them deeply enough as it was. There was no need to give them any more adult fears to grapple with.

"I hope she doesn't miss the opening of the next act," Kenshin said lightly. "Otherwise she'll be confused."

"Maybe you should keep an eye out for her?" Soujiro suggested it with perfect innocence, his eyes too-pleasantly devoid of insinuation. Which generally meant that he knew exactly what was going on.

"I'll try." Kenshin said it slowly, reluctantly. It had been about a month since the last time he or Yahiko had seriously tried to pull Kaoru out of her shell. Maybe it was time… and probably it was futile, but they had to keep trying. The alternative was just – letting her go – and the thought of that was like ice in his veins.

"If I see her," he said, more firmly, "I'll make sure she gets back in time."

Yahiko gave him an understanding look.

"Good luck," he said, and nothing more.

The lobby was crowded with people chattering and calling to snack vendors, moving briskly to and from their various destinations. Kenshin took a deep, slow breath as he entered, moving carefully through the oblivious throng. The cacophony reached up to the theatre's high beams, echoing outwards to fill the space with the happy noise of people enjoying themselves, and that was a good thing.

People brushed by him without a second glance. He paused for a moment, considering – then he moved to the snack vendor, figuring it was better to get that out of the way first. The line moved quickly, and the vendor took his money and handed him his order with no more than a smile and a glance. There were too many people to bother doing otherwise. Heartened by that, Kenshin took the lacquered box and picked his way carefully out of the lobby, looking for someplace quiet and out of the way. He'd be more likely to find Kaoru in a place like that. If she was still in the building at all.

There was a staircase leading off from the lobby that wasn't blocked off. Kenshin took it, and found that it led to a balcony wrapping around the back of the theatre. A few people were on it, chatting quietly and smoking pipes or western cigarettes. He walked along it, and – as he'd thought – found Kaoru at the very end, far from the loosely-grouped smokers. She was standing next to the railing, looking out over the rooftops with her arms crossed over her chest and her hands tucked into her sleeves.

"Did you need some fresh air?" he asked, putting on a smile. Kaoru started, turning with wide eyes that darkened when she saw him.

"Yes," she said. And then – her throat working as if it pained her to speak – "Is the act over already?"

"It is." He shifted the box of sweets, moving to stand not quite at her side. The sun was setting, staining the air with brilliant gold and orange. Lights were coming on across the city, spilling yellow into the streets like knocked-over ink. "You missed the big twist."

"I've heard this story before," she said absently.

"Oh." It wasn't exactly an invitation, but it was more than he'd gotten in months. Tentatively, he ventured a question. "Do you like it?"

"Not really." Her arms seemed to tighten around herself. "It's too horrible."

"What do you mean?"

"The way she comes back…" Her eyes were fixed on the horizon, staring blankly at the crimson line of the mountains as the sun lowered herself slowly to sleep. "Bothering him like that, when he'd moved on with his life. She's so selfish!"

It was very nearly a cry. Kenshin's breath caught tight with uncertainty.

"He could have been happy if she'd just left him alone! But she didn't. She couldn't let him go, couldn't let him live his own life. She had to keep coming back. Like she had any right to him. The dead should know better than to bother the living."

"But she loved him." The words came out before he'd quite thought them through, rising with the tide of nausea in his stomach. "She couldn't just let him go…"

He'd understood the maiden's feelings. Hadn't he also come back from a kind of death for someone he loved?

"She could have tried." Kaoru's head bowed as if under some terrible yoke. "If she really loved him, she would have wanted him to be happy, even if it couldn't be with her."

"How could he be happy without the person he loved?" Kenshin asked it quietly, too many words swelling incoherent in his tightening throat. "If he didn't want to see her again, wouldn't he have turned her away?"

"It doesn't matter!" Silk flurried in the fading sunlight. Kaoru slammed the heels of her hands against the railing, pushing away to face him. "She knew he loved her! She knew he wouldn't turn her away! She's selfish and horrible and cruel, and she destroys him because she doesn't have the strength to let go!"

Kenshin stared at her, the box of sweets clutched loosely in his numb fingers. Her eyes were wild, unseeing, and the blood-red of sunset gleamed in her black hair. For a moment they stood suspended on the brink of – something, some revelation – and he held himself perfectly still, afraid to fall. And more afraid of not falling.

Then she came back to herself.

"…I'm sorry." She tucked her hands back in her sleeves. "It's a good play. I just don't like the ending."

Before Kenshin could say anything more she was pushing past him and walking away, mumbling something about getting back before the next act started. He let her go, standing poleaxed in the gathering twilight. Whispers followed in her wake: there weren't a lot of people this far away from the stairs, but there were enough to have witnessed the confrontation. They looked at him strangely. He ignored them, focusing on the rising tide of panic in his pounding veins. On remembering to breathe: first one breath, then another. It was important not to hold them in. Important to keep letting the air out. Taking more in. Letting it out.

Carefully, he put down the box of sweets and turned to grip the railings, staring sightlessly out at the dying day. Trying to remember that this was here and not there, that raised voices and angry words didn't mean that blows would follow – had never meant that, not with her.

In time, his heart slowed. His shoulders sagged, tension easing away and leaving a dull, sallow grief behind.

Selfish…

Maybe he had been. Maybe he never should have come back. Maybe he had misunderstood.

Maybe it was for the best that she'd never gotten his last letter.

It hadn't been a hard conclusion to draw, just one he hadn't wanted to think about. He was, after all the person she avoided most. She would speak – a little – with Yahiko and Soujiro, with her students, with Tae or Dr. Oguni. But not him. Meaningless courtesies were all he ever got, when he'd been closer to her than any of them…

A closeness that she'd never wanted. Never chosen.

But it couldn't be him. Or it couldn't be just him, because it wasn't as if she was all smiles and laughter when he wasn't around. Yahiko had told him as much, and Yahiko wouldn't lie about something like that, wouldn't feign that kind of worry, so that meant that it had to be more than just – his unwanted presence in her life –

But what if that was part of it? What if he was the ghost, dragging her down and killing her slowly with memories of the past?

He remembered her crying. She had wept – so many nights, silently, in her sleep, while he watched unmoving from his place behind the screen. Not knowing what to make of it, not until afterwards, when he'd thought that she wept from grief for the broken world, for what had been done to him and countless others. And now…

Now he didn't know what to think.

Maybe it hadn't only been grief for the world-that-was, that she'd fought to change. Maybe it had been for herself, too, dragged more deeply into the war than she'd ever wanted to be.

Maybe she'd given too much of herself when she'd led him from the darkness. Left too much of her heart behind.

Maybe it was his fault, after all.

Yahiko knew that something was wrong when Kaoru came back and Kenshin didn't follow. He started to ask if she'd seen him, but before he could get more than a few words out the action on stage started up again and she had an excuse not to answer. So she didn't.

Onstage, the student's servants were meeting in frightened conclave, discussing the revelation. Yahiko watched for a moment, uncertain, and then excused himself. It was a little rude – he had to climb over a lot of people – but it was important, he justified inwardly, apologizing profusely and low at the row moving grumblingly out of his way. The servants argued, trapped in agonies of indecision that faded into so much dull background rumbling as he left the theatre, looking for Kenshin.

It took a while. The sun had slid well below the horizon by the time he ventured out onto the balcony and found Kenshin standing at the far end, his hands wrapped tight around the railings as he stared out at the darkening sky. The box of sweets sat at his feet, apparently forgotten.

"Hey," Yahiko said, for lack of anything else worth saying.

"Yahiko." Kenshin blinked, giving himself a small, sharp shake. "I'm sorry. Has the play started again already?"

"A while back." Yahiko jerked his head over his shoulder. "Probably better to wait for the next act, now."

"Oh." Kenshin's hands tightened on the rails. "Sorry."

"What for?" Yahiko rested his forearms on the railing, clasping his hands loosely together. Silence stretched for a moment between them, unspoken questions answered without words. Laughter rang from the restaurants and teahouses below them, nighttime revelers getting an early start while more sedate pleasure-seekers began to trickle home. The smell of meat and drink and too much perfume wafted up. Yahiko sneezed.

"Do you think…?" Kenshin start to say, and then stopped. Yahiko glanced over at him. The older man's face was strained. A muscle in his jaw twitched, as though he was grinding his teeth.

"Do I think what?"

"...Is it my fault?"

The words came out slowly, dripping like thick tar, and Yahiko closed his eyes for a moment. The stars glittered coldly through the haze of city smoke, far outshining the thin sliver of the just-risen moon. He studied them, searching for an answer, and couldn't find one.

He knew what Kenshin was asking, of course. He'd asked it himself a thousand times: is it my fault? Is it someone else's? Was there something we could have done?

He'd never found an answer, though.

"I don't know," was all he said. All that he could say, in the end. Because only one person knew the answer to their questions, and she wasn't going to give it to them anytime soon. If she even knew it herself.

"For what it's worth, though," Yahiko continued, not bothering to feel the anger and worry and grief that sat under his heart like a cold stone, "I'm glad you're here."

"Thank you," Kenshin said, after a pause that was nearly too long. They stood together on the balcony until the rising chatter from inside indicated that the act had ended and another intermission had begun. The moon had climbed nearly a quarter-way up the arc of the sky, vanishing above the edge of the balcony's roof, and all they could see were the dim, cold stars.

It was the middle of the day, and the memorial park was quiet. Kaoru had been perched on her preferred rock at the lakeside for the better part of an hour now, thinking of nothing in particular. And certainly not of last night, and the disastrous conversation on the balcony where she had let too much slip, set free words that could not be taken back –

Kenshin's face hovered in her memory like an accusation. She closed her eyes and tilted her head towards the weak autumn sun, banishing the vision under the spots behind her eyes.

It wasn't his fault. He had come to her needing and she had given, because that was who she was, and it wasn't his fault that she had failed to sever the bond between them. To set him free. That she had drawn him back like the demon-ghost in the play, over and over, distracting him with shades and shadows when he could have been moving forward and making a life of his own.

It wasn't his fault. It was hers. Always hers. She had taken the burden of his life on her shoulders and held it there for too long, and now she couldn't let it go. Couldn't let him go. Didn't dare accept what he was offering her – what she had no right to take – and couldn't bear to send him away. Not again.

Her fault. Her weakness.

"Come here often?"

She opened her eyes, startled. Yukishiro stood nearby, his hands tucked neatly in his pockets. He'd spoken lightly, almost flirtatiously – but there was that strange, brittle intensity in his eyes that told the easy courtesy for a lie.

"It's quiet here," she said, not certain what else to say. "Easy to think."

"Mind if I join you?" He nodded towards the ground near her rock. She bowed her head, not wanting his company but not knowing how to decline without unnecessary rudeness.

He settled himself beside her, bending one knee up against his chest. One hand braced against the ground at his side; the other rested idly under his chin, a finger tapping thoughtfully at the corner of his mouth as he studied her. She ignored his dissecting gaze as best she could, staring out over the shimmering lake. A handful of carp swam up and hovered in the water, their mouths opening and closing with greedy plops.

"They always want more, don't they?" Yukishiro said, a slight smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.

"I don't have anything for them." Kaoru shifted uneasily, her chest tightening at the sight of the demanding mouths, the vacant eyes. Scales glimmered under the murky waters, flashing red and white and summer-gold. Yukishiro rummaged in his pockets.

"A moment…"

Kaoru glanced over at him, surprised. There was a packet of rice balls in his gloved hand. He held them out to her, offering.

"I'm sorry?"

He shrugged.

"I like feeding them, too."

"…Thank you."

Kaoru took the rice balls, suddenly aware of how close her skin came to his as she did. She pulled her hand back quickly, picking idly at the wrapper until it was undone and shredding the first treat that her fingers touched.

"You didn't answer my question," Yukishiro said idly, looking out over the lake.

"What?" Her fingers ceased their movements, the tips sticky with sweet residue.

"Do you come here often?"

Kaoru blinked, covering her confusion by tossing a chunk of rice at the gape-mouthed fish. They swarmed it, tearing and battling for a scrap. He had expected an answer to that? She had thought it was only a courtesy…

"I suppose," she said at length, not sure that she wanted to be truthful and finding herself too tired to lie. "It's a good place to think."

"And do you have a great deal to think about, these days?" He nodded as he said it, as if something had been confirmed. And she hadn't even answered the question.

"I don't know." A spark of indignation made her shift uncomfortable. Who was he, to keep probing her like this? Didn't he have any manners? Couldn't he tell she was only being polite – or did he just not care?

"Ah." That strange, knowing smirk again. "That's something to think about, isn't it?"

"What is?" she snapped, the world coming into a strange kind of focus. He was laughing at her. Not out loud, but she could see the humor in his eyes. How dare he –

Yukishiro pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose, his smirk deepening.

"Whatever it is that you have to think about."

Kaoru glared.

"If I had something to think about," she said, looking deliberately away from him, "I certainly wouldn't share it with someone I barely know. I come here to be alone."

Her heart throbbed in her chest, aching strangely. There was a kind of roaring in her ears, a stretching tingle in her skin. Like the air before a storm. She wasn't acting like herself –

"I'm sorry."

She stole a glance back at Yukishiro. He was standing now, brushing dirt off his knees.

"I didn't mean to intrude," he said, with a bow. "I can see that I was discourteous. Please accept my sincere apologies."

His white hair parted over the back of his neck as he bowed, revealing the pale skin there, and the first knob of his spine. Vulnerable –

Red hair falling like fire over slender shoulders, shaking with fear as he knelt and she gripped her arms so tight that the skin bruised; she found her own fingermarks later, in the bath, ten perfect circles of blue-black blossoming on arms too weak to hold on –

"Don't do that!" she cried, not seeing Yukishiro at all. He looked up, startled.

"Pardon?"

She clutched at her collar, taking in a shaking breath.

"Don't bow that low. Please."

Yukishiro furrowed his brow, staring at her. Kaoru shuddered, bracing herself for the inevitable questions, for his careful withdrawal, for his pity.

Instead he straightened.

"It seems I can't help giving offense today," he said, ruefully. "Normally I'm much more charming."

"I scarcely believe that, given what you've done so far.," she tried to snap, and failed. So she crossed her arms over her chest instead and fixed him with her best stare, daring him to try and salvage the conversation.

"Perhaps you might give me the chance to prove myself?" He pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose, smiling in a way that was a little too sharp, a touch too wide. Kaoru could have screamed – he just wasn't going to take the hint, was he?

"Why does it matter to you so much?" she demanded.

"I am sorry." There was real chagrin in his voice, but that too-sharp, too-wide smile never wavered. The blue fire burning behind his eyes flared. "I only – found myself curious, after our last meeting. I was… intrigued by what you said in that interview. To encounter you once was a coincidence, but twice seemed… an opportunity."

Coincidence. She nearly laughed. As if it had been coincidence that he came to this place with food for the fish, mirroring how he'd found her.

"An opportunity for what?" She'd meant it to come out arch and mocking. Her voice cracked halfway through. She cleared her throat. "I can't imagine why I'd be of interest to anyone."

"You would be surprised, Ms. Kamiya." Now his voice was grave; now his bright-burning eyes darkened, serious and focused. "Very surprised, I think."

To that, she had no response. The wind rose and tugged at their clothing with the scent of autumn, of burning leaves and roasted chestnuts and sacred pyres. The fish splashed at the edge of the water all glimmer-scaled and vacant, their mouths opening and closing as their dull eyes stared relentlessly at the world they had no part in.

"Your history is not unknown," he said finally, and there was no false flirtation in it, no smirking pleasure at his own cleverness. "And now, having met you, I find myself wondering what kind of person you truly are. That is all."

She didn't want to believe him.

Kaoru turned away, considering. A sincere question deserved a sincere answer, for all she didn't want to give it.

"If you want to know that," she said, keeping her chin high as befitted the daughter of samurai, "there's to be a tournament shortly. My school will be competing. There is no truer expression of myself than the values of the Kamiya Kasshin Ryu."

Half a lie, and yet not: everything that he could possibly be interested would be there, carried on the wooden blades of her students. The only answer that mattered lived in the strain of muscle and the blaze of spirit. The will to protect – the heart and soul of everything she had ever done. All that she had ever striven to be.

"Indeed." She didn't turn to face him, but she felt his eyes on her. "Then I'll be sure to attend."

"I hope to see you there," Kaoru said, with painful courtesy, and waited long minutes before turning as he walked away.