===== 08/07/02 === 11:03:16 p.m. ===== Whedon. Watsuki. Both names may start with W, but "wombat" still isn't either one of them. Edodale By wombat Chapter 7 A few afternoons later, Kaoru walked around Hiko's empty workshop. "Looks like that's everything except for the dustbunnies under the sink." "Excellent," Hiko puffed, setting down a set of shelves outside. The hallway was already lined with cardboard boxes, all of them packed with containers of glaze mix or newspaper-wrapped rakuware. As Megumi started to help disassemble the shelves, Sano came back in from the parking lot, dusting his hands together. "The Hikomobile is looking pretty full. You'd better drive it over to the dojo now, or stuff is going to start falling out as soon as you turn the key." "Well, we can't have that," Hiko said. "Very well, I'll return shortly. And I'm not to find any of you playing catch with a vase this time, am I, Mr. Harris?" With one last carton in his arms, he called back over his shoulder, "And ask Kenshin whether he needs anything else. I have plenty of space on the return trips." "Sure, if it's a space with interdimensional wormholes." Sano had taken Hiko's place at the shelf frame, bracing it steady while Megumi detached the crossbars. "You heard the man," he said to Kaoru, then snatched a pinched finger away from a wobbly shelf. "Go on, scat." Kaoru rolled her eyes at him, but went ahead down the hall to the empty kiln room. Even without the kiln there any more, it wasn't a very big space, but it would have to do. After all, they couldn't very well toss Kenshin back out for the flesh-puppets to hunt him down again, so they'd decided to set him up in there. Despite the black sword's reaction, Megumi's ofuda had held steady for everything else so far, and there wasn't any sign that Kenshin's former associates knew he was inside the thoroughly ofuda-warded school. When Kaoru knocked on the kiln room's door and opened it, Kenshin was sitting cross- legged on his impromptu cot, nothing more than a sleeping bag laid out over Hiko's old workbench beside the sink. Sano had actually brought in some of his own outgrown clothing for him, and Kenshin was now wearing a rather baggy dark blue sweatshirt over drastically belt-cinched and rolled-up jeans. However, he had stubbornly retained his socks, and had even acquired more in the same color somehow. Megumi's theory was that he dyed them with Kool-Aid powder, and there was certainly a faint, pleasant hint of eau de fruit punch in the air, softening the lingering reek of burnt sawdust from quenched raku. Kaoru couldn't see enough of the sink to tell if it was stained mauve, but she had her suspicions. Aside from the socks, he was looking almost respectable now, Kaoru thought. His wounds had healed, he'd had the benefit of several nights' sound sleep in a safe place, and he'd even showed back up in classes today. Even his hair looked happier, a russet tumble falling cleanly from his topknot. He looked up from his notebook and took the pencil out of his mouth, but Kaoru cleverly walked up to right in front of him, not leaving him enough space to stand up to greet her. "Hey," she said. "How's the history chapter look?" He moved aside a pile of textbooks to give her room to sit beside him. "I believe they have some of the details wrong, actually. But as usual, it's likely better to give them the answer they want rather than the answer that's right. Besides, it scarcely matters now." "Should I ask?" He glanced at her sideways. "Just one of those historical tidbits that's fascinating, but completely wrong. As one of the better-known examples, there is no record of the nursery rhyme 'Ring Around The Rosie' until the mid-nineteenth century, well after the Black Plague had run its course. And this song is not a political allegory about religious leadership in the nonviolent resistance movement." She leaned over to read the page, nervously self-aware that it was only a pretext to hover a little closer to him. Just yesterday, her mother had passed down the traditional warning about the dangerously hapless (or was that haplessly dangerous?) charms of men from Okusufodo, where both Hiko and Kenshin had been born and raised. And yet somehow, that just increased the stakes. Kaoru had been ready to hate him to the point of vengeful murder, but now after everything he'd said, all of that strong emotion had to find another direction to flow. "Um," she said. "This one here?" His handwriting had an archaic grace to it, with beautiful loops and swirls that modern eyes were no longer trained to read. Her pointing finger did not quite touch the notebook resting in his lap, but to see around her, Kenshin placed a light hand on her shoulder and craned his head up until her ponytail was just under his chin. When he recited the words, his warm breath stirred her hair. "Three hunters went a-hunting The falcon and the dove. The falcon fell upon them With talons from above. The dove, she sang so sweetly, She lulled the rest to sleep. An angel flew to meet them all And took their souls to keep. "It started out as a drinking song," he said. "I first overheard it outside a tavern, not too far from here. Later, someone set the same words to a softer melody, like a serenade or a lullaby. I wonder how many children or lovers have gone to bed over the years while listening to those words. But I suppose it's no worse than interpreting 'Every Breath You Take' as a love ballad." His voice was low, with an undercurrent of past regret. "It was written about you, isn't it?" Kaoru half-turned toward him, only to find his face inches from her own. He stayed perfectly still, moving neither forward nor back, but his fingers tensed a little, causing the faintest rustle of friction between her shirt and her shoulder. She couldn't stop looking at his mouth, the edges of his teeth a narrow pale gleam behind slightly parted lips. "Kenshin?" she whispered. "Miss Kaoru." Another delicate brush of warmth against her skin. "Kenshin, I--" Someone knocked on the door, and they jerked away from each other as if bitten. Megumi poked her head in. "Um, Sano and me got the shelves all taken apart." Kaoru had a terrible feeling that her own face had turned as red as Megumi's or even Kenshin's hair, but if so, Megumi was doing a wonderful job of pretending not to notice. "So we were thinking, to save Mr. Hiko from getting charged under the child labor laws for getting us to help him pack up and move all this stuff, we should make him buy us dinner. Maybe at the Akabeko? Or would that be too awkward with your mom there?" "The Akabeko sounds fine," Kaoru quickly said. "I should call Yahiko and see if he wants to come too. I shouldn't keep leaving him stuck at home by himself in the afternoons." She leaped up and fled down the hall to use Hiko's phone in the library. --- After a few more weeks, the most significant change at school was that the library annex entered a third phase of existence, having gone from office to workshop to mini-dojo. Hiko seemed to take as much contemplative pleasure from helpfully thrashing Kenshin around the room as he had from shaping pottery, but at least it was entirely without malice, and either he was starting to ease up on him or Kenshin was improving after all. Sano had also volunteered to be trained, but while Hiko had refused to initiate him into Hiten Mitsurugi Ryuu, Kaoru decided that she needed to stay in practice as well. To keep Yahiko company, she started to bring her friends home with her after school, slowly drawing her brother back out by sparring with him with both sibling rivalry and Kamiya Kasshin Ryuu. Megumi and Sano would join her there, but Kenshin never did. He hadn't been alone with her since that day, and she wasn't sure which of them was avoiding the other. Kaoru wondered if he ever left the school at all now. He hadn't come with them to the Akabeko that evening, he hadn't joined them in the three more night patrols they'd done at the cemetery since then, and he didn't even have gym class as a reason to go outside. She mentioned this to Megumi one Friday afternoon as they sat on the back step of her house, watching Yahiko chase Sano around the big tree with his shinai. "It can't be healthy," Kaoru fretted. "He never complains about cabin fever or anything, but cafeteria food must be all he ever eats now, except when we bring him mochi balls and treats like that." "He's certainly getting plenty of exercise," Megumi pointed out. "I haven't seen his teeth falling out from scurvy, and his grades are doing fine. Mens sana and also dens sanus in corpore sano, which has nothing to do with our Mr. Harris over there, but what more could any concerned parent ask?" Kaoru shrugged. "Maybe a social life?" "You mean like dating?" Megumi innocently asked. When Kaoru looked at her reproachfully, she flashed a lopsided grin. "Oh, like you don't like him. He is awfully sweet, and he can cook, and he can even dye his own socks without turning the rest of his clothes funny colors." "Aren't you forgetting something?" "Like what?" "Like the part where he wants me to kill him after we get the sakabatou back?" "Oh yeah." Megumi's grin slumped with the rest of her. "Mr. Hiko took Kenshin's sword to your old dojo, didn't he?" "He locked it into the same case the sakabatou used to be in, since that already had some major kami smackdown set up around it, and it's all hidden away behind some display shelves. Did you get any Inari-type vibes from it before then?" "It's not a happy sword." Megumi shivered. "It's hungry. And it's still linked to Kenshin on a very deep level, but I haven't been able to figure out a good way to unlink them yet. Or even if there is a way. Maybe I'll know a little more after tomorrow night." "Patrol night? The last three have been pretty quiet, just a few flesh-puppets wandering around in bad shape. I guess Kenshin said that Enishi can only bring up new ones at full moon, so we're going to have a lot of them to deal with tomorrow. But what does that have to do with the sword?" "The guys didn't tell you?" Megumi looked a little panicked. "Mr. Hiko said he thinks Kenshin should be ready to join us on patrol soon. I'm not sure if it'll be tomorrow already, but pretty way soon. And the readiness thing sounds way past the typical Boy Scout being-prepared drill." Kaoru was puzzled by Megumi's mood. "Well, at least he'll finally get out of school. Okay, so we give him the standard-issue silver-plated pointy fish and maybe one of the crossbows he helped us put back together, or a wire-wrapped bokken and a steel weapon- blocking thing. Or even just a lot of little sake bombs and a lighter. He'll be a lot of help to us in a fight. Okay, so Hiko can still wipe the floor with him, but it takes longer now. And every time he spars with Sano, Sano still gets TKO'd within a few minutes." Megumi had been shaking her head all along. "No no no. Maybe we can give him our weapons tomorrow night if he comes along. And if that was the only thing, I'd be total happy happy joy joy here. But at some point, Mr. Hiko and Kenshin are thinking of bringing the black sword out again." --- "Are you completely nuts?" Kaoru demanded the next morning, still out of breath from her bicycle ride. As before, she was confronting Hiko in her family dojo. A wall shrine had been set up where her father had died, and a pattern of red camellias traced down the hallway as a tribute to his fallen students, but otherwise the interior now looked more or less like the artisan's gallery Hiko had converted it to. He only opened it on weekends; most of his work was selling online through a website he'd set up. He finished poking at eBay or PayPal or whatever it was he was doing, powered down his laptop, and stretched out his legs. "I've been discussing the sword with Kenshin and Megumi for some time now. Tell me, do you still intend to avenge your father's death?" "How can you even ask me that here?" She'd thought she was nearly over it now, but the bitter grief threatened to rise up and drown her again. "I'll take that as a 'yes'. Very well, how do you intend to do it?" The painful lump in her throat dissolved out of sheer confusion. "I-- what do you mean?" Hiko did the annoying glasses-polishing thing, settled them back onto his nose, and sighed. "Kaoru, let me speak frankly. After what Kenshin told us, we know several things about the culprits. They are almost certainly his four former associates, who were once the same sort of creature that he was as Battousai. Like him, while remaining immortal, they've been weakened, and no longer wreak havoc by devouring people's souls. Unlike him, their reason for the last is not because they no longer wish it, but rather because they have been rendered unable. If they can possibly recover that ability, they will certainly attempt to do so, and will use it without mercy if they succeed. On the other hand, Kenshin appears to be still fully capable of using his sword to regain his powers as Battousai, except that his conscience has prevented him from doing so." "And he's not going to," Kaoru insisted, then checked herself. "Is he?" "If I may continue for a moment? As you appear to have noticed, Kenshin himself is a delightful individual, if a bit morose at times, but one can hardly blame him for that. We must assume that it was demonic possession that made this paragon into a monster. "Now, what sort of transformation might we expect in the others? One of them, for example, was once a miko rather like our Megumi: earnest, determined, and willing to risk her life to destroy him. This Tomoe didn't seek out power for its own sake, any more than Kenshin had when he went to confront that first warrior. The stories of the others are much the same. "So do you intend to destroy them entirely, or only the demonic element inside them while sparing the humans they once were?" "Oh." Kaoru sat down suddenly on the floor, stunned. "What should I do?" "It's not my place to tell you." He folded his hands and contemplated them. "This is the redress that you are seeking for your own rightful grievance; whatever you choose to do, I think that all of us are willing to help you accomplish it. But we cannot tell you what form of justice would satisfy you and the honor of your family. Only you can do that." "I don't--" She made herself breathe deeply. "So we could do either one? The sakabatou dispels the demon by destroying the body it's in, right?" "At least temporarily. However, we have not yet recovered it, and may be unable to do so until we've defeated all of Kenshin's former followers. We may be able to do so with a combination of tactics similar to what we've already used on the flesh-puppets: relatively ordinary silver weapons, ofuda, fire, and the occasional divine intervention." "So by the time we can get the sakabatou back, we won't need it any more." He shrugged. "Except for Kenshin. As long as he and his sword still exist, his followers will be able to recoalesce from their dust. It may take months or years, but eventually they'll return to the world. To end the cycle, you must destroy the demonic presence at its root." "And that means him." She was not going to cry. Not now. "And what about the other way?" "That appears to be somewhat more permanent." Hiko picked up a printout with Megumi's familiar scrawl in the margins, as well as some of Kenshin's flowing script. "If it works correctly, it will prevent them from devouring souls ever again, and may even return them to normal human status. At the least, they'll be rather like Kenshin, still nearly immortal but with their own souls restored to them. However, their own weapons will be destroyed in the process, removing the chance of returning to their former... mode of existence, let us say." "Break their weapons, give their souls back, kick the demons out. That doesn't sound so bad," Kaoru said, feeling happier. "Will this work for Kenshin too?" He handed her the printout and looked at her over the top of his glasses. "No," he said. "And this method utterly depends on his cooperation. If he's been extremely clever all this time, he will certainly use this opportunity to destroy us all. And even if he hasn't, there's still a risk that it may happen, regardless of his intentions now." Her eyes were blurring over again, and she couldn't read the words. "This is the part that involves his sword?" "Indeed." Rather to her surprise, Hiko took a jug off the shelf behind him, poured some of its contents into a shallow bowl, and slugged it straight down. She knew that jug. It was part of their patrol kit, and it was full of sake. If anything, though, the sake shot simply made him more intense. "It will involve Kenshin, and his sword, and Kenshin using his sword. In short, it will require him to become Battousai." --- Kenshin whistled to himself as he washed Sano's donated clothing in the kiln room's sink, saving his socks for last. He had a few more furnishings now: an electric hot pot for late- night ramen, a bowl and chopsticks, a small set of shelves, and best of all, a laundry rack. One by one, he wrung out each item and spread it out on the rack, where the draft from the window would dry everything by the next day. He was down to his last pair of clean socks, as well as his old wardrobe which the girls had convinced him were no longer fit to be seen in public. "The worn knees are just so mid-80s," Kaoru had teased, and he had to admit that it had been impossible to find thread that matched the color of his shirt. He had been able to mend each tear in the fabric, but the repairs were all visible as neat lines of stitches that were a little too pink, or purple, or blue. When he heard footsteps running down the hall outside and then a knock at his door, he was slightly startled, but dried his hands on his jeans and went to see who it was. "Miss Kaoru? To what do I owe the--" She pushed past him and shoved back against the door, closing it. "What do you think you're doing?" He looked at the laundry rack. She slapped his face back toward her, hard enough to draw the taste of blood inside his cheek. "I just talked to Hiko about this brave new plan. Tell me you're not serious." "If I told you that, I would be lying." He made a half-hearted gesture encouraging her to sit down, but she wouldn't budge, her eyes as hot as molten cobalt glass. "Do you actually want to turn back into Battousai and make me kill you early?" "Now that you've phrased it that way, yes." That last word seemed to hang between them, sucking all the air from her lungs in a sharp exhalation. Faltering, she turned away from him and slumped with her head bowed against the wall. When he touched her arm, she slapped him away again, but she was crying. Not flagrantly, but with a low moan in her throat like distant winter wind, and her face was streaming wet. "Miss Kaoru," he tried again, then shook his head and stepped backwards to the workbench. He sat down with his elbows hard against his thighs, buried his face in his hands, and waited for her to reach out to him again, even if it would be another attack. After a while, he felt her touch on his head like a blessing. She was standing directly in front of him, like the last time she had come to his room, and there was no escaping her now. She sniffled fiercely and wiped her nose on her sleeve. "You could've at least told me yourself in the first place." Her voice was rougher now, more ragged. "I know you haven't wanted to talk to me, but this should've been an exception." Kenshin glanced at the bench as another invitation to sit down beside him, but she wouldn't. He would have to state this directly, then, not hint around it any more in sidelong conversation. He looked up at her, the deep blue eyes and lovely rose lips still beautiful even when narrowed in anger. "You're right," he said. "I am sorry for any grief I've caused. But it's not that I haven't wished to speak to you, or be near you. I simply can't afford the risk." "What risk?" she demanded. How could he tell her in a way she'd understand? "Unless Mr. Hiko and Miss Megumi can find a way to disentangle my existence from that sword-- and so far, they have not found even a hint or a hope that it might be possible-- then all of this, no matter what we do, will lead up to a time when you must kill me to remove that demon from the world forever. You must be willing to kill me. And I must be willing to die." Her hand made a little movement at her side, toward him and back. "So you don't want me to get too attached? Like kicking a dog so it'll run away on its own instead of following you?" "No," he breathed, "no. Kaoru, I--" He couldn't face her any more, and bowed his head over the pain inside him. "When I'm near you, I want to live. I want to stay in the world, living and breathing, with you. And as Battousai, I would fight you to the edge of hell, if only to take you with me. We can't do this. I can't." She dropped to her knees before him. Now her face was tilted up into the light, still silvered over with the tracks of her tears. "Go ahead and say it. You can't what?" It leapt out despite himself, and he cursed his heart for betraying him as he heard his voice burst out. "Love you," it said. Like a lioness, she sprang up from her haunches and pulled him down, her mouth devouring and consuming his until there was no more breath for words. --- "Well, don't both of you look perky," Megumi greeted them behind the cemetery gate. "Too many green tea mochi balls again?" Kaoru glanced guiltily at Kenshin, who did have that sort of strung-out overcaffeinated look. It probably meant that she did too. As soon as she started to wrench the bottom of his shirt up from his jeans, he'd broken away and held her at a distance. "We can't," he'd said, his eyes dark and wild against his pale face. "Not ever again, and not even now." To every objection she'd made, he'd simply shaken his head, refusing to acquiesce. No, and no, and again no, even though every sinew in his body was straining toward her except for the ones that were holding her away. So there was nothing they could do after that except walk to the cemetery, even though it was only an advance planning session. Hiko wasn't going to join them until nearly sunset, when he closed the gallery, but Sano was already wandering around in search of trouble. He waved at them from the top of the hill, the silvered fishbone in his hand glinting gold in the early afternoon light. Megumi was sitting next to a pile of large test tubes, writing on their sides with a magic marker to make her latest experimental ofuda. "At least you won't be eating our supplies the way someone always does," Megumi continued, jerking an elbow in Sano's direction. "If one of you wants to help make plugs for these, I've got mochi dough in a plastic bag. All you have to do is add some salt and knead it in from the outside of the bag so your hands don't get sticky. There's no point rolling out the little balls until Mr. Hiko brings the sake to fill the tubes with." Quickly, Kaoru grabbed the box of salt and shook some into the bag, squeezing the mochi paste inside it. A second later, Kenshin headed uphill toward Sano without having said a word, his pace quick and jerky. Megumi paused mid-ofuda. "Does he have his cranky pants on today or something? I didn't even know he had cranky pants, but maybe Sano gave him an old pair." "Let's please not talk about his pants." Kaoru muttered, blushing furiously. Megumi gaped at her. "No. You didn't." "We sure didn't." "Is everything okay with both of you? Or either of you, or even just you? I mean, if you were squishing that mochi dough any harder, I wouldn't just be thinking, 'Why didn't I just put unmochified sticky rice in there?', but possibly even, 'I bet she could squish mochi out of dry raw rice'." "I went to talk to him about the anti-demon plans, that's all. Hiko told me about the supposedly temporary-Battousai one. What do you think?" Though still looking concerned, Megumi went along with the change of topic. "Um, well, that's really the beauty of that plan. I don't know if any of the Enishigumi have seen us yet, but once they do, especially if we're waving around swords and fish, they won't want to make nice with us. But they already know Kenshin and they'll want to see if he can turn their soul vacuums back on, so they'll have to talk to him all friendly-like. So then he can get them when they're not expecting it, and if the whole plan works, he can undemonize them at the same time." "But if it doesn't work, we'll have at least one live hellblade on the soulsucking circuit, and maybe two." "Kenshin sounded pretty sure he can do it, if he can hang onto his self-control long enough." Megumi gave Kaoru another long look. "Oh," Kaoru said, with mixed emotions. "In that case, it's going to work after all." --- Kenshin kicked a rock back and forth with his new sneakers, hands stuffed into his pockets. Sano walked beside him on the cemetery path, flipping his fishbone in the air. After a while, he said, "So what's the plan?" "Plan?" "Megumi and Hiko have been muttering to each other about your sword for weeks now. They find a way to get rid of it yet?" "We have a way. Miss Kaoru kills me with the sakabatou." Sano smacked Kenshin across the back of his head, causing an "oro" to pop out. "I meant a different way. Unless that's really what you want, even if they come up with something better. Seems pretty lousy to force her into assisting your suicide, though. She doesn't want to." "I know." Kenshin rubbed the base of his topknot, a little reproachfully. "Come on, there has to be another way. You've had three years to mess with it. What've you tried? Freight train? Volcano? Industrial grinder? See, you haven't even started to explore the possibilities." Casually, Kenshin unbuttoned the cuff of one of his sleeves. "Mr. Harris, I believe there was an incident last week when you put one of your silver-plated fishbones onto my sword's blade to see what would happen." "Megumi told you? We put the fire out before Hiko got back." "No, Miss Megumi has not told me anything. I suppose the sword heated up to the flash point of some paper nearby?" "Yeah, after the fish melted. I was pretty bummed; it was one of my fav-- holy jeebus," Sano blurted. Beneath the rolled-up sleeve, the pattern of a fishbone was still branded into Kenshin's arm. "Perhaps there is a mechanical way to destroy it, but it would almost certainly kill me as well. In all the things I've experienced over the past three years, it has always reappeared next to my side when I revived, no matter what had happened to it or me. The only loophole I can think of is to transfer its ownership to someone else, who would certainly not deserve the death that I have earned." Sano shook his head. "Sheesh. Isn't there anything that might make you want to live through this?" They had walked down the other side of the hill and come back around it by now, heading back toward the girls at the gate. When Kenshin didn't say anything, Sano poked him with an elbow and glanced down at him quizzically, followed the direction he was looking in, and then absorbed the expression on his face. "Oh, holy freaking crap in a sidecar," Sano mumbled. Kenshin closed his eyes for a moment, nearly stumbling on loose pavement. "My thoughts exactly, Mr. Harris." ----- Muchos nachos to all the repeat reviewers: Jason M. Lee, chibi-angel, Winter, and everyone else who's encouraging me to keep the mouse to the grindstone (skweek!). As for requests, doesn't "more" waff mean that there was some to start with? Was there previous waff? I'm pretty sure I can do angst, but I tend to think that waffiness eludes me. But perhaps I just do not know from waff. You tell me. I was just going to have Kaoru bash Kenshin around a few times and then hand him to the scantily-clad undead girl, but evidently Kaoru won the jello wrestling match this time. Yet another weak "next chapter" pledge, while Yumi waves her naginata around impatiently. Okusufodo: I got tired of just vaguely talking about their home village, and finally gave it a name. (It's where they make Gileses.) song tunes: While I make no claims for the poetic merit of the lyrics, they've been written for the most interchangeable set of melodies in existence. Tee hee. Anything that alternates lines of 8 (or in this case, 7) syllables with lines of 6 (or occasionally 5) syllables can be sung to tunes ranging from "The Yellow Rose of Texas" and "La Cucaracha" to "Ode to Joy" and "It Came Upon The Midnight Clear". Best-fit renditions may require a certain amount of melismata (singing the same syllable over several notes). Among my favorites in this genre are the alphabet to the tune of "House of the Rising Sun" and the words of "Old MacDonald" to the tune of "Amazing Grace" (you get very soulful EIEIOs).