===== 08/07/02 === 10:53:42 p.m. ===== Edodale By wombat Chapter 8.2 (again with the endnote) Sano peered over the cemetery wall into the empty street. "Hiko's cutting it pretty close tonight. Sun's going down soon." Squinting at one last test-tube ofuda, Megumi gave up and put her marker down. "Hope he gets here soon. We've got everything for these except the sake, but they're not much good without it. Did everyone already make their dinner excuses at home?" "I'm out getting beef bowl with you gals tonight. Of course, we'll have to get Hiko to spring for that afterwards so we'll have authentic gravy stains on our clothing." "Maybe you do. We don't all walk around wearing souvenir menus, you know. But at least you can keep track of the excuse schedule now. Kaoru, are you covered too?" "Yeah." Kaoru was sitting tensely beside her, curled up with her arms around her knees. On the far side of their lineup, Kenshin was in the next stage of the same position, head down in his arms. Sano poked him."Hey, you still awake in there?" Kenshin didn't lift his head, muffling his answer slightly. "Just conserving my resources, Mr. Harris, thank you." Tires squealed at the end of the street, and then right in front of the cemetery. Sano periscoped again to see smoke still rising from the tracks of the little car. Its trunk was tied down, gaping over a set of handlebars. Hiko cut the engine, got out, and called, "Kenshin. Are you here?" "He's here," Sano said. Belatedly, Kenshin straightened up and swung himself onto the top of the wall. "You," Hiko said to him. "Get in the car." As Kenshin jumped down and obeyed, Hiko walked past him through the gate, where all the others had stood up as well. He hadn't pulled anything out of his back seat or trunk, and his hands were empty. "Um," Megumi said. "Got sake? Weapons? Anything?" "I'm afraid we're out of sake. Kaoru, that was your bicycle outside school, wasn't it?" His question was completely expressionless, like everything else he had said. "Good. I wouldn't want to have stolen someone else's." "You cut my lock?" He didn't bother to answer that. "There's no point in delaying this decision. Kenshin either fights with the hellblade or not at all. If the others see him using any of our weapons, they'll mistrust him. After a month of our killing their pawns, they must know we're here, but they've never come out to meet us directly. Kenshin is the one they want, and I expect they'll emerge if they sense his presence." "So if we leave him in the car, we'll just do the standard routine, right?" "If you don't want him to join us tonight, I'll send him back on your bicycle and we can continue this fruitless cycle of zombie raids. Otherwise, we can make some real progress toward retrieving the sakabatou." Kaoru looked at the car. The streetlights were starting to come on, showing the bundled red hair slumped against the passenger window. Megumi nervously interrupted, "Mr. Hiko, I've been thinking. Since we ofudized the cemetery walls, the zombies can't get out, so really these four other semi-ex-demons aren't much more than a nuisance if they can't eat souls anymore." "You are nearly correct. They would be incidental to us if they hadn't taken the sakabatou from Kaoru's father. However, they have, and we do not know whether your ofuda can impede them personally. Without the sakabatou, we cannot banish them, nor destroy Kenshin's sword to keep its demon from possessing anyone else ever again. Kaoru, the moon will rise soon, and the new flesh-puppets with it. You must decide now." "All right," she said bitterly. "Give him his sword. I suppose you have the rest of it all planned out too." Hiko was already returning to the car. Opening the passenger door, he folded the front seat forward to reach into the back, squeezing Kenshin out to stand limply on the curb until Hiko tossed out weapons for him to catch. Hiko's katana, its blade wrapped with silver wire. Kaoru's bokken, silver-wrapped as well. And finally, the black sword of Battousai. "That's it?" Sano asked incredulously. "No spears, no crossbows, not even spare rice balls?" "If this fails, no quantity of spears or arrows will save us. If you think I'm eager to do this, you're very wrong." Hiko stuffed something from his glove compartment into a trenchcoat pocket, slammed the door shut, and went behind the car to pull out Kaoru's bicycle. He walked it up to the others and leaned it against the wall. Kenshin followed, his eyes blank and not seeming to see anything at all. Hiko took the silvered weapons from him and passed Kaoru her bokken. "Kenshin will take the lead. I suggest we return to that gully where we encountered him; it's a good natural funnel that will limit his opponents. Kaoru and I will shadow him by twenty or thirty yards, but we will not interfere unless there's no other choice. That means if he's captured, killed, or remains Battousai. "Sano, you guard Megumi and follow us farther back, just close enough to see what happens. Megumi, if Kaoru or I should fall to Battousai, return here at once and ride Kaoru's bicycle to your shrine. Take the envelope from my glovebox and give it to your chief priestess. And even if you hear us calling to you from behind-- especially if we call you-- don't stop, and don't look back. "Do all of you understand me?" He looked from one face to the next, waiting for assent. "Kenshin? Kaoru, slap him." Kenshin jerked his head up from the blow, startled. "Good," Hiko said. "Let's go." --- Enishi whipped around from his work as Tomoe cried out behind him. "Jineh, you sod," he growled, dashing back into the crypt. But she was still alone in there, except for whatever intangible phantoms she was cowering away from. "What's wrong then, sweet? I'll be back with you in a sec, as soon as I've finished winding up these toys, and then I'll stay with you all night." "My face is achy." Her voice was a low croon, rocking back and forth as her hair tumbled loosely over her kimono. "Won't it bruise then, like the color of his eyes? She hit me just where the scar is." Gently, he bent to lift her hand away from the white iris-petal of her cheek, but it was as smooth and unmarked as ever. "You mean Yumi? She's been out since yesterday, little dove. See, her naginata isn't on the wall. She wouldn't come back without it." He saw a metallic flash in her other hand and leaped down to wrestle it away from her. There were already charred lines where she'd traced the hair ornament's silver caps across one arm, burning the rough shape of a fish. "Tomoe love, no. Give it here now, and I'll make it up to you later. Drop it!" he said more sharply as she reached for the sword at his shoulder. She dropped the long pin, letting it fall, and huddled up with her arms around her. He hissed as the silver blistered his fingers, but tucked it into his long coat's breast pocket. Surreptitiously, he checked to make sure her tanto still hung in its sheath at the back of his belt. "Now, what would you want with my watou, then?" he tried to tease her, ashamed for losing his temper. "Can't put up your hair with a sword, can you? Soon as I'm done, I'll comb it for you and braid it up, hey?" "It had a sapphire," she whispered. "Your sword, it did. So blue it should've had stars in it, and a little silver moon. Or black ships and a big white whale." "Yes, it did." Enishi remembered it well, how the kashira would flicker and flare like heaven's fire every time his sword took another soul. "And you had a topaz, and Yumi had an emerald, and Jineh had some cheap purple quartz. Back in the good old days." Tomoe didn't seem to have heard him. "She has sapphires too. Two of them, on her head. He wants them to put his fires out, but he's drowning in them first. Fishies biting out his heart, nibble nibble." She pinched her burnt arm in demonstration and suddenly fell unconscious again, her hair pooling darkly on the floor. Enishi shook her shoulder a little, felt the pulse at her throat, and finally sighed and went back outside. As the full moon rose, its light washed over the lines of flesh-puppets laid out before him. They rose under his command and went out into the night. Freed from duty, he returned to his sister, the sword-pale silver of his head bowing over her in the darkness. --- The dry gully was even dryer now, the sparse grass shriveled to crisp husks that crackled underfoot. Fallen leaves were starting to blow about, but the shrubbery on the banks above the gully floor still offered plenty of cover. From her position, Kaoru couldn't see Sano or Megumi at all. Kenshin was about two yards below their level and twenty-five ahead, perhaps a quarter of the distance from her hiding place to theirs. "Are you sure he's ready for this?" she whispered to Hiko, who was crouched beside her. Kenshin wasn't even standing up; he was half-curled on the ground resting an elbow on one knee, the other leg tucked under it. His katana trailed away from his hands at an awkward-looking angle, its bare black blade glittering in the dust. The moonbeams struck sparks of color from the jewels at its hilt: blue and yellow, green and violet, fiery burning red. Hiko shrugged, but there was a tenseness to the motion that belied his casual tone. "If he's learned everything I've taught him in the past month, he's ready. If he hasn't, he never will be. Speaking of which," he rummaged in his coat pocket and handed her the stuff he'd brought from his car, "I believe he must have started to make these for you within days of our first meeting here. This sort of thing takes time." "Shiny," Kaoru said, carefully unrolling the metallic mesh so it wouldn't jingle. It was a pair of gloves, each one covered with fine silver rings sewn flat to its surface. When she held them up to the light, she could see the tiny stitches, pink or purple or blue threads securing each ring down to the black leather backing. "Very resourceful of him," Hiko said. "I believe he salvaged the silver wire from that first night, wrapped it around a pencil, and cut straight down one side. All he had to do then was flatten out the helical skew in each ring and ply a needle. And, of course, estimate your hand size. I expect they do fit you, though." They did, with enough space for her to move and flex her hands. "Leave them on. You'll need them." "Why?" He told her the rest of the plan. If below them, Kenshin heard her involuntary cry of protest, he made no move to show it. His shoulders remained slumped down as he sat there in the dust, waiting for Enishi's zombies to come. --- Megumi smelled the flesh-puppets before she heard or saw them. She wrinkled her nose and looked down the gully, and there they were, a haggard mass shambling forward. Sano was twitching nervously at her side. "Guard you, he says. How'm I supposed to guard you with just fishbones?" "They're shiny happy fishbones," she reassured him. "We found out last week that the silver-plating works on them, so that's all good. Besides, Mr. Hiko said those guys won't be interested in us anyway." "So what am I guarding you from?" "I dunno. Straggler zombies? Angry squirrels? Semi-ex-demons?" They both held very still as the main group passed below, stringing out into a narrower line because of the gully's limitations. Kenshin had seen them by now and stood up, but was simply waiting for them to reach him. "I could've done without that last addition to the guest list." Slowly and carefully, to minimize the shrubbery's movement around them, Sano reached one arm behind him and started moving it around beneath his jean jacket. Megumi couldn't figure out what he was doing. "Sanosuke Harris, are you giving yourself a wedgie?" With a sigh of relief, he produced a large squirt gun from the back of his jeans. "It always looks so cool in the movies when they stuff a gun down their waistbands. Slipped down on me, but at least it didn't leak. That would've been really embarrassing." "I bet it looks a lot less cool when they accidentally shoot their butts off. What's that for?" "Filled it up last time from the main supply but didn't use it. Planned to try out cool flamethrower effects with it this time, but I think we'd better just use it to spritz down your test tubes." He nudged Megumi's backpack, which she had stuffed the ofuda tubes, mochi bag, and bundled pine needles into. "No way." Her eyes sparkled with delight. He grinned back. "Way," he said, and squirted her with a few drops of sake. --- "Not bad," Hiko mused. Kaoru ducked away from a few horrific droplets that had flown all the way up to them, then peeked back out. Kenshin had worked his way through the first ten or so already. There was still an overall slackness to his posture that worried her, but he was snapping out of it for a few seconds at a time, cleanly sweeping through each flesh-puppet as it came to him. "At least he knows enough now to aim for the joints. Once the pieces can't move, they're no further threat to him. He's even varying the sequence to find the best pattern." Kaoru watched the next sweep carefully, as well as she could. With Kenshin's back turned to them, his body was blocking much of their direct view, but she could still see the way the pieces scattered. An upward jerk of his katana, two halves starting to peel apart to each side, and then an S-curve of three parallel cuts. The first one was across the shoulders, the second across the elbows and hips; as the forearms fell, he severed the wrists with the knees and kicked the flopping feet aside. She winced. "He's walking around in gumbo down there. We'll have to get him another pair of shoes again, you know." "Perhaps you should give him a set of rubbers." She winced again. Was everyone speculating about them? "Mr. Hiko, that's really-- " Hiko snorted, not unkindly. "Wellies. Overshoes. Whatever it is you call rain boots here." "Oh." "Miss Kamiya-Summers, the private lives of students seldom hold much interest for me, unless their work suffers as a consequence. However." He stopped to watch the next dismemberment. Reluctantly, Kaoru prompted him. "However?" "If the current state of affairs-- let me rephrase that," he added at her expression. "If matters should continue in their current direction, I am concerned that you will be unable to use the sakabatou on him once we recover it. Not only that, but you may resist any attempt by others to take your place." "I thought you said I was the only one who could kill him," she said, and then, "No. Oh no. You wouldn't." "I said you had the best right to do so because of your father's blood, and the best chance because of his training. But if you should abdicate that right-- " "I'm not letting you-- " she interrupted, then stopped herself. "Exactly." Hiko ignored the latest wet ripping sounds from the gully as he turned his full attention on her. "Perhaps you don't understand the full gravity of the situation. This is one of the reasons Kenshin proposed the present scenario, so you could see Battousai for yourself and understand why he must die." "This was his idea? But-- " She accepted the clean linen handkerchief he offered her, and pressed it over her eyes. "As he may have told you already, there is a significant risk that if he permanently returns to being Battousai, he may attempt to cause you to become possessed as well. Perhaps you might prefer that to killing him, but I very much doubt that anyone who cares about you would agree with that decision. Your soul would be lost, and whatever was left of you would become a formidable enemy. I cannot allow that. Do you understand?" "Is that a threat?" "Consider it fair warning." Hiko grimaced as his glasses were slightly spattered, and removed them to clean with another handkerchief. "How many of those do you have?" "Rather a lot, really." He put them back on. "I will tell you now that in fact, I hold both you and Kenshin in high esteem. If your deaths should become necessary, I would be very seriously grieved. But I would consider it far worse to stand aside and allow both of you not only to walk into hell together, but recreate it on earth." --- He was tired, so tired. As if his arms belonged to someone else, he watched them raise and slash the black sword over and over again. The far edge of the flesh-puppet horde was visible now. He'd cut through at least half of them so far, though he'd lost count-- fifty? sixty? Enishi must have raided graves that were decades old; some of these creatures were little more than strips of bone held together with leathery withered skin. His socks squelched unpleasantly. That was the worst of his physical discomfort. Compared to his heart, the sword was as light as air, dipping and soaring like a carrion crow. The next flesh-puppet was half-clad in mold, pale green as firefly light. Or green tea mochi balls, or the wasabi ones Sano had brought in as a prank, though they'd turned out to be surprisingly tasty. They'd been sweet, yet fiery, like Kaoru's mouth on his. No. He could not linger on that memory and stay sane. Not unless it was sane to seriously consider her as Battousai's consort in eternal unlife, even for a moment. He wanted her, not just for her loveliness or her warrior's poise, but for the fierce purity of her heart. He could never have her that way except as an ordinary mortal, and he could never be that again. Bone shattered beneath his blade, a chip flying out to cut his cheek. He kicked another set of severed limbs aside and surveyed the horde again. There was an odd ripple of movement at the far edge now, some of the creatures turning and falling in wide swaths like a foul harvest being reaped. He didn't have time to puzzle it out. Another creature before him, another curling slash, a kick to clear the way. And yet another, and another, and then suddenly there were no more of them. He stared out into the moonlight. The rest of the horde had been felled from behind, and his unexpected ally was standing no more than ten paces away, her naginata gleaming wetly. "Yumi," he said. --- Megumi clapped her hand over Sano's pursed lips. "I know there's a saying about whistling in the graveyard," she whispered into his ear, "but this is not a good time to demonstrate it, and I'm not even sure what it means!" He nosed Megumi's hand aside and continued to ogle the woman passing beneath them, her naginata sweeping out with sultry grace. She didn't look much older than them, but her clothes did: a bodice that seemed to be no more than a corset with sleeves attached below the shoulders, her waist further cinched by a wide belt with a few objects dangling from it, and a leather skirt that would have been unwalkably tight if it hadn't been slit to the hip, high enough to suggest there was nothing underneath. Her dark hair was loosely pinned up, long strands tumbling down across those bare shoulders, and Megumi yanked Sano back from poking his head out into the open. "I don't believe it. You have actual drool hanging out of your mouth." He swiped his sleeve across his face and pointed in the direction she'd gone. "Hubba. She not only kicks ass, she's got a bodacious one herself. That was the most magically babelicious sight I have ever seen. You could at least let me see a little more of her." "So make a different hole in the shrubbery then, instead of falling out of that one. You don't want her to see you, do you?" "As much of me as possible, baby." When Megumi rolled her eyes at him, Sano toned down his playful leer. "C'mon, she's helping out Kenshin, so she's got to be on our side, right? Kind of like the Lara Croft version of Hiko?" "Sano, I swear you don't ever listen when we talk about the old Battousaigumi. Naginata, slutty clothing, that's got to be his old crony Yumi." "Those are not slutty clothes," Sano defended. "They're provocatively sensual, for a refined adult palate." "Yeah, the kind of palate that drools. At least she didn't notice us any more than the zombies she's mowing down did. I guess either Kenshin's going to call us down to introduce us eventually, or he'll deal with her first." "Lucky bastard. Well, they're talking, not fighting, so I guess we just wait." "So what's going on out there?" Megumi asked after a while. She'd emptied Sano's sake pistol, misting the inside of each of her previously-written test tubes before adding a plug of mochi with a pine-needle fuse down the middle, and carefully wrapping them with tissues into her backpack so they wouldn't clink. He didn't say anything. She leaned over to nudge her own peephole through the branches. They were far enough away to obscure most of the details, but the general idea was obvious. Megumi pulled back to poke his shoulder. "Hey, Sano?" "Yeh?" "I don't think we're old enough to be watching that." "Neh." She shoved an extra tissue into his hand. "So help me Inari, if you can't keep your mouth shut, at least keep it dry. And that better be a test tube in your pocket!" ----- (The original version of chapter 8 got really bizarre after this, and was significantly longer than any of the previous chapters. Once I had a nap and came back to it, I was all, like, horrified. Chapter 8.1 simply cut off before all the freaky Battousai action started up. 8.2 is essentially 8.1 plus the following waff biscuit that used to be the placeholder for chapter 9, and was offered in the way of an apology to anyone who actually read the original version (8.0) during the few hours it was up. Or just for a random dose of waff.) ----- WAFF Intermission From his sleeping bag on the workbench, Kenshin blinked awake at the kiln room's ceiling, dimly lit by the rosy light of dawn. He felt better than he usually did the next day after having died. Or at least, he had that mental haze that tended to follow him around for a while after. It always took longer for his memories to patch back together than his body. He wasn't sure yet just what had happened, but for now, he felt content. He wrinkled his nose contemplatively, scenting the hint of a crisp autumn breeze through the open gap he'd left at his window. Life was good. He was in a warm, safe place. His laundry from yesterday must be nearly dry by now. Kaoru was asleep beside him. He had new socks. Wait a moment. Kaoru? Gingerly, he flexed his shoulder beneath her head, swirling her hair against his neck. She made a soft sleepy sound of protest and tightened her arm around his chest, sliding her knee a little farther up his thigh. This would have been such a nice way to start the morning if he only knew why it was happening. He had no idea what she was doing here, but he couldn't very well throw her out of bed. For one thing, it would be extremely rude. For another, she was wedged between him and the closed sleeping bag zipper, with his arm on that side pinned beneath the curve of her waist. It had something to do with the laundry, didn't it? He'd just finished washing his socks yesterday when she'd come in and kissed him. No, that didn't make any sense either. The laundry issue gave him a further thought, though, and he lifted the edge of the sleeping bag to peek down inside. He was stark raving naked. Oro! Kaoru made another one of those heart-melting sleepy noises at the cold air, and he quickly tucked the edge back down again. Well, at least she had clothes on, a loose shirt and leggings. Her hand flexed again against his ribs and she nudged her nose up beneath his chin. "Cold," she murmured belatedly. Oh good, she was awake. Sort of. He whispered her name in a tone he hoped sounded more tender than panicked. "Mmm?" "I'm terribly sorry, but I'm afraid I can't recall how we got this way?" "Mmm. Couldn't sleep after what happened. Walked here in the middle of the night." Her yawn sent warm breath across his collarbone. "Climbed in through your window. Sat here in the dark for a while, until I got sleepy. You were still out cold anyway." As an afterthought, she added, "Do you want pajamas?" "Nothing... improper happened?" A brief shiver of tension broke her loose sprawl. "Not with me. Unless you're still a no- kissing zone. Just your thing with Yumi." Yumi? But he hadn't seen Yumi for ages. Had he? While he mulled this over, Kaoru relaxed against him again, falling fully back into sleep. The door tapped and opened. Mr. Hiko looked nearly as astonished to see her there as Kenshin had felt. Kenshin did the one-shouldered face mime of "It's not my fault," and was answered with a very skeptical look and a thumb-jerk toward the library before the door silently closed again. Carefully, Kenshin shifted Kaoru's arm off him and squirmed out of the top of the sleeping bag, tucking his pillow beneath her head to replace his shoulder. He found the least-damp items on the laundry rack, put them on, and slipped outside to the hall. ----- (In a kinder, gentler world, chapter 9 or 10 might've started this way. Alas, it is not to be. I suppose it's for the best-- Kenshin would've had his mellow totally harshed once his memory came back anyway. At least if there's no memory lapse, he can start trying to cope right away, instead of spending a few days trying to figure out why everyone's looking at him funny, during which dialogue would mostly consist of: "Dude! I can't believe you did that freaky-ass thing with the knife!" "Oro?" "You know, that-- that *thing* that's so freaky that PG-13 description kept eluding it!" "...Oro??" "And if I were Kaoru, not only would I run screaming away from you from now on, but I'd make sure you were cut into quivering bits behind me first!" "...Oro?!!" The course of true love never did run smooth. O Kenshin, Kenshin, wherefore art thou Battousai?)