&#         “Nu, simpatie, it would appear not.” Standing on the balls of her small feet,
Maggie rose tenderly kissed his cheek and then his smiling mouth. “But you are still the
‘Leader’ among our people, and you are still ‘my’ big dog.” He tossed his head back and
laughed as he pulled her close to him and hugged her.

            “I love you, Maggie. God was kind when he gave you and the children to me. I
thank him everyday.”

            “I love you too, Hiko.” Her face found its way into the hollow of her throat
despite her shortness of stature compared to her mountain of a husband. “I thank God
everyday that he brought you to us. You have been the kindest and most loving husband
a woman could ask for... and a firm even handed father who taught his children well.”

            “Hmmmm... that remains to be seen.” He pulled away from her and looked down
into her brilliant blue eyes. “We need to go see to them, simpatie. It is not Aoshi’s place
to comfort OUR children.”

            “Nu, it is not, but I for one, will be eternally gratefully that he was here. If he had
not been...” The unspoken words hung in the air as a heavy reminder of what could have
been if the young Major had not recognized what was happening when he did and rushed
to Soujiro’s aid. “How do you think he knew?” Maggie a q a questioning glance into
her husbands thoughtful face.

            “That Kaoru was ‘The Source’ and we were being attacked by her Mate’s
shield?” She nodded and they began to make their way painfully toward the huddled
mass of three. “He has always been very intuitive and could ‘sense’ many things the rest
of us could not. He is even better at it than I am... it’s a gift he has.”

            “You’re saying that he ‘sensed’ ‘The One’ on Kaoru?” Maggie sounded
incredulous.

            “Nu, not exactly ‘The One’ himself, but I think once he got a good whiff of that
power he knew there could be only one source for it.” ‘The boy has a nose for power and
energy shifts... leave it to him to be the one to figure it all out while I was being the
thickheaded bellowing father. Sigh.’

            “‘Cel’.”

            “Desigur, ‘Cel’. And then I’m sure he did the only thing he could think of... he
addressed the power of the shield directly and begged it to stop.” Beside him Maggie
nodded in agreement as she leaned into the strength of her husband.

            “It would seem that is what must have happened because the power only struck
Soujiro once.”

            “Desigur, but as it was, that one blow was killing him regardless... until Kaoru
touched him.” A furrow of confusion once more wrinkled Hiko’s smooth brow as he
pondered upon that fact. ‘How did she heal him? What was that white light coming from
her hands? Why did her eyes and throat bleed? Is she evolving the same as the man who
has become ‘Cel’ must have had to in order to accept the power thrust upon him?’
These questions plagued his mind as they approached the three individuals still
occupying the floor. Slowly he knelt down beside Aoshi, pulling Maggie with him.
Kaoru’s hoarse anguished sobs tore through him like a sword splitting him asunder, and
he leaned over the unconscious body of his son to tenderly stroke the back of her head
with one of his large hands.

            “Little Jasmine Flower,” He whispered gently and felt her start beneath his hand.
“It would appear many things have changed since you departed my sight last evening,
nu?” She grew very still beneath his tender ministrations and her breathing turned into
tiny gasps and catches as she listened to the deep reringring tone of his voice. “I said
‘Good-bye’ to an arrogant conceited Slayer who has long thought too much of herself
despite my best efforts to instill within her the morals and ethics of our needing each
other in order to survive.”

            “Pa-pa...”

            “I have long feared you would meet your demise outside of these walls and I
would never know you were gone other than losing touch with your blood. I would never
know what happened to you, and my heart would forever grieve for the little girl whose
sweet smile I have grown to miss so much... but providence it seems is good, and has
delivered you back into my hands unharmed it would appear... but changed none the
less.” Tentatively Kaoru rose from her place on her brother’s chest and warily met her
father’s dark green gaze. The blood of her tears was all but gone having been washed
away by her real tears and the front of Soujiro’s shirt, but a dark streak of crimson
remained sliding down from the wounds in her throat to the cleavage between her
breasts.

            “You have come home to me wrapped in the Mate’s Shield of ‘The One’
himself... and with powers growing inside of you that I can only imagine.” A paternal
smile of pure pride curved his usually stern mouth and he cupped her moist cheek in his
hand. “My daughter... ‘The Source’... How proud I am, and stunned that it was I who
raised the one whose blood would be ‘The Key’ that freed ‘Cel’ from his bonds, and then
become his Mate.”

            “Y-you’re proud o-of me?” Kaoru trembled beneath the touch of her father’s
hand and as her eyes filled with the pain and shame of her inner guilt, more tears spilled
over her thick lashes. His smiling face blurred before her glaze as her heart was filled
with the agony of her inner turmoil. “But Papa...” She struggled to speak through a
throat tight with emotion. “I’ve d-done nothing for you t-to be p-proud of... not in the
whole of my pathetic life.”

            “What do you mean by that, Kaoru? I have always been proud of you... if not a
little worried that you insisted on doing everything alone. I was more frightened at times
than anything else. I didn’t want to lose you... and not because you were the finest Slayer
we had, but because you were my child.” Kaoru dropped her head and her shoulder’s
began to shake with quiet sobs, and when she spoke it was in a hushed and pain filled
tones.

            “I have been the most disrespectful child. I never listen to what you or Mamma
tell me, and I scoff at the wisdom’s you would share with me. I am the most difficult of
your Slayer’s to control. I fight with my comrades, I ignore orders, I argue with my
superiors...” She cast a furtive look at Aoshi and found him with his head down simply
listening to her and not interfering. “I am pompous and rude... I have despised everyone
because I have convinced myself I am better than all of them and I don’t need them... I
have placed myself above everyone and looked down on them as if they were dirt
beneath my feet... I have never valued another life save my own... I have never believed
in anything or anyone save myself...” She stopped and drew a ragged breath before
going on. “I may be the best Slayer you have, Papa... but I am also the worst, because by
doing everything alone, and refusing to work with any of the others... I put them in
danger as well as myself. I am a poor warrior. You should be ashamed of me... I am.”
Her head drooped and her hands folded in her lap making her looke a e a small child
instead of a fierce assassin. “I have brought more shame to the names of ‘Kamiya’ and
‘Seijuro’ over the decades than my pride is worth. I am a poor daughter.”

            “Kaoru...” Hiko’s voice was hoarse and tight with emotion as he tried to reach
for his daughter but she backed away from him and refused to be touched.

            “Nu, Papa... There are things you must know... things that must be told... things
that must be said, and I am the one who must say them.” She lifted her head and allowed
their gazes to lock briefly and then she was looking down again. “I have been heedless
of your teachings and those of my Commander, I have mocked your orders to travel with
a back-up or a weapon because I believed I was too good to need either, and... and last
night... last night I nearly died for my recklessness.”

            “Kaoru!” Her name was a chorus of frightened anxiety from the three conscious
people facing her, and though it was concern and fear she felt radiating off of them
instead of recriminations, she still refused to meet their alarmed looks. Instead, she
simply continued in her quiet humiliated tellin the the incident.

            “I was... careless.” She swallowed hard as she admitted her mistake. “I allowed
myself to be cornered inside a short dead-end ally by several policemen. I was greatly
out numbered especially with all of the guns and 12 gauges they brought with them.”
The level of concern around her peaked and began to teeter on the edge of distress. She
began to feel cornered and suffocated beneath the weight of their emotions, and her
words dwindled to a halt.

            “How many?” Aoshi’s voice was calm and insistent as he asked the question. He
decided it was time for the debriefing to begin and put an end to her self recriminations.
‘You have debased yourself enough, My Lady...’ He thought in humility. ‘The
forgiveness of your soul is not to to do... but your own.’

            “Eight.” Her mother moaned and began to cry. “I thought I could bait and mock
their emotions until they made a mistake so I could get past them, but it didn’t happen
that way. Their Leading Officer... he was quite intelligent and seemed to know what I
was trying to do. He positioned the rest of his men so I had no way out. Then I killed
one of them... after that, things got very bad for me. They all went sort of ‘gun happy’ on
me because I’d killed on of their own...”

            “Understandable.”

            “Desigur, Major, it was understandable... I’d like to think I would have felt the
same way if it had been one of ‘us’.”

            “What happened next?”

            “They loaded up, came down the ally... and started shooting into the dark. You
see, the whole of the ally was pitch black and they couldn’t see me, but I could see
them... there was no where for me to go. All I could I could do was duck, dodge, and
jump as fast as I could and hope for the best.”

            “You must have gotten hurt?” He gasped in shock. “You couldn’t have been able
to dodge that many bullets... WERE you hurt? Kaoru? Were you injured?” Aoshi’s
voice had taken on a note of incredulity as he reached out to her and grasping her, wrist
he felt her trembled beneath his touch. “What happened?”

            “They shot me up... mostly nicks and grazes, although, some of them were pretty
deep, but the worst was I took a 9mm right through the meat of my right side. I was
bleeding all over the place, and I still didn’t have a way out.” Her voice dropped to a
lower tone, and the look in her eyes changed to something unreadable as the terrible
memories resurfaced. “I knew I was going to die.”

            “But you didn’t die, Slayer.” Aoshi squeezed her hand in reaffirmation that she
was indeed alive. “You survived. I just want to know how. Tell me how you lived
through that Kaoru. Tell me how you lived through it without a single scratch to show
for it.”

            As her eyes searched his face, Kaoru fell into silence her lips twitching with the
words she knew she had to say. “They regrouped and four of them tried to rush me. I
ended up killing two more of them and splitting up the rest... there was blood and the
stink of death everywhere and I knew I was fighting for my life, but ... I was out of
strength, I was finished. I couldn’t go one more step.” Her head drooped for a moment
and then she was looking right into Aoshi’s stunned icy blue gaze. “That’s when it
happened.”

            “What happened?”

            “‘He’ came... he just appeared out of the gun smoke like a wraith in the night and
killed the officer who was about to blow my head off... just like that... broke his neck and
it was over. The other policemen scurried off likes rats leaving a sinking ship. They
didn’t even try to stand up to him, not one of them.” Dark blue eyes misted over and
filled with a deep unspoken emotion that made Aoshi feel like he might blush. “And
then he came to me, picked me up like I was a little girl... and he... we...” Her voice
trailed off and her face went slightly blank as the memories filtered through her mind.

            “‘He’ what? What did he do, Kaoru?” The Major’s tone was becoming more
urgent as the telling of this tale became more fantastic by the moment. The vision of the
bloody battle scene was laid out in infinite detail before his mind’s eye, and he was
horrified and amazed beyond belief. He had to know what happened next.

            “He... he jumped, Aoshi. He jumped straight up in the air and landed on top of
the building we were standing next to... it had to be over sixty feet, maybe seventy... and
he took it like he was playing hop-scotch.” Not one sound was emitted from her father,
who was staring er ier in complete shock, nor from her superior officer, who was
sporting much the same look. It was her mother who finally found the words to speak
and break the stunned silence.

            “No effort at all?” She asked in a subdued voice than was nothing like her usual
self.

            “Nu, Mamma... no effort whatsoever, and then he was leaping from rooftop to
rooftop taking me across the city. Effortless... it was like being in the arms of an Eagle.”
A tremor ran through Kaoru’s body and gooseflesh appeared on her forearms. “It was...
glorious.”

            “Where did you go, lubit? Where did he take you?”

            “To his apartment across the city.”

            “Apartment!?” Hiko finally found his voice and blustered loudly over than
revelation. “Who the hell is this guy if he has an apartment?” Confusion bloomed across
his concerned features and a blush of outrage started to form on his pale cheeks. Then he
was reaching into himself and slamming an iron fist down on top of his burgeoning
emotions before they got the better of             “He is not... whole yet?” Hiko looked astonished by Kaoru’s revelation.