In the Forests of the Night

The skylight in the bedroom ceiling glowed pale as the first hint of morning shone through. Enishi quickly shut the hallway door, blocking out the golden hue of the lamp behind him. Restored to shadow, Kaoru lay curled in bed like a rose folded from grey velvet, her hair thrown across the pillow as the silk leaf beneath the blossom. He sat on the side of the bed, easing his weight down slowly to avoid jolting her, and drew back the blanket's edge to bare her shoulder. After a moment, her brows furrowed slightly and she burrowed further down into the covers to stay warm. He did the same thing over again. So did she.

Unless he woke her up, she'd end up bundling herself down off the foot of the bed, all wrapped up in the sheets like a gyoza. She looked so peaceful, though, and she'd been so tired out when he finally put her back to bed last night-- well, this morning, really, and not that many hours ago-- that he couldn't break up her sleep in good conscience. He couldn't leave her here either, though.

Perhaps a bluebird gyoza wasn't such a bad idea after all. Carefully, he tugged the covers free from the mattress and wrapped her up in them. As he was gathering her into his arms, though, she finally blinked her eyes half-open and pawed against his shoulder through the layers of cloth. "Mmmph?"

Oh, crikey. It was so close to the sound she made when lying exhausted under him-- or over, or next to-- and just starting to crawl back onto the beach of consciousness from under the waves he'd drowned her in. He considered extending the metaphor even more gratuitously to keep distracting himself from the urge to dump her onto the bare mattress right now for another go. Instead, he staunchly turned away from the bed, pried the door back open with his foot, and carried her down the hallway. "Morning, sweetheart. Wakey wakey-- anything in particular you'd like for breakfast? Coffee? Tea? Me?"

Was she going back to sleep again? That was terribly unflattering. No, she was just thinking it over. "Frozen toaster waffles?" she finally suggested.

"Don't believe I have any, but I'll see what I've got if you'll sit tight." He set her down on the countertop, which he truly regretted was the wrong height. It had been so lovely to have a good view of her for those few minutes. She fumbled around inside the blankets to make sure of the surface, then curled up on her side again while he checked the fridge and pantry. The help did a fair job of keeping everything stocked, but he hadn't been bothering with much besides Tomoe's old favorites. "Plenty of rice, of course. Sealed bricks of soft tofu. Some sort of stuff that claims to stay crunchy in milk and is a part of this complete nutritionally balanced brekky."

"Does that mean it's one of those healthy cereals?" She sounded sleepily disappointed.

"Dunno. It shows fruit cut up on top, so the flakes can't be that good to start with. Have we got milk? Yes, but we have no bananas. Strawberries? Fancy those?"

"Strawberries are good on waffles, too."

Fondly, he thumped the cereal box on her head before setting it beside the sink, where the freshly rinsed berries were dripping in their basket. "No waffles. You'll just have to live with that."

"Waffles are good with a lot of things," she insisted. "Maple syrup, honey, jam, chocolate...."

"Love, there are no sodding waffles in this house. Never will be, neither, if you'd rather have them than yours truly for breakfast. Won't catch me letting you throw me over for a bit of frozen pastry, I can tell you. 'Sides, you could put that sort of sticky sweet stuff on anything and make it taste good. Anchovies. Natto. Me." Her lids finally flew wide open, two windows of blue sky brightening the day. "Oh, now who's my pretty owl-eyed girl, then?"

She had a wonderfully dazed look of reminiscence. After a moment, she said faintly, "Natto?"

"All right, I'll admit that's a bit much. But we can't all taste as nice as you, or no one would ever get anything done. Believe you me, I know I'd just lie around in bed all day, curled into knots trying to lick myself." He picked up a strawberry, held it pointing upright, and ran his tongue around its tip. Her mouth dropped open. He popped the strawberry into it.

It was such a bloody damn shame there wasn't time for this right now. He retrieved the tea tray from the main room and loaded it up again in the kitchen. "Now, you sit tight, and I'll take this upstairs and then come back for you."

By the time he'd dropped off the tray and returned, she was curled up again with her eyes shut tight and the decapitated strawberry hull lying next to her mouth. It wasn't a very good impression of being asleep, but he let it pass. Reversing the fine tradition of room service, he carried her to her breakfast and left her there.

---

After a few hours, the maids finished their weekly cleaning and he sent them back out. They'd be back in the afternoon with fresh supplies and clean laundry, but for now, it was safe to unlock the stairwell again. Enishi walked up softly, guarding against either waking Kaoru or giving her enough warning to ambush him, depending.

She was still in the nest of covers almost exactly where he'd set her down. At some point she'd woken enough to tuck away most of the cereal and whatnot he'd left on the tray, but they hadn't given her enough energy to stay awake. As he sat beside her on the futon, he noticed a few breadcrumbs clinging to the corner of her mouth, and leaned closer to lick them away.

He hesitated. She'd been crying, and crying hard. Her poor little face was puffy and raw from the linen napkin clutched in her hand. When he pulled the cloth free, it stayed in a crumpled lump, damply stuck together from the inside. But she hadn't raised enough of a fuss to be heard from below and she'd settled down on her own, so perhaps it was out of her system now. Delicately, he licked up the crumbs after all.

To top off her breakfast, he'd set out a stack of little jars, each with its own sort of goo that she might like. He wasn't sure what half of these things from the pantry were, but they were all labelled with sugar or corn syrup as their main ingredient, except for the flavored honey spreads. Whichever one she'd put onto her bread had a subtle caramel perfume, ethereally milky and sweet. A thin smear of it shone on her cheek, too, and he went after that as well. Before he could clear all of it away, she made one of her wonderful sleepy noises again. It sounded good enough to eat, so he nibbled at its source, from lips to throat and downward. She twitched awake, startled. "Ow," she said accusingly.

His face felt slightly dented from her twitching his glasses into it. He rubbed the tender line under the wire frames as he sat back. "Ow yourself. Ready for another beautiful day? Come on then, rise and shine, pretty owlet."

Shoving tangled hair out of her face, she stayed half-curled and just looked at the hand he was offering to help her up. "I don't have any clothes left. Not even your jacket."

"Want it back?" Helpfully, he held it out to her.

"Um. Do you have anything else I could wear? Something that you're not already wearing right now," she added quickly, foiling him from disrobing further.

Clever girl. Drat. "I'm sure I can rummage around for a thing or two while you're in the bath."

Her expression resembled discreet horror. "The bath? Again?"

"Well, you do look a bit mussed, but if you'd rather not, I spose it would save us both the worry of getting you sweaty again."

She wrapped the covers tightly around her as she tried to stand. "I'll take another bath. Downstairs, right? Ow," she said again, stumbling.

He caught her on one arm. "Easy now. Got your feet tangled there?"

"Not exactly." Her caramel-glazed cheek blushed into candy-apple red, but she didn't offer any further explanations, and she eased herself back down to the futon.

With a supreme effort, he succeeded at suppressing an explosion of mad macho glee. Only a faint snerkle of smugness escaped through his nose. "Tell you what," he gallantly offered. "I'll pop you into the bath up here, so I won't have to balance you down the stairs and back."

The tub in the next room had a continuous current of warm, clean water, so it only took a second for him to unlock the door and make sure nothing embarrassing was sloshing around in it-- no clumps of hair in the grate, no rubber duckies. The second after that, he spotted Kaoru trying to squirm her way toward the stairs, still cocooned in the covers. He smacked the part of the cocoon that looked like her bottom, and got another rendition of the little growl in her throat that had welcomed him early in last night's proceedings.

"Upsy-daisy, now." Cheerfully, he hoisted her over one shoulder, carried her into the next room, and shut the door behind her before returning down below.

---

This was so incredibly aggravating. She could tell he knew exactly where her muscles were sore, not to mention just how they'd gotten that way. And he'd locked the door behind her again. How many keys could he possibly be carrying around, especially since his pants didn't have any pockets? Even the door over the upper end of the stairs had been locked when she tried it after breakfast, and there was a set of locks on the near side as well. She'd considered trying to use the latter, but decided it would just make him mad, and he would've broken through eventually anyway.

Unlike the modern edifice of chrome and porcelain she'd used before, this room was constructed of relatively rough-hewn wood, just like the one the futon was in. This upstairs zone was practically a completely different place from downstairs, even more of a contrast to that luxurious elegance than the simple tea nook had been. And this bathtub was basically a big barrel with iron bands and thick bamboo pipes, even though there had to be some complicated plumbing that ran all this warm water around.

But she wasn't in any mood for sustained architectural analysis. There didn't seem to be anything like soap or shampoo up here, so this was just meant to be a soaking tub-- oh, there was the actual washing stuff in the corner, stacked on a low stool near a faucet. Well, at this point, she certainly didn't care about keeping his tub clean. Wincingly, she got out of the covers, up the short set of steps to the barrel's edge, and into the water, leaving her hair draped over the side so it would stay dry.

To her relief, the tub was much more comfortable on the inside than it had looked on the outside. She could adjust the water level by tweaking the bamboo tubes up and down. The raised seat was moveable too, and putting it in front of the inflow tube made for a nice water massage against her shoulders.

She felt steadier now than the first time she'd been awake. It was the breakfast tray that had made her feel weirdly shaky. All she'd expected had been the cereal he'd talked about. Sure enough, he'd brought up the box and left it with a cereal bowl and spoon, the rest of the strawberries, and one of those packages of heat-treated milk that could stay on the shelf forever. But he'd also bothered to set out the other things from the cereal box's front picture: juice, bread, and stuff to put on it. Okay, so it wasn't that big a deal, but it was the sort of thoughtful detail that Kenshin would've covered too. And when she sorted through the little jars of stuff, one of them turned out to be dulce de leche.

A month or two before, Sano had made an incredible mess by demonstrating his way to make dulce de leche, which involved ignoring the warning label on canned condensed milk. After the can exploded, all three of them had to frantically wipe and rinse everything in the kitchen before Kaoru's mom and Yahiko got home. Eventually, Kenshin found a safer recipe, though as he'd pointed out, it would have been difficult to find a more dangerous one. Dulce de leche was one of the few things he'd ever successfully taught Kaoru how to cook, once he convinced her that there wasn't any good way to get around stirring a big pot of sweetened milk for several hours on low heat. Especially not trying to boil off all the liquid quickly on really high heat.

The required patience had become more appealing once Kenshin started standing close behind her to lean against. But all of that was when he was still willing to let that kind of thing happen, which hadn't been for a while now. And she might have a long wait before he'd ever do something like that again, much less catch up to Enishi. But last night hadn't made her fall in love with Enishi, any more than before they'd even met. So why had she ever thought that sleeping with Kenshin would've proved or changed anything at all about the way they felt for each other?

---

Enishi contemplated the contents of the downstairs bedroom's wardrobe. He would've like to air out some of Tomoe's other things, but those long dresses would tumble past Kaoru's toes. On the other hand, Yumi had worn her own clothing a tad short, snug, or both, so they'd likely be just the right fit now.

When he peeked back into the birdbath, Kaoru was soaking with a vengeance, nearly up to her nose again, and edged even deeper down when she saw him. She certainly didn't look as if she wanted company in the tub. With an inward sigh, he merely waved at her, traded his armful of fabric for the pile of covers, and shut the door again.

It was well into the morning, and he was feeling restless. Normally by this time, he'd be tending to business at the Yoshiwara, letting Wu shuttle the maids around and keep watch on them. Jineh's latest pranks had been taking priority over work for the past week. But now Enishi couldn't stray too long or far to look for him, what with wanting to keep an eye-- and perhaps a few other parts-- on Kaoru.

But perhaps he'd earned a vacation of sorts. Ironically, he'd spent more attention on this place before he moved in than after. Ever since losing Tomoe, he'd felt taunted by everything he'd brought here to make her happy. He slept and ate here, but it wasn't home without someone to come home to. Still, it was a lovely place after all, now that he looked around. Might as well take a break to explore its potential for fun.

---

When the music started up, Kaoru nearly jumped out of her skin, much less the tub. She'd been lost in a deliberately blank daze, half-asleep again, but there was no way she could keep that up now. It had been the start of some classical piece, but she'd never known something like that could be played this loud. The noise might've been enough by itself to send the water around her into Jurassic Park ripples, even without her splashing half of it out with shock.

The volume went way down suddenly. It was coming from some distance away, filtered through the walls. Dripping her way to the door, she wrapped a towel around herself and checked out the rest of the stack. The bathrobe was much too big for her, so she ignored it. The other clothes definitely had Yumi's look to them. There was a flippy miniskirt that would've been even more mini on Yumi, plus an adjustable crop-top which offered Kaoru the choice of keeping either her shoulders or her belly-button covered, but not both. She reconsidered the bathrobe, but decided it wouldn't offer any more protection than the kimono had in the first place. It wouldn't be that much warmer than what she'd already put on, or much harder for him to take off her.

He hadn't locked her in this time. Was he expecting her to come find him again? She didn't want to, but it probably was a good idea to get dressed and see if she had another chance to get out. The stairs weren't locked now either, but the front door still was. There weren't any sharp metal objects around at all, her own clothes were completely gone except for her hair-ribbon, and Enishi wasn't anywhere in sight. But his long leather coat was still hanging beside the front door, where he'd dumped off the bedcovers, and music kept playing from the speakers hidden all over the house. It didn't make sense that he'd put on a CD and then just leave. Besides, those covers were right up against the door, so it hadn't been opened since they were put down.

Upstairs again, the folding screen to one side had a thin beam of light behind it that she hadn't noticed before. She hadn't thought to check whether these wall panels could slide back and forth, but obviously they did. The other side of the wall was a slightly larger room with a hearth sunk into the floor, and the light was coming from the smoke vent above that. After that, a hallway led past a few more rooms, and then suddenly, she was outside.

She'd thought she smelled fresh air coming through the smoke vent, but it had seemed weirdly warm and, well, green. Yesterday at sunset, she'd been in a slushy winter ditch. A few hours after that, she'd been getting an unexpectedly thorough tour of various modern design features, from closeup looks at silk-pile carpets and hardwood cabinets to wider-angle surveys of ceiling beams and overhead light fixtures. Now she was in the courtyard of an old-fashioned wooden house, staring out at a pond that rippled with water-lilies in full bloom. The entire house was encased in a glass dome, like an inside-out paperweight with the snow on the outside. And at the pond's edge, Enishi was playing with his watou.

That instant crystallized all of the differences between him and Kenshin. Enishi's sword practice looked more like a lynx on catnip than any sort of formal training routine. As with Kenshin, his weapon seemed to be a natural extension of his own body. But while Kenshin treated both of those things as an unwanted burden, Enishi took active delight in exercising them to their fullest extent and beyond. It wasn't that Kenshin was any less skilled or brillliant with them, but he didn't have any joy in their mere existence the way Enishi did. And that was what made her finally recognize the music.

This part of it had had been playing in Evangelion when the guy with her name lost his head. The chorus was singing in German, but she knew what the words meant anyway.

"Joy, thou source of light immortal,
Daughter of Elysium,
Touched with fire, to the portal
Of thy radiant shrine we come.

"Thy pure magic frees all others
Held in custom's rigid rings;
All throughout the world are brothers
In the haven of thy wings."

When the symphony was over, he ambled over to the deck, where he leaned his sheathed watou and mopped a towel over his head. "Come out to listen to a bit of the old Ludwig Van? Or did you have something else in mind?"

Not her mind, no. But her body had other ideas when it recognized his presence, and for the first time, she began to be really afraid of him.

---

Kaoru looked even better now that she was rested, fed, and washed up all over again. The green and violet of Yumi's clothes played up those lovely eyes, as clear as an azure sky of deepest summer. However, their expression hinted that he wasn't looking his best himself. "All right then," he said, draping the towel around his neck. "Reckon as the bath's waiting for me now, hey?"

It didn't look as if she'd used the soap at all. This actually made him even happier to think that she'd kept her own private perfume in place, with nothing but warm clean eau de Kaoru left on her skin. He gave himself a good scrub, though, and rinsed with cold water until every single hair stood upright. Leaping into the tub after that was a wonderful relief, and he lolled back at ease, watching his glasses steam up again.

He couldn't recall when he'd last felt this good. Maybe the brief time he'd spent with Tomoe in their flat before she was stolen from him, but even when she was asleep, he'd never got half as far with her as with Kaoru. His own pretty bluebird, singing as sweetly as any nightingale under the starry sky-- was she tame yet, or would she still peck at him to fly free?

On cue, the bathroom door edged open. He'd left his watou out there to test her, but its blade didn't come flying out at him. In fact, she didn't show as much as a fingertip or an eyelash. "Um. Should I take this tray back downstairs? I don't know where your dishes and stuff should go."

"You can leave them as they are, pet. If you're fretting for something to do, the koi out there would likely welcome what's left of the bread. Just don't fuss them with lemon curd and butter, or they might think you're making a meal of them instead of giving them one."

"Oh. Okay." The hair-thin gap closed shut again. She sounded both listless and edgy somehow, he thought. Perhaps she was due for another feeding as well.

Well, he'd spent enough time basking here already. Another pass with fresh towels, and then he shrugged his bathrobe onto damp shoulders and followed her trail of breadcrumbs back to the courtyard. "What do you say to another round of miso soup? Or do you fancy something else this time?"

"Soup sounds fine," she said in the same tone as before, but when she turned from the pond toward him, she went all owl-eyed again and as colorful as a ringneck parakeet: green skirt, violet blouse, blue hair-ribbon, and rose-blush face. Cor. He'd got a bit lazy about remembering to actually tie his bathrobe closed, hadn't he?

He distracted her attention upward with what felt like an unconvincing "I meant to do that" grin. Firmly tying the sash, he pressed, "Just soup? Don't want a bit of fish or daikon pickle to go with it?"

Quickly, her face returned to normal, but she sounded a bit more lively now. "I'm not really hungry again yet, but thanks. I'll just try some of whatever you're having for lunch."

"I'm not hungry either, just wondering why you seem out of sorts. You all right, then?"

"Yeah, I guess so. It's just-- I'm still a little tired, that's all."

Her blush had returned to full bloom, but she looked forlorn enough that he felt guilty for even thinking about snickering. "Get on back to the futon then, and finish resting up. Take all the time you want, love. I'd forgot how much sleep you might need, but go on ahead if you have to."

"You forgot? Don't you have to sleep too?"

He shrugged. "I can get by without it if need be, though it does feel nice. Just like eating. Or a few other things. Didn't Battousai teach you anything about us at all?"

"He's... different." Her whole body drooped as she swayed on her feet. When he held out his hand, she took it without looking at him, and let him lead her back inside.

---

Enish had brought out another set of blankets and tucked them around her, then sat by her side stroking her hair until she really fell asleep again. That must've been hours ago, from the way the light had changed. In the morning, it had been merely reflecting off the inside of the dome down the smoke vent in the next room. He'd left the wall panel open and moved the folding screen aside to improve air circulation, so now direct sunlight was shining straight at her. Obviously, he'd known exactly where it would fall, since the screen had been placed just right to keep the sunbeam from hitting her face. Kaoru desperately hoped that he would stop being this nice to her when he came back.

Not that she wanted to be roughed up or anything like that, but it had felt so much easier to deal with him last night, when he'd been all impersonal virtuosity or romping play. But now he was acting almost as if he liked her. Not just the ordinary kind of like, but the really heavy-duty liking like. How could she keep viewing him as an enemy if he refused to act like one?

And that was even apart from the whole problem of enjoying her predicament more than what might be deemed prudent, as Hiko might put it. She did felt kind of guilty for giving in, but she wouldn't've had any chance at winning or maybe even surviving a solid fight with Enishi, so she could mostly rationalize that part of it to herself as living to fight another day. And maybe Kenshin didn't even care what she did anymore, ever since their last argument.

Mostly, she had a vaguely sick sensation as if she'd been force-fed too much chocolate. Sure, it was something she liked, but she hadn't wanted it right now, and she'd been given more of it than she could deal with all at once. In a way, Enishi reminded her of Elmyra from Tiny Toons, the little girl who wanted to have pets but kept squeezing them too hard, killing them with too much love.

Her only consolation was that it wasn't morning sickness. Yumi and Tomoe didn't have their periods while they were possessed, so that probably meant Enishi and Jineh were shooting blanks. Not that she ever wanted to get close enough to Jineh to find out. She didn't even really want to know about Enishi, but it was a little late for that.

Jineh and Enishi... that reminded her of something. Last night, before everything went to hell, she'd figured Jineh's lair was guarded by zombies because he'd gone back to teaming up with Enishi, who was all Mr. Being John Malkovich Flesh-Puppeteer Extraordinaire. But Enishi was out to get Jineh too, so she'd ended up being grateful to him for rescuing her from his own zombie attack squad, hadn't she? She would've recognized him immediately if he'd been carrying his watou, but he'd had a katana with him instead-- a katana that was a lot heavier than she'd expected, and which he'd never taken out of its scabbard or even touched without wearing black iron gauntlets.

He'd helped Jineh torture her mother and kill her father, months before. And last night, he'd set out to ravish her with the same cool determination that must have underlaid that raid on the dojo. The same hands, the same deft skills, the same intimate knowledge of where the veins and nerves would surge-- all of those had helped him take Kaoru, just as he'd taken the sakabatou. So now he had both of them.

She had no idea if he'd kept the silver sword all along and took it with him to kill Jineh, or if he'd sent in the zombies to help him steal it again, but that didn't matter. He had it now. Somewhere. And she was going to get it back from him. Somehow. The sakabatou had killed Enishi once before, more than a hundred years ago. There wasn't any reason why it couldn't do it again. Was there?

About an hour later, when she'd had time to think this over, he unlocked the stairwell again. He'd changed out of his bathrobe into a fresh outfit that was almost identical to his previous set of clothes; the main reason she could tell the difference was that these didn't have embarrassing stains on them. "So you're awake again at last, little blue-eyed owl. Made some rice balls if you want some. Otherwise, they're going into the fridge to pour tea on for snacks tomorrow."

"Could I have some with tea now?"

The prospect of feeding her again perked him back up to full voltage. "I'll bring them up with another treat or two. Back in a tick." She rubbed her eyes and sat up; by the time she'd found her hair ribbon and rebooted her ponytail, he'd come charging back in, carrying the increasingly familiar tray. It was getting to be just like deja vu all over again. Tea, rice balls... and waffles?

They looked waffly, with ice crystals clinging to their crevices like half-melted butter. "Frozen toaster waffles?" she asked, to make sure.

He shrugged modestly. "You asked for them special. I brought you all that sticky stuff again, too."

"They're still frozen?"

"Yeh. Like you said, right?"

"Um... do you have a toaster?"

"What's that?"

"You know. You put bread into it and toast comes out."

"Yeh?" He looked thoughtful. "Where does the bread go?"

She stuffed a rice ball into her mouth as quickly as possible. When she felt capable of opening her mouth again without spraying rice everywhere, she gasped politely, "Thank you very much for the waffles. I'll save them for dessert."

He'd been serenely sipping tea all this time, but now he set his cup down and grinned. "Got you there, didn't I?"

She fell over sideways, giggling hysterically. He reached around the tray to tickle her; when she squirmed away, he sat up on his knees, leaned forward, and simply fell on top of her.

---

Well, that had been a surprise. Here she'd been all happy and laughing again, but the moment he touched her, she froze and tried to flatten herself down into the futon like a rabbit under a hawk's shadow. He backed off, leaning on one elbow beside her and hoping to smooth things over. "Turns out these waffles won't fit right in the toaster downstairs, that's all," he said casually. "Nor they won't take to the microwave or the oven. Reckon we can just wait for them to defrost, and then maybe crisp them up a bit on the stove, hey?"

She was shivering a bit as she nodded. She'd been so brave and feisty the night before; why would she be so rattled now? There was only one explanation that made sense to him.

"Kaoru, love. Is that something Battousai used to do? Pounce over you and hold you down?" She nodded again, a single jerk of her chin. It still seemed odd, though. "But you said he hardly touched you at all. What'd he do that for, then?"

Her mouth opened, but at first there was only a tiny gasp for breath. He had to lean as close as breadcrumbs to hear her whisper. "It was when I tried to do more with him than he'd let me. So then he'd push me away and hold me off."

Enishi closed his eyes, trying to suppress his sudden rage. It all made sense now. Should he tell her? If he didn't, he'd explode.

"So that's what the little lizard was after with you. He wanted to keep you caged away until he could change you into one of us, and then he'd have Tomoe all over again." She didn't understand, did she?

"Tomoe, my dearest sister, my dulcet dove-- she was a virgin when she went to him. Do you know what that means? Every time he was with her, he tore her open, and she healed back up over and over again. I would've tried to make her happy without doing that, but she never gave me the chance, and now it's gone.

"Pretty bluebird, you'll never have to fear that now. I've saved you from all of that. Push you away, did he? You can hold me as tight as you like; I'll never let you go."

He drew her against his shoulder, waiting for her shivers to subside. It took a while before he realized she was crying. During the past few years, Tomoe's sobbing wails had echoed off the walls of whatever refuge they'd found, but the only things that gave Kaoru away were the hot tears soaking into his jacket and an occasional sharp sniffle. Despite her near-silence, though, she was clinging to him so tightly that it was nearly painful.

"Tell you what," he offered, cradling her in his arms. "I was hoping to rock you to sleep some other way, but I don't think you'd rest easy with that just now, would you?" She shook her head. "So if you'd rather, I'll let you do whatever you like to me, if it'll help at all. What do you say to that?"

---

The jacket's smooth brocade had that subtle soap-scent all over again, like Earl Grey tea in a sandalwood box, and Enishi's voice was a comforting rumble through it. Kaoru wished he would just drop dead from self-induced toxic niceness. She wished she'd never let Kenshin walk away. She wished she'd never met either of them and was just having a friendly argument with Megumi about whose turn it was to have a date with Sano. What could she say? What could she possibly say that would make anything better at this point?

Was Enishi right about Kenshin, or had Kenshin just been afraid to cause her as much pain as he'd given Tomoe over tearsears? Would Battousai really have surfaced just from her own influence? What did any of it matter now?

If she had one more chocolate truffle shoved down her throat, so to speak, she was going to be even more of a wreck than before. So this really would have to be her opening to start prying the sakabatou away from him. She sniffled again, and got a soft linen handkerchief tucked against her face. "Blow," he said gently.

She blew her nose, wiped her eyes, and sniffled one last time. "What do you want me to do?"

"For now, just lay your head down until there's more of a smile on it." He was stroking her hair again, with long smooth motions as if sharpening a sword. "After that, if you can't think of anything that would make you feel better, I'll have to see to it myself."

"I mean, what kinds of things would you like?"

His shoulder tensed into alertness beneath her cheek. "Do you want to, then? So you can wash out your fear of Battousai once and for all?" He really didn't understand how she felt about Kenshin, did he? She nodded anyway. "Phwoar," he said, or something like it. "Best way to find out that sort of thing is by experiment, I always say. Start whenever you're ready."

Tentatively, she reached out, tracing the contours of his torso through the double layers of his shirt and jacket. He had longer bones than Kenshin, of course, and his chest was broader and deeper, built by the same extra burden of the watou that bulked up his arms and shoulders. After a minute or two, she glanced up at his face. He was watching her, not surprisingly, though with an expectant look she hadn't quite seen before. It worried her. "Should I be saying stuff to you?" she asked.

"Anything in particular on your mind?"

"Well... it's just that you always talk to me, so it feels weird for both of us to be completely quiet."

She'd halted her explorations, and he wriggled impatiently to prompt her to resume. When she did, so did he. "Doesn't look as if you can keep your mind on business and hold a chat at the same time. I was all prepared to just lie back all quiet-like and think of Okusofodo-- very green and pleasant land-- but if you'd rather, I can talk enough for both of us. Used to be a bit of a joke with us in the old days. I remember one night when I was warming up Yumi, and Battousai yells over from his corner, 'Shut up, Enishi! We're trying to sleep over here!' And bless her heart, Yumi yells right back, 'Well, so am I!' Changed her mind quick enough, though."

Kaoru giggled, surprised, then quickly stopped in case he might get insulted. But he didn't seem to mind, unless that was what his odd little smile meant. "There now," he said. "The chat does seem to put you at ease, or at least it lets your mind go wandering off a bit. And your hands."

"Oh!" Startled, she twitched away, but he caught her wrists and pressed them back against his chest.

"No need to get all shy about that. It's not as if I haven't already done the same to you and more. In fact--" His smile widened, but didn't get any less odd. "Tell you what, I'll sweeten the pot for you. Anything you do for me right now, I'll do for you twice over when you're done. Reckon you must have an idea already of what sort of thing you like, so that'll give you a place to start. Deal?"

"Um. How do you know when I'm done?"

He shrugged. "When you say so, I spose. If you want to make a game of it, I'll even promise not to put anything over on you until my turn comes around. All right?"

"I guess so." She fiddled with the knotted loops of his jacket fasteners uneasily for a while, until he poked her arm.

"Let me guess-- you've got a new rule for the game? Won't move ahead unless I keep talking at you, is that it?" Actually, she kind of liked that idea. She didn't say it, but he must have read it from her expression. "All right," he continued, "let's see. Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers. Antidisestablishmentarianism. The rabbit on the moon pounds mochi." Once he trailed off again, she stopped unfastening his jacket. "Hah. You're a cruel wench, you are. Besides, you know I'm going to stop making sense after a bit."

"That didn't make any sense to start with."

"What do you want from me, the whole bloody Kojiki? When heaven and earth began, three kami appeared in the Plain of High Heaven, each by their lonesomes instead of in pairs: Ame no Minakanushi, the kami of the center of heaven; then Takami Musubi, the kami of the life-force up high; then Kami Musubi, the-- ow! You know that just means I'm going to smack you upside the head twice over when it's your turn, pet."

"You were just showing off, anyway. Besides, I didn't smack you that hard."

"Yeh, but I get to smack you twice as hard. So there." He beamed with the virtuous sheen of divine retribution.

She snorted at him, but the only way she could escape that infernal smugness on his face was by getting out of his field of vision. The least alarming way to do that, from her point of view anyway, was to simply lay her head down on his chest again.

As warm and light as his heartbeat against her face, Enishi's hand came up around her shoulders. "It's not as bad as all that, is it? Or are you still afraid I'll do something nasty to you? I won't, I promise, not unless you want me to." His other arm squeezed her waist with the hint of another tickle.

"You said you wouldn't do anything until I say you can," she reminded him. "What if you like something that I don't, or the other way around?"

His fingers defiantly wiggled in the general direction of her belly-button. "You'd best plan accordingly then, hadn't you? Want to play, or are you calling it quits already?" He was already starting to roll her over onto the futon, but she pushed him down as she sat up. "That's more like it," he said. He fluffed up the pillow beside him and lounged against it. All he needed was a bowl of cheesy poofs, and he'd look just like Yahiko sprawled out for his daily dose of cartoons.

She went back to lightly tracing his chest through his clothing, to the soundtrack of a running murmur of approval. "That's lovely, those little circles with your fingers. You can press a bit harder, if you like. Even use your nails a bit if you fancy." His jacket and shirt made things easier for her because she could tell herself that she wasn't really touching his body, even though its outlines were firm and solid through the layers of silk. When he'd first started to touch her through Tomoe's kimono, though, that diffused and slippery caress had been almost more devastating for her than anything that followed.

His breath hissed inward as she followed his suggestions, and he made that low purring rumble that she could feel through his whole body. "Does that mean you liked it?" she asked.

The rumble stopped. Alarmed, she met his eyes again; they were narrowed behind the faint haze of steam inside his glasses' lenses. As she started to withdraw again, his hands shot forward to seize hers. "Don't do that."

"Do what?" She made a few futile tugs, but he wouldn't let go. However, his answer was less sharp.

"You needn't use that tone with me, that's all. The way you asked me that, it breaks my heart. Sounds as if you're pleading with me to say yes, but expecting me to say no and hurt you something dreadful. You're not with Battousai any more, love. You don't have to be afraid of him now, not ever again."

What was he talking about? All she'd done was unconsciously echo the same way Kenshin had always asked her, whenever they-- oh. Oh, no. Kenshin....

Somehow, she managed to hold herself together under Enishi's merciless pity. What had he just said? "Never? But... you said you were going to send me back. So he'd know what you'd done with me."

"Did I?" His tight grip had melted into a caress. Thoughtfully, he said, "I spose I did, at that. You must've thought I was some kind of monster. But you needn't worry about that again. Didn't you hear me just now, before you got all frolicsome? I couldn't send you back to him, not now that I know you. If I was Battousai and you came back to me this way, I'd kill you."

"But Kenshin wouldn't--" She stopped herself, but he just shook his head.

"You told me what a bloody git he's been to you already, so I'm keeping you safe and away from him. And now let's get back to happier things, why don't we? Your pretty little hands were here and here, if I recall rightly, and I certainly did like it. Go on, then, that's right."

Numbly, she went back to what she'd been doing, keeping her attention on her hands so she wouldn't have to look at Enishi any more. But this wasn't about her, was it? Even if Kenshin turned into Battousai and killed her, Hiko or someone else could still use the sakabatou to get rid of the demon forever. Enishi had that sword somewhere. All she had to do was find out where, and get it out of here. After that, her obligation to her father's legacy and to Kenshin would be complete, and it wouldn't matter what happened to her.

Her reverie was broken by Enishi rubbing his cheek against her wrist. He must not have shaved this morning; in direct light, the short silver flecks glittered like a sprinkling of sugar over his skin. "Hey, stop that," she said.

He mock-growled. "Can't help it, bluebird. You're such a luscious little tease, you know that? Here I am with my jacket half-undone and ready to be ripped off, and all you're doing is a bit of fingerpainting through it. But I'll get you back for it later."

"Well, what do you want already?"

"If you can't think of anything yourself, your turn's over."

She pushed him down again. "All right," she sighed. "Hang on and I'll come up with something."

"Reckon as I've come up with something already," he protested, waggling his hips at her. Exasperated, she got up and sat on them. Oh boy, he wasn't kidding, was he? And he really seemed to like being sat on, too. Not that it didn't feel kind of nice for her, too, but she couldn't afford to be distracted while he was letting her have the upper hand. If that was the right way to put it.

"Stop that," she repeated. "Or I get to wiggle at you when you're trying to do stuff."

That just sparked a wicked gleam. "That a promise?" She swiped at him to make him lie back again. At the last second, he dropped out of the way instead of letting her scratch him. "Or maybe you don't want me to do anything else to you besides this sort of thing, is that it?"

She was getting a little better at interpreting his grins. This one reminded her of the crescent moon in winter, with sharp, cold edges. If he didn't think she trusted him, he wouldn't trust her. Leaning forward, she pulled open another jacket fastener with her teeth. "You're not saying anything that's helping me out. Aren't you going to hold up your end of the deal?"

"That's more like it. Mmm, you've such lovely hair, all smooth against my face. Must've let it fall into your mouth while eating breakfast-- tastes like honey, or whatever mess you put onto your bread this morning. Hope you didn't use it all up, coz it's making me a bit hungry too. So you do remember some of the things I did for you last night, don't you? Even nicer through my shirt, holding in your sweet warm breath against my skin, oh yes."

Oh. So that was why men had nipples. Obviously lactation wasn't everything. She skated her teeth up one of them through the silk, and his back arched up to follow the motion. "Ah, harder, sweetheart, make me feel it. Let me know I'm not just dreaming you, leave your mark on me to find in the morning."

He exhaled a sharp protest when she stopped, but didn't try to pull her back. His hands were gripping the futon cover tightly, but all he did was lie there, tensely watching her. When she unfastened his shirt, spreading it open with his jacket, he relaxed a bit, but only for a little while.

Despite his encouragement, she didn't really want to bite him, so he'd have to settle for the rest of her mouth. The combination of soft kisses and gentle swirls of the tongue seemed to make him happy enough. She had to concentrate on keeping her knees gripped tightly around his legs so she wouldn't slide completely off the slippery brocade of his pants, though he helpfully held onto her waist to anchor her. For a change, she tried making her tongue rigid and pointy, and flicked it quickly back and forth. He made a really weird noise she couldn't hear clearly, because she'd automatically squealed as he tried to launch her into space with his hips. The only thing that saved her was a tight grip under his ribs, and she still left red scrapes around them as her fingernails slid up.

His arms pressed tightly, holding her close against him, and his whole body was shaking with his heartbeat now. "Kaoru, sweetheart. Pretty bluebird, my own sweet love. Will you let me touch you yet, or are you still going to have your way with me for a bit longer?"

"Mmphl," she said into his neck. He loosened his hands, already trailing them up to cradle her face, but she shook them off. "I'm not done with you yet, so stay there."

His glasses were sliding off his nose. Disconcertingly, he reminded her of Hiko as he looked at her over them, and then he took them off and set them aside, waiting. His gaze dipped down to where she was sitting on him. If she couldn't think of anything else to do to him above the waist, there wasn't going to be anywhere else to go but below it.

Well, he liked her hair, didn't he? She tickled him with the ends of it. He sounded almost plaintive. "You can give me more than that, can't you?" Maybe, but what was he going to do if she did something he couldn't copy? She had the sudden urge to find out.

She untied her ribbon to liberate her ponytail, which was already draped over one shoulder. Leaning forward, she smeared the entire mass of hair over his torso, rubbing it all across him. He'd been right, Kaoru thought, he did stop making sense. "Oh bliss," he breathed, "Bliss and heaven! Oh, gorgeousness and gorgeosity made flesh. My own precious bird of rarest-spun heaven-metal, like silvery wine flowing in a spaceship," and so on.

What would he do next, start yodelling? Sitting back up, she twisted her hair into a rope and whipped it hard against his chest. She saw a burning turquoise flash, and then everything went flying.

Or at least she did. The next thing she knew, she was pinned down into the futon, with her top thrown over her face. Enishi wrenched the scrap of cloth over her head, keeping her arms pinioned with it as his sugar-sprinkling of stubble rasped against her breasts. She cried out in a confusion of pain and desire. "You deserved that," he growled. "You deserve everything I can give you and more. Anything you want, just tell me, as long as you do that again."

"It's not your turn yet," she managed to say. He jerked his head up with a hard predator's stare before the shadow of rationality returned to it.

"You're right, pet." Reluctantly, he sat up. Still half-stunned, she stayed sprawled to the side and watched him take a deep breath. "One," he said, and took another.

"Two." He looked at her. She looked at him.

"Three." Leaning back toward the tray, he finished his cold tea.

"Four." After setting his cup back down, he picked up a handful of the little jam jars.

"Five." Testing each jar in turn, he twisted their lids until one of them easily flew open.

"Six." It was the dulce de leche she'd used this morning, wasn't it?

"Seven." He wasn't going to put it onto that half-defrosted waffle, was he?

"Eight." No, he was just dipping his finger into it for a taste.

"What are you counting?" she asked, and started to wrestle her crop-top back down into place. It didn't want to. Stupid spandex.

He glanced down at her, but didn't explain. "Nine." Setting the jar into his empty cup, he poured out hot fresh tea from the pot to surround it, stirring the softening contents with a chopstick.

"Is this another game rule that you forgot to tell me, or are you just making this up as you go along?"

"Ten." When he lifted the chopstick from the jar, the dulce de leche clung to it and flowed down like bronze-colored silk.

"Or is this some kind of time-out?"

He removed the jar from the cup, dried the exterior on the hem of his jacket, and finished ripping her clothes off. "It's time for me to enjoy my little blueberry waffle," he said, and poured the milky caramel all over her nooks and crannies.

It was warm and sticky and about to get licked completely off her, wasn't it? There went his clothing, too. With a last attempt at salvation, she protested, "You said you were just going to do everything I did, except twice."

"So I did," he agreed. "But I didn't say when." Slowly and thoroughly, he rubbed his body all over hers until they were both thinly coated. "Do you want to go first, or do you want to take your turn between both of mine?"

-----

La la la. La. Parts four and five to follow after several more Edodale chapters, which may actually catch up to the start of this. I've added chapter-title notes for FotN to the set for Edodale, though there isn't much to them.

As in part 2, Enishi shares his taste in music with the protagonist of Stanley Kubrick's movie _A Clockwork Orange_. ("Singing in the Rain" wasn't in Burgess's book; supposedly it was just the only song Malcolm MacDowell could manage.) The English lyrics cited here were found at http://www.freeradical.co.nz/content/40/40adams.shtm , as well as various other websites with minor variations; I don't know who the translator is. It's one of the nicer rhyming translations, though it only covers the first two verses. But that's probably quite enough anyway.

Enishi also happens to steal various lines from the same source: the phrase about the "azure sky", and his whole odd paragraph about "bliss and heaven", though they've been more or less altered from their original contexts. Minor linguistic research seems to indicate that I'm giving him a rather northern-England sort of dialect, what with "love" as a casual endearment, the syntactical presence of "reckon" at all, the double-modals mentioned at the end of Edodale 16, and other things like that. This convergence is almost certainly purely accidental on my part, produced by an odd mental goulash of Monty Python, occasional childhood exposure to Appalachian dialect variations, and a book of Australian slang. Though maybe it isn't all that accidental, as apparently a significant proportion of Appalachian emigrants originated from northern England, and I have so totally digressed here.

I can't recall whether I first saw the venerable toaster joke in Charles Schulz's _Peanuts_, Bill Watterson's _Calvin and Hobbes_, or possibly both. I am happy to disclaim all personal responsibility for it.

Many thanks to Firuze Khanume for her continuing infusions of Enishimania, as well as her recipe for dulce de leche. Yum. And renewed apologies to Jason M. Lee, if he hasn't passed out onto the keyboard by this point already.

Incidentally, I'm hoping to make Kaoru at least sixteen by the time FotN begins. While the factual age of consent in California is actually eighteen, sixteen is adequate in many other states and countries (see http://ageofconsent.com/ageofconsent.htm for a handy reference chart), and when it comes down to it, Enishi is not a character likely to be concerned much with legal niceties. (I'm not even sure what his age is here-- biologically soere ere between nineteen and twenty-six, plus about six chronological years, not counting the long gap when his dust was floating around in bits.) But Kenshin was fifteen when he started out as Battousai in RK canon, and Buffy was fifteen when her first Watcher found her in the movie, and so everything started right there. Honestly, I wish I could've thought of some non-annoying way to pad out the Edodale chronology to make her a more decent age by this point, but spacing out the major fight scenes to equinoxes and solstices just doesn't make sense in the way that the full moon does (awooooo). At least we know Buffy's birthday takes place sometime during the school year, so I'm clinging to that.