Red Lantern

A/N: Another "first time" A/N, with the same explanation for the lack of hymen-breaking: many women simply don't have discrete hymens, and an active lifestyle may well break what hymen there is before sex ever happens.

This takes place after Kenshin's final battle with Enishi, on the ship back to Tokyo.

It's truly a pity that the Jinchuu Arc was never animated, as Aoshi's character develops into something far more interesting than the shallow revenge-driven drama queen we see in the anime.
*~*~*~*~*~*

Hurling a rainbow across the blue sky, the interplay of sun and clouds was only now fading into sunset. The hold of the elderly wooden ship, however, was mostly dark below. A few lanterns threw fitful yellow light over the narrow walls and planked floor, but the effect was more shadow than illumination.

Despite the questionable conditions, Megumi was in her element. No one had been gravely injured in the battles with Enishi and the Su Shen, but there were enough bruises and minor internal bleeding to justify triage.

“Ow!” Sanosuke yelped, more in pain than surprise, as she grabbed a fold of skin from the back of his neck and pinched, hard. “What the Hell is that for?”

Megumi shook him as though he were a naughty puppy. “I told you to stop using that idiotic move with your right hand!” Her clinical eye had noticed that the damage wasn’t as bad as usual, but that wouldn’t stop her from giving him grief. “Do you want to be left-handed for good?”

“It’s your job to fix it,” Sanosuke growled. “Stop being a fox demon and patch me up.”

She sniffed and released him. “You can just sit there while I take care of the others and think about all my hard work you’ve undone. Again. Idiot.”

“Where---oh.” Down here, Aoshi’s ninja history was entirely believable. He blended in with the copious shadows, seemingly without meaning to, and she had almost walked right into him. He glanced down at her, then looked away.

“I’m not injured.”

“I’ve heard that before. Just let me take a look.” While she had never grown to like Aoshi exactly, Megumi was no longer frightened of him. Nevertheless, he evaded her touch.

Megumi sighed in exasperation. “Misao, tend to his wounds.”

“Okay!” The lady doctor hadn’t actually seen Misao, but knew that wherever Aoshi was, she must be nearby. Sure enough, she had popped out of the shadows instantaneously at the first opportunity to do something, anything involving her lifelong beloved.

“I’m not inj---“

“Aoshi-sama...” In the dimness, Aoshi dared a glance down into her eyes, her face upturned, seeking his gaze like a flower seeking the sun. They were night sky blue in the dimness, sparkling with the dancing light and the bubbly essence of Misao. Inwardly, he crumbled.

“Fine...” He allowed himself to be led behind a rickety wooden door that slid back into place only with a loud, creaking protest. The quarters held only a small bunk nailed to the wall, but the straw-filled mattress and pillow and somewhat scratchy blanket appeared clean. Some light spilled over the low walls, but most of it came from a red paper lantern that hung from the intersection of two rafters overhead.

“Sit down.” Misao frowned at him a little, and Aoshi couldn’t help a little internal amusement. After spending most of his life being deferred to by nearly everyone, he enjoyed being ordered around by Misao now and then. She was all sincerity and unselfishness, particularly with him, and it was oddly pleasant to surrender to her, however subtly. He obeyed, though the old bunk creaked a bit under his weight.

“Ah, here it is...” Like any good onmitsu, Misao was always prepared: her first aid kit wasn’t as well-equipped as Megumi’s medicine chest, but it would do for minor wounds like these. She hopped up next to Aoshi, reached for him, searching the smudges on his cheeks and forehead for bruises and abrasions. Her touch was shy, utterly gentle, almost like a breeze against his skin, and served only to make him want more of it.

Misao felt him shiver despite the light pressure and stopped, concerned. The skin beneath her fingertips was smooth and uninjured, but suddenly felt very warm. She pressed the backs of her fingers to Aoshi’s forehead. “Are you getting sick? I can go get something from Megumi-san for fever.”

Aoshi narrowly stifled a sigh. “No, I’m not sick.” Eager to distract her attention from his awkward state of yearning, he pressed her fingers against his temple, where there could have been a hint of a bruise in the shifting shadows of the bad lighting and his raven-black hair. It was Misao’s turn to shiver a little as its smoothness slipped between her fingers. She wanted to twine them deeper, pull him close to her, steal a kiss from that stoic but sensual mouth. She turned away quickly, flushing very visibly even in the dimness. Aoshi bit the inside of his lip hard to keep from smiling.

She refused to look at him, her long, spiky lashes covering her eyes from his view. “It’s just a little bruise. I don’t have anything for that.” He said nothing, but released her hand with the utmost in veiled reluctance.

With difficulty, Misao regained her composure. She was still very pink, but Megumi had entrusted her with tending Aoshi’s wounds, and what good was she to him if she couldn’t do even that?

“Oh, here’s a cut...” It looked rather deep, actually, and she cringed a little remembering how she’d felt watching him fight today. It was the only time Misao had seen him have difficulty winning, and she hadn’t realized until it was over how much it frightened her. Her faith in him was absolute, but the deep red slash, stark against his skin, made her feel uneasy again.

The disinfectant burned, but Aoshi didn’t feel even a hint of pain with Misao’s sweet touch ameliorating. His pulse throbbed close to her cool fingertips, and he again fought to avoid betraying his emotions. He felt even that bit of control slip away as her fingers followed the cut inside his collar, her innocent touch stroking skin hidden from her view. He deftly caught her wrist.

“Aoshi-sama, you have to let me clean the entire cut!” She was half-exasperated, half-breathless herself, though she didn’t quite understand the latter. She had briefly felt his breath moving under this warmer skin and realized that she wanted to feel more, but Misao was mostly concerned for him. She had been avoiding his eyes, thinking she could somehow hide her blushing from him, but now she sought them out and found them hidden from her view by the shadows, his hair, and his lashes. Something was wrong. “Please, let me...”

Fighting both his better judgment and his desires at the same time, Aoshi again released her hand with great difficulty. He forced himself to sit absolutely still as Misao’s slender, nimble fingers parted his collar, the antiseptic-soaked cloth and her tender touch making a trail of burning down to his collarbone. He couldn’t exhale until she finally stopped. He glanced down. Her dark hair glowed faintly reddish in the lantern light, her bangs hiding her eyes from his view. Aoshi was abruptly forced back into reality as he felt the pad of her thumb trace over an old scar trailing down his chest for a few inches. A narrow miss from long ago, now seemingly come back to haunt him as Misao’s touch caused delicious torment.

Now she looked into his eyes again, and he saw that her pretty face was a little sad. “Aoshi-sama, if only I had been there to take care of you like this...”

The thought charmed him without his willing it to: of course her company would have made his lonely travels pleasant, even if it were entirely innocent. Despite that, he knew that despite her grit and gumption, Misao would have been upset seeing him properly bloodied after a real battle.

Aoshi winced as her fingers pressed on a deeper bruise, which was now turning more than one shade of purply-blue. A little herbal-smelling salve soothed it, as did Misao’s tender touch, though the sensation of her innocent explorations, mindlessly pushing fabric out of her way to look for more injuries, was very unsettling.

“Aoshi-sama, you’re so tense. Try to relax.” He said nothing, but knew that wasn’t going to happen. Despite the burgeoning danger, he found he suddenly had no willpower whatsoever to stop or even control Misao’s ministrations.

His shirt slipped off his shoulders, almost as though possessed. Even if the under-deck air hadn’t been close and rather fetid, Aoshi had never been further from cold. Though Misao was struggling to remain chaste herself, the trail her eyes blazed across his bare, sleekly muscular chest was pure fire. He distantly wondered how much, if anything, she understood of what she was doing to him. Her fingertips traced over another scar between two ribs, making him shudder with slightly ticklish pleasure.

He almost died of shock when he felt her quick fingers tugging at the waistband of his loose-fitting trousers.

“Misao...” He managed the words with terrible difficulty, drawing out every syllable in something close to a moan. This had to stop now, before it got completely out of hand. “I’m definitely not injured there.”

She shook her head, snatched her hand away from his grasp when he reached for it, though he was impeded by lower arms still caught in his sleeves and didn’t make it far regardless. “Stop it! Megumi-san would never forgive me if I let an injury go untreated.” In truth, even innocent Misao now realized this was far beyond checking for cuts and bruises, though she realized it on a more visceral level. She was oddly warm and tingly all over, her stomach full of very nervous butterflies. She could feel him flexing, fighting against the fabric restraining his arms.

Dimly, Aoshi thought that having an overly well-constructed onmitsu uniform was one danger he had never foreseen. Then he felt slightly cooler air on very warm flesh and couldn’t think anything at all, nothing coherent at least. He was now every bit as flushed as Misao, who had shyly averted her eyes.

“Aoshi-sama, I’m sorry...” The way Misao said his name was so sweet to his ears, pure torture with her so close and him so swollen and desperate for her touch. “That looks...painful...”

It took every ounce of his previously infinite pool of composure not to fall off the uncomfortable bunk laughing. Aoshi bit his lower lip hard.

Misao managed to look up into his eyes, found them shadowed, but his face was transformed from its usually stony neutrality into something like discomfort. She wasn’t entirely naive, of course: she knew what she had stumbled upon and what it meant, but the disparity between that and the distance Aoshi so carefully maintained from her made it seem completely unreal. She was afraid that at any moment he would break free and leave, or that she would wake up. She would have to make the most of the dream while it lasted...

Aoshi’s breath escaped in a quiet but rough sigh as her fingertips stroked oh-so-delicately up his length. Never had pleasure and torment been so close together, practically indistinguishable. He could break free, stop her, but they had come so far that it would all be for naught regardless.

Though her cheeks burned with embarrassment, Misao found herself fascinated. She wrapped her fingers around him, giving him a gentle, experimental squeeze and finding him velvety smooth to the touch, yet steel-hard and unyielding. Her mouth was dry, and she suddenly realized that she felt more viciously empty than she’d ever felt in her life, a gnawing hunger between her thighs and deeper within. Aoshi’s shaft throbbed subtly in her fingers, suggesting an answer to that emptiness. Almost instinctively, the tip of her thumb stroked along the crest and up, finding a stray drop of moisture.

There was a sudden heave so powerful that she thought it was the ship for a moment, accompanied by the sound of cloth ripping. Before she could protest or even blink, Misao found herself gathered in powerful arms, his lips suddenly sweet against her own. Aoshi didn’t even have to try; her lips parted from the force of his will alone, his tongue teasing the inside of her lower lip almost chastely as he murmured into her mouth.

“You win, Misao; you’ve found all my injuries.” Actually, there were a few more minor bruises, but that was totally insignificant now. Aoshi knew that if he let her go on controlling the situation, there was no telling what he’d say or do in the throes of the passion she extracted from him with such excruciating sweetness. He was gratified by the feel of her slim arms twining around his neck. She was kissing him back in her own eager, inexperienced, slightly clumsy way, and even the tiniest brush of her lips warmed him to the marrow of his bones. With great reluctance he pulled away, pressing his lips to her forehead and resting for a moment.

Misao had never been happier in her life than she was now, cradled with a sort of tender desperation in his unbreakable grasp. She could feel Aoshi’s hardness against the back of her thigh, was brimming with curiosity to discover these adult pleasures with him, but would have been content forever just to be held and lavished with kisses like this. She heard fabric ripping once more, only distantly registered the sound until she suddenly found her hands bound by voluminous white sash from his omnitsu uniform. Misao struggled briefly, but the knot may as well have been iron.

“Aoshi-sama!” He ignored her squeak of half-protest, more confusion than fear. He easily lifted her onto the bunk, pressing her back into the somewhat thin mattress, gently but firmly.

“It’s my turn to explore you...” Misao started to point out that she hadn’t fought, couldn’t possibly be injured, but was stopped dead by his lips on hers once more, melting her insides. His tongue was a slick heat, boldly ravishing her mouth, tasting and taking every bit, centimeter by sweet centimeter. When Aoshi finally pulled away slightly, just enough for a teasingly chaste brush of his lips over hers, she was breathless and drained of what little resistance she had to begin with.

His hot breath fanned over her cheek, making a stray strand of her hair tickle at her ear. Misao squirmed, and he nuzzled it out of the way, nibbling delicately at her earlobe. Warm and velvety soft, Aoshi’s lips smoothed down the angle of her jaw, nipping at her chin, then planting a damp kiss in the hollow of her throat. He reveled at the way she arched into his touch, as desperate for more of him as he had been her. His voice was quiet, a light vibration against her tender skin.

“Thank you for taking care of me.” The words of quiet gratitude electrified Misao. Mutely, she nodded.


Suddenly, the ties on the front of her onmitsu uniform were undoing themselves! No, it was Aoshi’s clever fingers, surgically delicate in their motions. The garment fell open, revealing the sweetly flushed skin of her slender collarbones above Misao’s heaving bosom, bound firmly in white bandages. Effortlessly, almost carelessly, he hooked a finger and thumb in the cleavage and ripped in one powerful motion, leaving her exposed to his eyes. His gaze on her body was like the sun on the hottest day of the year, and Misao squeezed her eyes shut, caught somewhere between utter embarrassment and the butterflies in her stomach.

Aoshi noted her shyness despite all that had transpired and smothered a chuckle. It was so like Misao to be an irresistible minx, then be naive of the consequences. She wouldn’t be naive for long, however.

Misao caught her breath in a small gasp as his lips skimmed over the curve of one small, perfectly rounded breast, his warm breath teasing her once again. Her nipples were so tight that they were almost painful, almost numb, until his lips touched one. Then she realized they had never been so intensely sensitive. She struggled unthinkingly against her bonds, trying to get closer to the sweet touch of Aoshi’s lips. He teased her a moment longer, then took the velvety pink bud into his mouth. He suckled wetly, a bit noisily for effect, finally letting go with a tender drag of his teeth before moving to lavish the other nipple with the same attention. Misao was transfixed by the sight of his sleek, dark head at her breast, the wet warmth of his mouth on her tender flesh, the barely leashed power of his body so close to hers.

Now his breath tickled her stomach, and Misao squirmed. The shorts of her uniform and the waistcloth she wore beneath were gone as quickly and surely as though they’d never existed, leaving her completely naked under his intense gaze. She caught her breath as Aoshi looked at her: his eyes were deep, stormy green-blue, like the ocean that pounded the hull outside and every bit as inescapable.

Kneeling before her, Aoshi tugged her hips down over the side of the bunk, shifting to wrap her legs around his neck, effortlessly holding her thighs apart. He nuzzled at the downy black curls, and Misao shuddered as his breath cooling the moisture there made her realize how very wet she was for the first time. His tongue was slick and hot, firm yet delightfully supple as it parted her slit, taking a long taste from her entrance almost to the top, stopping just shy of a throbbing Misao had seemingly just discovered, and she was suddenly desperate for more. She strained against her bonds, but Aoshi was better at tying restraints than she was at getting out of them.

“Aoshi-samaaaaaa…” The honorific ended on a moan as he obliged her, first with a cruelly teasing flick of his tongue, then with firm pressure, a luscious tongue-lashing. Misao couldn’t believe that such an intense pleasure existed, couldn’t control the convulsions of her legs as they gradually tightened around Aoshi’s neck, trying desperately to keep him there, though she distantly noticed that he didn’t seem to mind. Through a haze of building ecstasy, she watched the shadows play over his handsome face, his usual neutrality softened into something more sensual as he pleasured her with the same intensity and concentration he gave to ninjutsu and battle. “Aoshi-sama!”

“Mmmm.” Misao squirmed as the low sound vibrated against her, causing sharp sparks of pleasure. His tongue slipped lower, parting her, finding its way inside her to taste deeply of the wetness there, lapping up her essence like ambrosia. It was a deliciously slick feeling, but somehow enhanced that gnawing emptiness she’d felt before. She knew on a primal level that she was desperate to feel him inside her, that she had wanted just that for a long time without knowing it so explicitly. Aoshi slithered out of the embrace of her thighs as easily as if he were water*, leaving her bereft. Distantly she realized that he was untying her wrists in a few smooth motions, and for a moment she was afraid that there would be no more.

Her worries were dispelled as Misao found herself on top of him, her breasts pressing sweetly into his chest. Aoshi grasped her thighs, easily shifting her so that she could feel him, still rock hard, against her thoroughly tormented and teased wetness. If she felt uncertainty, it was entirely drowned out by desire. Instinctively, she ground against him, pleading for more. His breath escaped in an almost pained hiss.

“Relax, Misao.” Aoshi’s voice was thick with desire, almost strangled, but his touch remained gentle as he nudged her thighs apart. Misao could feel the blunt tip pressing against her outer lips, her slippery wetness easily guiding it between, and then a dull pressure against her opening. Now his hands rested on her hips, lifting her slightly, coaxing her onto him. Aoshi felt so long and thick inside her that she dimly realized it would have been frightening if this weren’t exactly what the raging emptiness within her called for, exactly what she wanted, and Misao unwittingly contracted around him even as he pressed in deeper.

“Misao!” His fingers dug into the soft flesh of her hips, and she had never before heard his voice so laden with emotion: pleasure, agony, both at once. He couldn’t resist her welcoming depths any longer, and Misao suddenly found herself perfectly impaled. Aoshi paused, watching her through half-closed lids, drinking in the creaminess of her skin and the expression of rapture transforming her winsomely pretty face as she took him in completely.

Distantly, Misao was aware once more of Aoshi’s hands guiding her, urging her up his length, lifting her weight as though it were nothing at all. He pushed back in, this time a single smooth, sweet stroke. Though the sensation of her beloved sheathed fully within her was supremely satisfying in its own right, each of his thrusts added to a different reservoir of building ecstasy, the same electricity that his tongue had provoked, and she found herself eagerly meeting his hips with each full, luscious motion. Misao didn’t realize her eyes had been squeezed shut until they somehow fluttered open again. She was keenly aware of Aoshi’s lean, powerful body beneath her, his face serene and contorted with pleasure all at once, his eyes hidden by the shadows and his tousled hair, dark against his skin. She couldn’t resist reaching down and brushing it out of his face, shivering at the sensation when a surprisingly delicate kiss found the tender inside of her wrist even as he was deeply inside her once more. At this angle, his unrelenting strokes poured pleasure through every nerve like warm honey, pooling inside her, threatening to overflow. Aoshi’s expression was intense, taut with self-control, softened yet contorted by ecstasy, and Misao was suddenly over that previously inexplicable edge. She felt him tense beneath her, heard his rough cry of release close to her ear. Thick, liquid heat seemed to fill her to overflowing, his powerful grip holding her body captive against his.

Aoshi lay absolutely still for a long moment, drinking in her almost-scream of ecstasy and the deliciously tight heat as she shuddered and contracted around him. His hands slipped up to her lower back, gently pulling her down so he could seek out her lips once more. Misao murmured his name into his mouth. “Aoshi-sama…”

With a sigh and expenditure of supreme effort, Aoshi managed to roll them over, pulling the blanket over them both. An inexplicable force opened Misao’s eyes, and she was transfixed by his sleepy beauty, completely relaxed for once as he drifted into oblivion against her bosom.

Above deck, the night was moonless but resplendent with stars instead. The ocean surged restlessly against the hull, rocking the lovers inside to a lasting sleep.

*Manga vol. 24, chap. 216, pg. 8