Yahiko stared at Kaoru's sleeping body, his eyes watching her still form
Yahiko stared at Kaoru's
sleeping body, his eyes watching her still form. There simply was no comfort
from watching for any physical activity, only for the curious swirls of her Ki
pattern, because she simply did not move.
Sano walked over and
placed a hand on his shoulder. "She is going to be okay." 'She has
to be.'
"Perhaps,"
Megumi flashed, her tone acid. Her body moved into the
room as softly and lightly as a cat. Sano decided he hated cats, conniving
little furballs that they were. "It depends if
her new blood can fight off the wood poisoning."
Yahiko frowned. "But
the Battousai…"
Megumi tossed her hair
behind her shoulder, her eyes flashing with a hidden amusement. "The
Battousai only gave her what she needed to start fighting the wood. It is going
to depend on this girl's hold on life. Her Ki is strong, but is it strong
enough to warp the Battousai's Ki into something life-saving? A man whose Ki is
death itself?"
'Let's hope this girl
is strong enough, or not even death will save any of us from his wrath.' Megumi thought, dangerously.
Kaoru moaned and her head
lolled to one side, but beyond that there was no sign that the girl was going
to awake from the poison-induced coma.
~*~
Jineh felt his body scream
in agony. He tumbled to the ground, his legs no longer able to carry his form.
It was as if his own Ki was fighting against him, tearing him apart from the
inside.
He looked vacantly around
for any sign of pursuit from the Battousai, his eyes darting to and from trees.
Breathing heavily from that exertion, he relaxed as much as his convulsing
muscles allowed.
"Did you really think
I would allow you to flee for some pathetic delusion of
safety?" The voice was chilled darkness. Jineh's face went ghostly pale in
the inky surroundings.
"Battousai,"
Jineh fumbled, his tongue barely able to choke the name out as his body
continued to rebel against him.
"Where, in the
unhinged void of your pathetic little brain, did you conceive the notion that I
would allow to you touch what is mine? Did you think I would let your
filthy paws fondle my mate unmolested?" The Battousai's words echoed as
though they came from the depths of some dark ocean.
"B…" The feeling
of cool steel sliding across his throat cut him off.
Shaking, Jineh attempted
to pull his Ki under control and form some type of defense, but instead he
screamed in agony as it bit deeper into his already failing muscles.
"I should slit your
throat, and watch you gasp and pull for a single breath as the blood runs
slowly from your body." Kenshin whispered, his
tone layered in jagged edges of ice that shook Jineh even more than his own
wavering hold on sanity.
"However, that would
be much too quick a death for your…sins."
Jineh sat stupefied as a
pair of hot, burning eyes suddenly appeared in front of him. "No, Jineh,
what I have in mind will be much, much slower."
Jineh howled in pain as
the blade cut quickly into the bone of his right hand, removing the appendage
in one quick stroke.
"You see, Jineh, I
have acquired a taste for torture; for screams, if you will. To watch those I
hate wither in agony as their life seeps out of them is one of my few remaining
joys." Kenshin leaned forward, his eyes flashing a feral gold.
"Thanks to my past, I have learned how to bring you to the brink of that
delicious darkness, and how to hold you back. You will suffer for your offense."
Jineh clutched at the
now-bleeding stump, his eyes streaking into a dark red. "You will hear no
more screams from me this night." His tongue managed to form the words,
but they came out only as a whisper.
Kenshin smirked.
"Removing your disgusting hand was for touching her. For touching what is mine.
I assure you, when I am finished, there won't be enough left of you to provide
a meal for a single crow. Fighting your desire to scream in agony would not be
something I would worry about."
Jineh, in a single attempt
at a show of strength, attempted to spit in the Battousai's face. His face
contorted in the motions, and failed him as he let out another muffled shriek.
The Battousai's blade moved quicker than thought, slicing a delicate pattern
into his skin.
"And Jineh,"
Kenshin added as his blade continued to move in lightening slashes.
"Before I cut out your vocal cords, you will tell me the name of whoever
hired you."
The clearing, for a single
moment, rang out with the hideous, agonized scream of one who has been damned
with the pain of a thousand deaths.
~*~
Kenshin walked into the
dojo, his eyes still glittering darkly. He walked by Sano's relaxed form and
snarled at Yahiko when he stood in front of him for more than a second.
There was only the
faintest trace of blood on the air surrounding him.
Yahiko looked at Sano in
question.
Sano stood and carelessly
chewed on his fishbone. "I think he went and had a word with Jineh."
Yahiko shuddered and
looked at the direction the Battousai had gone.
Kenshin watched Megumi sit
back, her face contorted with exhaustion and some pain. Her hands lost the pale
glow that had been surrounding them, his gift allowing him to watch her own.
"How is she?"
Kenshin questioned, some of the bloodlust still tingling in his voice.
Megumi raised tired eyes,
but her voice was steady. "I have cleared most of the wood from her blood,
but it's going to depend on the blood she took from you and her will to
live."
Kenshin smirked, his fangs
still glinting against his mouth. "Then she will live." Then so low
that Megumi almost missed it, "Won't you, my pet."
Megumi tightened her lips
at his unlikely obsession with Kaoru. "Batts,
what is so special about this…Halfling?"
He moved fast. Megumi
found herself staring down the edge of a clean blade. "Are you questioning
me, Megumi?"
Megumi swallowed.
"No, Battousai. I am just curious as to why you have chosen her above all
others."
'Including you,
Megumi?' Kenshin
mused as he watched her from behind the blood-red fringe of bangs. "Have
you ever heard of a Vampire Empath?"
Megumi froze. "Someone who has complete control over the patterns of Ki, and
the ability to manipulate another Vampire's Ki."
Kenshin smiled lazily, his
teeth sharp in the pale light. "Kaoru is an Empath with a particularly
strong gift. When I discovered her, she had already taken Jineh apart from the
inside out and misplaced the pieces. She deliberately left him distorted and
with no control over his life."
Megumi stiffened. "He
was dead?"
Kenshin allowed his smile
to widen, a taint of bloodlust flaring, causing his eyes to tinge brilliant
amber. "No. No, this little pet of mine left him alive for me to
find."
Megumi felt a tinge of
terror at the look in his eyes. Jineh's death had been anything but easy.
"Did he tell you who sent him, Batts?"
Kenshin's breath hissed
between his elongated teeth in a breath of displeasure. "No. There are
many gifts in the Vampire world, Megumi, and many of them morph and change with
each generation. There are those who can remove a single memory, or perhaps
more, from a Vampire's mind if and when they wish it."
Megumi blinked in
understanding. "So someone removed Jineh's memory of his backer's name and
face."
Kenshin growled low in the
back of his throat. "Yes." Standing he moved towards the door.
"You may hunt as soon as I return."
Megumi watched him leave,
the knowledge that he was going to find suitable prey to feed off strong in her
bones.
~*~
Sano sat quietly in the
place where Yahiko had sat just hours before. The boy was currently explaining
to Kaoru's doctor friend that she had a headache and planned on spending the
day in bed.
A flimsy excuse, even for
them, but Dr. Genzai would take them at their word.
Or at least give them a day or so simply because he figured that the boys and
Kaoru needed a day alone.
A soft moan caused him to
snap to attention, his dark eyes wondering the now shifting form.
"Oh
Kami." Kaoru's whispered and very stifled voice answered
throughout the small room.
"Try not to move,
Kaoru."
"Sano?" Kaoru questioned,
her eyes bright with fever and confusion. Sano closed his eyes in relief.
Having your gift ripped open, being changed into a Vampire, and being poisoned
should have killed her, would have killed anyone with a lesser spirit.
That alone could be why
the Battousai had claimed her.
"Shush, Kaoru."
Sano instructed as he moved close enough to hold her now pale and cold hand.
She needed to eat soon; the cooling skin was a sign of blood loss.
"What happened?"
Her voice was soft and Sano had the feeling that Kaoru would remember very little of this conversation. Her eyes were much too
bright and she sounded very faint.
But he had to
answer her questions.
"The Battousai went
and located you. He brought you back."
"Ken…shin?"
Sano froze as he felt the
approaching Ki of Yahiko. A second later the boy slid the door open, his
expression confused.
"Who is
Kenshin?" Yahiko questioned as he entered, his voice tinged with the
relief that was rolling through his veins.
Kaoru simply sighed and
slid her hazy eyes shut.
"Hurt." Kaoru
whimpered.
"That's because you
are changing." Yahiko whispered, thinking she had fallen back to sleep.
"Why?" Her voice
seemed to be coming from farther away.
"Because
you are now the Battousai's mate. He changed you into a Vampire."
A faint whimper fell from
Kaoru's lips and then she said nothing else.
"Idiots,"
Megumi's dark voice chastised. "Telling her that served
no purpose."
Sano turned, his voice
darkening with anger. "Shut the hell up, Kitsune."
"And what if that
information causes her to decide that she doesn't want to live? Most of her
condition is going to depend on if she wants to live. And you two idiots go and
give her information that could cause her to have a death wish." Her eyes
snapped with her displeasure.
"She is his
mate." Yahiko said weakly.
"And right now it is
one-sided." Megumi said viciously. "So far, she belongs to him, but
she has not finished the bond. It could still be broken, which means that he
doesn't have the hold it takes to force her to live."
Yahiko stiffened. "Is
that why he went to hunt?'
Megumi snarled, her sharp
fangs falling down to glint dangerously at them. "She will feed off him
until her strength grows, and that will anchor her to him."
Sano stared at Megumi.
"Why are you so concerned, fox?"
She frowned darkly at him.
"Because if she dies, he will kill us all. And I
promise you he will not bother to kill us quickly. No, it will be slow. So if
you do anything to compromise my position in this, then I will kill you."
Megumi's eyes flashed. "Wood is not the only poison that can kill
Vampires."
Spinning on her heel she
left the room.
~*~
Kenshin moved silently
through the shadowed areas of the nicer parts of Tokyo. His lips twisted upward with
disgust as he passed yet another dojo.
It appeared that many
people sought to learn how to defend themselves now that the time of the
Samurai was over and weaklings such as themselves wouldn't be called into
service.
It also appeared that they
did not govern their daughters' tongues as well as they should.
It mattered little that
they had chosen to harm that which he now claimed, and that his claim then had
not been as undisputably laid.
It was that they had used
his little pet to disrupt him.
It was far too easy, to
slide through the dojo with a silent precision. To locate the tag he had left
on her weak and human Ki.
To slide
his fangs into the soft column of her slender neck. Thick, warm, and
with the lingering aftertaste that almost no Ki left in his mouth.
Human blood was weak.
Dropping the still-warm
body, he watched thoughtfully as her head lolled to the side and her vacant
eyes stared at the wall.
He would leave this body
as a warning, and a nice present for her family. They should have taught her
more respect.
Besides, her blood would
be very welcome in the veins of his mate.
~*~
Kaoru's eyes fluttered
open for the second time that day causing her to frown as she attempted to
piece together what had happened. Her brain seemed to be surrounded in a thick
fog and something lingered at the edge of it.
Something other than the
stark agony of her burning blood.
"You're awake,"
The silk and sin voice whispered across her senses like a balm to whatever it
was that seemed to be burning away at her insides, "It's time to
feed."
Kaoru slowly fluttered her
lashes closed as those words washed over her, her muddled brain attempting to
reason out the word feed.
Her eyes snapped open in
shock when she smelled a warm, tantalizing scent that sent her body into
trembles. It wasn't until the corded wrist, with a stark strip of red oozing
down it, was placed under her nose that it registered.
"No," Kaoru
whispered her voice dry and parched. "Kami, no."
Kaoru felt rather than saw
his displeasure before glinting eyes glared down at her. "Kaoru,"
Kenshin whispered to her, his voice lowering in his displeasure. "You will
eat."
Kaoru stared at him with
wide blue eyes, the conversation with Sano and Yahiko coming to mind, and this
time she trembled for an entirely different reason.
She was his mate.
"I…" Kaoru shut
her eyes tightly, praying that this was just a nightmare and not something
real. "I can't."
Kaoru stifled a scream
when she was suddenly pulled up by solid arms and balanced only by one arm.
"If you do not want to die, then you will drink." The tone was cold
this time, demanding that she do exactly as he instructed, and some dormant
part of her responded to that. "Even if you wish to die, you will still
eat."
This time, when he forced
his already-healing wrist to her lips, she had no choice but to sink new fangs
into his wrist, her instincts demanding survival.
The hold on her back
gentled slightly as his silkily dark voice continued to whisper into her hair.
"That is a good pet. You will need to feed off of my blood until you are
strong enough to kill for your own."
Kaoru felt a single salty
tear run down her cheek.
Soon he had pulled his
wrist back and was examining her face. Her dark eyes were still covered by her
thick lashes and the path that her tear had left on her face sparked a desire
to taste her skin under his mouth.
Leaning down, he ran his
lips across the trail of her tear before running his tongue over his lips, the
salty tang causing his eyes to burn.
Lowering his gaze he
noticed that some of his blood was still lingering around her mouth. "We
shall need to clean all the blood off you, my pet." Her eyes fluttered
open in surprise, but before she could make eye contact his mouth was pressed
firmly against hers.
Kaoru stiffened at the
almost gentle way his mouth slanted against hers. His touch was almost
feather-soft, as if he was testing the texture of her skin. Then he increased
the pressure, his tongue making gentle sweeps across her bloodied skin, and
once he had managed to clean her mouth to his satisfaction, he ran his tongue
down her chin and removed any sign of his blood before coming back up against
her mouth for a harder feel.
Kenshin reveled in the
faint shock of his own blood on his tongue before deciding that he wanted a
better taste. Raising a hand to the back of her neck, he angled his tongue into
the depths of Kaoru's mouth.
Kaoru was completely
frozen as he lazily ran his tongue in an almost careless fashion across her
lips. It wasn't until he demanded that her tongue play back that her body
reacted.
Kaoru felt herself go limp
against him as he played ruthlessly against her tongue, demanding a reaction
from her.
But it wasn't that which
scared her most; it was the warm, almost oozing sensation that the new blood
was giving her muscles. Or at least she hoped it was the blood, and not the
hand that was stroking her hip.
Kenshin pulled back after
he had memorized the inside of her mouth. "Remember, pet, you are
mine." Tracing a finger down the pale column of her throat he smirked.
"Personally, I can't wait until you're better so I can do a much more
personal inspection of your lovely body."
Kaoru froze against him,
his words sinking in like a rock falling into the bottom of a well.
"What?"
Kenshin smirked before
leaning in. "You're mine, pet. Mine to touch, mine to control, mine to
hurt; you had best keep this in mind."
Kaoru blinked in horror,
her mouth opening and closing in an attempt to reply.
"I think, little one, that it is time for you to rest." His leaned
closer still, so that his lips were brushing against hers lightly as he spoke.
"We will speak of this later…when we can have a more private
discussion."
~*~
Sano watched as Megumi
carefully pulled long strips of linen into precise bandages. He wondered what
she needed them for; most Vampires healed quickly and only the most severe
wounds struggled to heal.
And it took even more
severe cuts or marks to cause one to scar. This was why the faint and pale
ribbon-like slashes across her left wrist that seemed to go further up her arm
caused him to wonder at what exactly had happened to her.
It appeared as if a small
knife had been used in an attempt to remove the skin from her delicate flesh.
"So, Kitsune, where
did you get those scars?" They had to be recent, as no Vampire stayed
scarred even if someone managed to inflict them with a wound precise enough to
leave one.
A year, at most, was how
long one carried the evidence of one's wounds.
Sano had heard, once, of
the Battousai carrying a scar on his face, but it had been many years ago and
the Battousai obviously had healed his battered flesh into the perfection that
they now associated with the demon. He remembered, absently, mentioning the
facial scarring to Kaoru and Yahiko and wondered when the young women would
question him about it.
If Kaoru was anything, she
was observant.
If it wouldn't have gotten
him killed, he might have mentioned the almost girly look to the cast of the
Battousai's features as well.
"That, Tori-atama, is none of your business." Her voice had
gone to frozen ice, and Sano realized he has struck a nerve.
"It's because you're
made, isn't it?" Sano questioned her, his voice deliberately light. He
knew of the side effects of being a made Vampires instead of a born one, and he
also knew the benefits. But being made by a powerful Vampire such as Kenshin
should not have clouded any of her healing ability.
Megumi went very still as
she paused in her folding of the careful, white, and sterile bandages.
"Perhaps I should save Batts the trouble and
kill you myself?"
Sano grinned at that.
"And how would you go about doing that, Kitsune? Aren't you supposed to
heal people?"
Megumi rose gracefully and
ignored him, gathering the piles of clean linen. Pausing at the door, she
turned and gave him a rather nasty stare. "There are always
exceptions to the rules."
Sano watched the shoji
door slide shut. Something had hurt her badly enough to leave faint scarring,
and he had this gut feeling it wasn't the Battousai. Which meant it was most
likely someone who had a grudge against the made Vampire. There was a certain
amount of racial dislike, even hate, for those who were not born with their
fangs.
So why did that leave the
faintest of unease in his stomach? Who could get close enough to the
Battousai's pet healer to hurt her so severely that it was taking time for the
scars to fade?
An ally
of the Battousai?
Did this mean they could be expecting company in the near future?
Frowning, he went to look
for Yahiko.
~*~
Kenshin slid into the room
of pitch shadows where his mate was sleeping and settled himself against the
wall, his eyes watching her motionless form with a possessive gaze of moon-glow
amber.
Someone had to have told
Jineh of his coming here, someone who knew the rumors of the fake Battousai,
and someone who knew he would take interest in the dojo that sponsored the fool
who stole his name for petty human grievances.
Someone
who was going to die very soon, once he discovered who it was, and perhaps then
he could link Jineh to his backer.
Allowing his eyes to close
halfway in the appearance of sleep he ran all the possibilities through his
head. He would be unable to seek the person quietly, if he decided to track him
personally.
There were others,
however, who could not be held in quite so much suspicion. Sano, or better yet,
Zanza, was one of them.
Lowering his head he
allowed himself to fall into the half-sleep, half-watchfulness that he and his Shishou had practiced for many years to perfect.
Tomorrow, he would begin
the steps that would bring him the head, and blood, of whoever had decided to
betray him.
He was not a man who
allowed others to meddle in his affairs, or to endanger what was his.
~*~
Not far from the city of
Tokyo, two travelers bedded down for the night, one keeping a careful eye on
the other, while the other kept a careful on the surroundings.
They would reach Tokyo by
noon tomorrow.
