Kaoru had never had this particular problem before
Kaoru had
never had this particular problem before. The past week had brought an
assortment of problems. She had been kidnapped. Assaulted.
Mated. Turned into a full vampire.
Had two more vampire guests drop in. She had learned
that she could control not only her own Ki, but others as well.
However, having several
bolts of pretty fabric shoved next to her face while the girl in front of her
chattered a mile a minute, that was something new. In fact, she had no choice
in it at all. All she knew was that there was a lot of blue, a lot of green,
some soft pinks, and some rather fiery reds and gold’s. In fact, Kaoru didn’t
even know how many were ordered, just the promise that the first would be done
in three days.
Then Misao was dragging
her out of that stall and taking her to another.
It had all started out
innocently enough. When Kaoru crawled out of bed, she had found Misao sitting
at the breakfast table, a sour expression on her face, and the noticeable
absences of the men. Then Misao had looked up, taken one look at her kimono,
shrieked her displeasure, and frog-marched Kaoru out of the dojo.
“Misao,” Kaoru begged.
“Slow down!” Even with her new-found vampire stamina, she was no match for the
girl dragging her around the market. Misao tossed her a smile, and then dragged
her into an alley.
“Alright.” Misao said nodding her head. “We
have your kimonos, plus the one for me. Now, all that is left is to teach you
to hunt.”
Kaoru really, really
didn’t like the sound of that. “Hunt?”
Misao raised a brow. “Do
you really want to feed off of Kenshin for the rest of eternity?”
Kaoru felt something
twitch inside her at the thought of “Kenshin” and “eternity”, and she wasn’t
sure it was a good twitch. In fact, Misao reached over and grasped her by the
elbow to steady her.
“Kaoru, are you alright?”
Misao asked her eyes curious. Someone who was twitchy about killing…
“I…haven’t had to kill
yet.” Kaoru admitted. “I don’t think I like the idea very much.”
Misao stared at her for a
long moment. “Think of it like this. You can either learn from me, or you can
have Kenshin teach you. He isn’t going to let Sano or Yahiko near you long
enough to teach you. That means you can learn it Itachi-style, or you
are going to have to work with Battousai.”
Kaoru winced. Her eyes
scanned the market: happy, smiling people who she had always watched with a
touch of curiosity, and now she was going to have to eat them?
“We could go to some of
the nastier parts of town.” Misao finally suggested. “Perhaps the docks or some
of the darker districts; or we can wait till tonight when you don’t have to see
their faces as clearly as you would now.”
Kaoru was nodding in
agreement; to the worse side of the docks or to the offer of a rain check, she
wasn’t sure. She wouldn’t have to find out for a while, either. Misao suddenly
grasped her wrist and yanked them both into the nearest shadow.
It was like watching the
world through a thin veil of shadow. Like the sky was suddenly overcast with
the black clouds of a hurricane. She tightened her grip on Misao, suddenly
aware that if she lost her friend, she was screwed.
“I’m sorry.” Misao
whispered. Her voice echoed softly. “I…didn’t expect to see him so soon.”
Kaoru turned to see who
she was pointing at, and stared. He was head and shoulders above every other
man or woman there, his eyes the color of icy skies. His body was faintly lined
with a dark gray, and he was staring right at them.
“He can’t see us. But he
knows I am here. Let’s get back to the dojo so I can lock myself in a room and
pretend he isn’t here.” Misao groaned as she started to drag Kaoru through the
shadow realm. “If you see any really big, black, oily clouds, let me know,
okay?”
Kaoru looked around, but
the area was only dark gray. “Is that bad?”
“Only if
you like your soul.” Misao cheerfully replied as she yanked Kaoru along. “Otherwise,
they’re very cool.”
Kaoru picked up her pace.
~*~
The man
who Kaoru had seen in the market didn’t show up, but then neither did Kenshin
or the other one…Soujiro. So she had caught Yahiko by his ears and was running
him through some rudimentary drills. Both of them wore the padded gloves now.
Kaoru had already felt the effects of one case of wood poisoning, and she
didn’t fancy getting another.
It was with great surprise
that she felt something sneak up behind her. Kaoru spun, her shinai following her movements, and it clanked against a
sheath. Kaoru glared at the red-haired man behind her, and then frowned.
“Would you stop doing
that?” Kaoru scolded. She paused in her mental rant when she caught sight of
Misao glaring up at the man from the market, and she was considering going to
help her friend when the shinai was taken from her
hands.
“You won’t need this
anymore.” Kenshin dryly told her. “It’s as dangerous to you as it is to your
enemies until you build up a resistance.” Instead, the sheathed katana he held
in his hands went into her own.
Kaoru stared at the
carefully worked sheath, and frowned at it. “I don’t use Katana’s.”
Kenshin continued as if he
hadn’t heard anything. “It’s not the best, but it’s light enough for its
purposes. When we get to Kyoto, we can get you a better one.”
Kaoru raised her eyes back
to his face, her bottom lip jutting out in a stubborn line. “I don’t use
Katana’s.”
Kenshin gave her a lazy
look. “You do now.”
Kaoru gritted her teeth
and was about to shove it back into his chest, sheathed or not, when he took a
step back. “Let us see how good your defenses are.”
Kaoru’s eyes widened. She
barely had time to bring the sheathed sword up and catch his blade, her eyes
wide with shock. He was…he wanted her to…
“I suggest you use that
sword to its best advantage.” Kenshin breathed in her ear from where he was
using his sword for leverage. “If you don’t, then I will have to train you some
other way.”
Kaoru snarled at him. She
had no intention of unsheathing her sword. She didn’t want to learn how to kill
someone with it. Although, if she applied Kamiya Kasshin with
an edged blade…then someone would lose some very important things.
What Kaoru quickly
discovered was that Kenshin was much faster than she had ever given him credit
for, which was saying a lot. He was holding back on his strikes, but they still
forced her to grit her teeth and falter under his them. He would blur and she
would have to find him before he swung, and sometimes that was only 1/10 of a
second to think.
So she had to stop
thinking.
Kaoru felt what they
called her “gift” flow through her body, and she was able to start catching
traces of his Ki. However, if she relied on it too long, she ended up flat on
her ass. So she had to figure out how to combine her talents, and she had to
learn fast.
In fact, even with her
strength pounding in her brain, he was much better than she could hope to be.
Kenshin ended it with her flat against the wall, her sword holding his off, but
he was so close his chest was brushing hers. Kaoru was still seeing in the
multicolored world of her gift, and was panting hard.
She could catch the faint
flickering of Yahiko, Misao, and the man who had to be Aoshi, as they watched.
Misao had an expression of surprise in her aura, and Yahiko was simply baffled.
“You have a lot to learn.”
He told her softly. Kaoru noticed with a bit of distaste that he hadn’t even
broken a sweat, and she was dripping in it. Kaoru glared at him, furious with
herself and with him. Taking a deep breath, she shoved mentally, and he
stumbled back. Surprise and then a touch of cold anger colored him before it
slid into the darkness of his own gift.
He left then, but there
was something in his stance that said she was going to get punished for that
little trick. Well, at least she knew it worked now. The effort, however, had
left her with an awful headache, and she could barely breathe past her heaving
lungs.
Sliding down the wall, she
breathed in deeply, attempting to find some sort of center so she could
meditate any kind of sanity back into her thoughts. She did not need to think
of his hard body as they fought for leverage, or the way he had easily contained
her attacks.
“Holy Shit!” Misao breathed once she watched Kenshin stalk off after Kaoru had
used her gift to knock him off of her. “She is better than I thought.”
Aoshi said nothing. In
fact, Aoshi said very little. Ever. Frowning, she
turned to leave again, because now that he was here, the bindings between her
and Kaoru had fallen off.
“Misao.”
“Listen here, Aoshi-sama!”
Misao turned her eyes flaring again. “I don’t like you right now. In fact, if I
could drag you into the dark realm and feed you to one of the monsters there, I
would. I don’t want to talk to you, I don’t want to see you, and I refuse to
allow you to hunt for me. We have already had this talk; why are we
having it again.”
Aoshi lazily moved
forward. “You’re mine.”
Misao raised a brow. “Already been rejected.”
Aoshi reached for her face
and she flinched away. Her body moved as fast as his, and when he stepped
forward, she was two feet back and halfway within the shadows.
“You think you can escape
so easily?” Aoshi asked her, his eyes watching her with a small frown.
“You think you can make me
obey you? Follow you? You think you can force me to bind to you?” Misao
demanded furious. “I won’t.”
“You will come to me.”
Aoshi informed her, gently. “You cannot hide from your instincts forever, and
you will be mine.”
Misao jutted her chin up.
“No, I won’t.” She slipped further into the shadows and escaped.
“Yes,” Aoshi whispered.
“You will.”
~*~
He stood
there, watching the wind twist the small piles of leaves from the ground and
then upwards. “I do not like failure.” His voice was dark with anger. “We lost
one of our best spies and I want to know why. She wants to know why.”
There was groveling; there
was always groveling. It never ended, the endless cycle of men and women
lusting after his power, his gifts, and he knew it would never end. He was
strong enough to take on their enemy, the Battousai, and his plans were
perfect.
“It was the girl.” The man
babbled. “She…did something to Jineh. She turned him against himself, and the
Battousai found them.”
Enishi turned, his pale
brows rising in disbelief. “You are aware that with Jineh receiving the boost
from her that it is clearly impossible for what you are saying happened
to have happened?”
The man bowed his head. “I
do not doubt the Lady’s skills, but it is true. The female who the Battousai is
with, who we assume is his mate, has a strong gift.” His voice was cracking
with panic, his words almost incomprehensible.
“Is that so?” He purred.
“I want her taken out. Do it tonight if you have to. Get rid of her. If she is
his mate, which is doubtful, then it will cripple him.
I want him destroyed, and you will do what I tell you. Whatever
it takes.” There was cold fury in his tones.
The man bowed. “We shall
send the men tonight. She will still be weak from the last attack. Perhaps if
we send enough men to distract the Battousai, then we can get to her.”
“Very
good. Report in the morning.” Enishi snarled.
The man bowed again, felt
something brush against his mind, and knew only that he had a mission.
Any knowledge of who or what was sending him was gone. Breathing deeply, he
felt cold fear stir in his belly. He would never be able to hide from a man who
he couldn’t remember. Just his words.
‘Report in the morning…’
~*~
Kaoru
muttered as she limped down the hall, her bruises from her training session
still lingering even as her new healing abilities kicked into high gear.
Turning the corner she
shrieked as she bounced off something hard. Feeling the air whoosh
around her she closed her eyes in realization. Until something hard caught her
wrist and yanked her against something smooth and warm.
“Look what I caught.”
Kenshin’s voice breathed in her ear, his teeth nipping at the rim. Kaoru froze,
suddenly conscious of the hand at her hip, the other playing with her carefully
knotted obi.
“Kenshin…” Kaoru hissed
her eyes wide as she looked for one of the gang to walk by. Kenshin’s reply was
to laugh into the sensitive skin behind her ear and yank her into a corner. In the very open hall.
“You are not getting away
this time.” He purred in her ear even as her obi loosened and fell from her
hips, the kimono she had changed into falling open. “ I
promised to teach you to yearn, little one, and I shall. Besides, I owe you for
that little stunt in the dojo earlier.”
Kaoru gave a startled gasp
that was swallowed by his mouth as he hid them both in the shadows. He
manipulated the air around them so it was almost impossible for anyone besides
Misao to see them.
Kaoru was aware of the
laughter coming from the front porch, the sounds of Misao and Aoshi arguing. Actually, of Misao protesting and Aoshi saying nothing.
“What are you doing?
Someone could walk by!” Kaoru protested, squirming as he reached down and
pulled her kimono open. She didn’t think this lesson of his could lead to
anything good.
“They won’t see us.”
Kenshin promised as he raked his teeth along her jaw. Kaoru trembled from both
fright and pleasure as he began to plant kisses down her throat to her pulse
point.
“Dame…” Kaoru tried just
before his fingers came up and cupped her full, bare breasts in his hands.
Kaoru stifled her moan and placed her hands flat on his chest in an attempt to
push him away, but only succeeded in grasping his shoulders for support as he
ran his thumb over her sensitive nipples.
“You might as well give
into me, pet.” Kenshin purred in her ear as his head rose again, sucking
lightly on her ear. “Your little body wants to.”
Kaoru could only moan in
denial as his chest held her firmly against the wall as her knees wavered. She
attempted to find the breath to argue but one of his hands had found the dark
curls at the apex of her thighs and every breath was stolen.
Kenshin caught her mouth
in his as Yahiko ran by, oblivious to the man and woman carefully hidden in the
long shadows of the dojo. Kaoru whimpered as he simply toyed with her, brushing
his fingers at her entrance but going no deeper.
Kaoru’s hips twisted
innocently and he chuckled into her mouth.
Lowering his head he
caught one full peak and pulled it into his mouth even as Kaoru attempted to
gain control of a battle she was fast losing, her nerve endings tingling with
elation.
Kenshin lavished both of
her swollen breasts with attention before reaching his true goal. Painting a
path up her chest with his tongue, he found the pulse point he had been looking
for.
As his fangs found
purchase in the smooth skin of her neck, one hand wrapped around her waist
under the kimono to hold her still, he buried his fingers deep into her
womanhood.
Kaoru could not make a
sound at the double attack, his fingers pushing into her sleek entrance,
probing for that pulsing nub. His fangs were buried deep in the V of her neck
and shoulder, and Kaoru’s knees buckled, her body a throbbing pile of
sensation.
Kenshin held her easily,
his arm flexing along the small of her back while she began to shake with the
effects of his ministrations. Reluctantly releasing the sweet tang of her blood
for the taste of her mouth, his fingers slipped out from her as her muffled
screams rose in pitch.
Kaoru moaned as she slowly
became aware of something besides Kenshin, feeling horribly bereft of the
fingers buried in her. Her insides throbbed as she slowly came down, her body
aching.
His skillful fingers had
taken her so close to ecstasy and left her hanging; and she could only pant as
he stared down at her in amusement. Kaoru had no choice but to rely on the
strength of his arms as she sprawled against the wall, her limbs weak.
“I told you your body
would yearn for mine.” Kenshin informed her, his eyes glinting with amber fire.
“Next time, you shall be under me and calling my name. Only then shall I allow
you to go over the edge, my sweet little pet.”
Kaoru shook slightly, from
the aftereffects of what he had done to her body or from the flashing fire in
his eyes, she wasn’t sure. All she knew was she needed something desperately,
her body a throbbing mass of want.
Kenshin had just managed
to teach her to ache for his touch; for whatever he had almost done to her.
Damn him.
He slowly helped her gain
her balance and then smoothed her kimono back in place, his fingers brushing
the still too-sensitive areas of her body, before he tied the obi correctly.
Kaoru felt needy and breathless and wanted… needed his touch.
Damn her if she ever
admitted to it.
“Remember little bird,
under me and screaming my name.” He nipped playfully at her bottom lip before
leaving her there, alone. Bereft.
“Oh
gods.” Kaoru
whimpered her eyes huge. The things he had done to her body had set her on
fire. Kaoru knew that from now on, ever glance, every touch, every thought was
going to bring heat to her blood.
A raging fire only he
could put out, a fire he had just told her he was unwilling to placate until
she came to him. Kaoru covered her mouth and told herself not to cry.
Shuddering in disbelief
and unspoken need, she made sure she was covered and headed into her room to
retire. She couldn’t face him or her friends after that! Not when he had
pierced her innocent naiveté and used it against her.
Crawling beneath her
sheets after she changed into a clean yukata she slipped beneath her covers and
shivered. The memory of his fingers brushing against her so intimately, the
press of his mouth against her throat, the wicked glints of gold in his eyes…
Shutting her eyes tightly
she forced herself to relax and find her calming center before her breathing
would even out and her body relax. She lay there for long moments, her mind
refusing to calm down even when her body was content to remain motionless.
The soft sounds of Misao’s
voice as she padded to the door, softly knocking, went unanswered. When they
left her alone, she attempted to think past her body’s aching desire, and
eventually it lessened into a feeling of discontent, as if she should be
feeling complete instead.
Growling in frustration
she tossed and turned before moving to her shoji and pushing it open to stare
at the clear sight of the stars above.
She remembered sitting in
this same spot, watching the shooting stars with her father. What would he
think of her now? A vampire who needed someone else to live? Perhaps he
wouldn’t be so condemning, since her mother had to have been one as well.
Kaoru tilted her head when
she caught the sight of shadows shifting in the courtyard. There it was
again…perhaps Misao was practicing her shadow maneuvers again.
Feeling something brush
against her Ki she jumped to the left just as shiny, bright pieces of silver
slammed into the wood. Kaoru scrambled backwards, yanking on her gift with
reflexes she would credit to panic later, and felt the disruption in the
kitchen just as the sword swung towards her head.
Kaoru half-heatedly
listened to the shouting coming from the kitchen, and the swearing that was
directed at whatever was in her bedroom. The sounds of someone moving down the
hall bounded in her ears as she ducked another fast swing of the open blade,
and she screamed in pain as something drove into the flesh of her shoulder.
Training, both her
father’s and life’s, took over and she jerked it from her arm and lashed out
with it; missing, but forcing whatever was attacking her to roll away.
Misao burst into the room
and tossed a fistful of small, sharp daggers towards whatever was coming back for
another try. “Shadow dwellers!” She warned as she
rolled in, her small body melting into the floor and appearing behind whatever
was diving back towards the sword it had dropped.
Like hell…
Kaoru dove, her fingers
locking around the sword hilt and bringing it close to her body as she rolled
away, keeping the sharp edges away from her delicate flesh. It burned in her
palm, but her gift pulsed through her hand and quieted the sword’s reaction.
Getting stabbed had apparently been a good thing, since she now had a weapon to
use against them.
Kaoru wondered for a
single moment if the damn thing was alive. She wasn’t given time to react. The
sword hummed in her hand and she spun and met the attack of another one of the
creatures that wasn’t dealing with Misao.
Kaoru knew, without having
to really think about it, that the sword was reacting to the man’s movements,
and that that was the only reason she was alive. She wasn’t going to have to
keep up with it, because it wasn’t moving through space, it was moving through
shadow.
Then the door was torn off
its edges, and Kenshin was there.
Kaoru actually stumbled
when he arrived, and Misao was suddenly there, pulling her out of the way.
Kenshin’s Ki was a tumble of furious black shadow that twisted around and
around. Thick, black strands of it clung to his sword and twisted like ropes
around his body. His eyes were the color of blazing suns and he moved so fast
that Kaoru could only watch were he had been.
“He uses his gift to suck
them out of the Shadow plane, where the physical forms operate, and then he
kills them.” Misao informed her as they watched in muted fascination.
“How?”
“They’re attracted to
death and destruction, and Kenshin bathes in it. They can’t stay in their plane
when someone like him is around. He could rule them, take over, but in return
they would feed from him constantly.” Misao replied.
Kaoru shivered and
disengaged her gift, or at least she thought she did. She was learning that the
more she used it, the less it retreated. It was just beneath the skin these
days, leaving an interesting taste in her mouth.
Looking up she watched her
now normal-looking…mate….standing over a man who was so pale he made Kenshin
appear to be tanned. Kaoru dropped the sword she was holding in hand and
watched it disappear back into the shadows.
Kaoru brought her hand to
her aching shoulder, which was already knitting due to the lack of wood, and
she scowled at the mess her room was. Splinters were everywhere, and her bare
feet were in danger if she moved again.
Her right wall was
shattered, and her Shoji had been torn almost in half when Kenshin had entered.
Blood littered the floor in thick, greasy black puddles. Kaoru was suddenly
aware that what had attacked her hadn’t been human.
“A
distraction.” Aoshi sad as he entered the room, his eyes scanning the room.
“They were after the girl.”
“Her name,” Misao warned
him. “Is Kaoru.”
Kenshin looked up from
where he was wiping his sword clean, his tongue snaking out against the thickly
coated blade. Kaoru felt slightly ill at that, since the blood was…so…
“His body can pull the
remaining human blood cells out of what was mutated.” Misao murmured low enough
so that Karou’s hearing could barely pick it up. “I really don’t think it’s
healthy for other vampires, but I don’t think anything can really kill him.”
Kaoru felt something shift
inside her at that saying, and she mentally agreed. If anything, she might have
been able to kill him before he claimed her along with her gift, but that was
impossible now.
Kaoru pulled her hand back
and stared at the sealed wound in her shoulder, but her hand was sticky with
blood and she needed to clean her arm. She was reaching for her obi to tear a
strip of cloth to wipe at the sticky things, when warm fingers curled around
her wrist.
Why was this becoming so
fucking familiar?
However, instead of bring
her hand to his mouth and licking her palm clean, as he was so prone to do, he
simply handed her a soft cloth, gave her bare feet a glance and disappeared.
“He can’t…lick you until
he cleans all the toxins from his blood.” Misao guessed out loud. "He
needs them in his body to track where they came from."
Kaoru, in the process of
cleaning the blood from her skin, rolled her eyes. “I am…eep!”
Her feet were swung out from under her, and she was staring at a familiar
throat as he carried her out of the room and into another room, with a futon
and fresh quilt laid out.
“Go to sleep.” Kenshin
snarled at her temple, and then disappeared.
Kaoru was left gaping at
him, her senses swearing that she had caught something unfamiliar in his Ki
while the rest of her denied it. Shivering slightly, she curled into the futon
and covered herself with the blanket. Not long after she had situated herself,
Misao’s swearing became clear as the girl was also dumped into the room.
“They fucking warded the
door!” Misao snarled, dropping into a cross-legged position. Kaoru could see
the faint outline of her Ki arching around her, and Kaoru sighed.
“When I was little, my
grandmother came to watch me when my dad had to go away for a few months. He
was counting on me to keep up with my Kendo, and to practice everyday. My
grandmother would lock me in my room, and she took away my shinai,
and I wouldn’t get meals if I wasn’t perfectly lady like.”
Misao turned then, her
expression curious. “What did you do?” Her expression was curious. “I would
probably have attempted to kill her.”
Kaoru rolled her eyes. “At
seven, killing isn’t your idea of fun. No…she wouldn’t let me have my Bokken,
so I found a stick. I practiced in the dead of night and did everything she
told me. She was only a short term fixture. I just had to wait until my dad got
back.”
Misao raised a brow. “What
does that have to do with this situation?”
“Those wards are only
until they come back. Get some rest while you can. That way, if you want to
yell, scream, or attack this Aoshi-sama of yours, then you will have the
energy. Don’t waste the opportunities given to you.” Kaoru replied, closing her
eyes and allowing herself to drift to sleep.
“Aren’t I the elder here?”
Misao muttered as she went and crawled under the blanket with Kaoru. Oh, once
her Aoshi-sama got back, he was in a lot of trouble!
At least he had left
Soujiro to keep an eye on thing while he was gone…not that they needed it!
However…if someone needed to run for help, Soujiro would be the fastest.
~*~
Enishi
frowned as he accepted the news. Along with the head of the man who had sent
the Shadows. Idiots. Did they truly think that such a
simple plot would work? That Himura the Battousai would allow something so simplistic as Shadow warriors to kill her?
Knowing the Battousai, he
probably had ingested some of the Shadow blood and was going to be tracking
them down to find out who had sent them.
If you wanted something
done right, you did it yourself.
“Bring me my sword.”
