A.N.: Haha I bet quite a few people are mad for such a long wait. And frankly I don’t really have such a good excuse to save my ass so I can only hope this chapter makes up for your time. Still do enjoy.

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Chapter 8: Repercussions

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Kyoto First Year of Genji (Bakumatsu in 1864)

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His hands clutched the worn handle of his katana, pale gold eyes staring at the grave. The snow had started to fall once more, clinging to his tired form. His eyes felt so dry just staring at the tombstone. Long calloused fingers traced the name crudely engraved into the rock.

Tomoe

He held the emotions back behind the wall in his heart and turned to the woods. He gave a solemn but thankful look to the strange woman who had stayed with him through his time of mourning.

He left the site without a second glance back.

Snow trudged into his very steps traveling deeper into the woods. It wasn’t long until he felt another presence quickly upon his heel. Instinct grabbed his katana’s hilt, ready for battle. What stepped through the shrubs dusty of flakes slackened his warrior’s hold.

Eyes as intense as the frigid cold, glared at him accusingly behind the veil of shocked-white bangs.

“You killed her.”

The voice broke the silence like a knife and the young boy could only repeat the words louder.

“You killed her! You killed HER! You KILLED HER! YOU KILLED HER!!”

The man said nothing. His eyes fell downcast, with the weight of the boy’s words weighing upon his whole being.

Finally the boy panted, frustrated at the other man’s silence. Softly the boy whispered a question.

“Why?”

His voice broke of the tears spent and grief borne of the tragedy of her death. The other stayed silent once again.

The boy bit his tongue to hold the curses and demanding questions down when he felt the man shift. The katana was held in his grip as an offering. For a time, the boy stared at the sword and then resolve flashed through the same frigid cold eyes.

Screaming he snatched the sword and drove the blade deep in the abdominal of the man, maddening revenge blinding him.

The force drove both into the surface of a nearby bush, the man spluttering blood with the impact, the boy crying tears of blood. Neither said a word as the blade drove deeper and the blood flowed freer.

Long calloused fingers gently pried the boy’s shaken grip from the katana to push the boy away from the blood. The man coughed harshly at the effort and lay back resting. He gave the trembling boy a bloodied half-hearted smile. His voice rasped from the grasping hold of death.

“I…I’m sorry I… couldn’t pr-protect… her… little bro…brother.”

Blood gurgled from his lips brushing against the fiery bangs. A last chance at a smile was attempted before his heavy eyelids flickered down.

His last memory was of a boy in tears running away while a young woman with a smile running toward him.

I’m sorry…

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xxx Kenshin’s POV xxx

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What a weird dream.

‘I... remember now.’

Augh.. So much pain pounding in my skull.

It’s as if someone took a hammer to my head!

‘The dream it was real.’

Yes, and very painful too.

….

Wait. Battousai-san? Are you… Wait. The hell? HEY!

What are you doing in MY HEAD??

The other worldly voice answered short with an annoyed tone.

‘I do not know. I could ask you the same thing. Something must have gone wrong with your ritual. You have cursed me now into this prison!’

This prison is my mind. The ritual… something went wrong! B-but I checked everything! Nothing was out of place. Nothing.

‘If so, then why are we like this? We now share one body.’

I felt myself seethe at his cynical voice. His question though did make sense. And I don’t think I have the right answer for that.

The pounding grew more insistent as did his voice get louder.

‘No, that is of unimportance now. That dream. Do you remember that boy?’

The one with white hair? Who..

‘Murdered me. Yes. He… was my brother. More specifically my brother to my wife.’

Your brother-in-law killed you?

Battousai stayed quiet for a moment but I had a strange sensation that the answer to my question happened to be a yes.

‘I let him kill me. You saw it. I saw it. It changes nothing.’

What do you mean by that?! It changes EVERYTHING! We can’t wait here doing nothing now! We know how you died! I can fix it!

Despite all my talking and attempts at reassuring, the ghost kept silent in my head. I let out frustrated noise, ready to knock some sense into the stubborn psyche.

Everything was falling apart and he had the nerve to give up! After everything we’d already been through!

I pushed his voice and the darkness away, to concentrate on waking up. Arguing with another spirit psyche in one’s mind couldn’t be healthy.

The weight of my eyelids felt like bricks but I managed to squint in the light. Really bright light.

“Augh.. T-turn off the lights.”

My voice came out as a whispery rasp that no one could hear. It was then that I realized no one was actually in company with me.

So where was I then? I looked around to find myself still in the Kamiya house laying on a futon. I moved each part of my body, testing to see if maybe I’d broken something during the chaos. That’s when I realized my fingers were gripping the hilt of the old sword.

I felt angry and tried to toss it, but my body wouldn’t respond. In fact my traitorous body held the hilt tighter. Only once I’d relaxed did the grip on the sword lax. I sighed.

I took a look around my surroundings to keep my mind off the confusing events. A wet towel slipped from my forehead and beside me, a small tray of food lay. A note was a strewn next to it.

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Rest Kenshin. We have gone back to Headquarters and taken Kamiya and Sagara with us. We’ll be in contact soon.

-Shinomori

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Ah so Yahiko is probably still in the house.

‘Headquarters. What’s there?’

It’s a place where I work and where they can contact others for help and information.

And that’s when the thought hit me.

Q: Who else did I know worked at Headquarters who would skin me alive if he found out what happened?

A: My shishiou. Hiko Seijurou

Shit.

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xxx Kaoru’s POV xxx

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The blindfold itched but I wasn’t allowed to touch it. Compared to the choice of being unconscious to being blindfolded, I guess I got off lightly. Who knew the location of the Headquarters had to be kept a secret that badly?

I feel blindfolding your guests probably aren’t the warmest welcome in the world but we are dealing with the supernatural.

The wind blew against us as we traveled in some sort of train cart, underground since I couldn’t feel the sunlight anymore. Lots of bases are underground. I wonder why?

And then we were walking again.

Misao’s reassuring hand push me along through the endless quite halls. It felt like an eternity before anyone broke the silence.

“Okay Kaoru! You are now safely within Headquarters so the blindfold is now off! Welcome!”

I smiled hesitantly, not sure what to make of the whole building. Everything had occured so fast after the failed ritual. Kenshin had fainted and I was in a near break-down. Thank God Misao and Aoshi were there to take charge of everything.

Battousai disappeared too. And the sword. Kenshin wouldn’t let go of it.

Yahiko only stared stone-faced at Kenshin and the sword melded in his grip. He wouldn’t say a word and stayed behind. I hope he’s doing fine. I hope Kenshin is… fine.

And Sano, he managed to follow the orders of Misao and Aoshi without a witty comeback. It was strange watching him so serious. I felt so useless during the whole thing.

I tried to ask Misao what had happened and instead of telling me anything, she led me here to Headquarters.

I managed to snap out of that trance though when Misao started shouting about a fever building in Kenshin.

But I still feel so useless and tired of the whole ordeal. Damn…

“Jou-chan?”

A hand snapped my thinking at the inquisitive and concerned look of Sano.

“Sorry Sano. I was just… thinking.”

He nodded understandably.

“Yeah I get what you mean. A lot’s happened in only the pass –what 10 hours?! I still can’t believe it either. Wait till the kitsune hears of this! Damn she won’t believe a word –”

Misao interrupted him with an abrupt kick to his head.

“BAKA! You can’t tell her about us or Headquarters! It’s bad enough you know! We can’t have anymore civilians knowing of our cause!”

“Oww… You have a mean kick there weasel-girl.”

That only managed to fuel the fire of Misao’s fury. Sometimes I think she has a worse temper than I do. The fighting ended briefly with a bloodied pile of what remains of Sano.

“That’ll teach you how to treat a lady. Hmph!”

She turned her head, swishing the extremely long braid behind her to stomp off. And that left me to drag the pathetic-excuse-for-a-man along with them.

We trudged down the hallway all tiled with a kind of scientific look to it –if you could call it. Basically everything seemed squeaky clean and radiated this type of blue hue around us. As the passage lengthened, our clothes started to glow such as that under neon lights. We passed sealed and bolted metal doors with thick panes of glass to look in.

Some of the sights were really strange, but that’s all I’ll say.

And before I knew it, we were stopping beside one of these windows. Inside an extremely large and buffed man with dark hair hanging loosely in a ponytail, dressed in a white coat and goggles, stood wielding a katana glowing an eerily green. Reminded me of the light sabers in Star Wars but with a cultural and sharp twist to it.

Pretty cool I’d have to admit.

But what came next would only have to be described as just ‘wow.’

In the blur of a second, the large man managed to throw the sword in the air to change its form into something that greatly resembled a bazooka. The cardboard targets in front of him never stood a chance.

After the smoke cleared and a great deal of coughing, Misao and Aoshi led us cautiously into the room. Misao spoke first.

“Hiko-san! –cough, cough- Hiko-san!!”

Steely eyes turned in our directions. This ‘Hiko-san’ had the eyes that tended to freeze movement, including breathing. It took awhile for me to gather my wits and remember to exhale.

Misao remained unfazed.

“Hiko-san the mission failed. And something bad went wrong.”

Hiko placed the reverted sword on the table, still steaming from its previous… use. He spoke in a cold voice that demanded nothing had better be too bad.

“What. Exactly. Went. Wrong?”

I didn’t miss the worried side-glance Misao threw at me before clearing her throat. Her next words would definitely make me feel similar effects to that of the bazooka blast. And that’s saying something.

“Well, we think Battousai may have been imprisoned into… Kenshin Himura’s body.”

The sound of a single movement could have broken the silence that followed afterwards. Until everyone, besides Misao and Aoshi, exclaimed one word in synchrony.

“WHAT!?”

Misao scratched her head, chuckling nervously under all our stunned facial expressions: jaws dropped, eyeballs bulging to dinner plates, twitching veins, ect.

“Well.. yeah that’s what Aoshi-sama and I have hypothesized to be the results of our er.. failed exorcism. I guess.”

She backed away from my advancing steps. I could just picture the sight of my arms squeezing the life out of her neck!

“MISAO!!!”

“What she means Hiko-san, is that we believe the ritual to have been tampered with at a crucial time.”

This froze all our movements. Not only had Aoshi talked in one long sentence, but it also meant that the funny dreading feeling I had before we began was true. Someone else really was there at the door.

“Explain Shinomori.”

“I checked the whole dojo for anything suspicious, after double-checking our equipment. Nothing was wrong with the equipment or setup of the ceremony, but near the back of the dojo I found remains of other ancient magic symbols that may have canceled out or interfered with our purpose.”

The large man nodded, soaking the information like a wet sponge.

“What do you think of it then?”

A pause on Aoshi’s part to add to the dramatic effect.

“Someone is out for either Kenshin Himura or the ghost of Battousai. It is only be pure luck that Kenshin survived this ordeal. I am not entirely sure of what has happened to Battousai as the Gates did not open, so it is only a theory that he is imprisoned within Himura’s body.”

“Shit.”

My exact words.

“Ok Shinomori and Makimachi- inside my office now.”

Misao gave us an apologetic look as she left to follow the giant. It left me still in a confused haze.

Is it even possible for a human body to house more than two spirits??!?!

“Hey Sano what do you think of this mess?”

I turned my gaze to the rooster with perfect timing too. His hand was poised over the sword’s hilt. He grinned red-handedly.

“Eh hehe er… It’s not –I was just going to test it out! No! No! Jou-chan! Stop! P-put the table down!! AAHH!!!”

BAAM!!!!

Mental Note: Human punching bags relieve stress fast.

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A.N: Yeah I needed a little craziness at the end after the beginning segment. And now the plot’s getting… somewhat developed so ANY questions, just ask in the review. I’ll be happy to answer.

p.s. FAT CATS RULE!