[RK] Faerie Chronicles, Sleeping ch. 9 (part 1)

The Faerie Chronicles of Kenshin & Kaoru: The Sleeping Prince, a Rurouni Kenshin fanfic by Raberba girl

Chapter 9 - In which Kenshin and Kaoru travel to the Unseelie court.

"Out then spoke an old grey knight,

Looking over the castle wall,

And said, Alas, fair Janet, for thee,

But we'll be blamed all."

Tam Lin

o.o.o

Kaoru yawned and stretched, and was disappointed but not surprised to find herself alone in the bed.  After a moment, she sighed and rolled to her feet, dressing unhurriedly and combing her fingers through her hair before shuffling out of the bedroom.

Sôjirô was leaning against the wall, keeping watch.  He smiled when he saw her.  "Good morning, Kaoru-Jooh."

"'Morning," she said dully.  "What time is it?"

"Just after 10:00," he told her.

She sighed again, wondering morosely if her husband was still around, or if he had left without saying good-bye.  "Is Kenshin still here?"

He shrugged and said carefully, "He stepped out earlier this morning - didn't say where he went, though."

Kaoru nodded and went in search of breakfast, with Sôjirô trailing her good-humoredly.  After she had eaten, she found Titania out on the main terrace.

The Faerie Queen was frowning as she sipped from a goblet of juice and gazed far out into the gardens, where the handmaids were frolicking.  She did not acknowledge Kaoru, except to complain, "He's been dancing out there all morning."

Kaoru shaded her eyes and peered out at the handmaids.  Now that she looked closely, she could make out the red-haired figure flitting to and fro among them.  "Is that Kenshin?" she said in surprise.

"It would seem so," Titania said darkly.  She tossed her cup aside (it bounced to the floor as an acorn cap) and marched out resolutely.  Kaoru accompanied her, feeling uneasy.

As the two women approached, Kenshin noticed them with alarm and spun away.  Titania looked angry at first, but then suddenly laughed.  "Little mortal queen, get around on the other side, it can't avoid both of us."

"My husband's not an 'it'!"

"Of course not, dear," Titania murmured soothingly.  They circled around him; the handmaids giggled madly and gracefully got in the way, leaping and spinning right under the noses of the two queens.  Titania flung them aside, where they subsided sheepishly, and Kaoru guiltily began to shove her way through them as well.  At last they cornered him, and he turned from one to the other with a distressed look.  "Big magic!" he declared to Titania, "Bad!"  Then he shot a nervous look at Kaoru.  "Kaoru-dono!  Much love!  Go away!"

Kaoru gaped at him.  His appearance was very odd, with a smudginess about the edges and a soft, slightly bloated look about the skin.  His features were not defined well, his body somewhat disproportioned; she got the supremely odd sense that she was looking at a doll rather than a person.

"Oh yes, love," Titania told him, "very bad."  Then she seized him and pressed her lips hard to his; he stared at her with wide open eyes, unresponsive and unresisting, hands fluttering in distress.

For about two seconds, Kaoru's body went numb with shock, and her throat felt completely blocked with rage.  "G...Get - your hands - off him!"  The words came out in a ragged whisper.  A silent scream was roaring in her ears, and she felt herself take a stumbling step forward.

Titania completely ignored her.  She pulled away and gazed into literally melting blue eyes.  "How fitting," she said bitterly, "that the only kiss I can claim from you tastes only of desperation and childish magic."  She released him gently, and as her hands lifted away, he dissolved into the air and vanished, except for a strand of red hair which drifted to the ground.

Kaoru gasped and fell to her knees, feeling about senselessly in the grass, as if she could find him there.  "What...what...?!"

"He's long gone," Titania said flatly.  "Probably left some time between midnight and dawn."

"What are you talking about?!"  A renewed surge of rage washed over her.  "You kissed him!  You kissed him!  My husband!"

"I kissed a simulacrum," Titania said contemptuously.  "And a badly-made one at that, though I suppose I can't blame the boy for his mixed-blood magic."  Her fists clenched and she took a step.  "Fine!" she shouted into the distance.  "Go, then!  I tried, and that is more than you had any right to expect!  It's not my fault!"  She whirled stormily away, then stopped when she saw the handmaids, who shrank away fearfully.

"We were forced," one of them said in a quavering voice.  Immediately, the others took it up.  "We were forced, we were forced to!  We would never have crossed you, Merciful Queen!"

Michiko slowly reached up and drew the violets out of her hair, letting them drop to the ground.  "We helped him willingly," she said quietly.  "Let your wrath fall on me alone, my lady."

Titania suddenly smiled.  "Very well, then.  Come attend to me in my chambers, Michiko-chan."  The girl wordlessly came near, and Titania took her arm to translocate.  As they vanished, a sheet of fiery magic flashed through the group; Kaoru only felt it sting briefly before it passed on, but it seemed to cling to the handmaids like cobwebs.  Their dancing now was a maddened expression of pain, until the furious spell died away and left them sobbing in miserable heaps.

Stunned, Kaoru knelt by the nearest girl, her hands hovering uncertainly.  "I'm sorry...I don't know what to do--  Please, what can I do to help you?"

"My primroses," the girl moaned despairingly.  "She's burned my flowers...I need them!  Oh, please, I need them back!"  She did not seem to see Kaoru, her glazed eyes wandered restlessly.  She translocated, so slowly that her body took several seconds to fade away, and Kaoru looked around to find that the others were doing the same, crawling away to comforting shelters.

Kaoru was left alone.  Kenshin was gone...she had no friend in this place, except--  "Sôjirô," she whispered, scrambling back to her feet.

o.o.o.o.o

He was in the last stretch of woods before the terrain opened out on Unseelie lands.  There was a sudden rustling among the leaves.  Kenshin laid a hand on his sword hilt, then took it away again when Tomoe burst through the trees, halting when their eyes met.  "Why have you come?" she asked coldly.

"You know why."

"Enishi wants you dead.  You know that," she said, moving forward.

Kenshin studied her carefully, wondering how much she knew.  "It doesn't matter.  There's something this one is much more concerned about, Tomoe."  As he looked at her, she suddenly drew in a breath, knowing already what he would say.  "Tomoe...why did you do it?"

It took her a while to be able to answer in a level voice.  Her eyes hurt.  "I shouldn't have.  I knew even as I spoke the words that it was wrong...no matter what Enishi had promised me."

Kenshin's eyes widened.  "He...he has found your heart?"

Tomoe looked at him silently, her eyes glistening.

"Tomoe," he said slowly, confused.  "This one does not understand."  He was married now.  The door had closed on his future as Tomoe's husband, and she was not the kind of person who would force her way over another woman's rightful claim.

"Think about it," she whispered brokenly.  When she saw the realization in his expression, she put her hands over her face.  "Forgive me...."

He moved to put his arms around her, full of happiness for her sake, and compassion, and an unsettling hint of irrational jealousy.

"I asked Enishi to let me cast the spell myself," she murmured thickly.  "He couldn't understand why I allowed you to preserve Kenji for fourteen mortal years.  I thought Kenji would be safe until I could convince Enishi of the truth - but then Kenji drew the sakabatô."  She took a shuddering breath.  "It wasn't worth it.  Even for Akira-san's sake, it wasn't worth Kenji's life."

"No," Kenshin said softly, "it wasn't."

At that moment, a blade was inserted between them, the sharp edge turned toward Kenshin's throat.  "Get your hands off her," a wrathful young voice commanded.

o.o.o.o.o

"Look, don't cry about it," Chou said in exasperation.  "Those girls are a sneaky lot, they're always getting in trouble for something or other."  His reassurances did not appear to be helping.  "Look, they're okay!  They actually got off easy, you know.  You should see some of the stuff dished out at the Unseelie court."

Kaoru sniffled.  "I miss Kenshin," she said in a small voice.  Sôjirô patted her shoulder sympathetically.

Chou looked uncomfortable.  "Look...um, look here; Battousai wants you to be safe, right?  So yeah, I'll take you back home to your kids - the kids you made with him, remember? - and everything will be fine.  Okay?"

"I want to go after him," Kaoru decided.

Sôjirô's eyes flickered thoughtfully, and Chou looked alarmed.  "Look, Jooh - I have to take you back home.  Battousai will have my neck if anything happens to you, and Bamboo Curtain Head is expecting you."

Kaoru said impatiently, "Then let me talk to Bamboo--  I mean, Saitô."

"Aw, c'mon, Jooh--!"

"Chou," she said sternly, "Now."

Chou looked unhappily at his queen.  "Fine."

Kaoru settled the headband over her hair rather nervously.  "Saitô?" she said uncertainly.

"Hold up, I've gotta connect you first."  Chou took her hands and cast out his magic like a wire between the worlds, navigating through the shifting time boundaries.  "Oi."

"What now?"

"The queen wants to talk to you."

"The fae or the tanuki?"

Chou grinned.  "The second one," he answered prudently.

"I heard that, Saitô!" Kaoru burst out, still in shock over being able to hear Saitô's voice from a whole different world.

"What do you want?"

Kaoru shook her head.  He was still as rude as ever.  "I wanted to tell you that I'm not coming home yet.  I'm going after Kenshin, and we'll be coming home together."

There was an exhalation; Kaoru supposed he was smoking.  "So you figured out what that fool is planning, eh?"

A stab of fear shot through her, but she fiercely rejected it.  "What?"

There was a pause.  "Are you telling me," he said slowly, "that you don't know what he's planning, and you intend to throw yourself in the middle of it?"

"So what if I am!" Kaoru burst out.  "This is my family we're talking about, I won't sit on the sidelines and expect Kenshin to do everything alone!"

There was a sigh.  "With rulers like this, it's a wonder the country has lasted this long...."

"What was that?" she said challengingly.

"Listen," he said contemptuously.  "Battousai knows what he's doing, I'll give him that much.  You, on the other hand, don't.  Yet you intend to interfere, even if it means the complete failure of everything you've set out to do in that world."

"What do you mean?" Kaoru said hotly.  "Are you saying that if I go after Kenshin, then we won't be able to save Kenji?"

"I have no idea.  Neither do you.  That's the point."

"Why can't you give me a straight answer!"

"Because I don't have one," he said harshly.  "This decision is yours."  Then his tone lightened, as if he was grinning.  "Besides, it makes no difference to me.  Whatever happens, there's always the prince.  Since he is unable to rule at the moment, someone will have to be regent on his behalf, should something happen to his idiot parents."

"You had better not be implying that you intend to steal the throne!"

"Of course not," he answered smoothly.  "A wolf's place is in the shadows, after all.  So, shall I be expecting you soon, or no?"

Kaoru was silent, caught in painful indecision.  Finally she spoke, her words soft.  "You said...you implied that if I knew what Kenshin was up to, I would go after him."  She waited for a response, but there was none.  "Well?"

"I can't control how you choose to interpret what I say."

"Argh!  Fine then!  No, I'm not coming home!"  She abruptly cut herself short, breathless with the declaration.

"Hmph.  As you will."  A soft hissing filled her ears as the connection broke and Chou took his headband back.

"There.  Happy now?"

"Not yet," Kaoru said, sounding more decisive than she felt.  "I don't know where the Unseelie court is."

"You can't be serious!  I am not taking you there!"

"You most certainly are!"

"They threw me out!  Titania'll kill me if she hears I went back!  And who knows what they'll do to me if I dare show my face there again?"

She shook her head in exasperation.  "Fine, then just lead me far enough until I can find it myself."

He folded his arms.  "No way."

Kaoru narrowed her eyes.  "You want me to tell Titania that you work for Saitô Hajime?"

Chou slapped his hands over his eyes.  Yep, agreeing to assassinate Himura Kaoru back then had definitely been the biggest mistake of his life.

"Kaoru-Jooh," Sôjirô now spoke up.  "Let him go, he's helped us enough.  I've been to the Unseelie court, I can take you there myself."

Chou sighed in relief, and Kaoru looked at her bodyguard in surprise.  "Sôjirô...you'd go against Kenshin's orders?"

He smiled, and gently raised her hand to his lips to kiss it.  "My first allegiance is to you, Kaoru-Jooh," he said softly.  "If you are determined to do this, then I will help you."  His smile turned mischievous.  "Besides, I can get you there much faster than this slowpoke.  The king has such a head start on us, after all."

Kaoru threw her arms around his neck gratefully.  "Sôjirô!  Thank you, thank you so much!"

Chou shook his head.  "You really don't know what you're getting into, do you...oh well.  Not my problem."

o.o.o.o.o

Kenshin spent so long staring at the ice sprite, sizing him up, taking in the jealousy and passion and nervousness, that it was only when Tomoe gave him a surreptitious poke in the ribs that he realized he was still holding her.  He quickly let go and stepped back, smiling at the sprite.  "Forgive this one...Akira, is it?  No harm was intended."

"You," Akira growled, taking Tomoe's arm and pulling her behind him, "have caused enough grief here.  Go back to your wife and leave us be."

Kenshin saw the tip of the sword trembling, ever so slightly, and he saw the fire in the man's ice-blue eyes that drove him to nevertheless challenge a warrior who had once been the greatest of Shishio Makoto's deadly assassins.  "This one is happy for you," he said sincerely.  "For both of you."  He carefully stepped past them and walked on.

"Where are you going?" Akira demanded.

"He has business in the Unseelie court," Tomoe reminded him as they followed after.

Akira stared at Kenshin's back as the other man walked ahead.  "You mean you're really going to go along with your enemy's plans?"

"This one has no choice," Kenshin said grimly.

"You would do that for a boy you don't even know?"

"He is this one's son," was the icy response.  Then, more gently, "If you had children, you would understand."

"What I don't understand," Akira burst out, "is why a fickle half-breed would care about a virtual stranger when he once abandoned a fiancée he claimed to love!"

Kenshin's shoulders went stiff, but his tone was mild when he said, "So you would devote yourself to her, whether or not her contract with the Seelie queen is ever broken?"

"Of course," Akira said firmly.  "Tomoe-san is a treasure among women, brave and wise and beautiful...my life is hers, I don't care if I can never have her as my wife."

After a moment, Kenshin murmured, "It seems you are a stronger man than this one, then."

Tomoe thought of Kenshin's reluctance, all those years ago, to let her go.  She thought of the tears she had seen Akira weep when he thought no one could see, and she knew that both men were lying.  But they were not aware of it, and she said nothing.

o.o.o.o.o

When they were close, Sôjirô stopped running and carefully let Kaoru down from his back.  She was so dizzy from the insane speed of their travel that she stumbled and barely managed to keep her feet, even with Sôjirô supporting her.  "Kaoru-Jooh, are you all right?"

"Give me a minute," she mumbled.  When she finally straightened and began walking forward, she was able to focus on the dark palace that towered up before them.  It was a forbidding structure, black with turrets that twisted and seemed to be in different places whenever she glanced away and looked back.  They came to a halt some distance before the gates, before which hovered a dark mist that stretched away in both directions.

"Well," Sôjirô remarked.  "This certainly wasn't here before.  Let me check it out, Kaoru-Jooh."

"Hurry," Kaoru said nervously, her glance darting from side to side as if she expected ugly monsters to come jumping out at her any second.  Sôjirô nodded, then seemed to vanish in a slight rush of air.

Shaking her head, still not used to that crazy speed of his, Kaoru found herself pacing after only a few minutes, from nervousness and impatience.  What was she going to do now that she was here, anyway?  The things she had heard about the Unseelie court had not painted a very pleasant picture in her imagination...what did Kenshin mean to do here?

"Sôjirô, where are you?" she grumbled.  How long did it take to examine a magical trap?

Kaoru bit her lip, staring at the unmoving fog before her.  Kenshin was in there, somewhere.  He had been gone for hours and hours....  Were things going the way he had planned, or was he in trouble?

"Sôjirô!" she suddenly shouted.  "Sôjirô!"  There was no answer.

Kaoru's breath was coming hard now as she fought to stay logical.  Kenshin knew what he was doing, he was comfortable in this world.  He wasn't infallible, though.  He had had to struggle against the Seelie queen, his own grandmother.  What would happen to him here, among his enemies?

"Sôjirô!" she screamed again, nearly stomping with impatience.  Panic was beating at her mind, as if begging, 'Why are you just sitting around?!  Why aren't you going to Kenshin?  What if he needs you?!'

"Sôjirô, if you're not here in one minute, I'm going without you!"

For a little longer, she forced herself to stay still, to wait.  Then she could not stand it anymore.  There was no other way in - she seized her bokutô and walked resolutely into the fog.

o.o.o.o.o

Kenshin stopped short when they came out into the open, and it was at once obvious why.  A monstrous figure was approaching them, so enormous that it towered up into the sky despite the distance between it and them.  Yet each step it took brought it closer by such great increments that it had already halfway reached them in the time it took to identify the figure and observe the nature of its progress.

Kenshin clicked his sword loose from its sheath.  "Tomoe," he murmured warily, his eyes fixed on the giant.

"It's all right," she told him quietly.  "Fuji-san will not harm us."

"Wouldn't mind if he stepped on Battousai," Akira grumbled under his breath, but subsided when Tomoe gave him a little kick in the ankle.  The three of them held their ground, heads tipped up, riveted by the sight.

In less than a minute, Fuji was kneeling before them, covering them with his immense shadow.  "You left," he rumbled.

"Temporarily," Tomoe called up to him, before either of the men could figure out whom the giant addressed.  "I meant to return."

"Mm."  Fuji's eyes fell on Kenshin, and narrowed in a frown.  "I cannot see you well, swordsman.  Permit me to take a liberty."

Kenshin swallowed to moisten his dry throat.  The giant's face was lined with hardship, but free of all sly or malicious expression.  In any case, Tomoe seemed to trust him.  "All right."

He watched the huge hand descend, and stepped carefully into the callused palm when it came to rest on the ground close by.  He put a hand on the thumb to steady himself as Fuji lifted him.  The giant obviously tried to be gentle, though the wind from the rising movement sent Kenshin's hair whipping wildly at his face.  When they were eye-to-eye, they studied each other warily for a minute.

The afternoon sunshine glinted on the swordsman's bright red hair and highlighted the deep color of the cross-shaped mark on his face.  The giant's hugeness was grotesque, every tiny flaw and blemish mercilessly magnified, yet the features were pleasantly symmetrical and well-formed, the long chunks of shaggy hair shining silver in the light.  Fuji could have been a handsome man.

Kenshin was startled to realize that the metal links circling the giant's neck, which had seemed like ornamentation from afar, were from this proximity clearly a method of restraint.  Who had dared to chain this creature?  Was he a prisoner or a slave?

The rumbling voice came like thunder.  "You are the Battousai everyone has been speaking of."

"What of it?" Kenshin said gravely.

"Your strength is legendary.  I had...foolishly...hoped to cross swords with you one day."  Kenshin's eyes widened a little.  "Now I shall never have the chance."

"No," Kenshin agreed, "but even if you had found such an opportunity, this one would have declined the honor, that he would."

A grin quirked the corner of the huge mouth.  "Are you afraid of me?"

Kenshin grinned back.  "Is there reason to be?"

The smile vanished.  Fuji's gaze was piercing.  "Look at me."

"This one is looking," Kenshin said softly, "and he thinks that a sword at the waist should not be paired with a chain around the neck."

"So a slave has no right to claim a warrior's title?" the giant rumbled dangerously.

Kenshin smiled sadly.  "As one who also once wielded his sword for a cruel master, this one thinks, rather, that the sword of a warrior has no right to be bound to dishonorable duties.  How many have you killed with your sword, Fuji?  How many of them were true opponents?  If your life is anything like this one's once was...the answer is, 'Not many.'"

There was a silence.  "You are free now," Fuji whispered, tight with anger.

"Then you should be, as well."

"You're not a monster!"  And with the outburst, the hand suddenly closed around Kenshin, threatening to squeeze the life out of him.  Tomoe cried out below.  "So easy, Battousai," he murmured, watching the swordsman gasp for breath but otherwise offer no struggle.

"For a monster, yes," Kenshin managed to say, though the challenge in his expression was clear and unwavering.  "Are you really a monster, Fuji?"

The moment lengthened, and no one moved or spoke.  Then the giant's wondering whisper came like the sighing of wind. "It's a choice."

"It's a choice for all of us," Kenshin said quietly.

Another smile came to that great face, softening it, bringing out some of its hidden beauty.  "I hope you are right."  The fingers relaxed; Kenshin fell with a gasping rush of breath, stumbling to his knees in the giant's palm.  Fuji set him back down so gently that he was able to catch his breath even in the long transition.  He had fully composed himself by the time Akira (and Tomoe...but it was Akira who mattered) could see him, and he stepped back to the ground as if nothing had happened.

"Oneesan," Fuji murmured, though even his quietest voice made the trees rustle.  "Have you found a place yet?"

"Not yet," Tomoe said unhappily.  "You would fare even worse in the human realm than you would here.  The only place I could think of would be the wilds of Faerie, but it's very dangerous."

"I think I can take care of myself," Fuji said politely.  Akira snorted in amused agreement.

"But it would be lonely," Tomoe said softly.  Then her eyes widened, and she turned to Kenshin.  "Kenshin--  Do you know a place?  Somewhere Fuji can live once he is free?"

"Well...."  Kenshin thought for a while.  "A possibility occurs to this one, but...."  He smiled a little and shook his head.  "Permission would have to be asked first, and this one can no longer do so.  Perhaps if you petitioned him, Tomoe, Hiko Seijûrô would be willing to make an arrangement."

"Hiko Seijûrô..." she mused.

Kenshin suddenly blinked.  "How long have we been talking here?"

"Not long," Tomoe said in puzzlement.  Then she stiffened in realization.  "I do not favor crafty spell-work."

"Forgive this one for being suspicious, but he has recently had too much experience with deliberately-planned delays," Kenshin said dryly.

"If I thought it would stop you," Tomoe said unhappily, "and if I wasn't in such debt to Kenji...I would be doing my best to delay you as well."

Akira was looking hard at her.  "You really do like him, don't you."

Tomoe smiled, took his arm, and gave it a little pat.  "Jealous?"

"Any man would be!"

Her smile disappeared.  "This is not some mere rivalry, Akira-san.  This concerns life and death."

Akira looked a little ashamed, but said nothing.

"Battousai," Fuji said, "will you really agree to cooperate with the king?  For the sake of this boy?"

"I must."

Fuji sighed regretfully. "Very well, then.  I will take you, if you are in such haste.  That is, if you are not adverse to traveling in such a way."

A smile broke over Kenshin's face.  At the sight of that relief, Tomoe felt like she wanted to cry, and Akira felt restless and somehow unsatisfied.  He would do anything, anything for Tomoe; apparently, Battousai would go to great lengths for a loved one as well.  It hurt Tomoe, and Akira didn't know whether he wanted his rival to succeed or fail.

Fuji carried all of them, Akira and Tomoe in his right hand and Kenshin in his left.  The motion, though windy, was quite steady, and Kenshin suddenly wondered if the giant was accustomed to carrying people of ordinary size.  He worried a little that having both hands occupied left Fuji open to possible attack, but they reached the palace quickly and without incident.

"Thank you, Fuji," Kenshin called up.

"Mm," was the only response as he set them down.  A shadow had seemed to close over his face now that he was back in such close proximity to his place of bondage.

Kenshin entered the outer courts with his head held high, gazing straight ahead.  Tomoe flanked him with the same resolute dignity, so that Akira was forced to accompany them.

The fae who rushed out to meet them were all, regardless of dismay or anger or delight, in a state of great excitement.  Kenshin continued calmly on, appearing heedless of the shouts, the blows, the tears; the pixie who landed on his shoulder to snuggle against his neck, the lutin who clung to his back and snarled at those with ugly intentions.

"Why have you come, Battousai?!"

"Why did you stay so long away, love?"

"At last!  I've been looking forward to this, heheh...."

"Put that away, stupid, the king'll kill you if you hurt him too early."

"Niisan!  How could you?!"

"I hate you!"

"Come to bed with me while there's still time...."

"Oh, YAY!  Come play, come play!"

Curses, laughter, threats.  Kenshin made no response to any of it, though he nearly chuckled to find that he felt almost as at home here as he did in the Seelie court.  He paced on, until the great doors to the throne room opened, revealing the rest of the court waiting with Enishi at their head.

A tiny glittering figure came rushing up to Kenshin's face.  "Himura!  What are you doing here?"

"This one could ask the same of you, Misao-dono."

"Because Aoshi-sama is here, obviously," the Seelie creature snorted.  "But you, Himura!  I heard what the king means you to do - don't tell me you're going along with it?!"

He affectionately cupped a hand around her tiny body, though he was careful not to touch her.  "You forsook much for love, Misao-dono.  Surely you understand."

"But it's not the same thing!" she protested.  He only smiled and moved on.  After staring after him for a moment, Misao's eyes narrowed in determination and she hurried to perch on Kenshin's other shoulder, where she and the pixie made faces at each other across his throat.  They were the only two who remained; the lutin, at the forbidding sight of the Faerie King on his throne, scampered away in terror.  Kenshin came to a halt before the throne, glaring.

"You sure took your sweet time," Enishi commented.  Tomoe continued on past Kenshin and made her deliberate way up to the dais, where she seated herself beside her brother.  Akira quietly came to stand in attendance.  Enishi's eyes moved toward her briefly.  "You had some fun with him, Sis?"

"He's no fun at all nowadays," she answered calmly, her face once more closed on her true thoughts.  "But I can wait."  A ripple of ugly laughter went through the hall and then died down.

"So...Battousai," Enishi said conversationally, though his eyes gleamed.  "You ready?  Ready to release little Kenji, so that your family can live happily - ever - after?"

"Don't do it, Himura!" Misao whispered urgently.

He ignored her.  "Enishi.  Where is your sister's heart?"

Enishi went very still.  "What does that have to do with anything?" he snarled.

"You promised her freedom once your revenge was complete," Kenshin said quietly.  "Where is it, Enishi?"

"That's something you don't need to know--"  Enishi suddenly grinned.  "For now, at least."

At that moment, a small crowd of fae came rushing excitedly into the hall.  "She came!  She came!" they cried delightedly.  "She's caught in the Fog, the stupid little mortal!"

Kenshin's heart lurched; both Enishi and Tomoe were on their feet.  "Who is it?" Kenshin said harshly.