May All Be Pain or Love

NOTES: MYAHHH late X__X So very late! this chapter gave me HELL so i hope it's at least decent.




So, I suppose you're wondering what became of me after I'd fallen out of consciousness in the arms of the one that forced me to experience every aspect of my emotion from the wasting to the sublime. In a sort of chronic trend I'd once again taken to castling time for my own health and I'd lost a few more days somewhere between the bath and the bed. Sometime later I learned that Kyo had been trying to wake me for hours so by the time I actually did stir - in intensely dramatic fashion - his hope that I would wake up at all was already in the grave.

Sitting up suddenly had ignited a chain reaction as Kyo mirrored my movement as if he were my smaller, lighter reflection. He had been sleeping soundly on my chest when I had wrested him from his peace, his expression swimming between shock and irritation, but he abandoned them both in favor of wrapping his arms around my waist and blessing my collarbone with a relieved exhalation. "I hate you." he said.
"You don't mean that." I told him.
"I wish I had your faith." His head pressed further against me and for a second I thought he needed my reassurances so I returned the embrace but he bit me on my shoulder and scowled though he never let me go. "I hate you. I really really do." he whispered almost angrily and I smiled because I knew he wasn't trying to tell me he really hated me, not with the way he was clinging and laying warm kisses on my shoulder. At this point I had already come to terms with the fact that this was as close as I was going to get to a confession of merit, but even 'I hate you' when performed in this manner borrowed the same meaning as it's antithesis and I didn't care anymore if there was a line between the two since they had blurred so perfectly together.

I was able to find relief in the fact that most everything was over and the state I'd been left with wasn't half so grim as I'd expected.
Kyo made a noise of absolute frustration and banged his head against my shoulder as though he were mad at me.
"What's wrong?" I asked, trying to see his face through the very small gap between my neck and my arm, but his hair was in the way.
"I'm exhausted." he mumbled.
I smiled and laid back down with him in my arms. "Weren't you sleeping when I woke up?"
He shook his head and mumbled what was probably a 'no'. "I kept thinking...that you would die if I closed my eyes..."
"I'm sorry, Kyo. I promise I'm not going anywhere." I assured him.
I could feel him make an angry face against my skin. "You can't promise something like that." He hissed and then immediately he went back to staring at my neck in a daze. I could feel his eyelashes flutter just underneath my ear... "You'd never be able to keep it."
My eyes fixed on the textured scaling that ran up his bare shoulder. The sunlight was reflecting off of it, making it shine. I ran my lips over it, not kissing, but feeling the difference between his soft human skin and the inhuman variations set into it and he purred sweetly.
"I thought you hated me." I laughed and he promptly smacked my shoulder...hard, the sound of skin colliding with skin actually echoing through the room.

Resuming my silence I hoped he would drift off against my body now that he was confidant that I was alive. I wrapped my arms around him just in case he still had any doubts. For no reason at all I caught myself thinking of Isshi. What was he doing now that he no longer had to care for anyone but himself? Was he happy that that burden was gone or had he enjoyed my company since he so rarely had his fill of any at all? I wanted to go back to Aomori and see for myself but I was unsure if I could enter it again at all. Should stepping foot inside it kill me again or was I now, thanks to the Kasha's ill-gotten gift, immune to whatever destruction it could have yielded?

It would have exhausted my mind to revisit all the curiosities I harbored since the beginning of this tale, but my mind couldn't seem to let them go. With the ease at which I had accepted all the peculiarities of recent days I had, in turn, forgone a host of questions that I might never have gotten the answers to. I wondered what this shadow was and receiving so little of it how it had come to fill my veins with such fullness. I could see it through the paleness on my wrists, the once blue veins murky with this new mixture of blood and living ink. How did it keep me alive...and why and how long would it sustain me before I wasted away? For a mortal's lifetime, for a demon's? Isshi told me my humanity had remained unchanged. Supposing this I guessed that I would live out the remainder of my mortal life without worry. But would I age, would I grow brittle, would my strength wither away...?

Then there were still the matters of this world to address...and how Miyamoto would stand after becoming the unlikely victor in a very public battle. Would people be suspicious? Would the bakufu chastise us for the transgression? There were far too many questions and maybe...maybe there were no answers, or no one to give them. I envied Kyo's ability to worry over only one thing at a time and forsake all else.

I sighed against Kyo's dark skin and closed my eyes, accepting that I needed to forget it all and just appreciate that I had a moment where everything was perfect. Then Kyo lifted his head and ran his tongue alongside my mouth. Instead of opening my mouth for it to continue I smiled broadly. "I thought you were going to sleep."
"Why should I?" He folded his arms on my chest and rested his head in the crook they'd made. "I want to enjoy this while it lasts."
"Oh? Is it going to stop?" I asked.
"Soon the others will come in and if they find you awake you'll be taken away and celebrated." he laughed, clearly imagining the commotion. Then he sighed. "You know once we leave this room I become daimyo and you chief retainer and then it's all matters of the house and treasury and rebuilding and we'll have to pretend as though we aren't imagining filthy things when we speak to one another."

I laughed loudly. "Is that right?"
"Mmhmm." He nodded and then made me let him go so that he could raise up enough to kiss me. I busied myself with sucking on his bottom lip until I realized that there was something small, furry and intensely red lingering by the vanity. Kozi had successfully proved to me that he was staying. I had no doubts of that, but his constant intrusions were wearing thin.
"What is he doing here?" I said, staring at the three tailed animal.
Kyo gave a casual glance to the fox and shrugged. "Sleeping."
"Why in here!?"
"It was storming last night." said Kyo.
I covered my eyes with my hands and rolled over onto my side. "Of course...that makes sense..." I said sarcastically. "He's only a forest kami...why would he want to be out in the elements?"
When I looked up again Kyo was glowering at me and I knew then that he wasn't as amused by my sarcasm as I. "Why couldn't he have stayed at one of the temples?" I asked.
"He's a kitsune! The priests would never have allowed it." He said as though I should have thought of it myself. Apparently I was much dumber than I thought myself to be.

Kyo pinned my arms on either side of my head. "Forget about him. Let him sleep." Kyo threw all thoughts of the fox aside and licked his lips. "Give me something to remember before we leave this bed."

Instead of answering him verbally I sat up, wrapped my arms around his waist and bit one of his nipples. Kyo gasped so loud it woke the fox who rolled over and grunted as though he were trying to ignore us. I continued my task undaunted since I didn't find Kozi any sort of distraction in his current form. As far as I was concerned it was just a dumb animal that had wandered in during the night. Kyo continued a steady stream of gasps and moans as I lapped at the little nub of flesh and I was about to turn my attention to the other one until I heard a familiar voice.

"How long did I sleep?" Kozi asked, making a show out of stretching and yawning like a lazy cat and the fur he wore was softly whisked away and that deep tan skin came into view underneath. By the time Kozi sat back against the wall he was a person again, but this time his ears were longer and the skin was tipped with the same white and black accents as his canine form. From fingertip to forearm his skin wore a wash of black, fox boots, even the three tails were still visible and his hair wasn't braided but loose and wavy, spilling down his body almost to his elbows. He was also very naked, his clothes heaped in a pile across the room. When he noticed his nudity he pulled the white silk cloth that was draped over the mirror to cover himself with and he resumed his slouched position in the corner perfectly content to keep the silence undisturbed until he received an answer.

"Almost a day." Kyo answered within a gasp as I lay down again, pulling him with me to finish what I'd started on his chest, but he had other ideas and pushed me away and sat up, now determined to explain how Kozi had helped take me to bed and then disappeared only to show up the next morning completely exhausted and bleeding. I was too busy staring at the sore nipple in front of me to really care, but for Kyo's sake, since he suddenly seemed so much more interested in conversation than pleasure, I took the bait.

"What happened?" I asked the redhead though I couldn't made myself believe that I was actually concerned about him but I attempted to fool myself as best as I could.

He shook his head. "Nothing...I just went to see Junji. When I saw you I was curious as to whether he had broken our deal and he was...less than thrilled about my confronting him. The rest isn't any of your business."
That caught my attention and I sat up suddenly knocking Kyo off balance and head-butting him in the process since he had been straddling my lap. "What deal!?"

"Aho." Kyo growled and rubbed his head which was adorable but I had other things to pay attention to. I lifted my own hand to rub the red spot I'd made as an apology and though he looked a little put out he let me do it anyway. "What deal, Kozi?"

The kitsune looked regretful for a moment. "Why should I tell you? You're not going to like it anyway..." And I was sure I wasn't, but my curiosity was not going to let the matter lie.
"Say it." I implored him.
He took a deep, aggravated breath and then casually studied his fingernails for a moment.
"I had orchestrated everything for your sake...you know that." he shook his head. " Our meeting in the woods, our...revealing...intercourse..."
"Intercourse!?" Kyo and I both chimed almost in tandum.
He laughed. "I love that word, don't you? We had it, Kaoru, through words and fists and a fair bit of blood." he ran his tongue over his teeth and eyed me with pure amusement. "I don't need to touch your little dick to have played with you."
"Little!?" Kyo and I both declared at the same time, which caused the both of us to blush and Kozi to effect an even bigger grin than the one he had before. I cleared my throat, trying to ignore the comment and be, for lack of a better bitter, big about it. "Nevermind. Keep talking..."
"Are you sure you wouldn't rather talk about something else? This is painfully dull and I..."
I didn't say anything directly but I gave him a very dangerous stare and he sagged in his spot.
"Alright! Gods you people are boring. Where was I...oh yes, on to Kohana and Ryozen all the way to Hirota throwing you in Aomori. I'm sure Isshi told you that, but your dying was never actually part of my plan. If anything it handicapped it. That is to say with the added injuries. You had no choice but to die with them since just being in Aomori was...lethal, but without them Isshi could have preserved you all on his own without any outside interference."

"Am I supposed to believe it was coincidence that the archer hit me and that Hirota threw me in?"
"Not at all. That's what I'm telling you." He said, his mismatched eyes staring at the floor. "The more I did for you the more it interested Junji until he was as obsessed as I with the whole of it. He had me send the archer to make damn sure that you fell in Aomori and receded well beyond his ability to remedy. He'd seek to save your life with his shadow and in turn you'd be in his debt and owing a kasha is, in my opinion, a much graver business than dying, even alone and pain-shattered. Lucky for you kasha like to traffic in convention...That means that I was able to direct certain occasions to your favor. You'd have your life still, and your pleasure and his hold wouldn't interfere with your personal impetus."
I hesitated, shattered by disbelief. "...you conniving fox! You sent the archer!?" I bellowed, able to detect that at least from his rather eccentric way of speaking.
"I had to, Kaoru!" he practically growled in defense. "He has one of my tails."
"How on earth could he...?" I asked.
Kozi sighed deeply and I could tell before he said anything that the answer wasn't worth the effort of actually asking the question in the first place. "Half a year ago I fell into his bed."
I raised an eyebrow at his choice of words. "Fell?"
"Tumbled right in it with every intention of being cored straight down to my toes and mind you, I wasn't disappointed, but then...he cut my tail from me while I slept, see?" Kozi turned and showed me his back and sure enough there was a very large scar a few inches below the small of his back that looked like it must have been a large and very painful wound when it was made. Incidentally, since he decided to linger in that position and inspect it himself I found my eyes wandering down to his rear, which was...to say the least...glorious and I noticed that starting on the back of his thighs was a strip of black colored skin that ran down the backs of his legs like a seam and blended into the black on his feet. He flicked the remaining tails and sat down again. "I had it out with him of course, but there was nothing I could do, and now I'm made to be his little toy because I can still feel that damned tail whether or not it's attached and it gives him, a sort of charge over me." He huffed and slid a hand down his naked thigh. "Not to mention the bastard fucked me with that black mess alone once, and inari only knows if it ever left me at all. Until I know for sure I'll assume it's still inside me and I want no part in pissing it off."
I gave a mirthful gasp. "Ah. So you're not only a whore, you're capricious as well."
Kozi shook a pointed finger at me, his eyes darkening so deeply it was frightening."I won't warn you again. You name me once more and I'll slit your mouth ear to ear and you'll find difficulty saying anything at all."
Feeling proud and angry I stood and stepped in front of him, too stubborn to realize that he was dangerous to me. "I'll name you what I like."
A blaze of blue and orange flame ran up Kozi's skin as he stared me down with such ire that I was instantly regretful I had called him anything at all.
Sensing my impending doom Kyo raced inbetween and kept us both at arms length. "Enough! You're both making me mad."
"I'll scorch his own brandings into his skin if he ever..."
Kyo's eyes narrowed and he growled. "Do it then..." and he would have had Kyo not said, "but I'll sever your head before you finish making the first mark."
"Kyo..." Kozi whined, somehow unable to believe the short hanyou wasn't on his side of the argument.
"Never...dare..." Kyo didn't finish but Kozi understood the meaning and backed off.

Kyo crossed his arms. "You two can fight out your quarrels on your own. That's not my concern but the second you employ your pedigree for your advantage or make one mark that's not deserved I will make that twisted kasha a present of the rest of your tails. I'd like to see how long you'd last in complete servitude."
For some reason Kyo's threat, as lenient as it actually sounded to myself, came close to making Kozi shudder and tear.
"You wouldn't..." Kozi shook his head sadly.
Kyo softened and stroked across Kozi's face, "If you took him away from me...if you make him suffer...yes. So please...stop being so proud."

I almost beamed until he turned to me and scowled. "And you...I wonder how you survived this far insulting your only allies."
Kyo growled and shook his head. "Now...I forgot that you're both children and can't hold an adult conversation to save your life...Kozi, why did you sleep with a kasha in the first place? I want to know myself. Did you honestly think it would end well?"
"I..." He was silent awhile and then his face fell into a deep sadness and then rose to anger, still obviously preoccupied with my insulting him. He waved a black finger at me. " If he knew anything about kitsune, he'd know that the energy sparked from absolute pleasure feeds our life, gives us our power and our balance. Take me off your vice list, Kaoru. I don't exist by ningen archetypes and what goes inside me isn't any of your business."

"You should at the least pick your conquests a little better. Or guard your tails." I commented.
"Well I hardly expect someone to go to the trouble of severing one from the myriad of attachments it has to my backside and needless to say I'd like it back, but I doubt he's willing to give it up and I'm really not going to trouble myself to waste energy fighting someone who can't be hurt. It's at this point where all that power I boast about goes to the grave and I've become a possession to a mad man." He slumped again. "I am sorry, but if you knew what he could do...what he has done..."
"Show me then."
"What?!" The two of them said.
I shrugged. "Or tell me or take me to him. He doesn't have anything of mine, he can't make me do..."
"You're stupid." Kozi said as though it were fact and I would do well to know of it. "You don't have anything...you have his shadow, he has full control of it still, he can turn you inside out if he wanted to! Not that he'd even need that leverage to make you suffer."
I hadn't thought of that.
"Still, I think I'd better see him. I have some questions I'd like answered."
Kozi couldn't decide whether to look at me like I was crazy or throw shocked glances to Kyo. "D...Do you think you can just sit down and talk to a kasha over a cup of tea!? Kyo..." He gave my lover a look that meant to say 'hit him now.'
"Kaoru, you're not going anywhere." Kyo said flatly. "Just forget it."
"I've made up my mind."
Kyo shot up and gave me a look. "I don't care what you've done, you're not..."
I don't know how I did it...and I seriously doubt I would be able to reproduce it ever again, but I gave Kyo what seemed to be a very effective, dominating glare and when I coupled it with a cold tone and said, "Sit down!" almost immediately he dropped back on the futon with wide, shocked eyes. I doubt he could even believe he'd done it.
Then, to further my sudden headstrong streak I stood in front of him and pointed a finger at him. "I'm going to see Junji and you're coming with me."


--------------

"Where is this place?" I asked because I had never seen the building before. Although it wasn't much to look at, with it's shoddy, splintered walls and flaking paint, I could tell there was something important inside. Kozi had told me the building was a meeting place for Yokai, but it looked more like an old abandoned house to me.
"Why do you need to know that?" Kozi gave me a curious look. "If you knew you'd be likely to come again and that is certainly not in your best interest."

I sighed. "Why would a kasha be in a place like this?"
"You think he stays holed up in his home brooding all the time?"
"Surely he doesn't come here to make friends." I said bitterly.
"This is where I met him." Kozi said flatly. "This is where he hunts for new playthings."
"Oh? Plural? How many does he need?" I smirked. "And what number are you?"
The kitsune shot me an angry glare before commenting, "They never last very long. That's all." He said and stole into the building gracefully. I exchanged exasperated glances with Kyo and we followed suit.


Junji wasn't hard to find. As soon as we stepped through the door my eyes were drawn to the blackish corner of an otherwise decently lit room. If that wasn't enough of a telling the haloed light his eyes cast would have been another. This time they were a washed out white that blacklit everything in the immediate vicinity and when I was closer I saw the tiny band of red that was infused on their edges. His eyes seemed to change every time I saw him. He sat at a low table doing nothing but nursing a glass full of dark liquid and looking so much more....human than he had several nights past. Now, his black hair seemed tangible, catching light in the normal manner though there was very little to illuminate and his skin, while still vastly pale, wasn't the stark white it had been. Even when we were as close to the table as we could get, even as I introduced myself formally (which was probably pointless anyway) he still paid us no mind and stared out into the open expanse of the room which extended far beyond his little corner but it all seemed much less significant in turn.

The more I stared at him the less he regarded me until I grew tired of being ignored and spun a chair around, sitting down directly in front of him. "What did you do to me?" The words burst forth from me in a calm, but firm voice before I had time to think on them, but he looked past me in a passive daze and nursed his drink again. When he finally spoke it was with a heavy accent, layered in many pitches. It was absolutely haunting and I felt myself bristle at the sound of it.
"Fox..." he said to Kozi, an echo laced through his voice, though he still stared past me. "Did you miss me?"
"Not at all." Kozi whispered. He was tense all over but he still tried to parade around as though he were completely unphazed. "Kaoru just coerced me into coming."
"Answer me..." I hissed. "What did you do to me when you gave me this shadow?"
"Kaoru..." Kyo warned behind me.
Junji's black tongue wet his lips and he glanced ever so slightly to where Kozi stood and he seemed to look him up and down as though he were studying him. "I shouldn't think you've ever had to be coerced to 'come'." Junji ran a hand down the fox's long legs and frowned. "You look better when you're covered in blood. Your skin is too clean. Stay and I'll fix you."
Kozi closed his eyes and stepped back then hesitated as though he were trying hard not to offend. His behavior struck me as strange for such a stubborn and feisty creature. In that instant he seemed so wary and so entirely amenable. To me, this Junji didn't seem any more foreboding to me than Kyo during one of his irritable spells.


I slapped the table to get his attention and I was suddenly aware that Kyo's heartbeat was throbbing against the sensitive skin on my palm as he snatched up my hand and tried to pull me away. I let him have use of it but I wouldn't budge from the chair. "What did you do?" I insisted.
"I gave you life!" The kasha hissed, tired of my prodding, and his voice burned the air as it left his mouth. It took me some time to recover from my alarm.
I found myself without understanding, not for the first time that week. Perhaps it was in a demon's nature to speak in complexity when the meaning to every word seemed to be settled at the end of a labyrinth walled with unusual idiom. Kozi spoke in much the same manner, but he spoke fast and used old colloquiums. Junji, on the other hand, spoke slowly and precise and articulate and paused often as if he were searching for a specific, extraordinary word. Though...it was the fox that seemed more preoccupied with words and secret meanings than the kasha. I wondered if the similarities were a direct cause of their lineage and, were it the case, if Kyo and Kozi had a better grasp of the conversation than myself. "You killed me...so that you could give me life?"
"I killed you...for pleasure." He clarified, distracted by his own long fingers as they caressed the lacquered table.
"I don't understand." I said honestly, "Why would you..."
Junji's eyes were lost again, locked on to some stray hair or strange fluctuation of light in the distance but not on my face. "Because the sound of you choking on your own blood was so beautiful it brought me to release." He paused only to inspire the shudder that pushed through my skin and he soaked even that in with a look of pure satisfaction on his face. "Each excruciating...gasp...that escaped from your failing lungs; the sound of that arrow splintering in your skin...so...stunning." His pale eyes found Kyo's and the blonde held onto me even harder. The intensity of his words was staggering and terrible, stirring a sickness in my stomach that threatened to spill out of me.
"Pain is a provocative art form. Two ends of the spectrum...only two, mind you, show that sort of raw beauty and that is pleasure and that is pain. Both give perfect insight to the soul but only pain can break it."
"Why me?" I whispered.
He considered his words a moment and when he'd found them he looked thoughtful and excited, as though he had been waiting for me to ask. "Because pain should be unprofaned. It should be perfect..." He stopped yet again to find the word he'd apparently lost. "...misery...at it's most emotional and very few living things will ever feel that at it's purest. No oni, no yokai,...no human, has had the capacity to feel their pain as such a purity in what feels to me... an eon." He pushed himself up so that he could lean over the table and whisper in my ear. "How I shuddered when I felt yours." On the other side of me Kyo was presiding over my body like my keeper, sending the kasha telling looks as if to say he was not fond of the present conversation.
The idea that breath could burn, that words could sear and stir such a sense of mortal dread had been, before this moment, a thoughtless impossibility. But now the shell of my ear felt like ash and embers and the shadow he'd given to me had extended it's blackness to every sensitive corner of my form and I was lost in a moment that was entirely nightmarish as I remembered how it had felt when he'd touched me in the rain, when his shadow had tore apart my still beating heart.
"So..." Kyo cleared his throat and Junji sank back into his seat. "If you wanted him to suffer, why even bother to save him?"
Junji suddenly looked taken aback. "You think I would take to the grave a creature who could feel that? I almost took him for myself but the fox begged I reconsider."
Kyo placed both hands on my shoulder and lorded himself over my still reeling body. I think it must have been to assure me of his presence as much as it was to appear undaunted by Junji's. "I find it hard to believe you'd listen to him." He noted quietly.
The Kasha frowned. "I like to think of myself as an arbitrator. If someone wants to...bargain on my terms I am compelled to let them have their way provided I have some stake in the deal."
"And what did Kozi deal?" Kyo asked.
Junji gave the fox a fond glance, but shook his head. "That Kaoru would live and all came to...some sort of happy prearrangement because I was already interested in his well being you see."
"What was his part?" Kyo pushed again.
"That is for him to tell you and no other, but his part was not enough to satisfy, so of course..."
"You want compensation from me." I finished.
The black haired man made a sound of affirmation but didn't speak.
"What is it you want?"
"I shall take it on my own, there's no need for you to offer." Junji purred.
"Still..." I cleared my throat and tried to sound as though I wasn't the least bit intimidated by him. "I'd like to know what it is I'd be forced to give up."
Pale eyes regarded me again. "It will be nothing you love so much as Kyo."
"But will I love it?" I asked with a fearfulness sneaking into me.
"Yes. It would hardly be a fair trade if the payment would not be missed."
"And if I refuse to give it?" I questioned.
"Then you will scream again, louder and longer..." His eyes fluttered as though he were in ecstasy. "... and I will wring the agony from your voice until you are spent and broken and no longer resemble a living thing, that is the bargain that was made on your behalf. You deal double with me and I will deal double with you. I am far more fond of equivalency than of feint."
"I've heard otherwise." I stated, trying not to think of what he'd just told me.
He laughed. "And I think you've not heard it by half if you are here to deal, for I will be your reaper when your end does come and you are attempting to rush it by bargaining while you have debts still unpaid." He took a deep, steady breath. "Come to me when it counts and make me an offer then. Think of something worthwhile."

I sat back in my chair, disappointed, while Junji resumed his drowsy stare out into the tavern. It was clear he thought the conversation had come to it's conclusion and he was quite done with me.
Kyo whispered in my ear. "Kaoru...let's go...this has been a complete waste of time." But I didn't want to go, not yet. Not when there were still questions I hadn't asked. I looked at Junji again.
"But you've wasted no time in breaking your part of it..." I mused, referring to the deal that had been made on my behalf, and it might have been the wrong thing to say. The Kasha's eyes darkened immeasurably, what was white now black as pitch and the bit of angry red was fully shrouded.
"Kaoru...don't." Kozi warned me. His usually sly countenance had surrendered to pleading as he unconsciously shook his head from side to side to further beg my retreat in silence.
"Why else would your shadow have hurt me?"
"You presume too much without even knowing the bargain itself." Junji growled. "You...are alive, and he as well." He trained his eyes on Kyo. "Be thankful. If my shadow seeks to gorge itself on your grief, pride, passion or rage it shall without your interruption because you owe it."
I was suddenly angered. "I owe nothing!" I said low, a heavy growl weighing my voice. "Especially not to you. You kill me...to feed your own sick desires. You give me another life in a bargain which you most likely have the better end of so that you can lord yourself over me...and here you..."
The lacquer chair Junji had been occupying clattered to the floor as he shot up from the table. When this happened several things occurred in turn: Kyo's body went ridged against me and his eyes followed Junji as though he were longing to spill his blood on the tatami, and the once human-like appearance the kasha had been embracing was thrown down and in his stead Junji stood tall on bent and blackened legs that seemed as if they were made of things hard and coarse. His skin seemed dirtied by unidentifiable dinginess that compounded near the newly reappeared black hole in his chest and his hair fell straight and moved at the slightest coercion. His face also changed, not the shape or the beauty of it all, but the skin around his eyes and mouth went red as blood which made his eyes seem more violently dark than I thought was possible. The yokai that had been occupying the remainder of the tavern (which I had just only come to notice at all) had taken flight and I...I had fallen pathetically back into my seat, unable to look away from the black eyes that were drilling into my own.
"Here I have been merciful!" He yelled in an even heavier voice."I have answered your questions...and have made you aware of my designs. It's more than I have ever done and will ever do again." he paused to lower his voice. "The arrow pierced your heart so that I could hear you scream but you presume too much upon your death. Your death...I made to hear Kyo scream and he wailed so hard it could have split the sky in two for his pain." He cocked his head toward Kyo who bristled and balled his fists. " I bowed to Kozi's pleading because should you die...there will never live again a creature that can make a kasha feel empathy, or make a hanyou feel such loss." Suddenly his eyes flashed and a sly look snuck up on his face as though he had come upon a brilliant idea. Then he gave a closed lip smile and calmed. "Very well...I'm feeling generous...you shall owe me nothing, after all you will give me more than enough pleasure again...I can wait for it."
"Then the agreement is broken." I couldn't be satisified. I didn't trust him at all.
"It is."
I licked my lips, a nervous habit. "At what expense?"
"The life of the bettor. Kozi."


"What?!" Kozi looked horrified. "Oh no. That wasn't the deal! I won't do shit for the settlement!"
"You say that, fox, but you dealt on his behalf. If he, the subject of the deal itself and not the instigator, refuses to observe the rules and pay proper tribute then it is the dealer who must pay for him. After all, it was your blood that was spilled for the contract, not his. Why else would I have taken a deal so obviously out of my favor."
"What? That's not.." I started but I was cut off by Kozi's desperate cry.
"No! You said that I wouldn't be a part of this once it was done! You said if I gave him to you you'd release me!" Kozi hissed and his eyes darted around as though he were scared someone was secreted away ready and willing to ruin his name. I was more focused on his words and what they meant than his circumstance. He had really made the deal, not for my benefit but to escape his own trappings? It was obvious he was a liar as well as a whore, and yet...I couldn't believe that was the whole truth to it at all. Or was that just me catering to blind optimism?
Junji smiled so sweetly it was horrifying. "Oh, fox..." he said, cupping Kozi's face into his long hands and kissing him on the lips. "The sadness of it is you really believed me." he laughed a little. "How precious are you."

"You bastard!" Kozi yelled and attempted to claw Junji like he had me but Junji slammed him onto the table so hard it seemed as if Kozi's spine should have snapped in two, but he only grunted in pain. Junji stared down at him fondly. I looked to Kyo and marveled at how he was so completely calm. Hadn't Kozi been his lover? Hadn't they too been friends and now Kyo could stand idly by and let the fox be hurt. But Kyo looked up at me as if to say 'there's nothing I can do' and I had no choice either but to keep my place and watch and hope that Kozi could take care of himself because I knew without even trying that I wouldn't last a second against the kasha and that wasn't an easy thing for a proud samurai to accept.
"My beautiful fox...forget about the human, forget your hanyou toy, forget your entire world. You are mine now and if you accept this the next time we touch I can promise you you will not care if they're alive or dead."
"No..." Kozi whimpered underneath the pressure of long, white fingers.
Junji's eyes went cold, but he smiled at the fox and my heart stilled. "You forfeit your payment through pleasure?"
"To pay in your pleasure...I'd rather die." Kozi whined as he still attempted to right himself and get away from his captor.
"You...shall never die. I will see to it. You shall pay in pain." As the words left his mouth Junji had already taken the fox by the waist and turned him over, then he gave a sickly smile and pushed his long nails into the flesh at the base of one of his tails and as the skin tore further and further he crooked his fingers to dig through the bloody tissue. Meanwhile Kozi was screaming...and Kyo was unable to take his eyes away. Whether it was because of horror or fascination I wasn't sure.

I was even more mortified when I saw Junji's shadow sliding up his thighs and underneath his belted hanten and then there seemed to be a darkness spreading inside the fox like a cancer. His skin was turning to a heavy ashed gray and his breathing was erratic and gasping. "Don't do this." He cried helplessly and I could see it in his face how shamed he was to say those words.
"Stop!" I screamed and went to throw a hand around Kozi's forearm as some meager means of comfort.
Junji looked up at me with a glimmer of amusement in his eyes. "Your bargain is done. Leave." he said and began to dig through the ripped flesh again.
I shook my head vehemently though he couldn't see. "No!" I stuttered and stumbled over my words until I said, "I will pay you myself!" and the kasha lifted his fingers and stared at me for a long while, while I shifted on my feet nervously.
"And I may have anything I wish?"
"Yes." I said quickly, eyes caught on the bloodied wound in Kozi's dark skin and the tears that fell from his eyes. He was not my friend, he was not my enemy, I didn't care about him, didn't care if he disappeared forever from my life but to see him in such pain broke my heart in two.
And that was all it took to still Junji's hand. He ran it fondly over Kozi's ass before he sat back in his chair and all his menace faded back into the human-like mimic he had been when our conversation had begun, and he left the fox sprawled suggestively across the lacquer table. "Then it's done." He dropped his voice and said, "Now leave."
Quickly I helped Kyo to pull Kozi from the table which was a slow process since every movement sent a pain through his spine and it made me cringe to see the very top of his tail only hanging on by half. But Junji took hold of one of the other tails and pulled him back down. "He stays."
"No." I shook my head. "You said..."
"He is still mine. He stays."
"He's not your payment." I growled, yanking at the fox's arm again and Kyo put his hands on my forearm to stop me from hurting him further.
Junji shook his head. "No. He's my pleasure."


I was about to protest further but amidst his quiet sobbing Kozi choked out, "Just run." and Kyo didn't think twice. He grabbed my hand and pulled in an attempt to get me to follow. I didn't. How could I? My heart was pounding so hard I couldn't think straight. "Fox..."
"I don't need your pity or your help!" Kozi screamed, his tone raw and aching. "You are a fool to have come here and a bastard for bringing me! Don't touch me!" Kozi tried again. "Just go."
I didn't listen, but reached forward in a grand gesture and when my hand touched his skin a look of dread came upon his face and behind him the kasha stood slowly and ominously and then I saw Kozi stare up at me and his eyes were already dead and he mouthed a word to me, and that was "run..." and then Kyo had taken my hand and pulled me without any thought.

....
...........
.....................
And we ran and blindly I followed Kyo as he lead me away, through the woods and I felt as though hours had passed since and all I could think about were Kozi's eyes and I knew what I'd left him to...I had made him take me there. I had all along thought that he was my evil spirit but it was I that was his.

When we slowed it was because Kyo had set me down on Miya-tei's steps. I didn't wonder why. I was too preoccupied with beating myself up.
"Kaoru..." Kyo panted, all the running having drained what energy he had. He let his head fall against my shoulder. All I could hear was his breathing. He kissed my collarbone and sighed, "Forget it. He made his own bed a long time ago."
"How can you say that?" I panted. "Did you see? Did you see what he did? Can you even imagine what he must be doing to..."
Kyo looked cold as ice and it scared me a little. "Fuck your chivalry, Kaoru! That wasn't just any yokai back there, it was an immortal. There's nothing we could have done. Let it go."
"But..."
Before I could say another word Toshiya had come out from the house carrying a letter and a look that were both presently unreadable. "Where were you?" He demanded. "I had the whole house looking for you."
"Nowhere..." Kyo lied. "Why? What's wrong?"
Toshiya threw the letter at Kyo. "It's from the shogun...you know what that is, right?"

TBC


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