"But he fell in love with a beautiful lady,
who walked up above in her mother's green fields.
He fell in love with Persephone, who was gathering flowers in the light of the sun.
And he took her home to become his queen."
"Epic 1" Hadestown

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Yahiko was the more mature of Kaoru's two brothers, but that meant as much as being the sanest person in the madhouse. Obviously pissed off at having been left out, he greeted Sano and Kaoru when they returned home from the dueling ground with "you're gonna get it," as if he were five and not almost fifteen.
Kaoru pouted and folded her arms when Yahiko sized her and Sano up. It wasn't fair that the boy she'd always pushed around as the runt of the litter was now taller than her.
But Yahiko would never be as tall as Sano. "What do you want, brat?" Sano said. He loomed half a head above his little brother.
"Uncle Saito wants to see you." Yahiko rolled his eyes. "And don't call me a brat!"
Kaoru and Sano shared a look. But, of course, Uncle Sano would have heard about the duel long before a half-dead Akira was carried home. He always found out about everything, and they hadn't exactly been secretive.
Yahiko was right. They were going to get it.
Uncle Saito ordered that Kaoru be confined to the house and forbidden from using the training dojo. Furthermore, she had to be accompanied at all times by Megumi, Tomoe, or Lady Tae, good influences who would push her to be more refined and practice her ladylike accomplishments.
Kaoru wanted to entertain at Yahiko's coming-of-age ceremony, so she asked Megumi to help her practice preparing tea and pouring sake. Unfortunately, Megumi's idea of helping consisted of taunting Kaoru whenever she made a mistake and making her feel like a failure. As a result, Kaoru couldn't get through a lesson without wanting to strangle her pregnant sister-in-law at least once.

Lady Tae asked Kaoru to give koto lessons to her niece, Tsubame. Music was one of Kaoru's few non-tomboyish interests and the only ammunition she had against Megumi, who was completely tone-deaf and sang like a crow.
When Megumi wasn't teasing Kaoru for burning tea leaves or spilling sake, she was bullying Tomoe.

After the duel, Megumi's original frosty aloofness toward Tomoe melted and boiled into outright hostility. Tomoe had tried to comfort Kaoru after Kaoru was attacked by Enishi, but Megumi pushed Tomoe aside and said, "Don't touch her. This was all your fault." After that, the two women had to work together, tending Akira's wounds and nursing him back to health. Megumi reminded Tomoe constantly that it was her fault Akira almost died, and Kaoru was nearly captured and raped.
"You're not being fair," Kaoru said one afternoon while Megumi was pouring her tea.
"And you having to pay for Tomoe-san's mistakes would be fair?" Megumi put down the teapot. "You're not her replacement."
Kaoru took a bite from an ohagi and conceded that Megumi had a point. She disliked Tomoe but admitted that Tomoe wasn't a bad person. Tomoe might not have wanted to cause a blood feud between her husband and her brother, but it happened because of her actions. So she had to bear some of the responsibility. And Tomoe might not want Kaoru to become Enishi's forced bride, but if that meant she and Akira could live in peace...?

Megumi daintily picked up an ohagi. "I know I sound harsh but you can only have so much pity for someone who brought misfortune on themself."

After what seemed to Kaoru like an eternity in hell, Uncle Saito cooled down and lessened his restrictions on her. The first thing Kaoru did with her returned freedom was asking permission to visit her mother's grave. Uncle Saito said she could go as long as Tomoe chaperoned her.
Kaoru stamped her feet and walked off. Damn Tomoe, she always ruined everything.
"If you don't like it, you can always stay home," Uncle Saito said.

Tomoe didn't have the stamina to walk three miles to the temple, then three miles back to Wolf's Castle. So, she ordered a palanquin for her and Kaoru. Kaoru, who'd always hated riding in palanquins, sulked the entire trip. Not only had a nursemaid been forced upon her, but she was also shut up inside a box and tossed around until she nearly passed out from nausea.

"Ow," Tomoe said. Kaoru's bokken had slapped against her knee. "Why did you bring that?"
Kaoru laughed. "In case we run into any of your brother's friends," she said.

"I knew you were trouble when you walked in,
So shame on me, now.
Flew me to places I've never been,
now I'm lying on the cold, hard ground."
"I knew you were trouble" Taylor Swift.

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Kaoru and Tomoe left incense offerings at the feet of a bronze Kannon to give thanks for Akira's escape from death. The Kannon had a jowly, disapproving face, like an imperious grandmother, and looked ready to come to life and scold Kaoru for some impropriety.

Tomoe knelt in prayer. Her pale face took on the serene beauty of a Boddhisvata. "Akira-sama is the only person in this world who truly loves me," she said. "If I'd lost him, I don't know how I would live."
Kaoru lowered her eyes. Tomoe and Akira's relationship was something she'd never understood. She was fond of Akira, everyone was, but he tended to fade into the background. Akira wasn't as handsome or gifted as Aoshi (and boy, did he know it, the pompous ass) or as strong and outgoing as Sano (the dumb rooster-head could have charmed Amaterasu out of her cave). Even Yahiko outshone and overshadowed him. Kaoru wasn't the only person who asked, "why Akira?"
If Megumi were in a generous mood, she would say that Tomoe was desperate to escape her betrothal to Hitoriki Battousai, and kind, gentle Akira was the better option. But, even if Kaoru's affection for Akira as a cousin didn't prevent her from seeing his appeal as a lover, she couldn't imagine any woman of spirit marrying someone so bloodless.
"I'm going to visit oka-san," Kaoru said to Tomoe. "Don't wait for me."

The gates outside the main temple acted as a bulletin board where pilgrims posted messages for loved ones following behind them. Local villages also hung posters for wanted criminals and broadsides detailing their crimes. A broadside chronicling the murder of a regional magnate connected to the Shogunate and eight of his retainers by a single swordsman caught Kaoru's attention.

She'd overheard Uncle Saito telling Sano, Akira, and Aoshi about this massacre.
"With swordsmanship like that. No survivors..." Uncle Saito said. "Without a doubt, it was Battousai." Then, he looked up, noticed Kaoru lingering in the doorway and told her to stop creeping around like a thief.
As Kaoru walked away, someone else approached the bulletin. A slight man wearing the dusty clothes of a wanderer with a sword at his hip. Kaoru's head turned when he passed. His long, shaggy hair was as red as maple leaves in autumn. She'd never seen hair that color before, like blood.

Only demons had hair like that. Only Battousai...
Kaoru drew her bokken and approached the man from behind. Her heart pounded. The moment had come for her to prove herself. "Hey you," she called.
The red-haired wanderer turned to face her. Two scars, the very same described in every story Kaoru had heard about Battousai, crossed his left cheek. Kaoru pointed the tip of her bokken at his chest. His mouth fell open with an "oro" of surprise.
"Are you the Hitoriki Battousai everyone speaks of?" Kaoru said. He looked at her with wide, stupid eyes as round as tea cups. "Your villiany ends today?"
Battousai was said to have created a mountain of corpses and shed a river of blood. If Kaoru took on a fiend like him, she'd be regarded as a heroine.
The man ducked out of the way of her first blow. "Please, I beg of you..." Kaoru took another swing which he barely missed by stepping out of the way.
"Save your breath!" She furrowed her brow and came at him again.
He backed away from her and hid behind a tree. Kaoru raised her bokken. Wood hit wood. The cowardly bastard dodged her and disappeared.
Kaoru growled like a wounded animal. Why didn't he fight back? What use was the sword at his hip if he wouldn't draw it? She looked over her shoulder, and there he was, trying to creep away. Well, she wouldn't let him. The next person Battousai came across might not be as lucky as she'd been.
She wound up to strike again. He blinked at her like a simple-minded child. But she hit the mark this time, and he fell face-first into the dirt.
"Oro...oro."
Kaoru lowered her bokken. This oro-ing clown couldn't possibly be Battousai, and she'd just beat up some poor, half-witted vagabond. The red-haired wanderer stood up and brushed the dust off his hakama. Kaoru pulled a handkerchief from her kimono and offered it to him.
"This one is most grateful, that he is," he said. The handkerchief wiped some dirt off his face.
"I'm sorry." Kaoru lowered her eyes. "I thought you were someone else." That was such a lame excuse.
He smiled at her. "Whoever this Battousai is, he probably deserved everything you gave this one."

When Oka-san married Otou-san and moved into the Kamiya estate outside Edo, she planted a katsura sapling in the garden. This sapling grew into a magnificent tree. Oka-san, a refined and sensitive woman with Heian-era tastes, had enjoyed few things more than observing how the foliage changed throughout the year. Purple in the spring, green in the summer, and yellow in autumn. The tree was prettiest in the spring when it had the crimson hues of congealed blood. But Kaoru loved it most during the autumn when the apricot-colored leaves smelt like candy after you caught them in your hand.

Kaoru had cut a branch from the katsura tree and stuck it in the ground when they buried Oka-san in a secluded part of the temple. The stick grew into the very image of its sire back in Edo, and Oka-san could enjoy in death the beautiful foliage she had in life.

"I brought some ohagi." Kaoru knelt in front of Oka-san's stone grave marker. She untied a rumpled furoshiki that contained half a dozen squished rice cakes coated in red bean paste. "Don't worry. Megumi made them."

Megumi had tried to teach Kaoru how to make her famous ohagi, but Kaoru failed so miserably that dropping them in the pigsty might have actually improved the taste. But not even the pigs would touch them.

Kaoru placed three ohagi on Oka-san's grave marker and kept three for herself. As they shared this picnic, she told Oka-san about everything that had happened since her last visit. Akira's duel with Enishi, Kaoru's almost abduction by Enishi's men, and the punishments Uncle Saito dealt out. Finally, she ended the story with some good news.

"Megumi's with child," Kaoru said. "You're going to be a grandmother."
She didn't tell Oka-san about the poor half-wit at the temple gate. Oka-san had taught her that as a noble, she had the right to chastise her inferiors when they offended her, but this wasn't a privilege she should abuse. The poor half-wit's only offense had been being at the wrong place at the wrong time. Instead, she shared some gossip about Aoshi, of all people.
"Sano thinks Aoshi has a woman in the village. He found an obi brooch among Aoshi's things and asked if it was a gift for his mother. Aoshi glared at him and told him to mind his own business..."
Heavy footsteps crunched against the gravel. Kaoru's ears pricked up. She looked over her shoulder. The three Choshu samurai, Enishi's men, were approaching along a path through the trees.
Kaoru went behind a boulder and hoped it was large enough to hide her from them, and the pounding of her heart wouldn't give her away. How did they know she was here? She and Tomoe had taken the main pilgrim root to the temple, and the palanquin bearers announced their names so the other travelers on the road would make way. Any Choshu men in the area were bound to hear them?
Three shadows loomed over Kaoru.
"Come out, Hime-sama. We know you're behind there."
"I almost didn't recognize you dressed as a lady."
"Be a good little girl and come out to play."
A chill ran down Kaoru's spine. She hugged her legs and tried to become smaller. So small that she would disappear.
"Boo!" One of the Choshu men poked his head around the side of the boulder.
Kaoru lept to her feet and drew her bokken. She hadn't backed down last time and certainly wouldn't now. With her bokken raised, she ran toward the Choshu man who'd frightened her. She struck at his knees to incapacitate him. The Choshu man yelped and staggered backward.
One of his companions snuck up behind Kaoru. She spun on her heels and hit him in the face with her bokken. He spat blood. "You bitch."
A third Choshu man reached out to grab Kaoru, but she dodged his embrace. "I'll make you cry, Hime-sama, " he said. "I'd bet those eyes of yours filled with tears will be a pretty sight." His nails dug into the flesh of Kaoru's arm. She pulled away from him, but the sleeve of her kimono ripped clean off in the process. Her arm, shoulder, and chest were left exposed.
The other two whistled in appreciation.
Kaoru let out a war cry. If these bastards thought they could shame Kamiya Kaoru like this, they had another thing coming. She closed her eyes and thrust her bokken forward at the third attacker. Her eyes flickered open after the impact. The man gagged, and his warm blood sprayed Kaoru in the face.
She gasped. Her bokken had impaled the man through the neck.
The third attacker reached for Kaoru again. His fingers pulled at a ribbon in Kaoru's coiffure. Kaoru let go of her bokken, and the man collapsed with the ribbon between his fingers. Her hair came loose around her shoulders.
The other two Choshu men pounced on Kaoru. One seized her and then threw her to the ground. The other unsheathed his sword and held it to her neck.
"Time to die, Mibu whore," said the one with the sword.
Kaoru looked up to the heavens. The trees spun and swirled. A flash of red hair and gleaming steel descended from the branches of a mighty pine.
The vagabond from the temple gate approached them.
Kaoru opened her mouth. She wanted to tell the poor half-wit not to get involved. How could he help her with that useless sword of his? But nothing came out.
Before anyone could understand what was happening, he'd jumped in between Kaoru had the Choshu man holding a sword to her throat. One hand shielded Kaoru while the other, which wielded his katana, crossed blades with her assailant.
The first Choshu man withdrew his sword. "Who are you?" he said.
"That's none of your concern," the vagabond replied.
"Those scars, that speed. I'm in the presence of a legend, I see."
Kaoru lifted her head toward her savior. There were the crossed scars from earlier. So the vagabond was Battousai all along.
Battousai hooked his arm underneath Kaoru. "Her life is now mine." He picked her up in his arms as if she weighed no more than a katsura leaf. Kaoru's head fell across Battousai's shoulder.
"Battousai and the Tanuki Bitch," the second Choshu man sneered. "A match made in hell."