Rurouni Kenshin Fan Fiction ❯ Atonement ❯ Chapter 6

[ X - Adult: No readers under 18. Contains Graphic Adult Themes/Extreme violence. ]

Disclaimer- I don’t own Rurouni Kenshin or any of the awesome characters, nor do I make any money from the writing this story.



“You came,” Kenshin gasped with both shock and excitement.  There was no reply.

Without missing a step, Enishi yanked Kenshin off his feet with one arm and stalked off with the man draped over his right shoulder.  I’ll punish him, Tomoe…

“Nobody fucking stands me up!  Especially you, Battousai,” Enishi growled.



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“Wait!” Kenshin rasped.  “Enishi!”  He clutched the silky material of the cape draped over Enishi’s shoulders as the man whisked him through the darkness.  He didn’t have to see Enishi’s face to know that the man was livid.  Had he pushed him too far?  Now Kenshin scolded himself for letting his guard down and leaving himself in this vulnerable state—hauled over Enishi’s shoulder where he couldn’t even unsheathe his sword if he needed to.

“Not here!” Kenshin frantically pleaded when he realized Enishi was marching toward the back corner of the dojo property.  “Please!” he begged.  “I know a place we can go!”  He couldn’t let his friends awaken to this sort of scene.

Enishi halted.  “Where, then?” he snapped venomously.  He’d grown tired of Battousai’s annoying games.

“If you put me down, I’ll take you there,” Kenshin offered.  For once, would Enishi listen to him?

“No!”  Enishi scoffed.  “You tell me where and I’ll carry you.  I won’t let you try to escape.”
  
In adherence with his enemy’s directions, Enishi marched down yet another dirty, dimly lit street toward this mystery location, his rage increasing with each step at the delay in confronting this tiny freak.  Should he trust that Battousai wasn’t leading him into some sort of trap?  If so, he welcomed the fight!  He couldn’t decide if he was shaking from excitement or rage as his enemy bounced on his shoulder with each quick step.  And if one more group of drunken assholes jeered at them from a tavern doorway as they passed, he was going to flay them where they stood!  

Kenshin didn’t resist Enishi despite this humiliating position, but he was apprehensive about leading his brother-in-law to the secluded area of bamboo forest that he often visited to both meditate and hone his sword skills; his secret place.  Yet, what choice did he have at this point?  He couldn’t have Enishi on the dojo property where they’d surely be discovered by Kaoru or Sanosuke—not when Enishi was this angry.  He couldn’t take that risk.
 
Once the moonlit outline of the tall bamboo stalks came into view, Enishi knew this had to be the place.  The towering bamboo lent the perfect location for a fiend like Battousai to hide his bloodthirsty skills.  Undaunted by the darkness, Enishi pushed deep into the stalks.  Satisfied that he’d put enough distance between them and any outside interference, Enishi flung Kenshin hard against a large stalk of bamboo with a hollow thunk.  His breaths were heavy, cutting the still night air.

Enishi dropped his sheathed sword and seized Kenshin’s shoulder with one hand and clapped his other over the man’s mouth.  His impatience and frustration had reached volatile proportions.  “You think this is a game?” he hissed.  “You want to make me look like a fool?”  He’d make Battousai pay for humiliating him—making Enishi chase him down.  This wasn’t the arrangement!  Battousai was supposed to come to HIM!  Not the other way around!  

Kenshin vehemently shook his head and waved his hands defensively as Enishi loomed menacingly over him.  His body buzzed with apprehension.  
  
“I should just kill you right now!” Enishi roared.  “I fucking waited for you!”  His voice hitched as the pain in his chest ripped into his throat.  “You probably had a good laugh imagining me waiting there!” he added gruffly.  His jaw tightened as he tried to swallow his pain.  

Kenshin’s eyes widened at Enishi’s accusations.  His brother-in-law had gone back to the shack after all?  He struggled to breathe with Enishi’s hand over his mouth.

Enishi tightened his grip Kenshin’s shoulder.  “Don’t play stupid,” he snapped.  He yanked his hand away from the man’s mouth and glowered down at him.  “Explain yourself!”
   
“I was there this morning,” Kenshin burst out.  “I was worried when you—”

“Worried?” Enishi’s voice rose.  He balled his fist and drew it back as if ready to strike.  “You’re a fucking liar!  You don’t care about Tomoe or me!  You’d rather ditch me to play house with those losers!”  His veins pulsed with rage.  The vexing ache in his chest had worked its way back into his throat.
 
Kenshin’s heart sank.  Is that how Enishi saw this?  He thought he’d been given up on?  No wonder he was so upset!

“That’s not true,” Kenshin insisted.  He had to console the man, let him know he would never do something like that.  “I looked for you,” Kenshin continued sincerely.  He seized the front of Enishi’s shirt with both hands, peering up through the darkness at the man.  “I was concerned when you weren’t there.”

“Yeah, I bet you were!” Enishi snapped with bitter sarcasm.  His fist shook, his fingertips digging painfully into his palm now.  Battousai’s lies were like kerosene thrown onto the flames of wrath already burning within him.  

“Why would a soulless beast like you be concerned about me?” Enishi continued.  The maelstrom of pain and anger he held inside were nearly intolerable, especially after watching Battousai’s seemingly compassionate interactions with his so-called friends earlier.
   
“I-I didn’t want you to be alone,” Kenshin stammered, his cheeks burning.  His fingers bunched the silky material of Enishi’s shirt.  

“Despite what you think, I do care,” Kenshin added.  He thanked the gods that Enishi couldn’t see how red his face must’ve been.  His voice fell to a hushed murmur.  “I care about you, Enishi.”  For a moment, his brother-in-law didn’t move and neither did he—taken aback by his own candid admission.  

Battousai’s words hit Enishi like a sledgehammer.  He had to piece together his fragmented thoughts.  Had he just heard Battousai correctly?  His heart fluttered furiously.

“Say that again,” Enishi ordered.  His knees wobbled and the knot in his throat grew larger by the second.  “AGAIN!” he commanded, his entire body trembling uncontrollably now.

Kenshin gazed up boldly at the well-built figure before him.  His abrupt confession had opened his eyes to his own heart.  “I said I care about you,” he answered softly.  He braced himself for a strike, but Enishi’s speeding fist intentionally missed him by mere centimeters as the man went berserk.

“You didn’t want me to be alone?” Enishi bellowed in the man’s face.  “You care about me?”  He grabbed the man’s other shoulder and shook him vigorously with both hands, laughing like a homicidal maniac.  “Then maybe you shouldn’t have killed my sister!  You ruined my life!”  His laughter deteriorated to loud, ragged wheezing.  He wouldn’t allow himself to fall for this man’s feigned kindness again.  He wasn’t going to be drawn into the deception—where for a few fleeting moments he’d felt something powerfully fulfilling. He wouldn’t allow himself to fall for this man.  He refused!

Kenshin remained stoic as his brother-in-law shook him like a rag doll; the shouting and violence fading into background noise.  His empathy quickly turned to impatience…and disappointment.  Had the two of them made no progress in the past few days after everything they’d been through?  Kenshin snapped back to reality when Enishi snatched the back of his ponytail and jerked his head back to face him.  

“This act ends now!” Enishi snarled with renewed grit.  “You don’t fucking care!  You aren’t capable of it!”  To his delight, Battousai didn’t try to turn away.  The moonlight gave rise to strange shadows that only darkened the man’s beauty.  He bent forward until his lips were tauntingly close to his enemy’s.  

“Now, why don’t you show me the monster that we both know you really are?” Enishi ground out between clenched teeth.  “No more pretending to be the good guy.”  Enishi’s lips curled with disgust.  “And no more slave work for that woman; it demeans you as a warrior.”

Kenshin pulled his head back and frowned at those words before chiding, “I’m not a slave.  I merely do what I can to help my friends.”  He wasn’t sure if he was supposed to take the latter comment as a complement.   

“Yet you didn’t help Tomoe and now you won’t help ME!” Enishi snapped.  “You spend all day with your pathetic friends, ignoring the man whose life you destroyed—the man you owe your life for taking away the only person he ever loved!”  The veins bulged in Enishi’s neck.
  
Kenshin had heard enough!  His feelings of guilt and the frustration of trying to help the stubborn and aggressive Enishi had reached the breaking point!  With a quick burst of energy, he lunged against Enishi while putting his foot behind the man’s, and together they fell with Kenshin landing on top of his brother-in-law with a muffled thud.  Enishi, stunned silent, had released his grip on Kenshin to instinctively put his hands behind him try to lessen the force of the fall.

“Stop this!” Kenshin barked as he quickly straddled the man’s waist.  “Have I not already apologized and done everything you’ve asked of me?”

Kenshin had come to the sad realization that allowing Enishi to have everything his way hadn’t helped anything.  It seemed that Enishi couldn’t understand the concept of Kenshin’s friendship with Kaoru, Sanosuke and the others—perhaps because he hadn’t allowed anyone to get close to him.  He doubted that Enishi trusted anyone.  Tomoe looked to have been the only person Enishi loved, and since her death, he’d probably walled off his heart to protect himself from any further pain.  Even if Kenshin could prove to Enishi that he’d loved Tomoe, he doubted the man would ever be able to forgive him anyway.

“Get the fuck off me!” Enishi shouted, adjusting his now-crooked glasses.  To have been knocked down like this was an enormous blow to his pride.  “Go back to your ridiculous friends!  Go back to that Sanosuke guy!” he spat.  “You probably let him fuck you, too!”  He scowled, his eyes moistening.  Why were those words so painful?

Kenshin’s jaw tightened and he leaned closer to Enishi, seething.  “You think I would ever allow anyone else to do the things you’ve done to me?”  He slid his sheathed sakabatou from his obi and dropped it aside before he placed his palms on the man’s shoulders to hold him down.  

Enishi’s blood chilled at the icy tone of his enemy’s voice; the same dangerous tenor he’d overheard the day Tomoe was killed.  Enishi’s blood coursed faster, yet he didn’t move.  Was this fear or something else?  Had no other man touched Battousai the way he had?  His stomach somersaulted.  Why had Battousai allowed him to do it then?  

“I don’t care about you?” Kenshin repeated sharply.  “I don’t want to help you?”  He’d definitely made some wrong choices in his dealings with Enishi.  Submitting to the man’s every whim had made it too easy for Enishi to be dishonest with himself and others.  If the man couldn’t be honest with himself, he would never be able to cope with his sister’s death.

Kenshin continued.  “You’ve allowed your rage and thirst for revenge to control your feelings and circumstances for too long, Enishi.”  He felt the man’s body tense beneath him.  
 
“Don’t fucking lecture me!” Enishi hollered.  Damn this man!  He thrashed about in an attempt to throw him off, but his enemy, despite his lighter weight, used his leverage to keep him pinned.  Where had Battousai been hiding this strength and why hadn’t he used it to resist him before?

“You WILL listen to me this time.”  Kenshin gnashed his teeth.  Using his thighs and hands, he fought to restrain the struggling man in the darkness.  He sensed the searing heat of Enishi’s murderous glare as he continued, “I care for you, whether you believe me or not.”  His voice was stern.  “Your refusal to trust me doesn’t change the facts, or how I feel about you.”

“I’d never trust a man who pretends to be someone he’s not,” Enishi snarled as he continued trying to overpower the man.  He panted loudly.
  
“You know exactly who I am,” Kenshin ground out.  “If you continue to behave like a child, I’ll treat you as such,” he warned, his voice deepening.  His arms ached from the strain of holding his larger brother-in-law down.  

Enishi’s face pinched tight at those words.  “A child?” he bellowed ferociously.  The muscles in his jaw twitched.  Maybe it was a wayward shadow, but he could’ve sworn that he’d seen the flicker of something sinister in the man’s eyes just then.  His racing pulse pounded deafeningly in his ears.
 
“I may be younger than you, but I could kill you right now if I wanted to!” Enishi shouted in exasperation.  He glared at the man.

“And if I’m the killer you say I am, you’d already be dead,” Kenshin retorted.  “What is it that you really want from me, Enishi?”

“I want to hurt you!” Enishi’s voice grew frenzied.  Hot tears stung his eyes.  “I want to destroy you like you destroyed my sister!  And me!”  His face sizzled with rage.  “I saw you with that ridiculous Sanosuke guy—laughing and smiling like you’ve forgotten all of the people you’ve wounded or killed!”  Yes, Battousai’s glaring disregard for his countless victims—that was the reason he was infuriated.  It wasn’t jealousy.

“I haven’t forgotten anything I’ve done,” Kenshin’s face twisted with agony.  “Do you think I have no conscience?  That I don’t feel emotional pain?”  His chin dipped to his chest as he grasped the man’s collar and wound the material in his hand.

“Then you don’t know anything about me!”  Kenshin stared down at the man.  “I became Hitokiri Battousai because I foolishly thought that one man could use Hiten Mitsurugi-ryu to bring forth a new era—one in which men could finally find the happiness they deserved!”  His voice dropped.  “But I was wrong.”

Enishi regarded the man with cold speculation.  “What a bunch of bullshit!” he sneered.  “I don’t care about that!”  

“Then why did you come to the dojo tonight?” Kenshin’s asked brusquely.

Enishi’s fists convulsed with suppressed fury.  There was no way he was going to admit the truth; that he’d gone to the dojo to see the man again.  How could he verbalize the puzzling emotions that drew him back to his enemy?  Instead, with a sneer, he muttered defiantly, “Isn’t it obvious?  I want to fight you!”   

“I don’t believe you,” Kenshin’s face hardened.  Enishi’s enduring animosity cut deep, but if the man had wanted to fight, he wouldn’t have wasted the time or energy to bring him to this place.  

“If you insist on fighting, you know where to find me.”  Kenshin motioned to get up.
 
“Wait!”  Enishi snatched the man’s arm.  “Your debt hasn’t been paid!” he growled.  He heard the man’s heartbeat thumping, or was that his own?  He no longer knew what he was doing, but the thought of watching the man walk away felt as though a hole had been ripped through his chest.

Kenshin’s face flushed with indignation as he scathingly echoed the man.  “My debt hasn’t been paid?”  He grasped the man’s shoulders, digging his thin fingers into the muscles until the man squirmed.  His eyes narrowed with wrath.

“Accidentally killing the woman I loved wasn’t punishment enough?”  Kenshin boomed as his chest tightened.  “What more terrible price could I pay than that?”

Kenshin glared down his nose at his brother-in-law.  “Unless…this is the payment you’re talking about?”  He clutched fistfuls of Enishi’s shirt and yanked it open to expose Enishi’s undershirt.  Next, he jerked the man’s undershirt up to bare the chiseled muscles of Enishi’s chest and torso.

Enishi’s teeth began to chatter slightly as his jaw tensed.  His mouth opened, but no words came out.  He could only quake with wrath.  “I’m going to make you—!” Enishi finally burst out as he seized Kenshin’s throat.  He was fed up with the man’s lies!  How dare Battousai treat him like this!

“Not this time!” Kenshin croaked as he wrenched the man’s hands from his throat.
 
Unabated, Enishi grabbed the man’s kimono instead.  He raged.  “Take back what you just said about loving my sister!”

A snarl of anguish spread across Kenshin’s face.  “I was doing fine,” he spoke with grave deliberation, ignoring his brother-in-law’s request. His tone was sinister. “After wandering alone for years, I’d finally made friends and began to pick up the pieces of my life.”  His breaths became louder, his voice more hostile.  His knuckles cracked as his fingers gouged Enishi’s flesh.

Enishi gaped in stunned silence.  His enemy exuded an air of malice.  This wasn’t the same person he’d spent time with the past few days.  He sensed a rising storm just beneath the surface of the man’s facade that was about to explode.  His skin prickled with both fear and excitement.

Kenshin continued heatedly, “Then you came along and I wanted to help you even though you threatened my new friends.”  His brows furrowed deeply and his voice began to quaver.

“And those things you did to me; to my body!” Kenshin grated.  “I wish I could say that I let you only for the sake of atonement.”  Perspiration beaded on his forehead.  His heart pounded in his throat.  “But that would be a lie,” he added.

“All those years wandering alone, waiting and yearning for someone’s touch.”  Kenshin’s voice was hoarse.  “You know how that feels.  Don’t you, Enishi?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about!” Enishi scoffed, lifting his chin defiantly.

Kenshin’s brow scrunched with suppressed ferocity.  He pulled the man’s face to his and rasped, “Now who’s the liar?”  He shoved the man’s head back against the ground.  

Enishi growled in protest.  He caught the man’s wrists, but his enemy tugged them free.  He was thrilled by this change in Battousai’s demeanor.  Finally!  A glimpse of the man he’d been after all this time!   

“Battousai!” Enishi’s voice dripped with malevolence.

“THIS is what you want, isn’t it?” Kenshin goaded.  He slid back to tear off the sash from the waist of Enishi’s pants.  “How do you like being held down, leader of the Shanghai mafia?”  His eyes burned into the man.  

Kenshin lurched forward until his lips grazed the smooth skin of Enishi’s exposed neck as he spoke, causing the man to jump reflexively.  “How many people have you killed?”  He sensually nipped Enishi’s skin.

Enishi groaned into the man’s hair.  “Don’t.”  He swallowed dryly.  What was Battousai doing to him?  Surely his enemy felt how he quivered.  He should’ve taken control of the situation at that moment, instead of letting himself be carried off in this swirling rush of desire.  

Enishi attempted to muster the will to shove the man away, but he couldn’t.  Every hot touch of the man’s lips shook the earth beneath him.  When his enemy softly spoke his name into his ear, he couldn’t suppress the primal rumble in his throat.  His hand shot up from Battousai’s back to seize the back of his head, burying the man’s face into his neck.  The last of his willpower had just snapped.  His body smoldered hotter than any fever he’d ever experienced.  His pants already pulled taut over the rigid flesh between his legs.  He’d never felt such a lack of control of his own body, which now betrayed him in every way.  
  
“You think you can beat me with a few tender words or lies about my sister?” Enishi taunted.  He turned his head and before he could say another word, Kenshin’s mouth crushed down on his with blistering intensity.

Enishi, still holding the back of Battousai’s head with one hand, wrapped his other arm around the man’s small waist, hugging him close.  Adrenaline coursing through his veins, his eager mouth hungrily accepted his enemy’s rough kiss.  

Kenshin’s fingers impatiently raked the man’s chest, skimming over the man’s nipples—prompting an abrupt gasp from the man.  Each toned muscle of Enishi’s rippling abdomen undulated with the man’s heaving breaths.  His brother-in-law was sexy, there was no doubt.  How Kenshin wished that he could lie to himself and say that he didn’t want Tomoe’s brother to make love to him.  Could Enishi feel his longing?

Enishi’s eyes snapped open with disbelief as Battousai’s hand greedily roved his bared stomach, slowly moving lower.  Yet Enishi couldn’t move, as though in a trance.  Every caress excited him.  Were his enemy’s rough breaths growing noisier, or was it the quiet night?  He knew he was lying to himself when he thought he had this situation under control.

Enishi felt dizzy.  The loss of his sister, his loneliness, his rage, this thirst for revenge, and now this strange attraction to the man who caused it all were nearly too much to endure.  He wasn’t about to let his enemy control this moment.

Enishi gripped his enemy’s hips and forced the man’s growing arousal to grind against him.  He wrenched his lips away to gulp a mouthful of air.  Between punctuated gasps he warned, “You won’t beat me this way either, Battousai.”  Enishi’s rock-hard flesh ached to be touched, too.  

“This isn’t a game, I already told you how I feel,” Kenshin replied ardently.  He clasped one of Enishi’s shoulders as the man continued to rock his hips against him.  Giving into his desire, now he pushed, working with his brother-in-law’s movements.  However, this hot friction through his clothing wasn’t enough.  He wanted to touch more of Enishi.  He took hold of one of the silk sleeves of Enishi’s shirt.  

“Take it off,” Kenshin demanded.  He scrunched the smooth silken material in his fist and yanked with frustration.

“Tender words—is this is how you treated my sister?” Enishi panted, his heart pounding a million times a minute.  Perspiration moistened his hairline as his body vibrated with pent up lust.  His fingers trembled nearly as much as his lips as he hastily pulled his arms out from the sleeves.  How could his own body divulge his weaknesses like this?  

Rid of his silk shirt, Enishi frantically tugged Battousai’s kimono open.  His need to be inside the man grew more fervent with each passing second.  He inhaled sharply when his enemy’s ass rubbed against his swollen cock.  Hearing the man’s desperation in his soft, eager sighs, Enishi couldn’t take any more!  With one powerful movement, he seized the man’s waist and heaved him off and slammed him to the ground on his back.  His enemy hadn’t had time to object before Enishi was upon him.  

“I’ll give you what you’ve yearned for all these years,” Enishi groaned.  Undershirt still bunched chest high, he yanked his enemy’s obi and hakama ties free.  The man didn’t resist when Enishi tore off the hakama along with his fundoshi, leaving him only in his kimono, which Enishi hastily opened to expose the man’s full nude body to his lascivious desires.  

“Don’t ever make me wait for you again,” Enishi cautioned before plundering the man’s mouth with a fervent kiss.  Already, his pulse raced with unbridled lust.  He jerked Battousai’s hands from their hold on his shirt and pinned them with one hand against the dirt above the man’s head.

Kenshin was swept up in Enishi’s savage kiss.  His back arched as Enishi’s fingers, hot as fire despite the cool night air, explored his naked chest.  Restrained, he twisted impatiently, silently pleading for the man to go further.

Enishi’s jittery fingertips trailed lower down his brother-in-law’s toned torso.  He felt every shudder and flinch in Battosai’s muscles as the man writhed enticingly beneath him.  When the man’s legs seductively splayed apart, Enishi froze.  Was he trying to incite him into a lascivious frenzy?  Enishi didn’t want to hurt him again!

Enishi tore his lips from Battousai’s, puffing wildly.  He released the man’s wrists.  “I shouldn’t have come back,” he murmured against the man’s cheek.  His palms were sweaty now as he slid them beneath the man and pulled him into his arms, resting his elbows on the forest floor.  He’d done the very thing he’d promised not to do—meet with Battousai again.  Tomoe would never accept what he was about to do, yet he could no longer control himself.

Kenshin melted into Enishi’s warm, strong embrace.  “You’re trembling,” he whispered against Enishi’s neck.  His pulse hastened when the man shivered at his words.  He swallowed dryly.   

“Because you piss me off,” Enishi rasped defensively, his low voice resounding through the still night.  His heart felt as though it might leap from his throat as the man’s hot breath tickled his sensitive skin.  He squeezed his eyes shut trying to keep his libido in check.  He didn’t want to lose control of himself like he did the last time.  Already, he’d broken his promise to stay away until his planned revenge at the dojo.

Kenshin smiled weakly.  His brother-in-law certainly talked a cool game.  Always trying to seem apathetic...

“So don’t provoke me,” Enishi’s voice faltered.  He pulled the tie from the back of Battousai’s hair, letting his hair spill loosely down his back.  He ran his fingers up the back of the man’s scalp, twisting his fingers into the man’s smooth mane as he laid him back down.  His heart accelerated as he urgently kissed the hollow of the man’s neck, down to his chest, eagerly exploring every inch of warm flesh.

A hot wave unfurled within Kenshin’s belly as he was overcome by his brother-in-law’s intense passion.  His arms dropped listlessly to his sides.  He shivered at the blistering touch of Enishi’s fingers on the bare skin of his chest.  His brother-in-law’s hands and mouth were all over him, hot and desperate.  What sort of beast had he given rise to?

Enishi scattered open-mouth kisses down the man’s torso, letting his enemy’s sharp gasps and twisting body guide him.  Each soft, sultry moan from Battousai’s lips was like a carnal symphony—tempting him with a taste of exactly what he hungered for.

“What have you done to me?” Enishi groaned against the man’s lower abdomen.  Enishi didn’t even know himself any longer.  He’d drifted so far off course.  And when his roving fingers curled around his enemy’s rigid cock, he knew he’d completely lost his way.
 
Enishi gulped as he tentatively held the firm, smooth flesh in his hand.  He knew he should let the man go, but the truth was that he would never be able to let him leave.  Battousai had been only partially correct earlier.  Enishi had never yearned for the touch of another.  However, that was before he’d known this man’s body.  Now, he refused to live without him.  Loneliness hurt too much.  He’d make sure that Battousai wouldn’t want to leave!

Kenshin sucked air through his teeth when Enishi’s tongue slowly laved up the stiff flesh between his legs.  Not wanting to surrender, he tried to push Enishi’s head away, but his hands were swatted aside.  His resolve quickly crumbled when his brother-in-law took him completely into his sweltering mouth.

Kenshin lifted his head to gaze down at his brother-in-law’s silhouette moving up and down on his shaft.  His body quaked so much he could hardly hold his head up.  His fingers shook as he snaked them through Enishi’s thick, short hair.  He no longer knew if he was pushing him away, or forcing himself deeper.  His head fell back against the ground, wholly defeated.  Had he been bested by Tomoe’s brother?  Did he even care anymore?

Like a cunning predator, Enishi found and exploited every way to make this man moan beneath him like a feral beast.  Soon, he had his enemy thrusting feverishly, the night resounding with his urgent gasps.  He knew the man was close!  Such power to hold over another!  He’d never imaged that his enemy’s suppressed cries of ecstasy could shake him to his very soul—tearing apart everything he’d worked so hard for, little by little.  Yet he wanted to be torn asunder.  He wanted more from this man.  He wanted to make the man beg to be fucked!  He wanted him to promise never to leave!  He wanted his everything!

Kenshin’s head slowly rocked from side to side as his brother-in-law’s sizzling mouth pushed him closer to climax.  His fingers tightened in the man’s hair.  This was wrong, but he couldn’t stop himself!  He gasped for air as the simmering warmth within him escalated until a white heat jolted his shuddering frame.  He lay momentarily in a daze, spent, but Enishi wasn’t through with him yet.

Enishi wiped his lips with the back of his hand.  Hastily, he tugged his own pants down.  He thrust two fingers into his mouth to copiously moisten them with saliva before smearing them along his jutting length.  He bit his lip as he forced the man’s legs wider apart.  His pulse hammered in his ears.  “Hang on to me,” he ordered raggedly.

Captivated by this more focused man, Kenshin complied, wrapping his arms around the man’s damp, smooth upper back.  Enishi’s hot, slick cock pressed impatiently against his ass, teasing him, inciting him!  He couldn’t see much in the darkness but he felt the man’s riveted gaze.  Was he just imagining things, or had Enishi matured just a little bit?  

Kenshin gritted his teeth to stifle a hoarse cry when the man slowly pushed into him.  He clung desperately to Enishi’s muscular shoulders, eyes brimming with tears, as he adjusted to his brother-in-law’s searing flesh.  Once Enishi was buried inside him, his body tingled with the familiar heat.  He felt as though he might lose his mind.

“I’ll make you forget everyone but me,” Enishi murmured unevenly.  He plunged into the man again, beginning a slow, deep rhythm.  

Enishi listened with lewd delight to each harsh rush of breath he elicited as he thrust into his enemy’s tight heat.  He wanted Battousai to feel nothing but his ardor as he fucked him.  He wanted to strip away Battousai’s defenses until the man knew nothing but Enishi.

Enishi’s pace was relentless.  His arms encircled Battousai so tightly that their sweaty torsos slid against one another.  “See?  You can’t beat me, Battousai,” Enishi whispered shallowly.  His enemy shook violently in his arms, which pleased him greatly.  “I’ll never let you go.”  

Kenshin’s panting came in erratic gulps of air.  Each thrust jarred his body, but he wanted more.  He deserved this; he wanted it so much he ached.  His fingers dug into Enishi’s back.  He held the man tighter, consumed with lust.  

Enishi’s chest heaved.  “It’s too much for you, isn’t it?” he asked unsteadily.  “I can tell by the way you’re shaking.”

Kenshin’s slender fingers tore across Enishi’s back in reply.  He expelled a pained hiss.  Enishi was strong, but he was strong, too.  If Enishi wanted to use his body to best him, then Kenshin accepted his challenge.  
 
The scent of dirt and Enishi’s sweat permeated Kenshin’s nostrils as his back grated against the bumpy ground beneath Enishi’s weight.  Strands of his long, red hair clumped to his damp face.  Enishi’s scorching heat sent chills through him.  Kenshin’s hands moved lower, finally grabbing the man’s ass to pull with each thrust, burying his face into Enishi’s shoulder.  His brother-in-law responded excitedly, his lust nearly as unbridled as his temper.  

Enishi paused to quickly roll the man onto all fours and wrapped an arm around his sweaty torso, pulling his enemy’s back against his chest.  He burned with a lust he’d never known.  Goose bumps skittered up his spine as every cell in his being was electrified.
 
Kenshin spread his knees further apart and braced himself.  His heart pounded in his throat.  He groaned erotically as Enishi again slid inside him.  But this time, Enishi was rough, desperate.  

Enishi’s desire had reached a level of sheer delirium.  He burned to his very core.  No matter how much he touched the man, it wasn’t enough.  Sweat stung his eyes as he rested his face on the back of Battousai’s shoulder.  He held Kenshin tight, imposing his lascivious desire onto the man.  Nearly mad with yearning, he wanted to devour him!  

Kenshin moaned, he begged, and pleaded for more.  He wanted to let go.  Just once, he needed to not be the strongest.  He wanted Enishi.  Sex with Tomoe had been a beautiful, emotional connection.  But this, this was a raw, unadulterated physical need.  This intensity was not far from Battousai’s, and Enishi’s strength was the perfect counterpoint.  Kenshin’s heart raced with urgency.  What he’d denied his own body since Tomoe’s death, Enishi had unleashed in the past few days with blistering fervor.  

Enishi’s hand pumped Kenshin’s erection in time with his thrusts.  By now, Kenshin was practically drooling, his cheeks tear-stained and streaked with dirt.  His breathing had deteriorated to body-wracking gulps of air.  Enishi’s strong arms were the only thing that kept him from total collapse.  Admittedly, Kenshin was no match for Enishi’s sexual endurance, and when he came again, he succumbed in Enishi’s embrace with the man following seconds after.

Kenshin dropped face-first to the ground with Enishi collapsing on top of him.  Both men remained still as they fought to catch their breath.  Kenshin had not one ounce of strength left, physically or emotionally.  What would happen this time?  He nearly jumped out of his skin when he felt Enishi’s lips on the back of his neck.

Enishi turned Kenshin over to face him.  “You belong to me now,” Enishi whispered jaggedly.  His fingers drifted from Kenshin’s face, down his chest, abdomen, then between his legs.  “All of you.”

Kenshin gazed weakly up at Enishi.  “I don’t belong to anyone,” he panted.
 
Enishi’s eyes narrowed.  “Not even that girl you’re living with?”  He uttered snidely, jealousy evident in his voice.  He rolled onto the ground beside Kenshin.  

“Miss Kaoru?” Kenshin asked.  But he didn’t elaborate.  After all, he didn’t want to discuss such things with his late-wife’s brother.

After a few moments, Enishi sat up.  “You’ve changed my mind, Battousai.  I’ll spare your pitiful friends, but only on the condition that you come with me.”  He smirked.

Kenshin moved to sit beside his brother-in-law.  “What do you mean?”

Enishi’s smile faded.  “You killed my sister.  You owe me your life for the one you took.  Like I said, you belong to me now.”

Kenshin heart lurched.  “Wait a minute.  I can’t just leave my friends; my life.”

“That’s what Tomoe wants!” Enishi lied.  The thought of letting Battousai walk out of his life was not an option.  He needed the man.  Battousai was the only person, besides Tomoe, that he’d ever felt anything for, even if it was hatred.  Their fates were forever entwined.  Nobody other than Battousai would understand his pain.  And nobody else could ever set his body aflame so intensely.

“That’s not what she wants,” Kenshin replied gently.  “She wants you to know the truth about her death, to forgive, and most of all, to find peace in this life.”

“Quit fucking with my head!” Enishi thundered.  “You just told me that you didn’t want to leave me alone!”  His voice rose hysterically.  “And now you’re going to leave me?”

“I’m not leaving you.  I want you find the truth,” Kenshin replied calmly.  “You can’t fully accept me without knowing everything.”

Enishi flew into a rage.  “It’s that fucking bitch, isn’t it?”  He clasped Kenshin’s throat with both hands.  His nose wrinkled with disgust.  “I won’t let you go back there!  I’ll kill you right here before I allow that!”

Kenshin took hold of Enishi’s hands and pulled them away.  “Enough, Enishi!”  He rose to his feet.  “Come find me when you’re ready for the truth about what happened in the forest that day your sister died.  Find me when you can accept me as I am.  My name is Himura Kenshin.”

Enishi jumped to his feet.  His face heated with rage.  He wanted to crush the man where he stood, but he couldn’t.  He couldn’t bear to just watch him go, either!  Not after everything that had transpired the past week!

“If you walk away from me, I WILL attack you and your friends at the dojo as planned!” Enishi shouted.  “Is that what you want?  Do you want your friends to pay for your sins?”  He was frantic now.

Kenshin turned to the man.  “I’ve tried to do everything I could do to atone, Enishi.  I’m sorry that it wasn’t enough.  I’m sorry that I failed you again.  Forgive me.”  He bowed his head as his eyes misted.  In the end, was this the only comfort he could give—a pathetic apology?  He reached to caress Enishi’s face, but the man slapped it away.

Enishi’s jaw tensed.  “What have you done to me, Battousai?” he growled.  “What kind of spell—no...curse have you put on me?!”  He remained unmoving, naked, his fists clenched at his sides.

“There’s no spell, Enishi,” Kenshin replied.  “What you’re feeling has nothing to do with me, but instead, your mind and body craving what you’ve denied yourself for many years...allowing yourself to feel something other than anger.”

“FUCK YOU!!” Enishi yelled, his face contorting with fury.  The heartache felt like a weight crushing his chest—suffocating him.  “SHUT THE FUCK UP!”  He paced, pulling at his hair.  “You will pay for this, Battousai!  My Jinchuu will have you begging for death!”  Tomoe...forgive me.  Forgive me for what I’ve done...

“I see now,” Enishi sneered, taking a step back.  “All the stories about how you turn people’s emotions against them!  But I’m not like the others!  I FEEL NOTHING!” he bellowed.

Kenshin searched the ground with his hands until he found his sakabatou and clothing, all the while keeping a wary eye on his fuming brother-in-law’s shadowy form.  Kenshin’s heart broke witnessing Enishi’s obvious torment.  But Enishi was no longer a child.  He needed to learn that he couldn’t always have things his way.  The time had come for Enishi to begin a new life free from his sister’s phantom.

Kenshin quickly dressed while Enishi wildly paced and muttered incoherently.  “I will be waiting for you after you discover the truth,” Kenshin spoke gently.  “I look forward to that day.”

Enishi halted dead in his tracks.  “If you do somehow survive my Jinchuu, I will find you and make you mine,” he threatened in a broken voice.  “That is a promise.”  Without Battousai, he had no purpose.  His throat knotted when his enemy slipped his sword into his obi.  Was Battousai really going to leave?  

A sickening surge of panic spurred Enishi to rush toward the dark figure and embrace him tightly.  “Please don’t go!” Enishi pleaded as he buried his face in his enemy’s hair.  Quivering with trepidation, he couldn’t believe what he’d just done without a second thought.  However, it was too late to let go now.  He’d already shown the man this weakness.

“You don’t know how difficult it is to see you suffer this way,” Kenshin whispered in a guttural rasp.  He hugged his brother-in-law close not wanting to leave him like this.  But, Enishi needed to grasp the full understanding of the past and his own feelings.  Enishi would have to do that on his own.  

“I’m so sorry, Enishi,” Kenshin whispered hoarsely, fighting back tears.  “I want you to be happy.  I made a promise to your sister that I would use my sword to protect without killing and I would find a way to atone for the happiness I’ve taken from others.  I will keep my promise to both of you.”   He hoped Enishi would learn the truth – that Tomoe’s death had been an accident –and return to him.  After all, Enishi was the most stubborn, tenacious man he had ever met.  Tomoe, forgive my methods, but I will save him.

Enishi’s voice was tearful as he made one last plea.   “DON’T YOU UNDERSTAND?  YOU’RE THE REASON THAT I’M ALIVE!  I LIVED TO TAKE MY REVENGE ON YOU!  YOU CAN’T WALK AWAY FROM ME LIKE THIS!”



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To be continued…


Author’s Note:  I’m so sorry for taking so long with this chapter, but I promise that I worked on it nearly every day to get it as polished as possible.  I’m ashamed to admit that this is actually version number 26!  0_o  I couldn’t stop tweaking things!  Hahaha!  Anyway, thank you for the reviews and for continuing to read this story despite my slow updates!  I hope this chapter isn’t too disappointing after such a ridiculously long wait.  Thanks again! ^_^