Title: Obsessions
              Author/pseudonym: Pluto
              Email address: lizcheng@umich.edu
              Rating: PG 13 (part 1 only)
              Fandom and Pairings: Battousai X Aoshi
              Status: In progress
              Author's website: http://www.umich.edu/~lizcheng
	      Warnings: Violence, implied non-consentual sex



O B S E S S I O N S 

a r u r o u n i k e n s h i n f a n f i c

by Pluto 

Chapter one 

"To truly tame a man, you must break his spirit. Men are willful,
arrogant creatures, lost in the pursuit of the upholding of their own
egos;
you must steal his ego to dissolve the core of his self, and in so doing,
you will truly conquer him."

In the whispering silkiness of that night, the footfalls of men circling
each other blended easily into the camouflaging stir of grasses and
songs of crickets. The haunted gaze of one of the men disappeared
among the dappling of moonlight on the leaves surrounding him. 

"You are afraid." 

The stir of the wind in the leaves emphasized the silence given as reply.
Aoshi watched as his opponent stepped forward, emboldened, a pale
hand upon the leather-wrapped hilt of his sword. 

"Why did you come if you fear?" 

Still Aoshi remained silent, catlike as he watched his opponent. Even in
the lightlessness his pale eyes absorbed each motion so carefully made
by the other man. 

"What is it you fear? 

"Do you fear what you will find if you accept? Or that you will find the
truth of death?" A light laugh, like the strum of fingers across the
strings
of a piano. "Or worse yet, that you shall suffer the shame of continuing
to live?" The tone of the youthful voice became dark. "There are better
ways for release, Aoshi."

"I have tried your way, Battousai." Aoshi stilled, then vanished
completely. "Unlike you, I feel no joy at defending others. Nor do I feel
I must repent for the deaths I've caused." As he shifted the moonlight
danced in the disturbed leaves around him. He ignored their soft
rustling, letting them speak as he fell silent. 

A soft sigh from the lips of the Battousai; his wide blue eyes filled with
pity that caused a resentment to surge in the heart of the other.
"Sanosuke, Yahiko-- even Soujiro has found it to be a good way,"
Battousai stated, insistent. 

A sliver of the silver moon sparked to life as Aoshi slipped one of his
kodachi halfway from its sheath. The soft metallic ring disrupted the
delicate dance of words like the shattering of glass. "Enough." The blade
freed itself completely, the surface shining in the black of night. "You
said you came for a purpose we have discussed. Why do you lecture me
again?"

Laughter; and then Battousai reached out, his hand barely covering the
fingers of the one around the kodachi's hilt. "It has been a long time
since I have let this beast out, Aoshi. But I know your arrogance. Of
course you are not afraid of me, once Battousai or not." The slender
fingers clamped down, surprisingly strong, and pulled the hand and
blade to his lips. 

"... At times I see a man who is not Himura Kenshin."

"At times, I am only Hitokiri Battousai."

"You promised me release, Battousai."

Aoshi felt a surge of anger as a smile crossed the Battousai's seemingly
innocent face; those blue eyes narrowed and the Battousai's features
adjusted ever so slightly. The X-shaped scar on his cheek suddenly
made him seem menacing, instead of foolish, as he usually appeared.
Aoshi found himself taking a few steps back before he caught himself
and forced himself to still. 

"Yes." Battousai's hands forced Aoshi's to twist the kodachi blade
inwards. Aoshi gasped as he felt the point nip into the flesh of his
stomach. "And you do not trust Himura Kenshin to fufill his promise?"

Aoshi stiffened ever so slightly. "You have said yourself that you are not
always of his thought and posture, Battousai. As well, Himura Kenshin
carries the reverse blade. You no longer kill..."

"I will release you from this shame you carry on your shoulders, Aoshi,
don't be afraid that I will not. I will wipe you clean of your pride which
makes you bent over with the grief of your lost comrades and your
forgotten purpose in life."

Aoshi made a disgusted noise, his eyes slitting behind the cover of his
soft bangs. "I wish no more of your talks, Battousai; I will never be able
to live as you do, as ruronin...Why do you lie to me, Battousai?"

Suddenly the surprising grip tightened further; the hand that held him
captive jerked his fingers back and twisted so that the kodachi fell from
Aoshi's nerveless grasp. A startled noise escaped him as the "peaceful
wanderer" shoved him back into a tree, pinning him there. 

"I didn't lie." A more sinister smile consumed the Battousai's boyish
innocence. Recognition, and a mixture of anger and anticipation,
flickered through Aoshi. "I will take away your pride, Aoshi, I will make
it so that you have no shame, because you cannot get any more
shameful. Tell me, Shinomori Aoshi, if a man is no longer concerned
with his pride, what use is dying an honorable death?"

Aoshi saw the Battousai sneer, and tried to force his face back into it's
usual calm facade. He had trusted the Battousai-- enough to come to him
with this last, desperate request-- and for Himura to mock him like this
was both shocking and intolerable! He felt numbed as the Battousai took
advantage of this moment of his confusion and reached into his clothing,
lightly caressing him with a deliberate look. 

"You would make a beautiful lover, Aoshi." 

Aoshi pulled himself free, his grace breaking for a moment as he
stumbled, unable to coordinate in his unwanted emotional state. He
regained control of himself and pulled his second kodachi free in a
much more agressive manner than earlier. "I have suffered enough,
battousai, and now you would humiliate me more?"

"Perhaps I could rent you a fine apartment in the city? I could surround
you with priceless hangings and flower arrangements befitting such a
lovely concubine."

"I am no one's concubine."

"Really? It seems to me you have always been nothing but one. Do you
not miss the finery of your old life, Shinomori? The respect you
recieved, the orderliness of your life as the pretty thing of the Shogun?
A
concubine without a prosperous master is nothing but a whore, Aoshi;
would you not rather return yourself to the ease of a life under another
man?" 

Aoshi forced himself to remain calm, a bitterness in his mouth at the
realization that the Battousai's words rung far too true for his liking.
He
held himself in a defensive stance and looked harshly at the Battousai. 

Kenshin's thumb pushed the hilt of his sword up, acknowledging
Aoshi's challenge. "You will be mine, Shinomori Aoshi." His red hair
shone like fire when it caught the bare light through the trees; his eyes
had become yellow like a cat's. "You will not forget me this time." 

"What are you saying, Himura Kenshin?!" Aoshi whispered, pulling
himself into a full defensive stance at Battousai's action. 

A pale-faced demon in a plum-hued kimono, the hitokiri of days past
began to circle Aoshi on feet as light as falling leaves upon the ground.
The facade of confidence and chilling calm upon the features of
Shinomori Aoshi began to slip. Himura Kenshin, on the other hand,
seemed to grow larger and more terrifying; his dreaded fighting ki
affecting his opponent more than ever. 

That twisted smile ever on his lips, the Battousai watched him with that
inhumanly yellow gaze. "In the secluded parts of Kyoto, after destroying
a band of Shinsengumi who had been following me, I caught the newly
made leader of the Oniwabanshu watching me..."

Aoshi felt his throat and veins constrict, but he forced himself not to
show his reaction externally. He stayed frozen in his defensive stance,
never letting the circling hitokiri out of his sight. "I remember that
time,
and it is one I would rather not address. Why do you play games with
me, Battousai?"

Kenshin ignored the other's comment. His face held the innocence of a
young boy even though his eyes, turned upon Aoshi, were those of a
jaded killer. "He was not fascinated with the death, for he'd seen it
often
enough before to no longer notice the ugly stain of blood. He was
fascinated with something else, wasn't he? Was it look of ecstasy upon
my face? Ot the colorless stain at the front of my hakama, already
drying? The boy saw a culmination of emotional pleasure such as he
would never allow himself. And so I called to him..."

Aoshi could not bear to be forced to relive that memory, that moment of
weakness when he had allowed himself the desires of the body which he
had otherwise banished into nothingness; things he had escaped in the
relentless task of servitude to the Shogun. "You tread dangerous
territory, Battousai," he said softly, but harshly. He tightened his
stance,
as if about to attack at any given moment. 

Battousai sneered at him, an ugly expression on the pixie-ish face. "No,
Aoshi, I do not, but perhaps you do." Aoshi registered the loosing of the
Hitokiri's sword just in time to deflect the blow that came at his chest,
but there was no time to return with an offensive. The force of Himura's
swing slid him back a few feet and he jerked his head up to sight his
tormentor once again. Kenshin stood as if he had never drawn, head
slightly down, sword in scabbard, one hand resting on the hilt. So he
continued to speak, as well. 

"And I called to him and showed him what he wanted, those pleasures of
the physical body, of the ecstacy of surrender to the more untamable
side of humanity... things he most likely never dreamed of, and never
tasted again... For you are a fool who would never allow such a
weakness to resurface again, would you, Aoshi? You would rather, in
your pride and honor, be some dog to a mighty man, so long as you are
right in your own quest and untempted by the appetites of the body."
The yellow eyes gleamed, the corners of the small mouth twisted up even
further. "But you know, Aoshi, perhaps you should remember what
power I had over you that night, as you begged me to give you more and
more..."

Literally shaking with the onslaught of feelings burning through him at
the Hitokiri Battousai's words, the shinobi redirected them into a harsh
fury and attacked this torturer of his soul. With the deadly ease that
Kenshin had lost, but Battousai had retained, Aoshi found himself struck
aside. The sharp edge of the reverse blade flew by his face as he moved
just in time, but missed the return as the dull edge came around to knock
out his knees from behind. He stumbled to the ground and Himura
moved with quicksilver speed to hold the blade across his neck. He
gripped Aoshi's face in one hand and whispered in his ear. "You have
nothing more left to hold yourself so upright for, Aoshi. The shogunate
has fallen and your friends are dead; you have no more quest. Perhaps it
is time to look at your own desire."

Aoshi felt a strange longing arise at this temptation, but it was
overriden
by disgust; he disregarded the pain and smashed the sword away with
his hand, using brute force to escape this compromising position. The
sakaba sword hissed past him and struck the ground with a thunderous
force, dirt and bits of mauled vegetation flying up at him. Shielding
himself with one upflung arm, the boy launched backwards, taking
refuge among the foliage. He caught his breath as Kenshin searched the
dark forest for any sign of him, eyes narrowed, the scarred face cruel.
This was Aoshi's familiar turf-- he was a master of disappearing,
illusions, of invisibility. He would vanish before the Hitokiri even
realized he had left. His face flushed as he thought of how the little
red-haired samurai had reached beneath his clothing... Such heat upon
his smooth, cold skin... 

The Battousai started to speak, eerily facing Aoshi's direction.
"Shinomori Aoshi. You think you will escape me tonight, and perhaps
you will be right." Kenshin dropped to one knee, his long red hair
loosed about his shoulders, planting his sword into the ground and
pressing the hilt against his parted lips. His eyes seemed to find Aoshi's
even in the darkness; their eerie yellow glow froze him to the spot. "Or
perhaps," he murmured into the hand-worn leather, "This night will
haunt you... Even as the sight of me haunted you so long ago..." He
slipped a hand down into his hakama and Aoshi felt his cheeks burn as
he realized what the hitokiri was doing. His eyes refused to look away
for several heartbeats before he finally wrenched them free, and forced
himself to stand. His entire body shook, and he regarded his
uncontrolled movement with disbelief. He shut his eyes, took another
calming breath, and then fled silently into the night. 

* * *

Aoshi sought refuge that night in a small, long-forgotten shrine deep in
the woods. He made twice sure that his tracks were covered before he
allowed himself to rest upon the dirty floor, kneeling rather than laying
prostrate. As the sun approached he cautiously let himself slip into a
light half-sleep, but every noise awoke him and he soon gave up, though
his body was growing exhausted. 

His mind could not help but turn the strangeness of Himura's actions
over and over in his mind for examination. Would the Battousai be
following him still? He must be-- that mad look-- a hungry look he had
seen in his own eye when he sought Himura's blood. 

Why had the Battousai seen fit to trick him? To do such perverse things
to him?

No answers came even as the sun rose to high noon. Aoshi directed his
thoughts to yet another important subject. Should he move on? And to
where? Would the Battousai truly be so fixated as to pursue him? His
words of yesterday had suggested that he would not follow. If so,
perhaps he should simply linger here... but how should he know when it
was safe to return to Kyoto?

His mind began to tire as the sun approached dusk. He knew he had to
catch some sleep, but he was simply too paranoid. The dirt dug into his
knees, his skin sung with the oversensitivity of weariness. His eyes
wanted to close of their own accord. He pressed his mind into its
disciplined state and attempted to meditate, slowing his breathing,
emptying material thoughts. His true refuge, his mind, allowed him to
leave all the burden of reality and immerse himself within the
peacefulness of nothing. He felt the tenseness of his muscles slowly
melt into relaxation. The gentle embrace of sleep snuck upon him, and
lulled him into its spell. 

The smell of peaches; soft and feminine...

The heat of fire, enchanting, heat with power, heat with potential to
kill...

The singing of metal slipped from a well-cared sheathe, a song only a
fine fighter could truly love...

"Aoshi..."

He spun, awash with the dream-sensations, his soul turning before his
body to meet the eyes he both expected and dreaded to see. Yellow eyes,
the cross-scar on the cheek, the cruel smile he was so unused to seeing
on that face. His head reeled as the world spun to catch up with his
turning sight. 

"Battousai..." He felt himself falling, as if for an eternity, to finally
land
on the cold hard dirt upon his knees. Bent before the hitokiri, he felt
fear
but forced it back into himself. He looked up at Kenshin and it seemed
that far off behind the small samurai, and transparent as if ghosts,
looked
the faces of those he had lost and those he had sworn to honor. A
burning hand on his face jarred him from staring at those flickering
images. _Even in my dreams he hunts me!_ Aoshi thought as he found
himself unable to move or to wake himself. His body became the body
of times past, burning with traitorous thoughts and emotions at anything
sexual. The Battousai's hand slipped down to stroke the softness of his
cheek, the curve of his ear. It trailed downwards, towards his more
sacred skin...

That hand beneath his robe!

Aoshi jerked awake, finding himself fallen to his hands and knees. His
dream was instantly burned away by the blinding brightness of reality,
but the sensation of the Battousai's hands seemed to linger even through
it upon his skin. He stared wide-eyed at the ground, the feel of the hard
dirt under his hands not registering. Damn the Battousai! He knew how
to inspire the madness within Aoshi. He knew how to plague the
tormented shinobi even now, even after the desire to win his title of the
strongest had been quelled. A mere hand slipped beneath the cloth
shielding the soft skin and hardness of the body from the surrounding
world... 

What was it that Himura had said to him? 

Haunted. Yes, he was haunted. That demon had managed to inspire
within him a seed of some evil...

_"You will be mine."_

Aoshi shuddered. Why did he let the words of a madman pursue him?

Because the Battousai was far from mad. The Battousai was sane, a
creature who knew who he was now, and what purpose drove him. Why
did he seek to raise even more madness in Aoshi's heart? Was he not
plagued enough-- had he not come to the rurouni seeking release from
his own hell?

Perhaps now Himura Kenshin sought to show him how much worse it
might have been. Was it an act, perhaps? A desperate effort of the
oversympathetic rurounin to awaken him to the error of his ways?

_"If a man is no longer concerned with his pride, what use is dying an
honorable death?"_

He must be trying to shame Aoshi into action, to draw him with fury out
of his melancholy...

Why else would he behave so perversely?!

_"You would make a beautiful lover... a lovely concubine..."_

Shinomori Aoshi would serve no man in that way! And yet... had he not
dedicated the earlier part of his life to one, and the latter to four who
had
died in loyalty to him? No... he could never relinquish himself to such a
life, a life of vice and humiliation and worthlessness. He would never
give his body to Battousai! Never again! To feel those hands upon him,
those hands that made his years of discipline and careful construct
dissolve into nothing...

Aoshi felt an irrational surge of anger and irritation overtake him and he
quickly came to his feet, a growl upon his lips. Before he quite realized
what he was doing he had kodachi in hand and had bared it, ready to kill.
For a moment he stood there, near shaking with anger, unable to control
himself. Then, with a strange, crystalline vision, it came to Aoshi that
he
was mad with want... His sex was a burning thing against his stomach,
his cheeks flushed, his mind preoccupied with the touch of Himura
Kenshin...

Curse the Battousai for inflicting this upon him! How easily the careful
recomposing of his self was shattered by one man who sought to violate
him in the worst way! He felt hate begin to eat at him inside and a taste
for blood curl up like a worm within his stomach. Closing his eyes and
attempting the schooled breathing techniques of meditation did nothing
for him now. He fisted his hands and forced himself to stand there, body
shaking with furious energy. He had thought that the madness inspired
by the Battousai was burned out of him, but here it was once more,
driven to a spiraling summit...

He slipped to his knees, and if it had been within him to cry, he would
have; from exhaustion, from desire, from frustration... and most
shamefully, from fear. He pressed the palms of his hands into the
unyielding floor, not only to remind himself of reality, but to keep them
from wandering down into his lap. 

_Control... where is my control?_ He ground his teeth together and
leaned harder against his already bruised fingers. _If anyone were to see
me as this, they would not know what to think... perhaps that I was even
beyond madness, for they have already seen me mad._

He could not wait here any more. To do so would be worse than dying,
worse than any other shame. Here he hid like a fearful rabbit as the wily
fox circled his den. More than that-- here he could only lay among his
own fevered fantasies... here his desire could only grow and grow. No,
he must kill this want before it spread... He could have no peace if even
his body betrayed him. He could have no peace if he was complying
perfectly with Battousai's cruel mind game. 

He would kill the red-haired monster if he had to, if it was the only way
to burn out this alien thing growing within him. Or... he would die at the
hands of a man who had defeated him twice already. No matter... all he
asked was the death of this unwanted emotion within...

Deep breath. Slowly the shaking stopped, the tainted heat subsided. If he
just turned his mind to one thing, it was easy to drive away even the
endless seduction of his body. Yes, he would come to the Battousai as
the man wanted him to. But he would bring death for one of them with
him, and relief for his own soul. 

He slipped from the temple, his weapon readied, and disappeared into
the shadows, bound for where he knew he would find Himura Kenshin. 


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