“History repeats itself because no one was listening the first time.” – Anonymous

Edo, Japan: Genroku Year 4

Kaede could hear the commotion in the dojo that was also her home. She heard it, but she managed to ignore it. Nothing mattered to her except for the crisp white paper resting in her lap.

Dearest Kaede,

I had your husband over for drinks. I do not think the vintage was to his tastes, but I found the evening delightful. I will be sending him to you tomorrow. I hope you have a wonderful reunion.

I told you not to cross me.

Sano

She had not left her room since receiving the letter the evening before. Nothing could pry her from her position in front of her small, personal altar. She had burned stick after stick of sweet-smelling incense, but her mind could not form prayers that seemed adequate. And so she had knelt in silence and stared dully at the letter while an entire day had passed. She had only moved once, when Ichiro had come by to offer his “condolences.” His stilted attempt to provide comfort had seemed the pinnacle of hypocrisy. After she had forcibly evicted her watcher from her room by tossing him through the flimsy, sliding door, the rest of the household had carefully avoided intruding upon her grief.

When she heard hurried footsteps in the corridor outside of her room, she knew it was time. She could not turn her back on this duty. When Ichiro appeared on the other side of the torn doorframe, she was on her feet and waiting for him.

“He is here, Kaede.” Her watcher’s voice was uncharacteristically muted. A traitorous little corner of her mind wondered if their relationship would improve if she started throwing him through walls on a regular basis. The bruises on Ichiro’s face gave her a small sense of satisfaction.

“I know.” Her voice sounded hollow, dead.

“He is not the man you knew. There is nothing of Takeshi left.”

Kaede smiled coldly when the watcher stopped speaking and shrank against the far wall as she wrapped herself in a shawl and stepped through the hole in her door. “I know,” she repeated. Almost as an afterthought, the slayer snapped a piece of wood from the hanging mess that had been her door. “I will see to this, and I will be ready to leave for the battle, as planned, in two days. If I see you or anyone else before then, I cannot be held responsible for my actions.”

Without waiting for a response, Kaede turned and made her way down the hallway. She hardly cared what her watcher thought of her behavior at that point. It had been Ichiro who had sent Takeshi to meet his contact from Ise, who had sent Takeshi to his death.

Barefoot and clad in a loose sleeping robe, Kaede drifted through the hallways of the dojo, silent as a ghost. Apparently the rest of the household had fled to their rooms, knowing that to meet either her or the creature shouting her name from outside was to face death.

When she rounded the final corner, she was faced with the specter of her former husband. He quieted at her approach, his face worn and pleading. It seemed unfair that he could look so human in that moment. It would have made things so much easier if he had been wearing his other face: ridged, inhuman, and unfamiliar.

His hands were pressed flat against the invisible barrier that kept him out of the building. He looked just like Takeshi. In her heart, Kaede wanted nothing more than to take him in her arms and weep, but she could not. Takeshi was gone and nothing but this shell remained. She had seen too many vampires try the very same trick with former friends and family to doubt Ichiro’s training in that respect.

This was not Takeshi anymore.

Her hand tightened on the makeshift stake in her right hand, the rough splinters from its torn end digging into her calloused flesh. She stopped within touching distance of the vampire and looked at him with dead eyes. She knew what she had to do, but her hands would not obey, and so she stood and stared at the thing that had been her husband.

“Kaede,” his voice was rough, hoarse as if he had not slept in ages. “I know you won’t invite me in, but please listen to me. Hideaki told me…”

“Stop.” Her voice was quiet, but it cut the vampire short. She raised her left hand and pressed it against his right where it was resting flat against the unseen barrier. His skin was cold and dry, even if the texture was familiar. Her face was stiff and rigid, even as tears started flowing from her eyes. When she searched the vampire’s face, she felt herself being drawn into the vampire’s dark eyes. It made her jerk her hand back as if burned. She knew in that moment that she could not stake him, no matter what he had become. Not when he could still look at her like that.

“Give Sano my regards and tell him I will not fall into whatever trap he is planning.” She turned to go back into the house, unwilling to let the monster that had been Takeshi see any more of her pain.

“Kaede, listen to me! Sano is dead. I killed him myself. And you have to go to Ise…” The vampire’s voice was pleading, desperate. It was a tone she had never heard in her usually reserved husband. It tore at her heart, even as she dried her eyes and steeled herself for what she had to do. When she turned back to face him, hope flared in the vampire’s eyes, making them flash with unearthly gold. That made what she had to say just a little easier to force past her lips.

“Goodbye, Takeshi. If I ever see you again, I will kill you.” She slid the dojo’s front door shut and tried to ignore the look of anguish on the vampire’s face.

She spent the next two days in her room, never speaking and only eating when one of Ichiro’s servants managed to slip a tray of food into her room while she slept. When she stepped into her palanquin two days later, she swore that she would not cry in the face of an enemy ever again, even if that enemy wore the face of someone she loved.

*****

Sunnydale, California: 1999

“Buffy, wake up.”

Buffy was warm and comfortable, or she would have been if someone hadn’t been poking her in her sleep. She snuggled back down into the soft blanket that covered her and scrunched her eyes tightly shut. “Go ‘way mom.”

“Buffy, please wake up,” the voice insisted. It certainly didn’t sound like her mother. In fact, it sounded like…

“Giles!” Buffy sat up abruptly, but the sudden motion set her head spinning and she fell back amongst the pillows and blankets her watcher and friend had piled around her on the couch. She pulled one pillow over her face to fend off the light and groaned. “What’s going on?”

“We were hoping you could tell us that.”

Buffy lay still for a moment before finally pulling the pillow aside and dragging herself up into a sitting position against the couch’s arm rest. Willow shoved a glass of water into her face, which Buffy accepted gratefully. After a long sip and a last glare at the room’s offending lights, Buffy looked at her watcher, who was seated on the edge of the coffee table with one of the most worried expressions on his face that Buffy had ever seen.

“I, uh, remember picking up the sword and there was this bright flash,” she started, sifting through the muddle that was her mind.

“Yes!” Willow cried. “But then you vanished. I couldn’t even feel any magic. You were just gone! And then you were back, but you were unconscious. What happened?”

“I don’t know. One second I was here, and the next I was in a garden, talking to Kaede. She did something to me.” Buffy rubbed her temples with her fingers and avoided her watcher’s worried stare. “I can remember what happened to her…” she trailed off.

“But, Buffy! That’s incredible! Do you mean the swords gave you this slayer’s memories? Wait! I need to get my notes.”

Buffy had never seen Giles so excited. She might have even found it amusing if she wasn’t so busy sorting through the new memories that had been shoved into her brain. “Not really Giles. I’m saying that Kaede and Takeshi have been waiting inside of those swords for the last however many years. She gave me her memories.”

Giles’ eyes lit up. “That’s amazing, Buffy. I can’t remember anything in the Council’s records that mentions such a thing occurring.” Buffy could almost see the theories whirling behind the watcher’s bespectacled eyes.

Willow poked Buffy on the arm to get her attention. “Um, who is Takeshi?”

“Takeshi was Kaede’s… Wait.” She glanced around the room. “Where’s Spike?”

*****

“I still don’t think that this is a good idea, Buffy,” Giles said from his position at the bathroom door.

“You want him to fight with me instead of against me? Maybe you should've started by not chaining him to your plumbing again.” Buffy snapped. She didn’t want to admit it to Giles, but she knew that Kaede’s words and memories were guiding her actions. She couldn’t help but think that she wouldn’t be in this position if slayers hadn’t been conditioned through the ages to believe everything their watcher’s said. She knew that her knee-jerk reaction to Giles’ statement was unfair, but she couldn’t help it.

She sighed and leaned against the bathtub, hands dangling loosely over the edge of the porcelain. “Look, Giles. I get why you’re worried. I really do. But we can’t keep treating him like a rabid dog if you want him to act like an ally. Yeah, he probably still wants us dead,” Oh yeah, well why did the swords accept you two then? Shut up! Stupid brain. “but the simple fact is that he can’t hurt us, and he can help. This whole Orochi thing is never going to work if you don’t give him a chance.” With that, she looked over her shoulder and tried to gage the effect of her words on her watcher.

He was studying her with hooded eyes. When he did not respond for a long, uncomfortable moment, Buffy turned back to her task and unlocked the last of the shackles from Spike’s legs and tugged the vampire out of the tub and into her arms, cradled like a giant child. “Giles?”

The watcher seemed to shake himself a little, and met her gaze. “Yes?”

“Super strength’s great and all, but he’s getting kind of heavy.”

“Oh, you want me to…?” He suited his words with actions, stepping out of the doorway and clearing the slayer’s path.

“Yeah, thanks.” Buffy manhandled the vampire out of the bathroom, down the hall, and onto the couch without any major incidents. Once there, she managed to resist the urge to tuck one of Giles’ blankets under Spike’s chin. Pro-vamp girl talk and new memories aside, she didn’t think she was ready to explain such behavior to her watcher.

When her eyes came to rest on the sword box, one last detail from Kaede's memories came to mind. Without stopping to warn Giles, she picked up the empty container and threw it against the hardwood floor. Hard.

“Buffy!” Giles exclaimed. “What on earth are you doing? That box is a valuable antique!”

“No it’s not. It’s a tootsie roll pop.” Buffy replied as she walked around the table to sift through the broken remains of the box. “The good stuff is on the inside.” Knowing full well that the watcher was looking at her as if she had lost her mind, Buffy avoided meeting his eyes until she found her goal.

With a cry of victory, she found the fragments of the sealed, secret compartment and pulled its contents free. Triumphant, she dangled the golden amulet in front of her watcher. “Do you think this goes with my outfit?”

On the other side of the swinging pendant, she noticed crystal blue eyes observing her from the couch.