“Hope is the other side of history.” - Marcia Cavell

Edo, Japan: Genroku Year 4

The man would have been heavy even if Kaede had not just fought against a score of vampires. As it was, the slayer was hard pressed to carry him back to the dojo and inside while avoiding unwanted attention.

The man was in sorry shape; the effects of the poison making him shake with chills and sweat in turns. He was unconscious, but he was mumbling to himself. Having experienced the effects of the magical concoction that Sano’s gang used first hand, she knew well the kinds of fever dreams the substances could evoke. She did not envy him.

When Kaede finally staggered into the dojo, she found Ichiro sitting in the library, as usual. He was placing his latest journal into the sending box that he used to keep in contact with his mysterious Council. Ever since the first Tokugawa shogun, Ieyasu, had evicted all foreigners from Japan’s shores almost a century before, Japan’s watchers had been forced to use magic to stay in contact with the rest of the Council. For the most part, Ichiro performed his duties as her watcher autonomously, but he still kept in contact with his nominal brethren and sent reports regularly.

Ichiro offered her the barest glance as she lowered the man onto the library floor. Kaede watched him close the lid of the ornate wooden box and place his right hand on the smooth panel that dominated the top of the strange contraption. With a word of power and a brief flash of light, the sending was complete and Ichiro finally turned towards his slayer.

“Is there a reason that you have deposited a sick and bloody yoriki on my floor?” he gestured to both the man and the jitte, the weapon of the police force that signified his position in life.

Kaede wanted to hit her watcher in that moment, but managed to restrain herself like she had a hundred times in the past. “I ran into Sichiro and a large group of Sano’s other lackeys tonight. This man appeared and started fighting them as well. I dusted six of them, and he managed to injure three others before the rest escaped. I don’t know who he is or what he was doing there, but Sichiro managed to cut him with a poisoned blade before he ran away.”

Ichiro’s face remained blank during Kaede’s report. When he finally spoke, his voice was flat and cold. “I see. What do you expect me to do about him?”

Kaede’s mouth started to drop open, but she managed to clench her jaw and speak politely instead. “Whether it was needed or not, this man helped me fight tonight. I owe him the cure to Sano’s toxins in the very least. Besides, he might be a demon hunter or someone else who would make a good contact.”

“Or he could be a police officer who received reports of a fight and came to investigate…”

“Ichiro-san!”

“Oh, very well. But you are to make yourself scarce after he wakes. If he is just a yoriki, I will tell him some lie about how he arrived here and hope that his hallucinations will cover the truth. He will be out of this house and out of your life tomorrow morning. If he is something else, well, I will decide where to go from there.”

Kaede nodded curtly; what else could she do? She helped her watcher wrestle the man onto a palette and watched as Ichiro spread a thick, tar-like substance over the yoriki’s wound and bandaged it with strips of cloth.

She found herself studying the man’s face. It was certainly handsome, with strong lines along his jaw and cheekbones and a mouth that would have curved into a natural smile had it not been contorted in fever. Kaede flushed and turned her eyes back to the man’s wounded arm before Ichiro caught her looking at their patient in such a way. She was a slayer, and there were some things she could never have. There was no point in even dreaming, and she did not want to hear a lecture on the matter from her watcher.

Ichiro dismissed her with orders to stay far away from the library unless summoned the next morning. Kaede nodded and with a curt bow, left the room. As she drifted off to sleep that evening, she was met with images of the handsome stranger. She wondered what his name was.

*****

Sunnydale, California: 1999

Interesting wasn’t the word Buffy would have used to describe their situation. Nerve-wracking? Maybe, but not interesting. Buffy and Spike were huddled against a door marked 314, trying to figure out how to open it while soldiers streamed all around them. Just when she thought that Willow’s computer virus would never reach this particular door, the red light over the keypad lock flickered and turned green. She started to grin in triumph at her partner in crime when suddenly Spike’s arms were around her, hand over her mouth as he rolled them both to one side of the door.

And just in time. The door burst open and a familiar figure stormed past the invisible couple.

Professor Walsh?!

Spike must have felt her stiffen because his hands pulled her even tighter against his hard chest, keeping her still. They both stood stock-still as her psychology professor stomped into the main room, shouting demands for explanations.

When the immediate danger had passed, Buffy started to become very aware of the vampire behind her. She could feel his skin slowly warming at their contact and the hard lines of his muscles pressed against her back. The faint smell of leather and cigarettes surrounded him, and the little tingle along the back of her neck that had saved her life so many times was screaming that the vampire behind her was old and very strong. She had no idea what she should do. Her extra senses were telling her to run, but other parts of her body were content to leave things as they were.

As if sensing her confusion, Spike slowly released her. He kept his hands raised at his sides as if in surrender. “Sorry, pet. Just didn’t want our cover blown by a door to the face.” He seemed almost apologetic, as if he expected her to punch him in the face at any second.

She waved off further explanations. “No harm, no foul, but what are we supposed to do about…” She glanced down and saw the toe of Spike’s boot propping the door open. “Nice,” she smiled at his quick thinking.

Spike took the handle of the door and swung it wide with a faux-courtly bow. “After you, ma’am.”

Picking up on his playful attitude, Buffy returned the bow with an exaggerated curtsy, made all the more ridiculous by her tight jeans. With twin grins, the two disappeared into room 314.

*****

“That’s just gross.” Buffy wrinkled up her nose at the scene in front of them. After following the glowing pendant through various doors and hallways, they had finally reached another large room, empty of the soldiers and scientists so common in the rest of the facility. It wasn’t as large as the main room they had first entered, but it was still big enough to hold a basketball court.

Or a really big, nasty body.

Giles had been right about one thing: Orochi was not completely resurrected. The creature before them was little more than a knot of serpentine skeletons held together with strips of muscle tissue and blood vessels. If she looked closely, Buffy thought she could see the beginnings of organs starting to grow inside the long, twisting rib cages. It was quite possibly the grossest thing Buffy had ever seen, and that was really saying something coming from a girl who dealt with grave robbing and Xander’s taste in girlfriends on a regular basis.

Buffy’s eyes were drawn to the bright glint of silver on one of the gigantic skulls. A mesh of wires and electrodes was attached to the back of the head in a glittering net. A quick survey revealed similar devices on each of Orochi’s heads. She would have bet her best pair of Italian boots that she was looking at a jumped up version of the chip in Spike’s head.

The pendant in her hand was tugging against her grip frantically as Buffy and Spike descended the stairs to the main floor where Orochi lay. When she finally reached the bottom landing, she released the chain and let the amulet do the job it had been designed to do. It flew across the room like a golden comet, chain trailing like a tail, and struck the closest skull in the forehead where the amulet exploded in a shower of sparks. Buffy and Spike froze as Orochi’s entire body shuddered, but when the glow faded, the skeleton remained still.

“He’s mortal now,” Buffy said into the echoingly quiet room. Spike only nodded his understanding.

It seemed anticlimactic as Buffy poured her vial of liquid over Kaede’s katana and handed Spike his. As they set to work, cutting through the brittle bones and half-formed sinews holding Orochi’s eight heads onto his body, Buffy couldn’t help but be disappointed at the lack of a good fight, but it seemed fitting as well.

Orochi was Kaede and Takeshi’s kill. They were the ones who had battled him to a temporary defeat three hundred years ago. They were the ones who had suffered and sacrificed and lost. Buffy and Spike were only performing a long overdue cleanup.

The slayer cut the same four that Kaede had originally claimed and Spike took the remaining half. When the final skull was separated from Orochi’s body, Buffy walked to Spike’s side and looked over their handiwork. Pieces of Orochi’s skeleton started to crumble, the disintegration following each bone to its completion as the entire body reduced itself to dust before their very eyes.

Spike huffed disconsolately. “Thought I’d get myself a little rough and tumble at the end of this.”

Buffy laughed at him. “Yeah,” she agreed. “Maybe next time.”

The vampire eyed her archly. “Who says there’s gonna be a next time?”

Buffy just rolled her eyes. “You went all Sean Connery on this Alcatraz before. How’s about leading the way out? I need a bath.”

“Used the air vents the last time.” Spike looked around the room before gesturing towards a large grate near the stair case. “That one looks promising, but these swords are gonna be a problem.”

Buffy looked at the sword in her hand for a moment before unwrapping the woven sageo from the sheath and retying it around the handguard and ornate cap on the end of the scabbard. This she swung over her shoulder and head, settling the sword between her shoulder-blades. “And voila!”

Spike grinned in response before emulating her actions. Once his blade was similarly secured, the two started walking towards the ventilation duct.

They had only walked half of the distance to their escape route when the every door in sight burst open and the struggling bodies of soldiers and various demons broke into the room. Willow’s virus had apparently gotten into the demon containment facilities and opened many of the cells. Buffy barely had time to register what was happening before a huge yellow demon, she had no idea what kind, leapt at her. She tried to fight it off, and Spike jumped on its back to help, when a shot rang out in the room.

With a surprised shout of pain, Spike dropped to the floor next to a very dead demon. The bullet that had killed her attacker had also passed straight through the vampire’s chest. Buffy rushed to Spike’s side to help him to his feet, when she noticed that the shot had destroyed something else as well. The pouch controlling Spike’s invisibility spell hung in shreds over a bloody and painful-looking exit wound.

“Oh no,” she whispered.

Spike was visible again.

“Oh no, no, no,” she kept repeating under her breath.

“S’nothin’ slayer. Bullets can’t hurt me.” He tried to draw himself up as if to prove to her that he was perfectly fine, in spite of the bleeding hole through his chest.

“Spike, come on,” she tugged at his arm in desperation. “You’re visible!”

“What?” His hand dropped to the little leather bag and found its contents blasted to tiny bits. “Oh, bleeding fuck.”

They started into a stumbling jog, Spike wincing as each step jarred his injury. Careless of their surroundings, Buffy slammed into demons and soldiers alike as they made for the grate. When she reached the wall, Buffy grabbed the screen and gave it a strong tug. It fell away in her hands. She turned around to shove Spike into the hole just in time to see a soldier tackle the vampire and pin him to the ground.

Thanks to the chip, Spike was helpless against the man’s attack. He was trying his best to guard his head as the man’s fist connected again and again with the vampire’s body. Acting on instinct, Buffy caught the soldier’s arm as it descended in another punch and yanked him off of the struggling vampire. She almost fell over when she realized who it was.

Riley! Oh crap!

She mourned the relationship they could have had, but her fist only paused for a moment before connecting with his jaw. Her decision had been made when she teamed up with Spike on this mission. Riley dropped like a stone at her feet. Buffy grabbed Spike and shoved him into vent before following after him, dragging Riley’s unconscious form behind her. Ex or not, she wouldn’t leave him in the open to be killed. She pulled the grate up, closing them into the vent and hiding them from the battle outside.

In the semi-darkness, she could see Spike’s eyes glowing golden when she turned around. “Can you climb?” she asked.

“Yeah.” He sounded oddly choked, but Buffy couldn’t read his face in the dim lighting. “What about him?”

Buffy looked down at Riley. “I can’t carry him.” As close as the quarters were, crouched inside the vent, she couldn’t avoid Spike’s gaze for long. “I don’t know what to do,” she finally admitted.

An awkward hand patted her shoulder. “His buddies have things well in hand out there. He’ll be fine if we leave him for them to find.”

She covered Spike’s hand with her own and nodded in resignation.

Goodbye Riley.

“Okay, let’s go.”