Kusanagi’s eyes followed the movement of Momiji’s hand and an enlightened look flashed across his face. So that’s what all this was about, he thought. He knew that Momiji was normally shy about exposing herself; but she was being overly reticent, even for her, and he hadn’t been able to understand it. Until now.

"Is this about your underwear, Momiji?" he asked, a note of levity threading his words as he stopped in front of her.

Oh, god.

Momiji’s startled eyes flew to his face and she gave him a searching look, "I – I – don’t know what you mean," she stammered through stiff lips.

Kusanagi quirked his brow at her and didn’t say anything for a minute, his eyes moving thoughtfully over her. "I know I just told you this, Princess, but I guess it bears repeating. You really are a terrible liar." Momiji automatically took the towel he held out in front of her as he added dryly, "and the few minutes that have elapsed between now and the last time I said it hasn’t changed that fact one bit."

Momiji miserably fingered the towel, pleating its folds, and was unable to stop the flow of protests that bubbled past her lips, even though she knew they were quite useless. "Really, Kusanagi, I –"

"There’s no use in pretending," he said a little louder than necessary, "I already know about the underwear, Momiji." There was a flash of mortification in her eyes as she looked away from him and his expression softened. This was not how he had wanted things to go at all, he thought remorsefully. "Who do you think wanted to make sure they were the only pair you had to wear?" he asked, his voice gentler now.

Momiji grimaced and closed her eyes for a moment, clutching the towel to her chest, a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach. She wondered if he had thought that making her wear them would be a fun prank – like freezing her underwear had been. If so, she didn’t find it funny. At all.

"How did you know?" She whispered haltingly.

There was a long silence into which her question fell and so she slowly opened her eyes, forcing herself to look at him. He was staring at her, his eyes dark and serious, and though she still didn’t know what he had hoped to accomplish with his actions, she at least now knew that he hadn’t meant it as a joke.

"Did you see? –" she abruptly broke off, flashing him a questioning look and then changed what she was saying to, "I didn’t think you had seen them then – that day that I – that you found out Kaede was still alive." Her voice sounded tight, and Momiji stopped for a moment to take a steadying breath.

There was a moment of silence as Kusanagi studied Momiji’s strained countenance.

"I didn’t," he replied intently, reaching out and drawing her closer to him, his eyes never leaving her face. "Not that day, I didn’t."

He stopped speaking and Momiji didn’t resist him when he turned her around by her shoulder so that she was staring blankly at the wall. Momiji felt the warmth of his fingers brush against her neck as he swept her hair over her left shoulder to get it out of the way. Then she felt him gently place the damp towel against her back, soaking her shirt to try and loosen it from her skin. She was vaguely aware of the water stinging against the claw marks, but the pain faded into the background when Kusanagi moved even closer.

"I didn’t see them then, but I had hoped to see them… now, Momiji."

The warmth of his breath fanned her skin, and his lips brushed softly against her nape as he spoke, making his words a potent caress. Momiji’s felt a shiver race up her spine and her throat went dry.

"Although," he sighed, pulling away from her and tilting his head to survey her back, "this isn’t exactly the situation I’d had in mind when I arranged for you to find them." Even though he wouldn’t be able to get a really good look until he cut her shirt away, he could tell that the plans he had made for the evening were pretty much shot. "What happened with Zan Kazai can’t be helped. – But you know Momiji," he couldn’t stop himself from pointing out a little peevishly, "it seems like every time you go haring off on your own, you get into trouble. I wish you would stop it though. It shaves ten years off my life each time you do it ."

""I thought I was doing the right thing, Kusanagi, I never would have gone if I had thought it was dangerous… - I’m sorry," Momiji replied contritely,

Momiji heard Kusanagi mutter something under his breath, and then he replied darkly, "You thought you were going to save Yaegashi from the Tengugaki – and you don’t think that’s dangerous? I think you need to readjust your definition of danger, Momiji, starting with just how safe you think it is to make me angry saying such an idiotic thing!"

Momiji cringed at the strident sound of his voice. "I really am sorry, Kusanagi. You’re right. It was stupid."

Momiji waited as Kusanagi struggled to get his temper in check. "I don’t want you to be sorry, Momiji," he managed to say in a reasonable way after a moment. "Just try waiting for me next time."

Momiji nodded her head and Kusanagi let it go, despite the fact that he knew it wasn’t likely to happen. His felt sure that his request would be forgotten by tomorrow. It probably wouldn’t even take that long for her to forget – she would most likely forget it by the end of the night – Hell, he thought in wry exasperation, he’d be lucky if she remembered it ten minutes from now. Her impulsiveness was too ingrained for her to heed any words of caution he might give her, even though she might say otherwise.

But now that she was safe, he didn’t want to keep his anger going over the issue.

She was safe.

That was what counted the most.

He would just have to try and be more vigilant on his part, since he knew that she wouldn’t be, and get used to the fact that he would probably be prematurely grey.

It wasn’t such a bad thing, really; grey hair was better than green any day. - As long as it didn’t start falling out. If that were to happen, he thought, his lips twisting sardonically, he would have to start thinking seriously about new uses for super glue.

Suppressing another sigh, Kusanagi took the towel from her back and schooled his thoughts together so could concentrate on the meticulous task of cutting away the loosened fabric of her shirt. After a few long minutes, it was done. He tucked the scissors back into his back pocket, and with barely a flick of his fingers, he sent the ruined fabric falling from her shoulders to the floor before unhooking her bra, being careful not to put unnecessary pressure against her skin.

Sliding the straps down the silky length of her arms, he was gripped by the strong impulse to let his fingers glide around her ribcage and cup her breasts. Gritting his teeth, he forced himself to pull his hands away from her and drop the flimsy white silk on top of her shirt, sternly lecturing himself about ignoring her body and keeping his mind on what he was doing.

Ignore!? A rebellious voice taunted. HA! Not even if hell froze over!

Ignoring her was tantamount to telling a swimmer to swim in the desert. If he wanted to help her, he had to look, the rebellious voice reasoned slyly. But Kusanagi did his best to suppress his mutinous thoughts, knowing that the kind of looking he needed to do and the kind of looking that he wanted to do were two separate things –- Not that looking was the hardest part of his problem anyway, he thought darkly. It was the touching part that was going to be hell.

Unaware of the turbulent nature of the emotions that battled their way across Kusanagi’s usually guarded countenance, Momiji was busy grappling with troublesome feelings of her own, all of which stemmed from the pressure of his fingers brushing lightly against her skin. He was barely touching her at all, and she definitely couldn’t call what he was doing a caress. And yet it affected her the same way as when he had spoken softly against her neck.

Momiji’s emotions were on the brink of spinning out of control, and she convulsively clutched the towel he’d given her even more tightly across her naked breasts, trying to slow the erratic gallop of her heart after his long fingers had slowly traced a path down her arms while removing her bra, one shoulder at a time.

The fact that he wasn’t touching her at all now should have helped, and yet her chest was still rising and falling in rapid, shallow breaths. She felt like such a fool, not being able to control her reaction to his nearness, and was extremely glad when he unconsciously took matters in to his owns hands and silently stepped away from her, giving her a chance to recover her equilibrium. Taking a deep breath and holding it for a minute, she watched him cross the room and pick up the first aid kit, every last one of her thoughts centered on him.

She’d been afraid that he would withdraw from her after last night. But so far it wasn’t happening. There was no sign of reservation in his face when he looked at her, no hesitancy in his hands when he touched her. What did it mean? She was used to seeing shadows in his eyes, as if there were things he’d wanted to keep hidden from her, used to sensing the conflict in his body, when he allowed contact between them. It had always seemed that when he touched her, there was an underlying unease, as if he didn’t want to let her get too close; like he wanted to keep a part of himself hidden from her, afraid to show her what was inside. Even last night it had seemed that way.

But not now. She puzzled over it. Could it possibly be that rather than driving him away, telling him she loved him had actually had the opposite effect? Or was this just one more step in the elaborate dance they seemed to weave around each other? As Kusanagi turned back in her direction, she was caught staring at him and instead of shuttering his gaze, as she would have expected, his lips curved into the hint of a smile, an intimate expression kindling within the depths of his eyes.

At that moment, Momiji realized that Kusanagi had lain to rest the demons that plagued him concerning her, and all the barriers he’d erected to keep her out were gone. She should have felt euphoric; elated; ecstatic – any number of adjectives that would be used to describe the happiness that such a turn of events would engender. But she didn’t. Instead, she was in the midst of a code red crisis; an all out panic attack that started at the roots of her hair and quickly traveled to the tips of her toes.

Oh, God, oh god, she silently babbled, what should she say? What should she do? Waiting for three years, she would have thought she would be better prepared for this, BUT NO! She had no clue as to how she should proceed. Should she try throwing herself at his feet, like she had last night? She mentally cringed at the suggestion. Being sober made that seem like a really bad idea. Who knew whether or not he would reciprocate? He hadn’t last night, and just because things seemed different now, didn’t mean he was ready to tell her that he loved her too – but wait – she stopped, arrested by a horrible thought, what if he didn’t love her. What if it was a purely physical thing for him?

Whoa!

She brought her thoughts to a screeching halt. It was hard enough trying to act natural while standing there with nothing but a towel to cover her breasts. And thinking that Kusanagi might lust after her was a disturbingly bad thought for two reasons – number one, she wanted him to love her like she loved him; and number two… no matter how mortifying it might be to acknowledge, if lust was all he was willing to offer, then she would take it, just so she could get closer to him.

That idea, coupled with the look on his face as he sauntered back over to her left her feeling extremely flustered, and she shifted, her towel slipping precariously low. Hurriedly she moved to fix it, missing the way Kusanagi’s eyes were magnetically drawn downwards, following the sloping valley of her breasts before she once again had the towel in a tight clench across her chest.

By the time she looked back up at him, Kusanagi had managed to yank his eyes away from her, and he continued mechanically past her, putting the first aid kit on the floor next to her heel, and once again taking up his position behind her.

Swallowing several times to try and dislodge her tongue from the roof of her mouth, Momiji tried to achieve a semblance of ease. But her efforts were impeded by a moment of utter stillness in which Kusanagi neither moved nor said anything. She strained her ears, but she couldn’t even hear him breathing. She assumed it was because he was assessing her back, but in her current, overwrought condition, she found the peacefulness too nerve-wracking to stand.

Without giving thought to what she might say, Momiji cleared her throat and blurted out, "So, how does it look?"

She experienced a moment of extreme gratitude, thankful that what had come rushing out of her mouth had been innocuous, if a bit predictable. She’d been extremely lucky that she hadn’t said something stupid, given the fact that she was beyond rational thought at that point.

Kusanagi didn’t answer her right away, and the oppressive silence began to settle in once more. Feeling anxious, Momiji turned to look over her shoulder, but she didn’t even manage to get a glimpse before she was facing forward again.

"Stand still so I can see," Kusanagi muttered pensively.

He wrapped his hands around her ears, the pads of his fingers pressing against her cheeks as he turned her head back around to the front.

Momiji protested, pushing at his fingers, and saying, "Kusanagi! I want to see!"

Her movements caused her hair to fall from her shoulder, down her back where it impeded Kusanagi’s view.

Momiji!" he objected in exasperation, "you need to stand still so I can see." He kept his fingers in place for a moment or two longer, adding, "It’s more important for me to see what I’m doing than for you to see what I’m doing."

After a few more mumbled protests, Momiji subsided into silence and Kusanagi gathered the strands of her hair back together, rubbing the silky texture between his fingers before depositing it back over her shoulder and out of his way.

"No more squirming Momiji – I mean it," he ordered firmly and then fell silent as his eyes slid over the red lines running down her back.

Good god, he thought his jaw tightening. If she had been even half a foot closer to Zan Kazai, he would have ripped through her back all the way to the bone. As it was, her skin had literally been flayed away in strips and in some places the groove marks from the wraith’s claws were especially deep. The only positive he could find in his assessment was the fact that she’d stopped bleeding.

"I’m going to start cleaning it now, Momiji. Let me know if I hurt you and I’ll stop," He told her.

Momiji nodded and very tentatively, he went to work, amazed that she could stand there so stoically as he washed away the blood and sterilized the wounds. After a tense half hour, he was finally finished, and he threw the bloodied gauze into the trash. All that remained now was to bandage it up and then he could begin on her thigh. He wondered if that, too, would be as bad as her back, and his eyes trailed downward along her spine, until they reached the focal point below the waistband of her pants.

He surveyed the torn fabric for several long seconds before his eyes left off their clinical observation and began to trace the shapely curve of her backside, creating a mental picture of what lay hidden from view. The image wavered and merged with another where she was lying naked beneath him, soft and yielding as he leisurely explored her body.

Dammit, he hissed silently, frustrated with himself as his body tightened, he should know better. But he couldn’t seem to help himself and his eyes stayed riveted right where they were, the fantasies of what the two of them could be doing if things had happened a little differently lingering with enticing stubbornness. After a long moment, Kusanagi forced the images away and focused on the reality of Momiji’s raw, abraded skin, pointedly telling himself that the only thing he could do with that incredibly provocative body of hers was patch it up. Everything else would just to have to wait.

So much for the proactive part of the plans he’d made this morning, he thought sourly. All that remained now was the hard part. He grimaced at the cruel irony of the word, shifting to relieve some of the discomfort in his groin and reminding himself it was past time to clear the air between them. Before he had a chance to begin, though, Momiji addressed him.

"How does it look, Kusanagi? You never did say," she prompted.

"It looks like it hurts," he told her, not elaborating since he was too preoccupied with trying to formulate the right way to begin what he wanted to say.

"Kusanagi!" she exclaimed, trying to turn around again, "a lot of things hurt, including paper cuts. What you just said doesn’t tell me anything!"

"Sure it does," he replied, "it tells you that if it were me, I would be complaining about how it feels instead of worrying about how it looks. Now stop moving around," he demanded, his hands holding her in place for the third time, "and let me finish."

He unwound the end of piece of clean gauze he’d retrieved from the first aid kit and placed it against her back. Carefully rolling it towards her side, he felt Momiji’s muscles stiffen beneath his hands.

"Does it hurt?" he asked in concern, leaning forwards to push her elbows out so he could reach around to the front and continue wrapping the gauze around her ribcage.

"No," Momiji breathed, and then added in a strained way, "well, maybe a little." She lifted the towel away from herself to make it easier for him to work the gauze around to the front.

"I’m trying to be as easy as I can," he said, his voice soft with regret.

"I know," she replied, her words coming out a little wobbly as the knuckles on Kusanagi’s right hand grazed the underside of her breast.

"Sorry," he apologized gruffly and she wondered just what exactly he was apologizing for.

After a moment’s reflection, she decided it was safer to assume that he was apologizing for her discomfort and not the accidental intimate contact.

"It’s not exactly your fault, is it?" she responded after taking a steadying breath.

Kusanagi hesitated before he answered, realizing that she had just given him the perfect opportunity to start the conversation he wanted to have with her.

"Yes it is, Momiji." His voice was solemn as he finished up with the gauze by taping it in place. "No matter what the reason, if my actions cause you pain, then I am the one to blame, aren’t I? Not just in this but other things as well."

Momiji blinked at his words.

"Other things?" she echoed, her eyes rising to meet his as he stepped around to face her.

"Yes." Looking at her pale face, he hesitated, wondering if now was such a good time after all. "Momiji, there are some things I really wanted to discuss with you, are you feeling up to it?"

"Yes," Momiji nodded slowly, twisting her fingers nervously together.

The same nervousness shimmered brightly in her green eyes, so he leaned down and placed a lingering, soft kiss against her lips before pulling back and saying, "Then just as soon as I am finished playing doctor, we’ll talk."

Momiji nodded again, biting her lower lip as he stepped away to begin the same procedure for her hip that he had used for her back. After soaking it and cutting away the fabric, he quickly assessed the damage. There was one deep puncture wound near her waist where it began to flesh out and join her thigh. Other than that one spot and a few hairline scratches, he was relieved to see, that it didn’t look half as bad as her back – of further note and by some strange quirk of fate, he thought ironically, Momiji’s underwear had managed to make it through the attack unscathed.

Would she consider that good luck, or bad? he wondered as he worked, efficiently patching up her thigh before going to her closet to retrieve her robe.

With a look of gratitude, Momiji took it from him, turning her back to him as she slipped it on, glad to have something bigger than a towel to cover herself with. Wrapping its warm folds securely around herself, she belted it and then turned back to face him, giving him a tremulous smile to let him know she was ready. He stepped forward, taking her by the elbow and led her over to the bed to sit down.

Bending his knee, he pulled his leg up on the bed and turned sideways, his eyes seeking hers as he took both of her hands, noting that her fingers had gotten icy. She was nervous, he realized – but then so was he.

"Between this morning and this afternoon, the heart of what I want to say to you hasn’t changed, but where exactly to begin has. I think, at this point, that after what happened in the lab, we should begin with the things that Sakura said."

As he spoke, Momiji’s expression had become more and more clouded and she interrupted him to say, "I’m sorry Kusanagi. I never meant for you to think that I believed you were Noa’s father –"

"That’s not exactly what I’m referring to, Momiji." He slid one of his hands free from hers, brushing at a stray lock of hair that rested against her temple before letting it drop to his knee as he added, "It has more to do with Sakura’s references to my past." He watched Momiji’s expression change to one of dread, and he felt a twinge of the same emotion grip his stomach. "I never even thought about how it might affect you until this afternoon, when I saw the look on your face as Sakura began hinting about girls in my past –" he paused when Momiji shifted restlessly.

She made a small noise of protest as uncomfortable color filled her cheeks. "It doesn’t matter!" she hastened to assure him.

Kusanagi gave her a measuring look, his eyes moving intently over the earnestness in her face. "I know you say that now," he remarked slowly, "and, I’m sure you mean it. But there’s a part of you, no matter how small it may be, that feels differently. Your expression from earlier today is evidence to that fact. That’s why I want to talk about it." He stopped for a moment his expression tightening as struggled to find the right words. There was no easy way to say it, so he settled for using the direct approach. "I’m not going to lie and tell you that I’ve never had sex, Momiji - "

Momiji looked away from him for a moment, struggling not to let what she had already guessed hurt now that she knew for certain.

Kusanagi closed his eyes and cringed at his own heavy-handedness. What was he trying to do? Bludgeon her to death with the truth? he asked himself harshly. Damn but he was bad at this, came the dark thought, but even so, he was determined to finish it.

"It’s been over three years," he grimly forged on. "- Right after I thought Kaede had been murdered. I – I felt lost… hurt… and I didn’t know how to deal with what I was feeling. All I knew was that I needed to find, something – but I didn’t know what it was I was looking for, or how to find it."

Kusanagi stopped, a little startled when Momiji’s eyes pivoted back to him and he felt her fingers tighten around his as if to offer him comfort or reassurance.

"I resorted to drinking for a while, but it wasn’t very effective since it took a lot to make me drunk, and in the mornings afterwards, I would wake up with a hangover, more depressed than ever. At the time though, it was the only way I knew of to escape – to try and cope, and I thought it was better than nothing, so I kept pushing my limit.

"And then, one night when I was in a bar in Tokyo, a woman came up to me and made it very clear what she wanted. Feeling that I had nothing to lose, I went with her." He stopped, feeling a little awkward, and cleared his throat. "It was then that I discovered that sex could close off the pain and confusion much more effectively than alcohol and, I’m ashamed to say, I took full advantage of the intense distraction it offered me to help block out the hole that Kaede’s death had left inside me.

"I don’t remember any one particular girl, or even their names. None of them meant anything to me, and there was never any emotion involved in it. If anything, it was the complete lack of emotion, coupled with physical release that kept the pain and confusion at bay and made me continue with it, uncaring of who I used, or who was using me." He paused, his eyes losing their focus as he looked inwards, and added in a distant voice, " It’s hard to remember exactly how long I went on like that; perhaps a few weeks, perhaps longer. I’m not sure. Those days bleed together into one sordid memory for me."

He stopped speaking and gave her a long, steady look. She returned it, her eyes soft and troubled and he realized when she spoke that her distress was solely for him.

Lowering her gaze, Momiji murmured, "I’m so sorry. You were hurting so much, and there was no one to reach out to you, to offer you the comfort you needed – "

Kusanagi stopped her, reaching out, his fingers catching her chin to pull her gaze back towards him before he let her go. "But there was someone," he told her, and she looked surprised. "Do you want to know?" She slowly nodded and he continued, "Even though I knew that Kaede was gone, I still returned to the places where I’d watched over her, out of habit, I think – The places I found myself haunting the most were her school, the lab, and Kunikida’s place. It was while I was there, outside his kitchen window that things began to change. That day stands out clearly in my mind, because it was the day that I learned that there was another Kushinada – a younger sister, who lived in Izumo."

"It was then that I began to pull myself out of the blackness that I had fallen into, and I decided to forge a new destiny for myself. I would go to Izumo, I decided, and I would put an end to the slavery that the Aragami had forced me into. By sacrificing this new Kushinada, I would be able to send the Aragami into eternal slumber." He paused and leaned forward then, both of his hands coming up to cup her cheeks as he drew closer and closer to her until their faces almost touched. His eyes burned intensely and his voice was just as intense as he whispered, "Never had I been so focused, so determined and so - damnably wrong.

"That day, Momiji, the day that I first met you - I may have shed my confusion and sorrow, but I was still bitter and angry, and very much alone. I took those emotions and I tried to use them against you, to offer your blood as vengeance for everything that I had lost, from the time that I was a child to the very minute I pulled you away from Orochi inside your school.

"But you showed me how wrong I was by giving me back something that I’d been missing – something that I never thought I would ever have."

"What was that?" she asked quietly.

"Acceptance," He told her. "Even though you were terrified of me, you tried to protect me, believing me worthy of being protected, offering that faith in the most selfless of gestures. You changed my life forever that day and it was an incredible gift you gave me - the peace and the comfort you gave me that day, I had never experienced before. I knew then, that although you were a Kushinada the same as your sister, you were different, and I have wanted to be near you ever since." He released her and slowly sat back, noting the slightly bemused expression on Momiji’s face. He remained silent, giving her time to reflect on his words, but as he recalled one of the many things that Sakura had said that afternoon, he felt impelled to add, "Oh, and Momiji, about my gloves," he reached up again, the warmth of his fingers resting against her neck. "- not once was I ever even tempted to take them off. But for you, I would do anything."

Momiji’s eyes rounded at that and light pink color brightened her cheeks. "Kusanagi," she whispered, her hand fluttering up to touch the one resting against her neck. "I – I – you didn’t have to - " she floundered around, and then stopped and simply said, "thank you for sharing your past with me."

"I wanted you to know," he simply replied. "And now that we have put the distant past behind us, I would like talk about last night. I know this morning you told me that you don’t remember much about what happened, but do you recall at all what you said to me?"

Momiji nodded. "Yes," she whispered, "I told you that l-"

Kusanagi stopped her, putting his fingers against her lips. "It’s my turn for confessions, tonight Momiji," he told her. "You know, when I left Tokyo, it was because I was afraid. I was of afraid of what I felt when I was with you, afraid I wouldn’t be able to fight my growing need to touch you, to be with you the way I wanted to. I have fought against those feelings for so long, but I don’t want to fight any more."

"Kusanagi," she whispered again, her voice choked with emotion and he gave her a tender smile.

"I have a first name, you know," he teased her lightly, "it’s Mamoru, in case you’ve forgotten."

"I know," she replied with a watery laugh. "Kaede calls you Mamoru – and I know your name means ‘guardian’ - but to me, you’ve always been more than that. You’ve always been," she paused, looking helplessly at him, unable to explain what she wanted to say. "To me you have always been… well… Kusanagi," she finished lamely.

Kusanagi chuckled, applying pressure against her neck, bringing her head to rest against his chest before he let his hand slide down to loosely cradle her back . "I really don’t care what you call me, Princess, as long as you share my name with me," he softly admitted.

It took a moment for his words to sink in, and then Momiji stiffened, straightening in his arms, the crown of her head smacking him in the chin. There was a loud Agh! but she hardly noticed the noise as she moved to sit back and look at him, her body quivering in shock.

"Wh – what did you say?" she stammered cocking her ear towards him, afraid she hadn’t heard him correctly the first time.

Kusanagi grimaced, rubbing at the spot where her head had made contact. After eyeing her for several seconds, he let his hand drop and his grimace faded, replaced by a heart stopping smile.

"I love you, Momiji," he told her, his eyes intent with sincerity. "Marry me. Tonight."

Momiji’s mouth fell open and her eyes dilated in surprise. She tried to scream YES! But she couldn’t seem to breathe, so nothing came out.

"Too soon?" Kusanagi’s smile became a crooked grin as he watched her struggled for a response. "Then how about tomorrow?"

"No! –" she blurted out breathlessly, and then rapidly changed it to a confusing, "yes!" and then another, "no!" and Kusanagi blinked, trying to decipher her answer. But then she launched herself at him, burying her head against his chest and hugged him tightly. "I love you, Kusanagi!"

He wrapped his arms around her, his face relaxing into satisfaction as he murmured, "I’m glad to hear it," adding in a teasingly casual way, "so-o-o, that means you’ll marry me then, right?"

Momiji didn’t bother pulling back to reply, but Kusanagi felt her nose bobbing up and down against his shirt in a vigorous nod. Then she squeezed herself even more tightly up against him and mumbled into his shirt, "Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! When, when, when?"

Kusanagi chuckled again and replied lightheartedly, "Well, tonight would be nice, or even tomorrow."

"No... really!? You’re teasing me, aren’t you?" she mumbled against him again, and despite sounding muffled he could hear the excitement and incredulity in her voice.

Kusanagi could feel a smile creeping across his face in light of her exuberance. He wanted to hold her tightly, loving everything about her, but he kept his arms loosely draped around her, ever mindful of the dubious condition of her back.

"No, I’m not teasing you, " he assured her and then sighed regretfully, "but as much as I’d like it to be tonight or even tomorrow, I doubt I can legally make it happen that fast. – But no matter what, I want it to be as soon as possible."

Images of the Tengugaki intruded into his thoughts, and he contemplated what lay ahead, the future more tenuous and uncertain than ever before. All he could count on was today. If Zan Kazai had been right, and Tamanasu was somehow able to return, stronger than before, Kusanagi wasn’t at all certain that he could beat him. Tamanasu was already faster than he was, and if he became even more powerful... Kusanagi squeezed his eyes closed, trying to block out the inevitable conclusion, his hand automatically seeking the soft feel of Momiji’s hair as a diversion. Time was a precious commodity right now, he whispered to himself, his fingers sifting through the silky chestnut strands. And so was Momiji.

Loosening his arms, he pulled back so he could see her face.

"I’m sorry for waiting for this long, Princess," he said with sincere regret, and then leaned down to kiss her.

Their lips met and Momiji thought her heart would explode just from sheer joy. But then, Kusanagi slowly pulled away from her and reluctantly stood up.

"I think I should let you get some rest now," he told her in a thick voice, and slowly headed for the door. "You’ve been through quite a lot today."