Warnings: Shoooooooooooooounen aaaaaaaaaaaaai. Not much sap in this one, though. Coffee. Coffee condiments fitted to literary stereotypes. (??!?! What???) Bad bandit language. Armpits. Five seishi who have not yet showered. Dirty dishes. Psychological musings. **nod**

Notes: Ahhhhhhhhhh, here you are, everybody. ^_^;; More Yas. Hehe. I finally took the hint and did more. Hope this is okay. ^_^ Have fun, everybody!

When I woke up, I had a vague memory of calling out in my sleep, crying out Sai’s name, begging him to help me; I had an even vaguer memory of Sai being there, whispering customary words of comfort into my ear for who knows how long. I wasn’t really sure if it had been a dream or not. I had awakened to a mouthful of Sai’s armpit, which could either imply that it had been real, or it had been just a natural progression of bodies in sleep…or…whatever; yeah, something like that. I had visions, too, of lustful yellow eyes staring at me…and I shuddered involuntarily. So maybe I had had a dream…it certainly wouldn’t be abnormal, after all, after my less than pleasant experience the previous evening.

Well, I thought, at least I’m not dreaming about Ashitare anymore.

Ah, my accursed optimism. Out of the frying pan and into the fire; so I’m not dreaming of dying, gruesomely and painfully! Instead, I’ve replaced it with a nightmare of someone with my boyfriend’s face trying to rape me!

And…and succeeding!

Groaning in displeasure, I stuffed my nose further into Sai…but then quickly realized that, as much as I loved him and everything about him, there was only so much body odor I could take. So, trying not to wake him, I extracted my nose from his…er… joint, and gently lifted his arm from around my waist. He made the most adorable little sleepy noise as I placed his hand under his chin, and I had to clench my teeth in a smile to keep from laughing and waking him up. A little dose of Sai is all anyone needs to keep their minds off their troubles, I thought as I hopped over the back of the couch.

The relative chill of the room in comparison to the warmth of my boyfriend-slash-surrogate bed was enough to make my arms break out in goosebumps, and I crossed them over my chest as I headed into the kitchen, my bare feet padding over the chilly tiles. As I grew more and more awake, the dream of Chuin/Sai-clone actually doing what he’d set out to do faded a bit, and I sighed in relief. Not that I really remembered much of it, anyway, but the basic idea…

The annoying voice was absolutely right; I had to do something. So I grabbed the first thing that came to mind, which happened to be the dirty dishes from the previous day, and started to wash. Miaka, it seemed, had left us a few gifts in that area, including an empty container of Cool Whip, an angelfood cake pan that had been full, a cylindrical piece of cardboard that had once held chocolate frosting, a plateful of chicken remnants, and a saucepan half full of rice.

It’s amazing how hard it is to get congealed rice off of a saucepan. It gets all hard and sticky, and ya just can’t get it off. Even with my added power and a Dobie sponge, I succeeded in rubbing a hole through the pan before the damn rice came off. It made the joint in my elbow hurt from scrubbing so long…and I got soap in my eye and congealed rice in my hair…but it made me stop thinking, so I didn’t mind so much.

I had finally given up and tossed the pan with the hole in it into the garbage can, when the doorbell rang, and I froze.

Now. Doorbells do not generally make the Top Ten List of Things That Make Your Heart Race. But all I could think about was the last time I’d opened the door, when it had been Chuin and I hadn’t known and everything got all messed up… So I just stood there, afraid to move although I kept telling myself I was dumb for being afraid, and that Chuin was with Chichiri and he couldn’t come back, no way…but my legs just wouldn’t work, having altered their physical composition to some gelatin-like substance, and whoever it was at the door had to wait and wait.

When I heard stirring in the next room and footsteps on the floor, heading in my direction, a wave of relief washed over me. Again saved from my own incompetence. Sai stuck his head in the kitchen with a sleepy, rather muddled look on his face and said, "…Ryuuen? Did the doorbell ring?"

I nodded. He turned to go open it, and I hurried to his side, because if anything creepy came through that door, there was no way I was gonna let it get Sai. I tugged on his arm to hold it, and he chuckled and wrapped it around my shoulders, instead.

"Good morning," he said softly, but his smile faded to a frown. "Are you all right?"

"I’m fine," I said with a somewhat shaky grin, and even though I could tell he knew something was up, he reached for the doorknob, and I tensed.

He dropped his hand and looked at me, his expression a slight bit sad, but understanding. "Ryuuen," he said, "it’s all right. It’s not going to happen again."

I flushed to my roots, embarrassed that he could read me so well, but somewhat relieved, too, I suppose. Faltering, I gave him a brief nod to show I believed him…but kept on my guard nonetheless. After giving me a few moments to collect myself, making sure I was relatively okay, Sai turned back to the door, slowly twisting the knob, slowly pulling it open to reveal…

"Ah…Ayuru," my boyfriend greeted our visitor, his voice betraying a touch of surprise. The police sergeant was standing there limply, as if unsure of what to do with himself; his long arms hung at his sides, his hair was stiff and disheveled, and his eyes were even redder than they’d been the previous day. When Sai opened the door, he blinked slowly, as if he hadn’t expected us to answer his ring at all.

The three of us stood there in silence for a long moment, my heart all the while doing the Virginia Reel between wanting to hate or forgive our visitor. He was one confusing guy. And the list of people he’d hurt ran on and on through my head…

"The young man with the red hair…is he all right?"

His deep voice was tired and gravelly, but surprisingly sincere…and my eyes widened involuntarily, peering up at him with wonder. He almost sounded like he cared…and the Wanting To Hate Him part of me was struck dumb, stupefied.

Sai cleared his throat and nodded. "He’s fine. Mitsukake…Myojuan…healed him. He’s all right."

Closing his eyes, Ayuru let out a slow breath. "I…I don’t know how it happened. All I know is that it wasn’t my intention to do such a thing. I would never…" With a shake of his head, he almost seemed to shudder.

"Please…come in," Sai said, stepping back so that Ayuru could get around him, and after only a moment of hesitation, he accepted the invitation, slipping through the door like a cow being led into a horse’s meadow.

About then, I figured that the only way to be fair to the guy would be to completely separate Nakago and Ayuru in my mind, make them into two separate people, past and present. If I disassociated Ayuru with the things that Nakago had done, maybe I wouldn’t be so confused as to how to feel about him. Maybe that’s what Sai was already doing. Then again, Sai was better with emotions than I was; he seemed to have a much more effective hold on them, and he was smarter, too, so maybe he didn’t even have trouble seeing Ayuru as Ayuru. Or maybe he was just a better person than I was, ready to forgive the guy that’d killed him in the past…

The sudden thought dawned on me that, just as I was more hostile toward Ayuru, Sai in turn was much more openly hateful toward Chuin. I…I didn’t hate Chuin. I hated what he’d done, but he couldn’t help it. But Sai…I think Sai really hated him.

I guess loving someone makes you irrational sometimes, but if anyone ever hurt Sai, I’d want to punch them in the face. And I guess…I guess Sai felt the same way.

It took me a while to realize that both Sai and Ayuru were now staring at me, and even longer to realize that Sai had been talking to me.

"Huhwha?" I said intelligently, blinking.

He smiled. "Would you please start some coffee? I think everyone might need some."

"Sure," I said with a nod, darting a glance over at Ayuru. Take a deep breath. Be polite. Ask him if he wants cream or sugar! Ask him if he wants a donut or something! I filled my chest with air, working up the guts to say something…when Ayuru beat me to the punch.

"I’d like to offer my apologies for frightening you yesterday, as well," he said, in a voice that had lost some of its edge. "Like I said…I never would have done something like that on purpose. I know what it can be like…seeing someone you care for hurt." Something crawled through his eyes, making his brow crease and shadows form on the tops of his cheeks.

With every word he said, I could feel my eyes grow wider and my jaw drop lower until I was sure my head was falling apart. Was the sadistic, megalomaniacal Shogun of Kutou, the man who had wanted to rule the world at any cost and become a god and turn people into cheese, actually apologizing to me???!!

Yes, said a calm but impatient voice inside me. Remember? Ayuru. Ayuru, not Nakago. He’s different. Different different different different different!!!

Well, I struggled to find some sort of appropriate response, but the fact that my jaw was nearly touching the ground made it hard for me to talk. Ayuru just gave me a hasty, uncertain little smile and shuffled further into the house, stopping when he saw the other two asleep in the den. A gentle hand found its way to my chin and slowly closed my mouth; I looked up into Sai’s amused golden eyes, the corners of his mouth twisted upward in a fond grin.

"You see?" he said, nearly whispering, hand still on my face. "You see how different he is?"

"A…Ayuru," I stammered. "Not…Nakago."

He nodded, his features softening even more. "Yes. Ayuru."

Swallowing, I glanced over at Ayuru, then back at Sai. "Do reincarnated evil shoguns who aren’t evil anymore and may or may not have memories of being evil and killing lots of people but are now very sorry when they hurt people like cream or sugar or both in their coffee?"

Bursting into quiet laughter, he shook his head. "Well, we know that handsome emperors of ancient Chinese lands who are gifted swordsmen and enjoy looking into mirrors enjoy a bit of cream, and that beautiful crossdressers who love emperors of ancient Chinese lands but don’t actually wind up with said emperors until a subsequent reincarnation don’t like coffee at all, unless it’s frozen with chocolate and whipped cream. So why don’t you work with that?"

I giggled. "I’ll just bring out the stuff on a tray."

"That would solve the problem," he agreed, running a hand through my hair and giving me a gentle push toward the kitchen door. "The coffee machine awaits. I’ll wake the others; somehow, despite his improved personality, I doubt they’d enjoy being awakened to the sight of Ayuru staring down at them."

~*~

It only took me about five minutes to make the coffee. I’d heard the sounds of soft conversation from the other room; nothing had exploded yet, which I took as a good sign, and Gen-chan hadn’t even raised his voice. But then, he could do well enough with grumbling, anyway. By the time I headed out with a tray of coffee and coffee condiments, and sodas for me and Gen-chan, they were already discussing The Book. Ayuru had a somewhat pained expression on his face, and the sudden, idiotic phrase "Nakago Needs A Hug" popped unwanted into my mind.

Ah, jeez.

"So you haven’t had any memories of the Universe of the Four Gods before last year?" Myojuan was saying.

Ayuru shook his head slowly. "I used to have nightmares…about an old man with a long, black beard and a cruel, laughing face. I think he was someone powerful, maybe a king. He would…laugh at me cruelly…and then I would put on strange, Asian-style armor and stand before the mirror, looking at myself…" He put a hand to his forehead, his eyes sliding shut. "But that was a long time ago. I was only seven or eight years old, and they stopped after about a year. I didn’t have any more dreams like that until last October."

"When you saw Genrou," I supplied, having been standing there with the tray for a good five minutes, not wanting to interrupt. "And me, and Doukun."

He raised his eyes to me, pressing his lips together in what might have been a smile. "Yes. Ever since that night…I’ve dreamed often of that king and the armor. A frightening, painted face that came out of the shadows…a burning city…a beautiful woman with a pale face, dying in my arms…" Sai, meanwhile, stood to help me with the tray, setting it down on the coffee table and offering cream and sugar to Ayuru, who politely refused both and accepted his beverage plain.

"It wasn’t until last night, after you all had…departed, that I started connecting myself to my dreams," Ayuru continued. "I…I saw myself killing people, and I remembered how it felt, how it smelled, how my armor used to rub against my chest and leave marks there. I remember how to use my powers, how many people I killed with it…I saw your faces, and I remember hating you."

"Yeah, shit," Genrou growled. "We were really fuckin despicable people, huh? Tryin to defend our fuckin country from motherfuckin Kutou invaders, yeah, we were really fuckin assholes."

"Tasuki," said Sai, "let him speak. It’s obvious, considering our conversation yesterday, how we felt about him. We are willing to overlook the past, and, judging by his presence here, he feels the same way."

"But you remember," Myojuan put in before Ayuru could speak. "You remember who you were; you know we aren’t insane."

We all looked at the yellow-haired policeman, who calmly placed his mug of coffee onto the table before nodding. "I’m not foolish enough not to trust my own memories," he said quietly, "as unflattering as they are."

Sai reached out and put his hand on Ayuru’s shoulder, making the bigger man look up quickly in surprise. "The past is the past," he said quietly. "We won’t judge you here. And I’m sorry to make this so abrupt, but we need your help." Ayuru blinked, looking as if he hadn’t expected such a sudden acceptance, and swept solid eyes over the rest of our faces. I did my best to give him a reassuring smile; Myojuan gave a small, firm nod, and Genrou just looked grimly bored.

Turning back to Sai, Ayuru took a breath. "All right," he said. "You said it was urgent. What’s happened? What must I do?"

Notes: Wellllllllllllll, there we are…another chapter. ^^;;;;; Hope you like, and if no, me sowwy.

Ayuru: What must I do?

Sai: You must take the ring to Mordor, and throw it into the fires of Mount Doom!!!

Ayuru: …

Ayuru: It wasn’t until last night, after you all had…departed, that I started connecting myself to my dreams…But it wasn’t a dream, it was a place! And you, and you, and you were there!! **points to Ryuuen, Sai, and Genrou**

Toto: Yip!

All: …

CHAPTER TITLE AKUGI:

So I said,
"How about
Coffee with Nakago?"

Okay, nevermind.

Dirandu: Moero Moero MOERO!!!!!!!!!!!!!