Ok, stay with me on this, I know it's weird. It will also be short. I just…. I don't know. I started listening to Mer de Noms by A Perfect Circle on repeat this week driving to work and it just ran me over with all sorts of really naughty bunnies.

I'm aware these are Japanese names used in the context of fourteenth century European social constructs. I'm aware it seems weird.

I'm also aware I'm not done with my GaaSaku Naruto fic (one chapter left on that and it's only, like, barely started). But this bunny wasn't to be denied. It also wants to go super inappropriate places so rating will probably go up next chapter.

Disclaimer: I don't own Rurouni Kenshin. Dammit.

"Father, I would speak with you…" As usual, her blue eyes were luminous in her fine-featured face, wide and trusting. Enishi wished he still had the ability to inwardly sneer at her façade of goodness, but—as it had become apparent over time—it was no façade.

He nodded at the women and tried not to drink in the eager way she picked up the hem of her dress from brushing the floor to follow him towards the private room in which the priests took confessions from parishioners. Kaoru could never still herself, being loathe to put aside for later what could be done right now. Her weekly confessions, at first tiresome, had moved into the realm of routine for both of them as spring had shifted to summer.

Enishi swept into the room regally, the sparse wood furnishings so familiar to him yet foreign when they shared this space. As soon as Kaoru entered the distances shrank, as if Enishi would never be far enough away to avoid the flash of her smile or that faint smell of rosemary that told him she had come straight from either her garden or the kitchen. Usually it was from the kitchen, and he hated that he knew that. Probably cooking for her brood of charity cases, as she would no doubt tell him about no matter how bored he looked or how little he responded. It was as if she took silence as in invitation to talk more.

"It is just as last week, Father, my temper got the better of me and I threw a ladle at Yahiko for sneaking food before and after meals. I saw the larder inventory, and it was as if a wave of wrath overtook me."

Kaoru's words spilled out as soon as the door was shut behind her. If she felt the intimacy of their situation as he did, Enishi had no clue. In some ways Lady Kamiya was an easy person to read, but as he got to know her he realized there were parts of her heart guarded even from him as a man of God.

Stifling the urge to scowl, because it was just like her to be angry at herself for being mad at a thief stealing from her kitchen, he allowed the guilt to flow from her in various stages of deserved while remaining stone faced.

"Sano forgot to collect rents on time again, as I asked him to, and instead I found him sleeping. I'm afraid I also threw the same ladle at him. He was less adept at dodging than Yahiko and I was forced to take him to Megumi to see to a minor head wound…"

The cast of characters was always the same, and her stories rather quaint if one had a rustic turn of mind. He had heard worse confessions from people in the small network of towns near the church, people who came to him looking for a quick fix so that they were right with God and could resume their sinning. Enishi understood their motivation being more like them than the woman in front of him who believed with every bit of herself that it was the people she loved she had wronged, not God. She came to Enishi for punishment, dutifully, and he metered out the prayers and fines. Enishi was good at giving out punishments.

He realized he had fallen silent, thinking of the evils of others, and Kaoru was looking at him as if she expected a response.

"Is that all?" To the point, he tried not to prolong their time together. He was going to suffer enough as the day stretched ahead. He knew dinner was chicken seasoned with rosemary and ending the day with Kaoru Kamiya on his mind led to only one conclusion.

Swallowing thickly, Kaoru shook her head, this time unable to meet his eyes. Shit. He knew what came next.

"When Sano did not return with the rents, I went to collect. I saw him again, Father, and it was just as it always is,"

He wanted to stop her, feeling his own body temperature rise and his muscles twitch. Equal parts covetous rage and lust, he exerted control on at least his countenance to appear placid. The heavy glasses perched on Enishi's nose would give him away by fogging up from the heat exuding from his body, so he hoped she would hurry.

"My body felt clumsy as soon as I saw him, and my tongue thick. He was tending the field with no shirt and, God help me, I imagined what it would be to touch him. A farmer on my land! How can I lust for him, when it's against all decency. I burned with such shame that I didn't even collect the money." She looked up at Enishi at last, tears of frustration shining. She hated this weakness of hers nearly as much as Enishi hated the unknown man. "Perhaps I need an exorcism?"

That almost made Enishi smile. If she needed an exorcism, then so did he, if only lust could be so easily removed. "What you feel is unnatural, but not atypical. The devil tests us, and so long as you keep resisting you will stay right with God." He knew it was the words she wanted to hear, even as he felt more a fraud in this moment than when his theology letters had been transcribed and sent to other monasteries for their brilliance. He was a heretic at heart, but he also knew the Church was his path to power.

"Your words should not soothe my heart, because it isn't deserved until I have conquered my lust, but I thank you. Will my penance be the same as last week?" Prayers at dawn, a small fee, attendance to the Saturday service which also required giving to the collection in addition to the normal Sunday service. It wasn't much compared to the tasks he had initially set her at her first confession.

Enishi nodded, unwilling to address any more words in her direction lest he express something he didn't mean to such as hinting at his growing, ah, feelings. He wanted to offer to come with her as she collected rents next month, but he feared he'd ruin himself by flying into a rage at this man she professed lust over. His muscles bulged under his robe, flexing at his thoughts of violence. Violence was so simple, and he wished life would go back to a state of simplicity.

"I can't thank you enough, Father. You're my rock. I feel like my life would fall to chaos without you now, even if I'll admit I wanted to throw a ladle at you as well a few months ago." She laughed, and touched his knee before standing and striding towards the door. Unaware of her effect on him, Kaoru didn't know she had just initiated fire in his body as it careened through him. Unable to stand, lest his loose robes betray his visceral reaction, Enishi waved her out impatiently.

She gave him an odd glance, as usually he walked her out of the church. "Please close the door, I find my head had taken to aching and I would lie down for a moment." His voice was rough, even to him.

"Oh!" He knew immediately he had chosen the wrong tactic as she rushed over and placed a cool hand on the feverish skin of his forehead. Pushing back some of his fine white hair, her alarm was clear. "Father, are you ill? Please allow me to fetch one of the other priests and—"

"That's not necessary." His words were harsh, cutting her off. More skin to skin contact was a going to make his night time thoughts of her worse by a magnitude. Grabbing her wrist, Enishi pulled her away firmly but as gently as he could manage.

Kaoru was mad, still thinking she had the right of it to fetch help, but the ingrained authority of the Church gave Enishi a little more weight than usual to the headstrong woman. "As you wish, Father."

He wondered, as he winced with the slamming of the door, if Kaoru would still say a prayer for him tonight. Once she had said he was in her nightly prayers, after their had settled their initial differences. She said it was her own penance for wishing him ill for so long. All Enishi could think of was how she thought of him before she slipped, naked, into her bed.

She was stomping her way into the falling down wreck of stone and wood that everyone else referred to slightly sarcastically as a "castle." Kaoru knew she was stomping because the leather soles of her shoes couldn't cushion the pain from the way she struck her heel to stone and straw. Misao appeared to have gone to the chickens to gather the eggs because she had a basket of them in hand as Kaoru rounded a corner. They nearly collided, which would have been disastrous for all involved but most particularly the eggs.

"I take it you saw Father Enishi this morning," Misao said with a smile, rebalancing and clutching the basket of eggs like a baby.

"He refuses to see sense," Kaoru mumbled. "He tells me he suffers from pain, and then when I showed concern he dismissed me rudely!"

Misao started moving toward the kitchens again, and Kaoru followed absently. "For how often you told me you thought he might be the devil himself, I don't see why you'd be in a temper over him now."

"I thought he and I had an, I don't know, understanding of sorts."

"For all he's a man of God, he can't be trusted," Misao said with the weary voice that shot concern through Kaoru as it always did. It had been more than a year since Misao had come to live with Kaoru, and still she was nervous around every man excepting Soujiro and occasionally Sano. Kaoru was concerned anew that should Aoshi visit his ward, he would find her in a state of panic at his very presence.

Kaoru tugged at Misao's long braid playfully as they walked. "Since we resolved our troubles he's been behaving properly towards me as a priest should to a lady." Then, with color suffusing her face she added something that she had only voiced in her head previously. "The hot and cold moods always surprise me. He looks like how I imagine an angel might."

"Maybe a fallen angel," Misao said with certainty. "Men of God aren't usually so… vicious looking. I saw him once at a distance and he's all hard edges and scowls."

Mostly agreeing, but still wanting to defend him, Kaoru replied, "Sano was also all hard edges and scowls when he arrived, and now even you have to admit that isn't all that defines him."

Unwilling to readily admit another male might not be the devil himself, Misao disappeared into the larder to find a cool place to store the eggs. Kaoru saw some bread and cheese left out and thought about scolding any number of the household members for leaving food to the flies, but instead she brushed off crumbs from the counter and absently ate a bit from both items. The pot containing the nutritious but unexciting porridge she had made early in the morning sat cold next to the smoldering remnants of a fire.

Father Enishi was a strange one. At times he seemed almost friendly, but for every thaw there was a cold snap right behind it. When he first arrived, haughty and commanding at the beginning of spring, Kaoru had thought perhaps it was nervousness that made him so prickly. Soon enough Kaoru found out it was the fact that he was certain of his own superiority to everyone else around him that caused the sense of separation. It galled her that he was essentially right—he was faster, stronger, smarter—and there wasn't any task he could be given that he didn't accomplish better than people who had been experts longer than he had been alive. Still, his inability to be basically friendly to the parishioners of the surrounding villages was a mystery.

At her first confession, which she had delivered with utmost trust in his ability as a man of God even if as a human being he lacked humility, he assigned her severe penance. Cold baths in a still freezing river to rid herself of her lustful imagining gave her a headache and made her sluggish and clumsy at her tasks for the rest of the day. When she came back to him the next week, having run his gauntlet and provided prayers and donations besides, he doubled the frequency of the river baths without batting an eye. Kaoru's screaming indignation had probably been heard a mile away, and for the first time in her life she considered stopping her church attendance.

Still she came back, confessed again the next week through gritted teeth. For her disrespect, Enishi assigned her duties cleaning the church that were insultingly below her station in addition to the hated cold baths. Realizing that it was up to her to change her own behavior, as Enishi couldn't be expected to understand when he actions only reinforced her harridan status, she did it all and more only to end up sick by the end of it all.

The fever, Megumi had told her, was a result of being too cold too often and overworking herself on little sleep. Yahiko had apparently stormed the church on her behalf, and whatever he said, Enishi himself had shown up at her bedside at some point. Too exhausted to remember much, Kaoru thought perhaps he had placed a cool hand on her forehead and murmured a prayer. Whatever fevered words she had responded with, as soon as she was recovered their relationship had shifted. Her penance became reasonable, and their visits almost friendly in her eyes even if he remained coolly polite.

Enishi, who looked like an angel with his shining white hair and eyes she couldn't decide were blue or green, probably had as much to learn about being human as an angel might. Kaoru knew a lot about the human condition, and clearly he needed her just as all her other friends did. Enishi would value their friendship eventually, but in the meantime…

"Thinking of Himura again?" Sano wandered in, munching on an apple. Misao seemed to have quietly cleared out, leaving Kaoru to her thoughts.

With a flash of anger, Kaoru jumped up from the wooden stool she had been leaning on. "No!" It wasn't worth mentioning Kenshin in any form outside of a confessional so she changed the subject. "And where were you this morning? I saw the cart has broken off its wheel again, and you promised me you had fixed it properly."

"I didn't quite have all the parts I needed," Sano mumbled, mostly to himself. "But don't worry, I'll do it better this time. It won't fall off mid trip to the market."

"At least it was on the way there, and not on the way home with goods this time." Kaoru grumbled.

Sano patted her on the head from his great height, and walked away laughing and chewing. Her scolds washed off of him like water from a duck, and she wondered if the wheel would even be fixed before the next market day they went for supplies. Maybe she would sic Yahiko on the lazy knight. Somehow, her adopted little brother was better at annoying Sano into action than Kaoru was.

Meanwhile, Yahiko himself was probably trying to find Tsubame, a merchant's daughter in the village. She should tell him not to spend so much time courting, but he was already thirteen and he could marry in a scant few years. Time was running through her fingers like so much sand, and she still thought of him as the ten year-old she had brought home when she caught him stealing from half the market stalls. The villagers had wanted to whip him, and her promised disciplining of him turned out to be a permanent home and all the food he could stuff down his gullet. Kaoru was no good at punishment.

Maybe Sano's lazy attitude was infectious, as she realized she was still sitting in the kitchen with a dazed expression. There was wool to spin, clothes to mend, embroidery and music to practice, or any number of things she could be drilling in to make herself a little more marriageable. Not that anyone was offering for her. Would she die alone in this castle, the last of the Kamiya line?

"A messenger!" Misao rushed in, puffing from what had no doubt been a frantic run through the whole of the manor searching for Kaoru. "I saw them approaching on horseback!" Kaoru would need to greet them, no doubt, as Misao wouldn't speak a word to any strange man and Sano couldn't be trusted to reliably be polite.

"I'll be out presently." Kaoru said, finding her aching feet were much improved from her wool gathering in the cool kitchen.

"Do you know much of Lord Shinomori?" Kaoru's words were innocent enough, but Enishi felt the weight of possibilities. She was out of breath from what he suspected had been a full out run back to the church midday. He had almost told her he was indisposed, but the idea of her relaying information through Raijuta, the normal priest who made his livelihood from this parish, or his young acolyte Yutaro, hadn't felt right. As always, his instincts were correct.

Yes, he knew of Aoshi Shinomori, a heretic who had publicly renounced his faith after fighting wars for his king that had brought stunning victories in battles that should have been doomed to failure. Being a distant blood relation to the crown and steadfastly loyal to his country saved his head from being separated from his neck, but he was no friend to the Church. As a fearsome fighter, Enishi wished to test himself against the man. It had been a while since anyone posed him much challenge, and he longed to have a sword in his hand and a worthy opponent.

"A bit." He settled on an answer to Kaoru. As per usual, her mind was on a different plane from his.

"He sent his ward, Misao, to me some time ago. There was some trouble with the people who had been entrusted with this task prior, and it became apparent she needed to be delivered to a safer location. My father fought next to Lord Shinomori when the lord was barely a man, but he remembered my father as being honorable and with enough means to support another person in his household." Kaoru always talked too much, providing context to situations Enishi didn't care about. His silence provided no discouragement to her tale. "But my father has returned to God these five years past, and now Aoshi will visit to check on his ward. He…doesn't know the truth of the situation as of yet."

Enishi smiled at that. What an ironic turn for the arrogant lord! Aoshi made a grave mistake trusting his ward to a man who abused her, and then extracted her and placed her in the household of a dead man. For a person who was used to being untouchable in battle and reportedly perfect in his stratagems, this would be a rude surprise.

"I will have a dinner to welcome Lord Shinomori and try to convince him of the suitability of my household. If he takes word of my situation as unfavorable to the crown, his cousin, my life could become precarious." A young marriageable noblewoman living 'alone' was fine so long as she was out of sight and mind, but Kaoru would be stripped of her property and given to a random lord as a wife should she bring the wrong kind of attention to herself, no doubt. Enishi felt violently opposed to such an outcome, but was uncomfortable with his own motivations for that feeling.

As usual, remaining neutral in expression was how he survived the ebb and flow within him.

Almost shy, she finally got to point. "I would appreciate your presence, and your confidence, at this dinner. Your words carry weight in this community, and beyond if I'm not mistaken."

He hadn't spoken much of his time in the monastery or of his goals in residing temporarily in this part of the country. So far as even the Church knew, he was preparing himself through service for his next big step in committing himself to Church leadership, not carefully seeking his sister's murderer for the purposes of outright bloody vengeance. Kaoru seemed to have gleaned he was more important in the Church than he let on, and her canniness spoke well of her even as it was unwelcome to his goals.

The silence after her invitation was bothering her, so he put her mind to rest. "I will attend your dinner. Though I don't know how much comfort Lord Shinomori would take from my presence."

"I doubt you could say anything worse than Sano will. He has thoughts about how Lord Shinomori should have taken better care of Misao, and he is a little too tactless when he gets in his cups." Kaoru gave him one of those melting smiles, the ones that felt like sunlight to his heart. "Having you there will be a great comfort to me. Your presence gives me strength."

Between the touch to his knee and that smile of hers that was attempting to choke confessions from his lips he knew it wouldn't be just this night he dreamed of Lady Kamiya. The sooner he found Kenshin Himura and killed him, the faster he could return to his life of relatively uncomplicated power and privilege at the monastery. A life free from desire. A life far away from Kaoru Kamiya.