She felt the warmth of the body lying next to her. She stayed still, her breaths cautious, her lips slightly parted. For minutes she couldn't remember anything, her memory came in flashes, bursts of color and faces. She remembered a spider with violet eyes, a beautiful woman in a kimono and an old man with weathered skin. She remembered a grey river, a barge and floating lanterns. The memories faded there, ebbing with the motion of the form leaning against her.

She smelled dust, sweat, human scents. She blinked and felt a little afraid; something was missing. Someone…she heard his voice, a murmur of a name wash over her.

"Ai."

My name.

Then, he was there, lifting himself up on one arm, peering into her face. Ai sensed curiosity from him, surprise. Dark hair, green eyes,familiar almost to her fragmented memory; his name…the name she liked speaking the most. The name belonging to a person she had thought of constantly -

"Ren."

His shadow fell over her. Ai had noticed the room around them, plain walls, a dull grime-encrusted window, a slant of sunlight spilling across the worn baseboards. Unconsciously, she shifted closer to him. "What…what has happened…?" Already her furthest memories were fading.

"Forget the past," Ren whispered; he had carried her there in the darkness of the human world. The time that passed for night, they had been left there beside the banks of a canal. Ren had been concerned for her reaction upon awakening. The calm rationality of the Hell girl was no more. Ai Enma was no more.

"Ren," her small voice plaintive with fright rose up, her hand snaked to the front of his shirt, grasping a handful, through the cloth, she felt the pulse of life. Astonished, Ai could no more speak than move when he smiled down at her. "We've made a deal with the Devil and one day…," one day there'll be Hell to pay. Hone, if she had heard his thoughts, would've smacked him for a terrible pun, as it was, he could only grin at the girl.

"We're…," Ai's hand dropped to her own chest, fingertips brushing the crinkled black cloth of the seifuku. Unbidden, thoughts arose in her. Shyly, her eyes lifted to his face, a slight flush arising with his wolfish grin.

"Yes." Slightly breathless, he watched, waiting for her to come to a decision. The lips, a soft pink, pouted as Ai considered the world she had been returned to. Those lips…he almost pulled away from her with a groan. His reaction to her had been wholly male, stronger now in a body with real blood that flowed southward. A real torture now as he observed the innocence in her face.

"Where will we go?"

"Anywhere we want. But, let's go together." No more Hell Correspondence, no more Hone Onna or Wanyuudo or grandma to censure them. Nothing, he thought bemused, except myself to deal with. He didn't want her to think he was a pervert, after all there was a time when she had played with his straw doll form not long ago…, Ren snapped back to reality. Ai retracted her hand startled by the sudden intensity of his gaze. He had felt her fingertips touch his cheek, the slightest gesture of tenderness she dared.

"As long as it's with you." The slightest of smiles touched her lips. "Anywhere."

-TBC

AN: Finished! xD I decided to end on this happier note. Thanks for reading! Plus it was finished on my birthday! xD

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