Enishi/Kaoru, sort of.

A/N: I have messed around with some of the timing and outline of events in canon during Kaoru's time on the island. This is a rewrite/repost of something I wrote almost five years ago. Now that I am better at writing, I wanted to try again. More copious notes at the bottom.

TW: There are a couple references to Kaoru's fear of sexual assault in this fic. Nothing like that occurs, or is even threatened by Enishi, but please beware of some of the character's concerns.

Kaoru doesn't understand Chinese, but when she catches Wu Heishin's hulking bodyguards making comments to each other while leering at her, she comprehends that Enishi may not have total control over his underlings.

The four identically-dressed men never cast a glance in her direction when Enishi is around. Then, their eyes remain riveted on him, pupils wild with fright - strange facial expressions on men who look as though they have nothing to fear from anyone. But a few days later, after when Enishi has left her alone again, she walks past the men practice fighting on the beach. They glare at her like resentful predators, caged by Enishi's command to stay away from her. She returns their stares, meeting their eyes one at a time, but she hurries back through the wooded pathway to the waystation house on the bluff.

One evening, Kaoru passes Wu in the hallway and accidentally brushes against the sleeve of his black overcoat; he spits out an angry stream of Shanghainese curses that he bites back abruptly when the door to Enishi's room creaks open. After that, Kaoru does not find him or his men on the second floor of the house.

Another day, Kaoru overhears Enishi and Wu talking in the downstairs study, their voices flowing in and out of accented Japanese and a musical Chinese dialect. Kaoru eavesdrops out of view beyond the door frame, and she makes out enough to determine that Wu is impatient for Enishi's revenge plot against Kenshin to wrap up. Wu wants to move forward with his own plans, and he doesn't want to wait much longer.

That night Kaoru lays on her mattress, thinking about what she has heard. It's obvious that Enishi frustrates Wu, and Kaoru's presence is grinding the two even further apart. The relationship between the two gangsters matters little to her, except that Enishi has promised to send her back to Tokyo eventually, whereas Wu likely finds that promise unnecessary and inconvenient to carry out.

She settles deeper into the folds of her threadbare bathrobe as she puzzles further. If Wu and the four underlings realize the extent of Enishi's injuries from his fight with Kenshin, they might choose to take the opportunity to get rid of him. And if Wu and his men take out Enishi, Kaoru's already problematic situation will grow even worse. Enishi tormented her and her friends in Tokyo, but here on the island, he provides the only protection from Wu and his henchmen.

The next morning, Kaoru passes Enishi stepping gingerly up the staircase. The bruises on his face have faded to an ugly yellow-brown, and the bandages on his arms are starting to fray. He stops on Kaoru's stair and gazes at her with dull eyes, but he does not speak to her. He continues ascending slowly until he reaches the landing, then walks across the hallway and opens the wide doors that lead to the balcony.

He's too weak, Kaoru frets. Wu might cease to regard him as a threat, might stop following his orders, might leave him to rot on the island and sell Kaoru to a Shanghai whorehouse. Without Enishi, she won't be able to get back to Tokyo, to her friends and to Kenshin.

I won't let that happen, she resolves to herself. She hurries downstairs to go into the kitchen.

Until now, Kaoru, and as far as she can tell, everyone else on the island has been eating hard biscuits brought in from the ship, but they taste like tatami, and they can't possibly have enough nutrition to help Enishi regain his strength. She starts a fire in the enamel wood stove to heat up its iron surface, the way she's seen Tae do at the Akabeko restaurant, then fills a big pot with water from the cistern in the corner. She dumps what she estimates to be the right amount of dry rice into the pot, and once the stove surface is hot enough, she plunks the pot on top. She digs through supplies in the cupboard and finds rubber-stoppered glass jars stuffed with picked vegetables and square tins filled with cheap fish.

The water bubbles over the side of the pot and flashes into steam when it hits the stovetop. Kaoru sticks a big wooden spoon in and tests the rice to find that it is, if not exactly fluffy, at least cooked through. She scoops the rice into a ceramic bowl and spoons some of the vegetables on top straight out of a jar, then slaps a slab of oily whitefish from a tin onto a little square plate. She arranges the items on a wooden tea tray and grabs a pair of chopsticks to complete the place setting. Tae wouldn't serve this meal at her establishment, but out here it should pass for dinner.

Kaoru adjusts her bathrobe and takes the tray upstairs to the double doors leading to the balcony. She presses down on the handle with her elbow and shoves open the door with her hip, then steps out.

"Enishi?" She calls. He is seated facing away from her; he does not acknowledge her. She hears the voices of Wu's men chattering down in the yard below.

She walks toward him and sets the tray on a table nearby. "I made you some dinner. If you're making a meal for one, it's just as easy to make it for two -"

Instead of responding, Enishi moans a low, feral cry of pain. His shoulders begin to tremble and he tears at his hair with clawed fingers. Kaoru rushes to him and places a hand on his bicep. "Enishi, are you alright?" She whispers quietly, trying to get a glimpse of his face.

At Kaoru's touch, Enishi lurches forward out of the chair. He falls to his hands and knees, coughing, crying out his sister's name between curses. He retches, interrupting his raving at unseen tormentors.

Wu's men stop talking, and Kaoru knows they are listening. Surely they will come and look into the cause of the commotion. If they see Enishi like this, still so weak from his injuries and lost in hallucinations, they may make decide that it is time for them to wrest the organization from their boss's grasp.

The porch door downstairs slams as the men enter the house. Kaoru knows she must protect Enishi to keep herself safe.

She drags Enishi's limp form off the balcony and into his bedroom, which opens onto the balcony through a separate set of doors. She drops him on the thick wool rug; his glassy eyes stare up at the wooden beams on the ceiling. As she hears thumping footsteps on the stairs, she runs to the door that leads to the interior hallway and slides the deadbolt into place, then slams shut the exterior double doors and flips the shutters closed. A moment later, there is an urgent bang on the door and a jiggle of the door knob.

Wu's voice comes through in muffled Chinese. Kaoru doesn't understand, but she can guess what he's asking. She glances back at Kenshin's brother-in-law.

Enishi is still in his semi-conscious state on the floor; he's not even in this world, much less capable of answering his second in command. Kaoru's heart leaps into her throat.

There is only one way for Kaoru to save herself, to keep Wu from breaking down the door to find out the extent of Enishi's injuries. She swallows and exhales, willing herself to lower the register of her voice. "Enishi and I are - occupied -"

She hopes her breathlessness comes across as playful rather than terrified.

For a long time - too long - she can hear nothing from the other side of the door. Finally, she hears Wu say quietly, "Kamiya," in explanation to his men. She hears several agitated voices at once, growling in Chinese, and she hopes this means that they believe that she and Enishi are - in the room - she can't even finish the thought.

Enishi groans again. There is another smattering of Chinese voices and a low guffaw from the other side of the door. Evidently the solid wood barrier masks the difference between sounds of pain and pleasure. Wu speaks again, this time in rough Japanese. "Excuse my interruption. Should you need me, I'll be in the parlor. My men will be outside." The men lumber down the stairs. The front door squeaks and slams shut.

Kaoru clutches at the collar of her bathrobe as she gasps in air. Her anxiety subsides, leaving vertigo in its wake. Afternoon sunlight streams in through the slats in the wooden shutters, creating zig zags across her vision. She leans against the wall to steady herself; it isn't enough, and she sinks to the floor.

After a few calming breaths, Kaoru dares to look across the dark room to where Enishi lies. He has rolled onto his side and is now struggling to rise. His jacket has tangled up around his shoulders and in his dazed state, he can't seem to work his way out of it. She crawls toward him and adjusts the fabric so that his body no longer pins him to the floor. He sits up, clutching his head. She expects him to ask what she is doing with his usual rude tone, but when she looks into his glazed eyes, she realizes that he is still halfway in his imaginary world.

Kaoru looks over to the low, carved wooden frame with a wide futon covered by dark embroidered linens. The bed is easily the most expensive piece of furniture Kaoru has ever seen. Enishi should really be recuperating on it instead of flopped here on the floor. She hooks his elbow over her shoulder and puts her arm around his waist. "Come on, Enishi, just a few steps," she encourages.

Enishi staggers to his feet, shifting most of his weight on Kaoru. Her knees nearly buckle, but she is strong and holds him up until she makes it to the edge of the futon. She tries to ease him onto the bed, but he collapses, bringing her down with him. She finds herself trapped face down against the linens, with Enishi pinning her in place.

For one terrifying moment, she fears that Enishi has orchestrated this trap, and that he will now do all the things to her that she feared Wu's men would try, but then she feels him shiver over her. He takes a sharp breath and sobs, a cry that seizes his entire body. His fingers dig into Kaoru's shoulder as he wails the name of his sister again.

Kaoru's thoughts shoot down to Wu, who is undoubtedly listening for suspicious noises. If Enishi keeps this up, the four bodyguards will fly up to beat down the door.

Kaoru yanks an arm out from Enishi's crazed embrace and flips on to her back. She pulls herself forward enough to where Enishi is grasping her waist, sobbing into her lap.

"Enishi, hush, let's stay quiet," Kaoru coaxes as she leans down, her breath puffing against his ear. She strokes a hand through his silky silvery hair in what she hopes is a comforting gesture - she has never been good at this soft, motherly stuff - and listens for steps on the stairs. She sighs in relief that she doesn't hear any.

Eventually, Enishi's sobs subside and his breathing evens out. He snuggles his head into Kaoru's lap and wraps his arm over her legs. Not knowing what else to do, she leans back into the pillows and pets his head cautiously, as if caressing a sleeping tiger. He seems to have descended into a deep sleep, but every time she shifts away to get up, he grips her hip hard and whimpers. Resigned to her position, she gently lifts the glasses from Enishi's face and folds them up, placing them on the lacquered bedside table. She's a little stiff from sitting like this, but even if Enishi would let her move, it's not as if she can leave the room for a few hours anyway - her deception of Wu depends on her staying put for several more hours. At least her improvised plan seems to be keeping her and Enishi safe, for now.

Fearful exhaustion washes over her, and she finds that she cannot keep her eyes open for one moment longer. She leans back against the soft cushions and falls fast asleep.

When she awakens, it is late at night. Weak lines of moonlight breach the shutters, allowing her to see the outlines of the furniture in the room, but not much more. The only sounds she hears are the crashing of the waves against the beach and Enishi's quiet, even breathing.

She has sunk deep into the cushions on the bed, and her neck feels stiff and crooked. Her left foot tingles painfully as a result of Enishi's head squishing her legs. The immediate threat from Wu having passed, her wretched fear is replaced with anger over Enishi's crazy episode putting them both in harm's way. Anger feels good; it feels righteous and pure, and helps block out all thoughts of how she has never been this intimately close to any man before, much less Kenshin's self-declared arch enemy.

She tries to shove Enishi off of her without success. On her second attempt, Enishi's head pops up reflexively. His fingers dig into her hip and he shakes his head, fighting off his interrupted dreams.

"Hey," Kaoru whispers. "Move."

Kaoru can't see much more than the silhouette of Enishi's head and his heavy lidded eyes, still cloudy with sleep and possibly his other imaginary world. He smacks his lips and swallows drily. He can probably still taste the vomit on his his lips, Kaoru realizes with disgust. Without acknowledging Kaoru's command, Enishi sighs heavily and pulls Kaoru down the bed and toward him.

Kaoru's stomach drops and she is terrified that this time he really will do something awful to her, but then he settles against her shoulder, snuggles his head under her chin, and tucks his arm over her waist. Kaoru freezes. Enishi's position reminds her of a small child cuddling against his mother after suffering from a nightmare. This would be adorable if it were little Ayame or Suzume, but it's just uncomfortable with this homicidal gangster.

Enishi's breathing soon returns to the calm, even inhales and exhales that indicate sleep. Kaoru taps his shoulder experimentally but he's obviously out cold again. The feeling in her foot is returning with painful pinpricks, and she rotates her ankle to speed the process. Being trapped in the arms of a delusional maniac is far from ideal, but at least she doesn't have to pee. She closes her eyes again and drifts off into a fitful sleep.

When Kaoru opens her eyes again, it is morning; bright equatorial sunlight illuminates the room. The shutters have been pulled open, and the bed linens have been tucked over her body. For a moment, she thinks she is alone, but then her eyes land on Enishi, who is perched on the edge of a chair in the corner of the room. She jumps, startled, then wills herself to relax her muscles. If he had wanted to hurt her, he would have done so by now.

Enishi has changed out of his bathrobe and now wears a sleeveless blue shirt and silky orange pants. He leans his bare elbows on his knees, his chin resting on one hand, his sheathed watou laying threateningly across his thighs. He glares at her over the top of his glasses.

"You - you fainted," Kaoru explains, as though she is the one who needs to justify her presence in his bed, with all the doors in the room locked from the inside. "I dragged you in here so you could rest."

"Why did you not leave me on the balcony?" He asks in accented Japanese. His newly clear eyes bore into hers, and she wonders why she ever had the impression that he could not take care of himself.

"I was afraid of what Wu and those other guys might do to you - to us - if they saw you looking weak -"

"Your fears are unfounded," Enishi interrupts. He rises abruptly, breaking their eye contact, and swings his sword over one shoulder. Without another word, he stalks to the hallway door and unlocks it, then slams it shut behind him.

Kaoru's mouth hangs open as she listens to his heavy footsteps going down the stairs. Now what? she thinks.

She runs a hand through her messy hair, then reties her ponytail, trying to clear her head, and adjusts her bathrobe, wishing for the millionth time that Enishi would give her some actual useable clothes.

Her stomach gurgles, protesting the fact that she skipped dinner the previous night. She can't possibly face what is shaping up to be an even weirder day than yesterday without a full belly. She stands, shoves her feet into her bedraggled house slippers, and peers out the door to make sure that no one is lurking in the hallway, then carefully exits Enishi's room. The door to her own room remains shut; she blushes in spite of herself. What would Tae or Megumi say about her spending the night in Enishi's arms? What would Kenshin - ?

Tears well up in her eyes, and she swallows hard. She resolves to put all thoughts of Kenshin and her friends out of her mind for now; she won't be able to come up with a plan if she starts crying every few minutes. Squaring her shoulders, she walks down the staircase and heads for the kitchen.

Once there, she tosses some canned sardines over the rice leftover from the previous day. The food won't make much of a breakfast, but it will fill her stomach, and throwing it together gives her an activity to keep her brain from straying to thoughts of Enishi's delusion-induced embrace, which would have felt almost tender if he weren't such a freak. Standing at the counter, she takes a few bites from her bowl and grimaces at the taste, then puts together a second bowl for Enishi.

The kitchen door that leads out to the yard screeches open. Enishi saunters into the kitchen. His face and the front of his clothes are spattered in fresh blood. He stinks like a slaughterhouse, or a battlefield clinic.

Kaoru gasps and drops her chopsticks; they clatter to the floor, forgotten.

Enishi leans his sheathed sword against the wall. "Wu and his remaining men now understand the consequences if they attempt to harm you."

Kaoru nods, her eyes bulging in horror. She swallows the bile rising in her throat and tries to discern whether any of the copious quantity of blood on Enishi is his own.

Enishi insouciantly picks up his bowl and chopsticks from the counter. He tracks red footprints across the hardwood floor into the dining room. Numbly and without any lingering appetite, Kaoru follows him.

He sits at the head of the table, chewing his food with only a mildly displeased expression on his face. A little blood drips from his hair into his bowl; he shovels the contaminated rice into his mouth without even seeming to notice.

"Are you hurt?" Kaoru asks quietly, careful to keep the revulsion out of her voice. She sits in the seat on his left side, knowing even as she does so that the strategy is all but useless - Enishi's weak side is still many times more dangerous than her dominant side.

Enishi grunts without looking up at her. "Most of this blood is from Wu's men," he states matter-of-factly. Kaoru tries not to retch at the thought. "But I may have opened up an old wound on my back." The blood seeping through his jacket confirms his stated suspicion.

He pushes his half-finished meal to the middle of the table and stands up, walking out of the room without pushing his chair in. Red droplets from his clothes stain the seat cushion.

In spite of her disgust, a small part of Kaoru resents the fact that she will be responsible for mopping up all the bloody footprints that Enishi is leaving all over the kitchen and dining room. She follows the crimson trail upstairs and sees that it leads into the bathroom next to Enishi's room. The door is open. She starts to turn around to go back downstairs, hoping that he doesn't notice or care about her presence.

"Come in here," calls Enishi from the door. His voice echoes around in the tiled space. Kaoru gulps and does what he says.

Enishi has removed his sleeveless shirt and is trying to staunch the bleeding from the gash on his back with a towel, but the injuries from his fight with Kenshin prevent him from reaching it properly. He flails his arm and the towel back and forth, and fresh blood pours from the cut, dripping on the porcelain sink and spattering the framed mirror. More blood is smeared along the white tiles and against the claw footed bathtub. It would be funny if it weren't so gory. Enishi huffs and stops, then gazes at her expectantly.

"Um," Kaoru grunts, guessing at whatever insane idea must be running through Enishi's head. "Let me help you with that." She takes the towel from him, and he sits down on the lid of the toilet so that Kaoru can hold it up to his cut. Distantly, Kaoru wonders how Enishi can be so nonchalant about bleeding all over the modern marvels of this room. For her part, although she will be relieved when Kenshin rescues her from this island prison, she will be a little sorry to return to hand pumped water and woodfire-heated baths.

The cut stops actively bleeding. Kaoru drops the stained towel to the floor without regard for the mess. She grabs some cotton cloths off a shelf and wets them in the sink, then wipes the drying blood from Enishi's arms and hands. She removes his spectacles and polishes the lenses, then folds them and places them on the carved wooden vanity. Finally, she draws a bath. She catches Enishi observing her with an expression that seems almost curious.

"You can take it from here," she mutters and throws him a clean towel, then marches out and slams the door shut behind her. She lets out a heavy sigh. If she'd known that throwing her lot in with Enishi meant that she would have to treat the extremely dangerous man like a child, she might have chosen to take her chances with Wu and his henchmen. Or the sharks in the bay.

Later that day, she learns to her surprise that Enishi didn't kill any of Wu's men; he simply removed the arm of one. The other three also appear roughed up. While peeking out from behind the curtain of one of the windows on the second story, she sees them sulking together in the shadow of the supply shed down near the path to the shore, glaring daggers up toward the house. She is relieved that Enishi refrained from slaughtering yet another person, but she is not so naive as to think that Wu and his men will not find a way to retaliate if they have the opportunity.

As the shadows grow long and the sun sets, Enishi starts stomping around the house in agitation. He repeatedly stalks past Kaoru's self-claimed nook in the parlor, his evening robe flapping around his legs. Kaoru ignores him for a while; she is attempting to distract herself by looking at the linotype prints of tall modern buildings in a European book after having spent the afternoon mopping up the blood in the kitchen and bathroom. After his fifth pass of the room, she worries that he is descending into another bout of madness, but then she catches him glowering at her from the doorway. It takes all of her willpower to keep from shouting at him, "What is your problem?!"

Instead, she shuts the book and sets it down on a side table, then stands up and folds her arms across her chest and waits for Enishi to indicate what he wants. He glances at her once more, evidently appeased, and steps out of the room. Kaoru rolls her eyes and follows him upstairs once again.

He reaches the top step and turns around to make sure that she is still behind him. Curious yet exasperated, Kaoru raises her eyebrows slightly in an invitation to get him to explain. She does not succeed.

Enishi whips his head around as he walks across the landing and over to his room. He stands in front of the door, looking expectantly at Kaoru.

Kaoru's eyes narrow suspiciously, but she doesn't dare refuse him. With trepidation, she steps into the room.

Enishi sits down on his futon and pulls the covers back. Kaoru looks at him, and her fear must be written in her eyes, because he looks away from her and growls, low and quiet, "Just what you did last night. Nothing more."

Kaoru swears that she hears an undercurrent of shame flowing through his voice. She sits down at the edge of the bed, eyeing him suspiciously.

He does not look at her at first; instead, he kicks off his slippers and removes his spectacles. He flops backward into the cushions and actually pats the spot next to him.

Kaoru furrows her brows but scoots over, and the next thing she knows, his head is in her lap and his arm is slung around her waist again. When she fails to stroke his head, he glares up at her. She sighs and runs her fingers soothingly through his hair.

He closes his eyes and exhales as though the tight knots of tension inside of him are unraveling all at once. In spite of herself, Kaoru can't help but feel pity for Enishi, whose pain over losing his sister has twisted him into this vicious, troubled, yet vulnerable man. He is so alone that even this simple contact is somehow comforting to him.

Soon, he is breathing evenly, and Kaoru knows he has fallen asleep. She follows shortly thereafter.

When she wakes up the next morning, Enishi has again tucked her into bed, but today he has begun training outside - she knows because she hears thwacks that can only be caused by a sharp sword hitting trees. She rubs her eyes and stretches, wondering what this development means for her escape prospects.

The routine continues for a week. Enishi barely acknowledges her during the day, other than to make the occasional snide comment about her cooking; she talks to him very little, but finds herself staying nearby in case Wu tries to approach.

The transport ship arrives and leaves shortly thereafter, bringing with it word that Enishi's subordinate with the cannon attached to his arm is tearing up Tokyo. Kaoru listens to Wu and Enishi discussing the news in the study, hoping to hear mention of her friends, but Enishi catches her eavesdropping and slams the door in her face.

Kaoru wonders if the news will change Enishi's strange ritual with her, but the only difference that night is that he seems to cling to her more desperately. The shift is slight, but unsettling.

When she wakes up alone in his bed the next morning, there is a fabric package on the bedside table. It is a new blue kimono, tailored to her exact measurements. Kaoru gulps and wonders just what this portends.

A/N: I wrote a version of this fic early in my fanfic writing attempts. I took it down a while back, and now that I'm a more experienced writer I decided to polish it up and post it again.

A/N 2: Enishi is weird and inappropriate and creepy here, but there won't be any assault in this fic, I promise. I guess this story is my attempt to see if I can break some of the "captive/captor" tropes to which E/K lends itself. This story is not intended to reflect healthy romantic interactions between Kaoru and Enishi, but there are some twisted semi-romance-type feelings in there, somewhere. I hope you enjoy!