'All these memories,' Misao thought. 'It's hard to keep them all straight now that I know what happened to me before and what's happening now.'

A knock on the main door of the apartment roused Misao from her depressing reveree. "Jiya! Can you grab the door?" There was no response. "Jiya?" The person at the door knocked again and Misao remembered that her grandfather had gone to the local shrine for the afternoon. 'Dammit…' "Coming!"

The young woman rolled off her bed, threw her door open and leapt over the couch in the living room towards the genkan where she skidded to a stop on the slick wood floor before collecting herself and throwing open the door.

"Sorry about that," she mumbled, looking from the center of the person's cheast to their chin to their eyes. "A- A- Aoshi?" she stammered. Her jaw suddenly stopped working.

"May I come in?" he asked politely.

"Oh, sure, of course." Misao stepped to one side and held the door open and Aoshi entered. He bent down to take off his shoes and Misao had a sudden impulse to grab him and hold on tight and not let go. The sudden appearance, or reappearance, of Yukishiro Enishi, though she didn't know precisely who or what he was, frightened Misao. She needed comfort.

She remembered the first time she had seen Enishi very vaguely. A man's short cry as he slumped to the ground; a tall man with white hair saying harsh words; then everything began to get fuzzy and she couldn't remember well at all… She did remember well the feeling of fright, almost terror, she got at the sight of that man. The urge to run across the hot sand towards the sweaty, bloody figure of her beloved Aoshi-sama was almost unbearable. But something held her back.

"Misao," Aoshi said in a soft voice. Misao looked up at him and lost herself completely. With a small cry she jumped at him, wrapped her arms around his neck and hid her face against his shoulder.

"Misao!" he repeated, his voice part shocked, part amused and part pleased. "What is it?"

"I don't know why," she mumbled against the soft fabric of his shirt, "but I'm scared of Yukishiro Enishi."

Aoshi wrapped his arms around her and carried her over to the couch where he say down and cradled the nervous girl. "While I wouldn’t say I'm scared of him, I certainly do feel a certain degree of apprehension at the prospect of meeting this man."