As he explained Enishi sat silently, absorbing it all like a sponge. He heard Aoshi take him back into the turbulent Meiji era and explain about their past lives and how they found out.

"But, why did Misao pass out? The seizures..." Enishi asked after a long time.

Aoshi closed his eyes in thought for a moment. "I'm not sure. I think maybe she fell too far in. Her mind was living so much in the Meiji that she forgot that she didn't belong there anymore. There must have been an accident or something. Because she was tied so strongly to the vision she was hurt here as well as there."

"How come you don't get visions like that?"

Aoshi shrugged. "I'm not the one meant to be receiving them. My own memories are enough. To have to absorb enough memories to bring back herself, and me, and you, and possibly this new red-haired man... I don't envy her the job." Aoshi looked at her and sighed.

He actually did want to take on Misao's burden. If it meant that Misao would be spared the pain of having parts of the past revealed, Aoshi would willingly submit himself to the memories. He shot a sideways glance at the boy across the table from him. 'With Enishi part of us now, maybe things won't be so hard on Misao,' Aoshi thought hopefully.

Enishi toyed with his empty glass. From what Aoshi had told him he understood very little about his past self. It had made sense that night he and Aoshi had fought, but he had lost it overnight while he slept.

'I know that we were once enemies, that Aoshi's sister NOW was my sister THEN, that the red-haired man is important to us all, and that I don't know enough,' Enishi summed up. He tipped the glass back and emptied the last of the vodka into his mouth and let the familier taste roll around his tongue.

"Where'd you learn to drink?" Aoshi asked, leaning back in his chair and regarding Enishi carefully.

Enishi set the glass down and pushed his glasses back up on his nose in his favorite habit. "Well, I learned from my father."

"Your father?"

"Yeah. He said that he ought to give me one good skill before I left for Japan. So he taught me to drink. My mother thought it was hilarious. She's not a big drinker and didn't really join in. She just sat and laughed as I got drunk, then sat next to me while I nursed the worst hangovers anybody's ever had to live through."

"Must be nice to have a mother like that," Aoshi said and Enishi thought he heard a faint longing behind the light tone.

There was another rustling from the bed. The two boys turned to look, but Misao was struggling to sit up.

"Misao, how do you feel?" Aoshi asked, rushing to her side. Enishi followed quickly and sat on the coffee table while Aoshi helped Misao into a sitting possition.

"...watch out for logs..." she muttered. The two boys exchanged worried glances. "They hurt like a bitch."

"Misao-san, where are you?" Enishi asked firmly. Aoshi pulled Misao's hands away from her head gently and began to examine her skull. Misao groaned.

"Odawara... it was on the bags..." she said. "Ouch! Aoshi-sama, that hurt!" she said as Aoshi touched a growing lump on her head.

"Sorry," he said, withdrawing his hands. "You said Odawara, right?"

Misao nodded, then looked like she regretted it. She moaned and slowly sank back down towards the pillows. "Yeah. The man with red hair and the scar made me come back here."

"'...red hair...?'" Enishi repeated slowly.

"Mm-hmm. To return the money."

"A scar? What's his name?" Aoshi asked. Enishi noticed that Aoshi's hands were in tight fists, clutching the fabric of the blankets.

"How should I know?" Misao asked pertly. "I've only just met him. Why don't you ask him?" She waved in the direction that the man had been in the vision. Aoshi and Enishi looked despite that fact that they knew they wouldn't be able to see.

A thought occurred to Enishi and he took a deep steeling breath before whipping his glasses off.

Just as he had thought, a man stood there. Though he appeared only like a silver-toned black and white picture, Enishi could tell his hair was light.

Aoshi watched Enishi stare at the space by Misao's head intently, and said to her warily, "I don't see him."