[A/N: Hello! Holy shit it's been a long time since i've uploaded a story! Sorry!
Disclaimer: I don't own RuroKen. If I did, Kaoru would be very, very dead. (So would Megumi, Misao and Tsubame)
It was pitiful. Absolutely, undeniably, pathetically pitiful. He, Aoshi, master of the Oniwaban, had let her die.
It was the simplest of mistakes, one that should not have been made. Bandits were cowards. It should have occurred to him- it did (too late) - that one of them might feign death to escape death. It was a long used method of survival. Lie on the ground covered in the blood of your comrades, slow your breath and hope to God that the enemy doesn't bother to check for survivors. He should have checked, he always checked but he had been-what? Arrogant? Over confident? Distracted? Why hadn't he checked for survivors before he turned away and told her to come.
She had fought so well, how could she have been so easily over powered.
He had always been protective of her, how could he have been so foolish.
She smiled, beamed at him as she always did, and ran, her eyes fixed on him as they always were, and she ran right past the bastard. He was lying on the ground face down, not so much as a twitch to give away his life. Then he just popped up like some fake monster in the booths at a festival. Except, he wasn't fake. The knife was old, rusted and blunt, chipped in so many places is could hardly be called a knife at all, just a chunk of worked metal on a stick. But it did its job; it went strait through her. No more than a second later he was dead, hips no longer connected to the spine. The slash was beautiful, deadly and filled with raw, unadulterated bloodlust. But the damage was done. He had ripped the knife from her back, tore the sash from around his waist and pressed it to the gapping hole rimmed with blood. She was gasping, gasping his name, begging him to help her. But he could only do so much.
Now here he was stumbling through the forest clutching her tightly to his chest trying to stop the bleeding and keep moving at the same time. Logically he knew it was hopeless. They had been on a hike, a full day by carriage from Kyoto. It was just so pointless. But he kept running anyway, holding her as best he could, trying to keep all that blood to stay in her body. He ran and ran and ran, until his lungs burned more fiercely than ever before, his legs screamed at him to stop. But he didn't he just kept going. Until finally he heard it, a tiny whisper from below his chin.
"Aoshi-sama...please... stop..." he stopped dead and collapsed, dropping to his knees heaving with effort. He looked down and his breath hitched painfully. She was so pale, so thin, and so weak, he could feel her trembling.
"Aoshi...sama..." she breathed again her eyes gazing at his face, gazing as she had never done before.
"Aoshi... I... want to tell you..." she whispered, though her body was dying, though she could hardly speak her eyes never left his panicked face. "Aoshi... I always... dreamed... of getting... married... one day... so far away... but... in the end... no matter how... many places... I picked... different gowns... the man... was always... you..." he wanted her to stop, to stop making his chest ache like this, but she didn't stop. She poured her heart out to him.
"I... know you... probably... think... I'm just a... stupid girl... a child... but...I... I really do... love you... so much..." her gaze started to cloud, her gasping breath slowed.
"No...stay..." he begged. But she just smiled, such a sweet smile, a smile that he had seen on the lips of Kaoru as she gazed at Kenshin, on the lips of Yumi as she gazed at Shishio, but never had he seen this smile on her lips as she gazed at him. Then the tears fell, and they fell fast and silently down his face onto hers. Her hand lifted and for a moment touched his cheek.
"So... do... do you lo-" her words were cut off and her hand fell and hit the ground. The thudding sound it made resonated in his mind. Her eyes closed and did not open. And still there on her lips was the sweet smile, the smile of a woman who was gazing at the man she would love all her life.
That smile killed him.
His breath came in short gasps, his eyes wide as tears fell unhindered onto the body of this woman, this precious, precious woman, whom he knew with every cell in his being he loved more than anyone he had ever loved before and would never love so much again. That smile was tearing him apart. He sat there clutching her precious body, tears falling endlessly, breath harsh. When night came, his tears finally dried his throat raw and throbbing from his ragged breath. He staggered to his feet; forcing stiff muscled to move, and started to walk, carrying her rigid body. All night, he walked through the forest, his mind and body numb, his chest aching, but he did not rest and, before dawn he reach Kyoto. With not even the slightest break of pace, he made his way to the Aoi-ya. He arrived just at dawn broke, and was greeted by his early rising comrades. At first they smiled and waved, and then they noticed the still form in his arms covered in blood and pale. They rushed forward, crying, yelling, and screaming at him for answers. He walked past them and set her body on the porch. He walked up the steps and turned the corner to his room. He could not stand to see her like that, he could not stand to see her so pale and lifeless that awful, wonderful, horrible, sweet smile on her lips.
His mind was in a daze. With out realizing it he toed the piece of wood that stopped the sliding door into place; he closed and flicked the latch down on the shutters. He set his sword up against the wall. Then he sat. He could do no more. His mind was too far gone. The ache in his chest, the black hole that had been there since she had fallen still could be ignored here in this place of nothingness in the back of his mind. He heard the door being pounded on, the shutters rattling. Then there was silence. And in that silence it hit him.
She was dead.
And he had let her die.
He fell forward his body trembling with tension his eyes and fists closed tight. He could see her in his mind, laughing, smiling, a brilliant shining woman he had wanted so desperately to hold but always restrained himself, not wanting to have so large and obvious a weakness. But it was a mistake. This was all a terrible mistake. And there was not one goddamn thing he could do about it. He descended in to a black misery so thick and deep he could not move. His body listed and he fell to his side body tenses with the effort of suppressing his grief, his agony, his helplessness.
Though skewed, his sense of time told him that days had passed by the time the door was kicked down. But Aoshi could not care; he lay on the floor ignoring all that happened around him as best he could. His mind faded out.
It was a month before he could leave his bed again.
The first thing he did was breaking his swords in half.
The second thing he did was eat.
The third thing he did was take a bath.
The fourth was eating again.
The fifth was meditating.
The sixth was seeing a doctor.
The seventh was again eating.
The eight was using the bathroom.
The tenth was bringing his sword pieces to Okina and tell him to dispose of them.
The one thing he never did was visit her grave.
And then not much really changed. He did not wield even practice wooden swords again, so he meditated more and looked after the accounts of his inn, occasionally talking with important or high ranking guests. To the guests he was not changed, to his comrades he was dead inside. And nothing brought him out. His light had died with her, and it would not restart.
It was pitiful. Absolutely, undeniably, pathetically pitiful. He, Aoshi, master of the Oniwaban, had let her die. And he would never forgive himself, never forget.