Chizuru glanced up as a shadow fell across her as she moved through the steps of her sword practice, a smile tugging at her lips at the man now crouched on the edge of the low-lying roof, watching her with a smile that would have seemed like a smirk to anyone else. However, she could see the masked affection after all this time and knew that he must have been watching her for some time, colour seeping into her cheeks at that thought, even as she lowered her sword and stepped back, giving him room to drop down onto the ground beside her. "You're meant to use the gate," she murmured, half-scolding, although she knew that the words would fall on deaf ears as always even before he grinned, although it was nothing like the mocking expression he had worn around her once upon a time.

"But then you'd see me coming," Shiranui pointed out, closing the distance between them and she had to remind herself not to step back, instead welcoming him with a smile and an upturned face, meeting his kiss halfway. "Besides, someone has to keep your life exciting," he added when they parted, gesturing around at the tranquil garden and small house, devoid of life beyond a small kitten that he glimpsed skittering across the floor through the open door. It was a far cry from the chaotic compound where he had first met her all those years ago, and not for the first time he wondered how she could bear the silence, however, when he glanced down she was still smiling, although there was a hint of sadness in it as she followed his gaze.

"My life is exciting enough."

"If you say so," he replied, not pushing the issue and following as she led the way inside. "You're still practicing?" He asked instead when he watched her set her sword aside, the only link she had left to her clan and the man that had raised her, lovingly tended to over the years to preserve it and he knew just from watching her that the blade remained as sharp as ever.

"Most days," she smiled, gesturing for him to sit as she disappeared next door into the small kitchen, leaving the sliding door ajar so that he could hear her as she worked. "It is easier to get into bad habits without someone chasing me to practice, and with no threat hanging over my head." They both knew that wasn't strictly true, there were still some who would gladly hunt a full-blooded Oni, especially a female one and many who had heard rumours of the one who had once lived and fought with the Shinsengumi. Rumours that Shiranui had done his best to disperse, fearing that they would come when he was away, even if he knew better than anyone that she could fight, his fingers curling against his arm where he had felt the bite of her blade.

He had found her beneath the cherry blossom, doubled over and weeping almost silently. Her grief all the more striking, as the cherry blossoms had danced around her. He hadn't needed to ask to know what had happened, he could see it in scorched patch of ground in front of her and in Kazuma's still form… the latter gave him pause. There was no grief, but there was a sense of loss, another bit of their world gone for good and he had lowered his gun, knowing that their war was over. Amagiri would play no further part after this, and Shiranui had drunk his fill of this war.

However, whether it was a sense of duty to Kazuma or to Yukimura herself as a fellow Oni, he couldn't just leave her there, not with the sounds of battle closing in on their position. He knew that the soldiers wouldn't care that she was a woman, or that she had more valuable than they ever could, and he stepped forwards, attempting to make his voice gentler than normal.

"We need to leave now." She gave no sign of hearing him and he sighed, glancing towards Kazuma once more and cursing him for getting him involved in this before stepping forward and reaching for her. "I said…" His fingers had barely brushed her shoulder before she came to life.

"Let me go!" It hadn't been a scream like the first time they had met and when she swung to meet him, he realised that he wasn't facing a frightened little mouse anymore, but an Oni. There was a fire in her eyes, a wildness that wasn't touched by the grief in her expression and for a moment he had frozen, stunned and entranced by the sight of her. That and the fact that he had never expected her to lash out had slowed his reflexes, silver flashing through the air, drawing a line of fire across his arm before he managed to spring back out of reach.

There was nothing left to show for it, the wound long since healed without a mark, but there were times when he still felt it and he rubbed the spot ruefully. Maybe that had been the moment that he had started to see her as something more than passing entertainment, his interest before having been limited to the fact that she had caught and held Kazuma's focus. It hadn't mattered that she was an Oni, one of the last of them, because all he had been able to see was a mouse tamed by the humans around her.

He had been blind.

He knew that his eyes had been opened by Harada, by the strange feeling of kinship he had felt with the other man, the grief he had felt when that fleeting, human life had passed in front of his eyes. It was a loss that had remained with him, that had mellowed him. Perhaps that had been why he had felt compelled to help her flee that day, wanting to honour the man who had fought so hard to keep her safe from them, and wanting to understand this Oni who had always argued for the worth of the humans around her.

It might have started like that, but at some point, over the years it had shifted. Chizuru had refused to leave everything behind, insisting on fulfilling her duty even with Hijikata gone and even though his part in the war was over, Amagiri already gone, he had lingered to watch her. Eventually though the war had ended, the Shinsengumi and the legacy fading into the background and Chizuru had faded with it, moving from place to place with the times. Always living with humans, sharing her life with them, but always on the periphery and he knew that she feared letting herself care as deeply as she had with the Shinsengumi, even though she wasn't ready to let them go yet.

"You're thinking about the past," Chizuru's soft voice and the chinking of china pulled him back into the present, and he blinked, watching as she set the tray between them, before settling on the pillow opposite him, concern in her gaze as she studied him.

"I am," he admitted, catching the flicker in her eyes that always came when the issue of the past was brought up. It was a topic he was generally only too happy to avoid, preferring to focus on what they had now, this tentative relationship that at some point had become precious to him, but there were days like to day, when he looked at her and saw the wear and tear of the years that not even her Oni blood could combat when he couldn't stop his thoughts from straying.

"Don't ask," she murmured, a note of warning in her voice as she nudged his cup closer and he accepted it with a sigh, offering her a tight smile as he took a sip.

"I wasn't going to ask."

"You're getting better at that," Chizuru teased, her voice and expression softening.

"Sometimes." Rarely, if he was being honest. The more time he spent with her, the more he wanted her to go with him, to be at his side at all times and to leave behind this isolated existence with humans who didn't know what she was, who she was or what she had endured. However, he knew that she wasn't ready for that yet, that for reasons he never fully understood she wanted this life, this exile that she had given herself after the end of the war. And he was slowly coming to admit that she might never be ready for that, but as much as it pained him, he was learning to be patient. Amagiri would be shocked if he saw him now, but it had been years since their paths had crossed, the older Oni disappearing once their part in the bargain had been done, wanting nothing more to do with the wars of men.

"I know that you want to ask," Chizuru whispered, ignoring her own warning as she stared down into her own cup of tea. "I know what you want. But, I can't…not yet."

"You can't stay with them forever," Shiranui pointed out carefully, knowing that he was moving into delicate territory, but she was the one who had broached the subject which gave him courage to lay down his cup and reach out, resting his hand lightly on her knee as he reminded her gently. "It is the price of being human."

"I know," she whispered, glancing at the faded blue Haori hanging from the wall and the katana hung next to, pain and grief flickering across her face, dimmed by time, but still there and he ached to see the brief bitterness in her eyes. "I know how fleeting their existence can be." He winced, knowing that her words were all too true. She had lost too many people, friends, family…loved ones…and he closed his eyes, only to open them again a moment later when her hand settled on top of his and squeezed softly. "It is why I want to stay with them as long as I can, share as much of their lives as I can and why I can't come with you just yet."

"I know," he echoed her words with a wry smile, staring at where her hand rested on his. "It doesn't stop me from wishing though."

"One day," Chizuru murmured, fingers tightening around his as she lifted her head to meet his gaze. "One day I'll be ready." It was a promise, he could hear it in her words. A promise to him, that one day he would get his wish and a promise to herself, that she wouldn't let everything end like this. A promise to them both, that they had a future in this changing world, where Onis were a thing of the past, still hunted, but largely dismissed as a legend of a by gone era. "Can you wait for me?" She asked, a trace of her old uncertainty shining through for a moment, and he leant forward, using his free hand to draw her into a kiss, murmuring his own promise against her lips.

"Always,"

I'll always be waiting…