Rippling Moon

Author: Asagi

Pairing: Benkei x Yoshitsune

Disclaimer: Benkei will crush me with those hands of him if I try to claim Yoshitsune

Warning: Male x Male relationship, characters death

A/N: I'm kinda writing oneshots lately because, you know, what happened to my series? It's not that I lack of responsibilities, it's just stuck. It drives me insane sometimes. If a story of the characters death offends you, then I'm sorry. But hey, why don't you read it first.

Makoto ni arigato gazaimasu to Darkened Dawn of Silence for beta-ing this story ^^.

Don't flame me, please. It won't get me anywhere. Critiques and advises are much more appreciated.

How many full moons have passed, since he last felt this kind of air? It was dark, quiet, yet it was soothing. The sound of drifting water gradually became louder in his ears. Yoshitsune opened his eyes slowly, and gasped lightly for the scenery he nearly forgot which was stretched out before him like an old painting displayed on a temple's wall.

"The bridge…" He talked to himself.

His jaw slightly opened in amazement. 'What is this?' He thought. He didn't remember anything to indicate that he was here. Since the final battle with Heike, he had never stepped his feet in this place again. Gojo Bridge had kept too many memories for him.

Yoshitsune lowered his face, reminiscing the night he and his loyal Benkei met on this bridge. If they didn't meet that time or if he let Benkei win the fight and take his swords, what would happen to him now? Maybe he would fight the Heishi all by himself. He would suffer all of the wounds by himself. However, that also means, Benkei didn't have to die by himself. He cringed in deep sorrow at the image he could never erase that might be the one that brought him to this place once again.

"Yoshitsune-dono," He gasped sharper. The Genji turned his head frantically to all spaces his eyes could to find there. He could find no one. Before he could slow down his breath, a sharp pain attacked his head and made his head spin with no control in the result. It blurred out his eyesight in what he could easily decipher like a thick mist on Mount Kurama when the rain poured hard and cold.

He heard the voice again, "Yoshitsune-dono, if something should ever happen to you, I promise I shall find you no matter where you are. Remember, I will always be by your side."

"Is that?" He muttered in a low tone as he finally found a grip on the bridge's edge to support his body.

Yoshitsune's eyes fluttered open, still not used to the view in front of him, when he saw someone appeared at the end of the bridge across from him. He shook his head to get a clearer view as that figure approached him and got closer until he recognized who it was.

"B-Benkei?"

The figure smiled, nodding his head as approval. He was in his last appearance when they separated, and walked to reach for another world.

"Wh-why are you here?"

"For you, my lord."

Is this just his imagination or is this for real? He felt like Benkei's voice sounded in distance while the monk is, in reality, standing right in front of him at the moment.

"For… me?"

Benkei nodded again, reaching out his hand to cup Yoshitsune's cheek. "Because you were calling out for me, so I came."

The young lord could only to feel the coldness of Benkei's palm as it crept up on his face. He slightly shivered before saying, "I… called you?"

"With that sad face of yours, and the way you called out my name in your dream. I hurried myself to find you, like I promised before I went."

"So, is this a dream?" He cupped back the hand. It was so terribly cold that he felt like he could freeze to the tip, but he held it. He loved the feeling of their skin touching one another. It gave him a strange calmness and the fact that he was not alone to confront everything in this world.

"If you remember what the inside of Shukenten was like, he provided this place for us to meet."

"Oh…" Yoshitsune snapped at realization he came to, "Does, does that mean, I bother your rest, Benkei?"

"No." The monk shook his head firmly. "I never took this as a burden to serve you whenever you need me."

Yoshitsune let go of of the hand from his cheek. He leaned to the bridge's edge, watching as the full moon never changed its shape and stay clear without any black clouds tainting it.

He spoke in a low voice, "But, that just means that I'm selfish, and that just because I always feel that I don't want to be apart from you. It's like; I can't do anything without you."

Benkei let out another smile from his face, standing closer to his desperate young lord. "And I thought that I have told you this." He cupped Yoshitsune's face by his both hands and brought their faces closer, making Yoshitsune slightly stand on his toes and shiver more by another coldness that crept up his face and down to his body sharper than before.

"Yoshitsune-dono, we surely will meet again in the Overworld. But not now. You will live for many more years. And I, when the time has come for you, will personally met you up in front of Sanzu no Gawa myself. That is my other promise to you."

Yoshitsune smiled, knowing Benkei is a man of his words and he could care less with any more coldness he would feel as he wrapped his arms around Benkei's waist, pressing their bodies together. The Genji spoke, "You promise you will wait for me."

"I will be waiting for you."

Yoshitsune nodded on the sturdy chest, feeling cold lips pressed on his hair and bigger arms wrapped his body, tight like they would never want to lose him again.

"I promise. So, Yoshitsune-dono, please live in happiness."

As the last word was spoken, Yoshitsune reluctantly closed his eyes, his head filled with many scenes of his early journey with everyone. Shukenten showed to him without his conscious, and then it went backwards to when he stepped his feet outside Mount Kurama for the first time until the time he pointed his sword towards Benkei on this bridge. The place where they first met and their first battle.

The first voice he heard came from Lady Shizuka who called to him anxiously. He opened his eyes and found the priestess staring at him in concern. He raised his body and leaned against the tree behind him. He lives peacefully in Northern Japan with Shizuka who eventually learned to be a Shirabyōshi after the battle with Heike ended.

"Yoshitsune-sama, I thought you're going to sleep forever. That's why I woke you up." She tried to jest, earning a light chuckle from the man.

Yoshitsune gazed into the boundless grassland surrounding them. He exhaled a relieved sigh, smiling. He turn his head to her, saying, "I dreamt I met with Benkei."

A mischievous smile formed on her face, and she laced her fingers on her knees. "Ooh, so I disturbed your beautiful dream in the last, Yoshitsune-sama."

"No, really. I already heard what I wanted to hear." He said with a playful smirk, standing up and walked to his horse that was tied to a nearby tree.

The young woman hummed in understanding hearing that. She giggled and followed Yoshitsune to his horse, "Hmm… And it would be?"

"You will know it later."

"Eeehh… Trying to keep a secret from me, aren't you?"

The smile still graced Yoshitsune's face, "Come. We have to go back before sunset." He offered his hand to help Shizuka get up on the horse and sat before him.

"I guess I have to wait until tonight. I will serve sake for you after dinner, and you have to tell me everything you experienced in your dream." She earned another chuckle from her best friend.

Yoshitsune rapped his feet on both sides of the horse to make it move. The horse trotted with a stable pace to their current residence outside the grassland, across the river. The scent of greenish grass below them floated into his nose. He enjoyed it, everything to the feel of lukewarm water that splashed onto his feet when his horse crossed the river. He would feel everything, and then he would tell it to Benkei once his time came.

Seasons changed from to one another for years. Another full moon has passed and even Yoshitsune lost count of them. Shizuka lied down on his lap,and blood drenched her body as she breathed for the last time. She died in his arms with an encouraging smile on her face. She protected him from the mysterious attackers that had suddenly rushed into their house during the night. The uncommon shaped blade she once left behind in the past, still gripped tightly in her hand.

"Benkei." He breathed lowly.

He didn't come, 'why?' He thought. Has his time come already? In this chaos? The attackers destroyed his residence to ruin while he locked himself with the dead Shizuka in the family altar room. They yelled at Yoshitsune to die. Traitors, maybe. Or avenger. Yoshitsune recalled that there were some people who didn't like him and some who still hold a grudge to him. A few in fact, had secretly assulted either him or Shizuka recently. A fresh wound from the day before could be seen below his neck. He held back his sobs quietly. He needed him.

Yoshitsune heard someone pounding the door harshly. It failed, as the door was too sturdy. He sighed in relief, only for a moment. He heard the sound of bows drawn out as the resulted flames caught him in the middle of the room. He pulled Shizuka's body closer to his chest as he took a dagger out of his kimono belt before they got to them.

He prayed, hoping to be someone there who would to be his assitant now. Yoshitsune opened his kimono crevice on the stomach and put the sharp edge of the dagger to disembowel himself. That was, at least, the last thing he could to do as a Genji folk while his pride as a samurai still clinging tightly to him.

"Ugh…!" The Genji tried his best to not to emit any pitiful sound out of his mouth. He gritted his teeth and felt a warm thick liquid flowing down his lips through his red-painted teeth. He gradually felt cold, permeating throughout his entire body. The same coldness he felt from Benkei's body in his dream years ago that he suddenly remembered.

As the fire ate the whole building fast with him and Shizuka inside, he saw someone abruptly came into the flaming room and grab his head with a sharp blade pointed on his neck. Yoshitsune felt a familiar cold hand slowly pulled his blood drenched body out of the flame, to a place he never saw.

"Yoshitsune-dono, I've been waiting for you."

He opened his eyes, the new scene keeping him in utter silence. He came to his senses again once a big hand was put on his shoulder.

"Benkei."

"You've come."

Yoshitsune turned his head in every angle his eyes could capture. 'What is this place?' He asked to himself. It was strangely misty. There was only one entrance; a temple-looking red gate separated the spot he was currently standing from a very wide indescribable river flow. There were clouds or mists veiling what Yoshitsune thought it was water. There was almost nothing here except the gate and the river itself.

"This is where I waited for you, and bring you to the next world that we belong to."

"Overworld? I'm, already dead, aren't I?" Yoshitsune asked in hesitation.

Benkei nodded, offering his hand to his expected lord. "Then, shall we?"

Before Yoshitsune reached out his hand and put it on Benkei's, the corner of his eye caught Lady Shizuka dancing a Shirabyōshi on a raft. There was Hogen too. He caught another raft not far from it; this one was ridden by someone he was certain that was his father, Minamoto No Yoshitomo and his mother, Tokiwa Gozen. Those rafts were drifted away to a place he didn't know. An Overworld for each person, he assumed.

"They…"

"We have our own place too, Yoshitsune-dono."

"Eh?"

The hand was still there, waiting for him to reach up. Once their hands were finally entwined with each other, their appearances changed in a blink of eye to when they first met, this time without any weapons or rigid armors clad onto their bodies. Benkei brought him stepping on the raft. It took no time when the raft drifted and the scenery gradually scattered to little pieces and fly like thousands light butterflies. They arrived at their final destination.

Yoshitsune narrowed his eyes; there is a bridge not far upfront. He turned his head to his loyal companion, earn a gentle smile as their raft finally stopped moving and drew up to a certain ground.

"It's… Gojo Bridge." Yoshitsune stated as they stepped out the raft and walked onto the bridge.

"This is where we belong to."

The now young looking Genji grasped the edge of the bridge, and it felt real. He took a full glance to every corner of this memorial place. It was night time, and a clear full moon graced in the cloudless sky.

"Benkei," He leaned the side of his head on Benkei's upper arm who was standing beside him. "You kept your promise."

"I always will, my lord."

Benkei turned his body, face to face with his beloved lord. He had been waiting for this day, when they could reunite in after death. He opened his arms only for him, give as many smiles dedicated for him. For Yoshitsune he lives, and now in death the reason is for him.

"I always treasured you in my heart."

Yoshitsune smiled contentedly upon the words. Only both of them existed here. They could spend their eternity for their lost time in living world. Yoshitsune planted a chaste kiss on Benkei's lower lip, as much as he could to reach the spot with him standing on his tiptoes. Benkei lowered his head to meet with the other's eyes, his steady arms wrapping around Yoshitsune's lithe body and his face craved down for another

The reflection of the rippling moon on the water beneath the bridge blurred the vision of them, and then veined by fallen sakura petals that the tree poured from beside the bridge. The scene was hidden in the water of their own Overworld.

For this… Is death so great a price to pay?

Sanzu no Gawa = River Styx

Shirabyōshi = A female dancer, dressed in male outfit and perform a traditional Japanese dance also called Shirabyōshi. (Much like Geisha, I think.) But they performed only for nobles and high ranking samurai. Shizuka Gozen was the most famous Shirabyōshi at Heian period.

The last sentence is come from a poem in Ise Monogatari (Tales of Ise). It was basically a collection of verse, by the nobleman and poet Ariwara no Narihira (823-880). The full phrase is:

Omou ni wa

Shinoburu koto zo

Makenikeru

Au ni shi kaeba

Samo araba are

Translated to:

In love with you

I have lost all sense of

Hiding from men's eyes.

If in exchange for meeting you,

Is death so great a price to pay?

In fact, I came with this story because of this (grin).