Disclaimer: I do not own Rurouni Kenshin

When Sakura Blossoms Fall

Chapter 1: The Love of a Manslayer

One awkwardly conspicuous figure dragged behind his fellow travelers as the ship's colossal hull was emptied of its plethora of passengers. He staggered weakly forward, his footsteps as unsure as those of an inexperienced toddler, his dull eyes fixed firmly on the ground as he struggled through each difficult, energy-sapping step. Was this truly the soil of Japan?

It was, wasn't it? After all this time, he was finally home. He suddenly felt an inexplicable desire to drop to his knees in exhaustion and just savor the reality of it all.

No, I have to keep walking . . . there's something here . . . someone . . . waiting . . .

At an unknown distance away lay a tired woman, snug within the wooden wall of her once lively dojo. Kaoru cracked her heavy eyelids open slowly, allowing just a thin slit of her sapphire eyes to be visible and exposed to the room's dim light. Slowly, and exerting more effort than such a simple motion should have required, she pushed her frail body into a sitting position for the first time in what felt like a lifetime. She laid one palm flat against the floor to prevent herself from falling dizzily back onto her futon. After a few moments in which she took a few deep breaths, assuring herself that she could go through with this, she moved both legs and forced herself to stand shakily. She stumbled sideways almost instantly, and grasped the wall to remain upright. She leaned heavily against the fusama, breathing raggedly and suddenly wondering if this was all complete foolishness.

She shook her head, and a fraction of the vivacity that had once lit her eyes returned for a moment. Why shouldn't she go to the docks? She wasn't going to lose faith in him yet.

Silently she slid the fusama open far enough to peek into the hallway. Once assured that no one that would attempt to hinder her was present, she pushed the door completely aside and tripped out of her room, still dressed in only her white yukata.

She had to go to him. If asked she wouldn't have been able to explain why, but it was as if some unseen power was drawing her away, toward the ocean where she had so diligently awaited her swordsman's return for so long, toward him.

She used all of her weight to heave the gate open when she reached the dojo's courtyard, then began to half-walk and half-stumble down the familiar route to the sea. The furiously determined woman ignored the racking pain throughout her body as every part of her but her memories protested to her current endeavor.

He was coming. He was coming! She couldn't give up waiting on him now; she had to believe that he would finally return at this moment, in her darkest hour. He was coming. She knew he was. He had to eventually, after all. Didn't he?

From the opposite direction on the same cherry blossom adorned road faltered an aging man in a similar condition, his skin discolored and blotched with an incurable disease, the man from the ship. His body was likewise dying, losing more color and warmth with every passing moment. His once brilliant red hair and vibrant violet eyes had faded in luster significantly with age, and his once muscular body was steadily deteriorating from the abuse and infection working to destroy it. But despite the odds piled up against him, despite the easiness of giving in to death, he continued determinedly along the nearly abandoned path, his soft hands clutching everything within reach, from the nearby wall to various trees, in a desperate effort to remain standing.

To one came tears, to the other lost memories as they finally caught sight of each other. In an urgent attempt to stay alive long enough to be reunited, they both broke into a run, though they were still comparatively slow, their feet weak and unsure.

The lingering torture both had experienced evaporated as they finally touched. Kenshin fell forward, his energy completely spent, burrowing his head into his wife.

"Kaoru," he murmured, her name rolling off of his finally loosed tongue as faded memories of their life together rushed to the front of his mind. He looked up into her eyes. "Kaoru . . . I'm home."

Kaoru smiled brightly, her eyes brimming with burning tears as she clutched him closely, unwilling to ever let go again. Despite their duller appearance, those eyes had been the only things she had wished to see for years now. Those beautiful, loving violet eyes . . .

"Welcome back . . . Shinta!" she choked out, falling to her knees and allowing her dammed up tears to leak out onto the two of them. Carefully she lowered both of them to the ground, laying Kenshin's fragile head in her lap. She noticed his small smile at being called by his name, his real name. A name fit for one as kind-hearted as he was.

They sat there peacefully in the middle of the road, reveling in each other's presence, the rest of the world speeding to a stop as the loving but painful reunion passed. Kaoru ran her white fingers carefully through Kenshin's dull red hair and across his deathly pale cheek, ignoring the pain this exertion had brought on her in the bittersweet joy of the moment. Her already present smile widened slightly as a cherry blossom floated downward to land near them, catching her attention, followed by several identical others.

"Cherry blossom," she murmured softly to herself, "I wonder how long they will bloom." She looked lovingly down at her resting husband, reflecting on their life together and the futures of their other loved ones.

"Kenji, Yahiko, Tsubame-chan, and Megumi, and Tae. We should all go see the cherry blossoms. And next year. And the year after that." Her smile broadened once again. "Maybe by that time Yahiko will become a father."

She made a closer examination of her husband as he failed to respond. "Shinta?" she asked carefully, her smile fading in concern. There was no response from the body lying beside her. Then she saw his eyes, closed in peaceful rest. Her smile returned. "You must be tired." She pulled her weak hand away from his pallid cheek in an effort to prevent him from waking, and her eyes widened in surprise before overflowing with more hot tears.

"Finally . . ." she murmured, her throat constricting and reducing her speech to sobbing whispers, "it finally disappeared." She touched the spot on his face carefully just to make sure it was real. Sure enough, the cursed cross-shaped scar that had marred his cheek and haunted his dreams had vanished, along with his guilt . . . and his life.

Kaoru let out a choked sob, not bothering to remove her hand from his face again. She wouldn't have to worry about waking him anymore. Her lower lip began to tremble as she recognized the fact that her husband's rising and falling chest had stopped in its steady motion. Kenshin wasn't breathing.

Shinta was dead.

Kaoru dropped her head as she realized that her swordsman had finally left her, permanently this time. But she could be thankful that it was finally over. A life of sin, torment, and guilt had finally been laid to rest, no more to suffer in this cruel and unforgiving world. Her lover was finally free.

Goodbye, Kenshin.

Elsewhere life continued, unaware and unconcerned with the passing of perhaps one of the most legendary figures that had ever lived. But for some, the quiet ignorance wouldn't last for long.

The sun was just beginning to dip below the western horizon as Yahiko quickly made a few purchases before heading back toward the Kamiya dojo. He glanced at the sky and smiled nostalgically, recalling days when a late dinner would have sent his intemperate sensei into a fuming rage, and she would have stormed wrathfully onto Tokyo in search of Kenshin. But those days had ended, and the handle of the tofu bucket had been passed to his hands, along with so many other chores the absent redhead had left behind. Yahiko glanced down at the worn wooden handle, running his thumb slowly across it. He sighed, his wide and powerful shoulders sagging as if born down by an unseen weight.

Where are you, Kenshin?

The swordsman shifted the bucket to his other hand as he turned a corner, forcing a cheerful expression onto his face as he neared the dojo. The circumstances were dire enough already. Kaoru and Kenji didn't need his sorrow to wear them down as well. But the insincere smile failed to linger.

He squinted as something caught his eye in the dying light. His strong footsteps came to a dead halt, and the bucket slipped from his fingers, its contents spilling down the front of his hakama and across the dirt path as the bucket rolled slowly to the side.

"Kaoru, no!"

Himura Kenji was standing in the training hall, observing the various names on the wall alongside two young comrades when his surrogate brother's anguished cry reached his ears. He glanced quickly at his companions, instructed them to remain where they were, and sprinted to the front of the dojo, slipping his feet into his zori without slowing. He thrust open the front gates just as the dark blur that was Yahiko streaked past him.

"Yahiko?"

His eyes followed the running man several yards down the road, then froze on what Yahiko had spotted, two distinct and familiar figures on the ground. His eyes widened, and his fists involuntarily clenched shut at his sides.

"Kaa-san!"

In seconds his inhuman speed had carried him to Yahiko's side. He skidded to a halt where the elder man was already kneeling, grasping a pale wrist in his hands.

Yahiko felt tears rush to his eyes as he carefully placed the limp arm across its owner's chest. The man was dead.

"Kenshin . . ." he murmured, his throat constricting. At the soft noise, Kaoru weakly lifted her head, facing her pupil with a bright smile.

"His journey is finally over," she whispered happily. She smiled one more time, then fell forward into Yahiko's arms, her energy spent.

"Kaoru—" the man whispered, a single tear slipping quickly down his tan cheek to land on Kenshin's lifeless face. He looked up at the couple's son, his eyes watering, but Kenji's cold blue eyes were fixed on the figure on the ground, a vein in his neck throbbing.

"Tou-san—" he muttered caustically, his eyes narrow in disgust and hatred. He drew his fingers into fists, purposefully this time, clenching them so hard that his nails dug painfully into his palms. Had his hands been softer, not calloused from the use of a sword, he would have drawn blood. He maliciously eyed his father's neck, picturing his rough hands around the thin and already breathless body part.

"Coward," he hissed. "You're lucky you died before I found you—"

"Kenji."

The young man shifted his burning glare from his father to Yahiko. The other swordsman's previous traces of tears had dissipated, replaced by a hard, reproving stare. Kenji caught the threat in his voice clearly enough, and turned his head away from the body in feigned indifference.

Yahiko glanced back at the couple before him, his heart heavy with grief. Carefully he lifted the unconscious Kaoru, handing her over to Kenji and lifting Kenshin himself. He wasn't about to hand over the swordsman to his bitter son, even though at this point he was beyond any harm Kenji could inflict upon him.

Kenji watched the lifeless corpse in Yahiko's arms swing limply back and forth as he followed him back to the dojo, a malignant hatred obvious in his eyes. He felt his dislike for the man burn even brighter within him, and he barely retained control of himself while watching the man to whom he owed his life. He had actually had the audacity to return, and then to just die, completely abandoning Kenji's mother with no more hope whatsoever. At least before she had held a reason to keep on living. But now his father had given up, and Kaoru was alone, with no motivation to stay alive.

Kenji pulled his eyes away from Kenshin and glanced at Kaoru, who was still unconscious in his arms. He stiffened in surprise upon laying eyes on her soft, pale face. She was . . . smiling?

Kenji felt himself slipping into a mental labyrinth. How could she be smiling in her sleep like that? She had just lost her husband, only moments after his long-awaited return, and was on her own deathbed. The expression on his mother's face, more and more uncommon as of late, was oddly haunting to him. Did she really still feel everything for him that she had when he first left, even after everything he had put her through? How could she still love him? How could she even forgive him? Kenji shook his head. It was absurd. It couldn't be a smile of joy. No, his mother had become so helpless and desperate, the expression could hardly be short of lunacy.

He walked silently after Yahiko into the walls of his home, ignoring the soft gasp of horror from the young girl with whom he had stood peacefully just minutes before.

"Kenji, I—"

A firm hand on her shoulder silenced her.

"Leave him be, Chizuru."

"But—"

The dark-haired boy beside her shook his head, and the girl sighed in quiet submission.

Kenji returned his mother to her room as Yahiko placed his father's body somewhere else, he didn't care where. He took a deep breath as he watched Kaoru, still appearing so peaceful and content. But smiling to herself wouldn't hide the truth, he thought, frowning. She was going to die as well.

Thanks for reading! I know many of you hate seeing Kenji portrayed as an arrogant brat, and believe me, that isn't my intention. I'm a full supporter of Kenji forgiving his father, but I just don't believe it would have occurred this soon in the story line. I also don't believe Kenji hated Kenshin just because he's an idiotic little adolescent (as so many assume), but because his love for his mother is so deep that he hates to see her suffer. Regardless, the fact is that Kenji hated his father. I believe the process of forgiveness would have taken a lot of experience and time.