Portent

Blood.

Tears.

You.

I woke up with a start, and put a hand against my chest, panting heavily. A dream? Yet it felt so real. I feel the sweat on my forehead, the fear in my heart. It was too real to be a dream.

I shiver slightly and pull my blanket around me tightly. Outside, a hot breeze blows. It is the start of summer.

In my dreams, it is always the barren wasteland of winter. So often has this dream visited me that the chill in my mind has been carried on in reality.

Tonight is no exception. My peaceful sleep has been disturbed by this dream. The guilt that weighs heavily upon my soul, the guilt that gives me no rest.

Why? Why? Why? Why do things have to be this way? Why do my feelings have to be so complicated? Can't I just be with him without shame, without guilt? Why cannot it be so?

But my own conscience answers me. In the shadows, they lie; they creep and wait until the darkness falls. This darkness I cannot part with. I see them not, and neither does he, but it doesn't mean that they don't exist.

When I close my eyes, they invade my being, appearing to me in confusing signs. The snowflakes whirling in the air, burning my skin. The sickening smell of blood hanging everywhere, the blood that is pouring from my own body. The flash of swords. Red hair, purple eyes—and his blood. A scar on his face…the scar that is not there yet.

I see myself etched sharply against the snow. Caught between light and shadow I see myself, like no one has seen me before. That as purely as I am clean, I am as darkly stained.

The biting cold. The sound of steel. The slicing of flesh. In my skin, through my body. What is happening? Blood spilling. Purple eyes widening. The smell of blood—the unending smell of blood…

I am dying. The bitter cold takes me.

And then I return to reality.

I am afraid. I want to cry.

Then I see his face, sleeping peacefully, unbothered by dreams. Just looking at him makes me feel safe, warm and alive again.

Why do you love me, Kenshin? How can you love someone like me? I have sinned against you, against myself, against Kiyosato, against my family and against God. Yet why do you look at me so tenderly when your eyes meet mine? Why do you smile when you see me?

So long I have called you a criminal, a person who deserved to die, deserved to die above any other, for your ways. But who am I to talk now? I have sunk lower than you could ever have. I have followed you to the hell that I have condemned you into. I know now the suffering you have.

And now is it too late to try to get out? For the both of us?

Perhaps not. No, it is not too late. I have fooled you to lead you into death, but in the process I have found something true. I will try to tell you, while there is still time for me left in this world.

This dream is an early sign. A warning for me, but it is telling me something else as well. Beyond all hope of redeeming myself, I find that I can still do something.

I can still save you.

I can still save myself.

And if the only way is through the death that I have died so many times…

Then so be it.

~ Fin.