Title: Specter
Author: mswyrr
Rating: PG-13
Summary: 140 words. Second in the Exit Points trilogy, a series of AU vignettes set during the first OAV. What if Hiko hadn't come upon the caravan at exactly the right moment?
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Hiko was glad he had found them before the insects did. He removed his cloak and buried the men with anonymous honors as quickly as possible. He had learnt to be efficient in the face of death.

He found the boy's body beneath the dead woman. She had been kneeling over him, clutching his gi. Hiko saw the dark place on her kimono where they had been stabbed through.

Her fingers were stiff; her arms were locked around the boy. He didn't care to break their bones to separate them, so he dug a deeper grave, and buried them together. He gave an offering of his best sake -- to the boy, for the man he might have been, and to the woman for ensuring that the last thing a child saw was the sleeve of her blue kimono.

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My sword is guided by the teachings of Hiten-Mitsurugi. Yet, many times, I cannot use it to save even one person's life. Not one living soul. It is enough that I bury the corpses I suppose.
-Seijuro Hiko