Author's Note: School is awful right now. I haven't been able to concentrate on writing this for weeks... SORRY again :-(

Hope, you still like it!

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Epilogue – Spring, 1579

Kagetora's POV

I saw him there – and felt the last remains of my ability to be verberated flicker to life.

The mass of my brother's army surrounds the fortress like an immeasurable, shallow crawler with thousands of heads. Heads bowing, heads erupting into warring cries, heads turning at each and every command of their leaders. That was when I recognized him.

For Kagekatsu to send him of all people to end this...

A blur of fruitless reasoning clouds my mind, even after all this time. The wind carries the smell of spring these days, of fresh grass and the forest breaking free from the grip of winter, reawakening to new life. It tells of dreams and new beginnings. Only for me, the scent of the forest will eternally hold a tang of nostalgia. Years have passed, and I haven't been getting any wiser.

Thinking back now to that particular spring eight years ago, I come to realize that it was the only time in my whole life when I ever did something – however rash and irresponsible a decision it may have been – because I wanted to. Not because of some sense of duty, of honour or a diffuse feeling of having to prove myself to those who should have stood by me unconditionally.

My father wanted an alliance with the Takeda and I went to Kai.

My brother wanted peace with Kenshin and I went to Echigo.

The Uesugi wanted to be sure of me and I married Seienin.

Kenshin wanted grandchildren and I became a father.

But all this is dust now, ashes.

It's oddly fitting that the only free decision I've ever made comes back to haunt me now.

"Do what you want sometimes," Kenshin once said to me. "It gives you the strength to do what you must the rest of the time."

I bet sleeping with one of our retainers was not what he had in mind, though.

I am not sure tasting freedom helped me coming to terms with what I had to do, either. If anything, my life became more complicated afterwards – due to both my emotions and outward circumstances.

Still, I loved my children, especially my eldest – the one murdered by his uncle's men. Maybe Naoe was among them, I'll never know…

I loved my wife, too. We had been friends long before we became a married couple. But I found myself unable to bring myself to sleep in her embrace. That privilege had only ever been given to one person.

Not that he knew about that or that knowing would have done him much good.

We hardly ever spoke to each other after those days in the woods, but still rumours and whispers floated through Echigo and eventually had to reach my ear.

He drank, I heard, to an extent that his father started to worry. And Seienin once told me he treated his wife "badly". That was the word she used. I sat in other people's councils and fought other people's wars and pretended that what I heard didn't have anything to do with me.

No one who knew me during the day could have guessed at the nights when I found myself lying awake in my room all by myself, nobody's arms wrapped around me but my own. It was then that a quiet and painful yearning surged through me which wasn't to leave me for many years. It hasn't completely left me now, either, in spite of all that happened and although I will never know and can never be sure whether he wasn't the one to slaughter my child…

Maybe that, too, is my fault. Maybe he wouldn't be here now, preparing the final attack on Samegao-jo, if it hadn't been for our forest nights…

No. I'm being unreasonable now. He was born a Nagao, after all. Like Kagekatsu.

There is an irony to this constellation that Naoe is probably not aware of. Or at least I can't imagine the subject actually arose between them.

Because even though what happened in the enchanted forest all those years ago had to stay a secret at all costs, I did tell somebody.

That somebody was Nagao Kiheiji who was to become Uesugi Kagekatsu and my step-brother later on.

Like Kenshin, Kiheiji was able to detect that something was wrong when I came back to Echigo. I guess, I seemed nervous.

In restrospect, I don't know what made me so jumpy. Even though I know first hand that I've been the object of speculation among our men more than once, it wasn't very likely that – even in a drunken fit – Naoe would have burst out Yes, I had him. Yes, he wanted it.

I was weary, too. Plagued by all kinds of regrets. I simply hadn't the strength to carry another secret with me. I wanted to tell someone.

Trust my brother to file this knowledge away and put it to good use later on.

And now he sent him after me.

I saw him there.

How he must hate me. If things were the other way around, I'd be most reluctant to participate in any war against him for fear of his vengeful spirit comeing to haunt me. But would that be so much different from now, I wonder.

In spite of having my back pressed against the wall, in spite of this being the last spring I'll ever witness, in spite of how everything that happened between us was doomed from the start, I am overcome by an eery feeling.

As if I hadn't seen anything yet.

As if the ending were open.

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Author's Note: Many thanks to all of you who've encouraged me to finish this by sending PMs and reviews!!

What do you think – should I write another one? Would you read it? ;-)

Also of interest to me: did I do right with the two last sentences? Is this the right tense? (not a native speaker...)