Two Lives Lost Forever to the Sands of Time.
Things Will Never be the Same Again

Crumpled, he curled up next to the body knowing it would never again awaken to the light of day. Hot tears streamed from his dark eyes in thick streams, their salty pathways staining his fine cheeks. Harsh sobs wracked his shocked body as shivers ran through him. Clouded by the haze of his sudden loss, his hands clutched blindly at the silent form stretched into darkness, unceremoniously dumped in a heap of death to lie in the shadowed grass. Her face remained red from the cold, her hands stayed warm against the waning bodily functions of the sole-less dojo master's figure. Why? Why did she have to die? And for nothing!

Yahiko focused his pain, compressing his thoughts around the terrible feelings welling up in his heart. Why had he killed her?

Love. Most irrational of the human emotions, is the only source of true hope and happiness in this world, why, then, had she paid for it with her life?

His mind wandered back, reliving the moment with equally painful fear, equally horrifying shock, equally sudden sorrow.

Flash back the sword awkwardly pierced her abdomen, jolting with a hand, unsteady as that of a beginning student of the sword. But for Kenshin? What did it mean? Huffing still from the run to Kanryu's mansion, fog drifted up from Yahiko's panting mouth, mystifying the scenery, inspiring an even eerier feeling. Eye's alert, he had gazed through the fog and welling tears which filled his eyes. He remained silent. Standing still at the surrounding gate, he had stood, unnoticed by the kind rurouni. Anger had been bubbling, about to boil over and burst into physical retaliation, when a new wave of awareness whipped his worried mind. The golden flecked eyes of the rurouni just seconds before had disappeared, leaving, in their stead, two beautifully large red eyes, open in horrified shock. Growing wider as the effect of his irrational action he had believed necessary before hit him; Kenshin's eyes flickered longingly over the beautiful woman's well-toned body and glazed over with a thin new layer of moisture. Yahiko had seen something leave those handsome eyes in that moment. A shimmer graced the saddening eyes of the rurouni as tears, larger than Yahiko had ever seen, piled up in the corners of those self-hating eyes. They blurred all vision, seeming, within seconds, to be falling down his face for the great sadness so obviously displayed within each droplet. Before even one tear could be shed, the red head's body acted mindlessly, slashing recklessly at the painful memory before it. His face followed her movement carefully, watching helplessly as the ruin of the woman left his world forever, falling, falling, falling, softly towards the ground. The thin lips trembled, almost unnoticeable as Kenshin's body surged forward to catch her. With his arms just inches away from the collapsing body, he stopped, staying stock still with unseeing eyes. Wide open, they watched her, not wanting to acknowledge the overwhelming emotion within him. This would be the second… the second corpse of one of the only people he had ever…

Love. It instilled a powerful hope. Could she really die…? Could she really leave him all alone in this state of lonely confusion? Could she really… it was irrational to believe. It was all he had.

Then it hit.

Crack her delicate form seemed to break as it collided with the earth below. It hit him. His senses returned. He was jarred by the sound, by it, returned to the world beyond his hopeful mind of impossible dreams. Instantaneously all tears evaporated from his eyes, leaving them dry and narrowed in the hitokiri glare he had mastered long ago with ease, it had come so naturally. With his senses, came an awareness of a presence, a presence that had gone too long unnoticed by the gate of Kanryu's mansion. Something left those beautiful eyes in that moment; a chilling breeze blew harmlessly past the cold hitokiri and his icy heart. He turned, slowly, as if time was on the verge of stopping. Stood. Slowly, slowly. Walked. Strong. Stepped with assurance. But what was that trip? Not hesitation, was it? But the moment was gone and Kenshin continued away from the dieing woman and crying boy, so far gone, no emotion could come close to his heart. His hair wisped past the broken doors of Kanryu's mansion, and that was it. End Yahiko's flashback

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idiot: sorry! It's even shorter than the last chapter but I'm trying to at least be consistent and update each week! At least this one is edited! (slightly… hardly)

wasabi: still, read and review for her plus look forward to her…

idiot: HOLIDAY SPECIAL!!! Coming next weekend! To be an extra long chapter, maybe with a little random tidbit at the end that has nothing to do with this story!!!

Wasabi: see ya then! Happy holidays!