The next day, both Miryu and Algren were summoned to meet with Katsumoto, in a compound where the sakura trees were in full bloom. It was a sight of sheer majesty and beauty, and Algren took the opportunity to absorb everything about him. "My Shishou once said that the sakura in spring is what makes Sake taste good," she said to him with a small grin, as he reached out to caress a petal, only to have the blossom disintegrate into his hand. "They are fragile, Captain," she added, placing a hand on his arm. "Even the slightest gust of breeze blows them off their branches."

"Then I should be lucky that you're not like they are," he whispered into her ear, expecting some violence done onto him, but found her glaring at him with her sapphire eyes, which told him that he had better come up with something really romantic or witty, or he would receive worse than what the shinobi received from her yesterday… "You don't see these flowers fight like you every day, don't you?" he stammered quickly, securing his safety. He just had to fall for a volatile former assassin, he just had to…

The moment they got into the compound, they found Katsumoto also admiring the sakura blossoms, sitting amongst the trees, in utter serenity. "A perfect blossom is a rare thing," he said, looking at the two of them, "You could spend a lifetime looking for one, and it will not be a wasted life." Placing a hand on Miryu's shoulder and Algren's, he told them, "I am happy for the both of you to have found one another, and may your happiness last."

Algren and Miryu smiled, and bowed at him. Although he had approved of them, he had said nothing about their relationship until now, and they were glad that he said those words. But there were still more pressing matters to be considered. "Who sent those men to kill you?" Algren asked after he had uttered his thanks to Katsumoto. He did not know much about the shinobi, but Miryu had told him that only a man of influence could have hired them, and in such a great number.

"They were not from the Oniwabanshuu," Miryu said to Katsumoto, knowing that Shinomori Aoshi and his men were only concentrated in becoming "the best", and to protect their own diminishing organization. They would not so easily resort to doing the dirty work of certain politicians, especially when they sided with the Bakufu during the Bakamatsu. And they were certainly not the shinobi she had fought with Kenshin just before they accidentally killed Tomoe, for she was sure that she had killed every single one of them with Kenshin that day..

The rebel leader just shook his head. "I am writing a poem," he said, totally disregarding their words. "The tiger's eyes are like my own, but he came from a deep and troubled sea. The dragon that protects him has his love," he recited, his expression changing to one of frustration after the abrupt stop at the end. It was clear that it was about the two of them, and they looked at one another. They could not allow him to play such word games anymore. They needed a course of action, and to do that, they needed to know who sent the shinobi.

"The Emperor?" Algren suggested, but both Miryu and Katsumoto shook their heads. They reasoned that if the Emperor wanted Katsumoto's head, he had but to ask. And for some reason, he was sure that it applied to Miryu as well. "Omura?" Now, there was a huge possibility that it was Omura. If the Prime Minister was able to crush Katsumoto's rebellion, the trade deal with America would make him richer than ever… Personal gain had blinded the formerly honorable man, and it had been more and more evident. The other Ishin-Ishishi patriots could not argue with him, not when it was his cutting-edge Western styled tactics that gave them their victory over the Bakufu…

Katsumoto inhaled deeply and said, "I am having trouble finishing the poem. Can you suggest a last line?" Miryu declined with a soft chuckle, and Algren replied that he was not a writer. "And yet, you have written many pages since you came here…"

"What else has she and Miryu told you?" the American asked in return. There were a great many things that he never thought Katsumoto would have known, but there was a possibility that Taka had delivered reports about him other than Miryu as well…

"That you have nightmares," the other man said simply. After that, Algren replied that every soldier had nightmares, a fact that he had thought was solid in its nature. However, Katsumoto begged to differ. "Only one who is ashamed of what he has done." Algren looked at Miryu, and remembered that she once told him that she dreamt that the wives and children of the men she had killed coming to her, wanting revenge, but they would not kill her. In her dream, they put her in a golden cage in the Shogun's palace, where he would defile her; a culmination of all her own fears… If even one like Miryu had nightmares of her own, how could he be exempted from them?

Algren still did not relent. "You don't know what I have done," he said softly, casting his eyes at Miryu. He knew that he had yet to tell her much of his past, but the wounds were still too fresh for him to do so, and it seemed that she understood. In their many conversations after that snowy evening when their love for one another had been made clear, they had decided to let Time reveal everything between them.

"You have seen many things," Katsumoto said simply, after dismissing one of the samurai at the entrance of the compound. To this, Algren gave an affirmative answer. "You do not fear death, yet you wish for it, is this not so?" The American could only answer with a "yes", holding Miryu's arm in his. With her sapphire eyes, she told him that she would stand by him, whatever the outcome, and he knew that it was all that he needed. "I also… It happens to those who had seen what we have seen. And then, I come to this place of my ancestors and I remember, like these blossoms… we are all dying… To know life in every breath, every cup of tea, every life we take, that is the way of the warrior… Miryu knows this most of all."

She smiled, and bowed slightly at his words once again. "Life in every breath…" Algren repeated, to which Katsumoto stated that it was Bushido. The woman beside him just gazed into his ocean-colored eyes, and let the bewilderment set it. It seemed suddenly so clear to him, that everything he had learnt, seen and experience, was indeed contributory to the principles of Bushido.

However, Miryu sensed that there was more to what Katsumoto truly wanted to tell them. "Katsumoto-san, you were saying?" she asked cautiously. And true to her guess, there was indeed something else.

"The Emperor has granted safe passage to Tokyo, we leave tomorrow," Katsumoto said, waiting for Algren's reaction, as was Miryu, but he revealed nothing. It did not matter, and when the samurai previously dismissed return with algren's pack containing his journals, he said to the American, "when I took these, you were my enemy."

Algren look at him in understanding and bowed to him. Indeed, the months he had spent there had changed him, and he was grateful. He was grateful indeed…