Chapter 27

Disclaimer: I do not own Rurouni Kenshin, but Midori was my idea.


He watches the road more often, now.

Kenshin knows that his habit of staring at the road past the Kamiya dojo's gate worries his friends. He sees it in the way that Sano will drag him off to have a game of dice over a few jugs of sake; he sees it in the way Yahiko will ask him to watch as the boy tries to perfect a new move; and he sees it in the way that Kaoru-dono looks at him when she thinks that he cannot see her. She looks at him as though any minute he will leave her again, and she is afraid that he might not say goodbye this time.

His friends watch him, and worry, and try to help him in their own ways; but they do not understand why he watches the road in the first place, and so they cannot help him at all.

He does not wish to leave his friends. He is done wandering. Kenshin watches the road - every day until midday and every night when his friends are sleeping - because he still harbors that faint hope that if he watches long enough...if he stays in front of the dojo's open gates long enough, in sight of all that pass...

Maybe, if he watches for her long enough, his kabu will wander back into his life, just like she did the last time.

He knows that he cannot say any of this to his friends. Yes, they care about him. Yes, his new habit and the fact that he rarely sleeps and the way his appetite is vanishing frighten them. Yes, they might possibly worry less if they knew that he is not going to leave them again. But he does not want to see the guilty look on Sano's face - the look of a man who thinks that he could have saved Saito, could have saved his kabu if he had just tried hard enough. He does not want to see the look on Yahiko's face when his kabu is mentioned - pained, because the boy knows that she was important to Kenshin and to Sano; but also slightly guilty, because he did not know her well enough to miss her like they do.

And he does not want to see the look on Kaoru-dono's face when she is reminded of his kabu: as though she wants to tell him something very important, but cannot for reasons she will not explain. He does not want to see the sliver of self-pity mixed with guilty hope in her blue eyes, or the self-disgust that follows and makes her turn away from him. He does not want to have to know that she still hopes, but not for what he hopes for.

He does not want to see any of that anymore. So he sits on the porch and watches the road, hoping that his kabu will come back to him.

When he is not watching the road for his kabu or trying not to scare his friends, Kenshin spends hours at the river; he found her there that day that Sanosuke was stabbed, so there is at least a fleeting chance that if his kabu survived she might come back here. She might be standing by the river today, waiting for him to take her in his arms and welcome her home. She might want them to have the chance for a private reunion before telling their friends that she is back. He cannot take that chance; he will go to the river every day for the rest of his life if he must, waiting for his kabu to come back to him.

It is late, and the road is empty. He stares without seeing as a breeze blows dust into the air. Kaoru-dono is asleep and the night is hot; Kenshin has shed his gi and sits in only his hakama. Beads of sweat roll down his body, tickling the skin between his shoulder blades. The porch boards creak; Sano is walking towards him. His friend sits beside him on the edge of the porch, and the two men share a quiet moment.

The quiet is not to last.

"You're scaring Jou-chan," Sano tells him; his friend's voice is soft, quiet, completely non-threatening. Kenshin feels his words like blows to his heated skin. He says nothing.

"She knows that you've been watching the road every night. You've barely eaten or slept for weeks now; you don't talk unless one of us pulls you into a conversation. You're listless, Kenshin, and all three of us are worried about you. Hell, Megumi told me yesterday when she came by that she wished she knew what was wrong with you, because you're so fucking thin she's afraid you might be sick."

Kenshin says nothing. Guilt eats at his insides at hearing his fears confirmed. He is causing his friends to worry for him. He is scaring Kaoru-dono.

Sano's bangdage-wrapped right hand comes down on Kenshin's shoulder, and the fist-fighter squeezes gently. "Talk to me, Kenshin."

Kenshin shakes his head. He cannot talk right now; the guilt is clogging his throat.

"Are you angry at me? Or jou-chan or the brat? Megumi?"

Kenshin shakes his head again. He hasn't felt anger since Shishio burst into flames.

"Are you sick?"

No response. Sick at heart is probably not what Sano is talking about.

"C'mon, Kenshin. You've been like this..."

Sano has trailed into silence beside him. Kenshin pulls his eyes away from the road long enough to shoot a glance at the younger man; Sano is staring towards the road too, and there appear to be tears in his eyes. Kenshin swallows, tries to ask Sano what is wrong. The words will not come around the growing lump in his throat. Sano takes a deep breath, squeezes Kenshin's shoulder again.

"You've been like this since you found out about Midori."

Midori. Her name stabs at him like a physical thing, and he hunches into himself in a futile attempt to avoid the pain lancing at his heart. Tears blur his vision, and he does his best to keep them from spilling. He will not cry. He will not let those tears that have burned at the backs of his eyes since his awakening in Kyoto months ago fall. If they fall, then what he learned when he awoke will become real. If they fall, he will no longer have any reason to watch the road or haunt the river shores.

If his tears fall, then his kabu will really be dead, and Kenshin cannot bear for that to happen.

Sano is speaking to him again, his hand gripping Kenshin's shoulder tight enough to bruise.

"...can't keep doing this to yourself, Kenshin. Do you think she would want you to make yourself sick? To starve your body and not sleep and turn into a fucking walking corpse?"

His kabu would be furious at him for his behavior. She would tell him in no uncertain terms just how stupid she thought he is acting, and force him to eat and to sleep and bar the gates of the dojo every night to block his view of the road. She would knock him out if she had to.

"Do you think you're the only one who misses her, you dumb bastard? Do you think that I don't see her every fucking time I close my eyes to sleep, that I don't remember watching that prick Saito walk away with her dead body in his arms? Do you think for a minute that I don't wish every fucking day that I had died instead of her? She may have loved you, Kenshin, but we were friends, too."

Sano is yelling at him now, his hand gone from Kenshin's shoulder. His friend is standing in front of him, blocking his view of the road, his hands fisted in anger as he shouts into the night.

"Damn it, Kenshin, I miss her too! I miss my friend! And I miss you, not this fucked up ghost of you but the real guy! I hate Shishio for killing Midori, I hate you for falling apart like this when we need you, and I hate Midori for fucking dying and leaving me with nothing but my fucking guilt and your fucking corpse! Because it's pretty fucking obvious that you're not home anymore!"

Kenshin has never seen Sano cry before, but now his friend is crying. Wet trails lead from his angry brown eyes to his chin, and he brings up a fist to rub furiously at his face. He takes several deep, steadying breaths as he tries to regain control of himself. Kenshin watches, and waits, and still he says nothing.

"You know what pisses me off the most?" Sano finally says, his voice worn and rough and so very, very tired. "The night before we all went to Mount Hiei, I heard Midori and Jou-chan talking at the Aoi-Ya. Midori was making Jou-chan promise to take care of you if anything happened to her. She went up there with every fucking intention of dying for you, and then threw herself in front of you so Shishio couldn't kill you, and you're wasting her sacrifice when she died for you!"

Kenshin feels as though he has been stabbed right through the heart. He gasps at the sudden pain, doubling over his knees and clutching at his chest as the tears break free from his tightly shut eyelids. The first few open the floodgates for the rest, and soon a veritable river of tears is pouring down his face. He draws in a breath and lets it out in a sob, and then he is lost. He buries his face in his knees and howls.

He is vaguely aware that Sano is shouting at him again, sounding panicked. At some point the voices of Kaoru-dono and Yahiko are raised in question, vying with Sano's for his attention as they ask what is wrong. He ignores them, howling his pain into his knees as tears wet his face and the worn fabric of his hakama. Hands touch his bare back, trying to sooth him; he jerks away from them, falling off the edge of the porch in the process. The hands are trying to help him, trying to pull him to his feet; he pulls free and runs, blindly, out of the gates and into the empty street. He runs from the voices and the hands and the concerned faces, still howling his pain for the world to hear.

He doesn't think of where he is going. He just runs.


Midori sat down at her table in the Akabeko with a pained sigh of relief. That doctor of Saito's had warned her that she would feel weak and get tired quickly for some months to come, and at the moment she felt ready to collapse. She had been walking since dawn, and it was after noon; she was tired and hungry and so, so thrilled. She had made it. It had taken two fucking months of walking as long as she could every day until her legs started shaking under her, but Midori had finally reached Tokyo.

Himura was here. The dojo was just a few minutes walk from where Midori now sat. She was so close.

"Um...okami?" The small girl who had seated her was back, balancing a cup and a jug of tea in her tiny hands. Midori quickly reached for the jug, before the tiny girl lost her grip on it and dropped it. She smiled politely at the girl, who ducked her head shyly as she set the cup on the low table.

"Your ramen will be out soon, okami," the girl murmured before backing up a few steps and turning away. A woman with long black hair ran into the girl, knocking her off of her feet. The woman gasped, and knelt as Midori moved to help the girl stand. The girl took Midori's proffered hand slowly, her cheeks red with embarrassment.

"Arigato," the girl whispered, sounding mortified. Midori had her suspisions that this little girl had not been working at the restaraunt for very long. She made sure the girl was steady on her feet before letting go and moving to sit at her table. It was only then that she remembered the woman, still kneeling on the floor with her hands outstretched to help the little girl. Midori turned to ask if the woman was alright, and that was when she saw the woman's face. Her eyes widened, and a smile pulled up one corner of her mouth.

"Megumi-san," she greeted the doctor, immensely pleased with her good fortune. The lady doctor was a friend to Himura. She could take Midori to the dojo, to lessen the shock of Midori's return. She opened her mouth to request the lady doctor's help, but the words never had the chance to leave her throat. In an instant Megumi was on her, the doctor's beautifully manicured fingers wrapped tightly around Midori's wrist and pulling her up and around as the Midori stumbled after the doctor.

"M-megumi-san, my meal," Midori stuttered out, having just enough time to grab up her katana and her satchel of belongings before she was yanked out of reach of her table. Megumi dragged her towards the door, babbling quickly as they went.

"Oh, thank kami you are alive, Midori-san! Quick, come with me, we must tell Kaoru-chan and that idiot rooster, you have to help us find Ken-san, oh he'll be so happy to see you, this will be so good for him if we can just find him, he ran off two nights ago and no one's been able to find him, but we don't think he left the city because all of his things are still at the dojo, he didn't even take his sakabato, so surely he's somewhere in Tokyo, and now you're back, thank the gods, and you can help us, please Midori-san we have to find Ken-san!"

They were almost at the Kamiya dojo's gates by the time Megumi's words penetrated Midori's confusion. She dug her heels into the dirt street and yanked her wrist free of Megumi's grasp, stopping in the road and staring in horror at the doctor.

"Himura is...gone?" she whispered, denial flooding her. "He...left?"

"The other's can explain better, Midori-san, I wasn't here when he left!" Megumi practically yelled, her refined dignity completely absent as she again latched onto Midori's wrist and continued to drag her along. She began shouting for Sanosuke and Kaoru as soon as they passed within the dojo gates, pulling Midori in the direction of the living quarters. Midori stumbled along behind her, still trying to wrap her head around what Megumi had told her. Himura was gone, but had left all of his belongings at the dojo? Himura had taken off in the middle of the night merely two days past, with no explanation or word of farewell? But Midori didn't believe Himura would go anywhere without his blade, and Megumi said that he had not taken it with him.

Midori suddenly realized that her body was shaking. When Megumi released her to go search for Sanosuke and Kaoru, Midori sank down to sit on the edge of the porch, leaning heavily against one of the support beams with her eyes clenched shut. He was gone. Midori had walked all the way from Kyoto to Tokyo just to see Himura again, and now she arrived to be told that Himura was gone?

Why must Midori always be Fate's bitch? Couldn't karma cut her just a little slack, damn it?

Suddenly there came a wild shout of joy from her left. Midori had barely begun to turn her head in that direction when she was swept up, off the porch and into someone's strong arms. Her satchel went flying, as did her katana. Midori hung limply from the tight grip as she was whirled around and around, laughter ringing joyfully in her ears as the person holding her bellowed her name for all to hear.

"You're back, you came back, you're alive! You're alive, thank kami, where the fuck have you been, Midori? You're back, you're back!"

The person currently crushing her set her down abruptly; Midori's already shaky knees buckled and she found herself clutching the man's forearms as she attempted to regain her balance. She glanced up with a sardonic grin to see Sanosuke's joyful face, his own lips stretched into a cheek-splitting smile. He drew her to him again, pinning her arms to her sides as he hugged her fiercely. Midori couldn't help a wince a the pressure.

"Stop it, you idiot! You're hurting her!" The shrill voice had Midori cringing even as she was pulled from Sanosuke's grip and crushed between thin arms. Black hair shone faintly blue in the sunlight as it whipped around Midori's face. A grunt escaped her lips, but with Sanosuke's happy shouting and the shrill voice trying to say something, no one heard it except Midori.

It took several long minutes for everyone to calm down and for Midori to shakily extract herself from Sanosuke's last bone-breaking hug. She sat down hard on the edge of the porch, breathing heavily and trying to keep her hands from shaking too much. Apparently the doctor-lady wasn't fooled; she shooed the hovering Sanosuke, Kaoru, and Yahiko out of the way and took Midori's wrist in her hand, pressing down on the pulse point and frowning at the excellerated beating. She put a cool hand to Midori's forehead, which Midori automatically removed as she tried to speak.

"Alright," she murmured weakly, weaving slightly where she sat; she felt like shit, actually, but there was no need for the doctor to know that. "Tired. Himura?"

Kaoru was crying, the tears streaming down her cheeks as she pressed a hand to her mouth. Yahiko had his eyes fixed pointedly at the ground, as though refusing to show his face in an attempt to hide the fact that he was upset. Sanosuke stared at Midori.

"He's gone, aibou," he muttered, running one hand through his weird hair. "He left two nights ago."

Midori's eyes blazed at him. She knew that; she needed to know more. Where did he go, why did he leave, was he sick, was he hurt? Her breath was coming in little pants and her head was swimming; Saito's doctor had told her that she would be in trouble if she overexerted herself, and all this excitement was not good for her right now.

"He's been acting off for weeks," Sanosuke was telling her. "He's been listless, sitting around staring at the gates for hours at a time, not eating hardly anything, not sleeping, not talking unless we bothered him. It was creepy. It wasn't like him at all to act so...lost."

Midori flashed back to the way Himura acted right after he came back from his time with the Yukishiro woman. Sanosuke has just done an admirable job of describing his behavior as it was then. Could it be that Himura was...mourning? For Midori?

Well, shit. It was obviously a good thing Midori wasn't dead after all, and that she had decided to find Himura when she left Kyoto. If not, then that stupid man would probably continue moping until he wasted away or his friends managed to snap him out of it; and if the current situation said much, with Himura missing and his friends at a loss as to what they should do, it was clear that the former was more likely than the latter.

That baka. How in the hell had he coped when he thought that he had killed Midori, if simply awakening to find her supposedly dead could throw him this deeply into depression?

Midori carefully straightened where she sat, taking in deep calming breathes as she steadied herself. The others hovered around her, waiting for her to speak. She closed her eyes, trying to think, trying to calm her mind before the panic at the thought of Himura gone could cripple her. She must find him. She must.

"Where have you searched for him?" she asked in a soft voice.

"We've covered the north side of town, the west side, and part of the south side," Sanosuke replied immediately. His voice sounded barely controlled, and Midori opened her eyes to look at her friend. His face was closed, his eyes guilty.

"Why do you look guilty?" Midori asked; her voice was still soft, still calm. Whatever he said, this was not Sanosuke's fault, and she would not place the blame on him.

Sanosuke stuck his balled hands into the pockets of his pants, kicking fiercely at the dirt of the courtyard. "I might have...upset him. The night he ran off."

He trailed off, not looking at Midori but staring instead at a point somewhere past her left shoulder. Kaoru opened her mouth as though to speak, but Midori raised a trembling hand to silence her. Angry accusations would not do any good for anyone. She didn't want to hear anything except what Sanosuke still needed to say.

Sanosuke let out a huff, the angles of his face thrown into sharp relief as he turned his head to the side to glare at the training dojo. "Look, he was scaring the shit out of all of us, alright? Everybody was walking on eggshells around here so we didn't upset him, and we were tryin' our damndest to snap him out of it. It wasn't working. I found him out here the other night, sitting here on the porch and staring at the road just outside those gates. So the other night I figured that enough was enough, you know? He was hurting us, he was hurting himself, and, well...I thought you were dead, Midori. I would never have said what I did if I'd known that you were alive and on your way here to see him."

Midori cocked an eyebrow at Sanosuke. She had no idea what the man was talking about. What could he have possibly said that would have left Himura missing for two solid days?

"I might have...possibly...told him what you said to Jou-chan. The night before we went up to Mount Hiei. About...you being willing to die for him."

Oh, shit.

"You told him about that?" Midori exclaimed, jumping to her feet and getting very close to Sanosuke despite her wobbly legs. Her temper had just reared it's ugly head, and the monster was snapping at it's chains as it tried to break loose. "How the hell did you even know about that!"

She shot a quick look at Kaoru, about to explode at the girl for breaking her vow of silence, but the look on Kaoru's face stopped her angry words. She looked absolutely flabbergasted; she had obviously had no idea that Sanosuke knew of their conversation. Midori turned back to the tall, rooster-haired dumbass standing before her and reached up to bunch a fist into the cloth of his white jacket. She jerked down sharply, using her grip to pull Sanosuke down to her level so that she could glare into his face.

"What. Did. You. Say to him?"

"I - I didn't mean to - "

"Sanosuke!" Midori shouted, shaking her friend by her hold on his jacket. She was breathing heavily again, and the world was starting to tilt at the edges of her vision. "Tell me what you said to him! What did you say!"

"I told him that it pissed me off that you had gone up there willing to die for him!" Sanosuke shouted back, face red with a mixture of anger and embarrassment. "I told him that it pissed me off that you died for him when you jumped in front of him and let that fucker Shishio stabbed you, and that he was thanking you for that by fucking wasting away! He was being an idiot, Midori! Wait 'til you see him, he's lost so much weight it's fucking sick! He hadn't been sleeping for weeks, he wouldn't eat anything. And every fucking time I looked at what's left of him, I saw that fucker Saito walking off with your dead body in his fucking arms! What the hell was I supposed to do, Midori? Sit back and watch another one of my friends die right in front of me?"

Midori abruptly let go of Sano, send him reeling away from her in an awkward retreat. She stared at him with wide eyes, his words ringing in her ears as the world slanted sharply and she found herself seated on the ground, her sheathed katana near her hand and all of Himura's friends bending over her anxiously. She tried to catch her breath, tried to tell them that she was alright, but the world was spinning weirdly and things were getting oddly quiet.

Oh, hell no. Midori was not passing out in front of anybody, damn it.

She sat where she had fallen for a long moment, breathing in deeply and clenching her eyes shut to block out the way her vision was acting. She thought about Himura, about how stupid he really was acting and how much she wanted to punch him for his weepy behavior. She thought about Sanosuke's absurd guilt and felt like punching him, too; it wasn't his fault she had almost died. Midori had thrown herself in between Himura and a fucking katana weilded by a maniac. Self-sacrifice, anyone? She realized that she still didn't know how Sanosuke had heard the conversation between herself and Kaoru-dono that had started this whole stupid mess, and resolved to force it out of him later.

But that could wait. Midori exhaled slowly and opened her eyes, wanting to get up, to move, to run. She had to find Himura. She had not gotten stabbed, cheated Death for a second time, put up with Saito's shit, and walked all the way from Kyoto to Tokyo for him to be off guilt-tripping somewhere. When she found him, she was going to hug him first and beat the shit out of him second. Baka.

"Let's go, Sanosuke," she growled as the fist-fighter helped her to her feet once again. "You're coming with me. The rest of you will stay here; I will send Sanosuke back to you once we have located Himura. I'm going to want to have a private conversation about utter stupidity when I find him."


His stomach growls again - the fifth time in the last two minutes. Kenshin ignores it.

He sits on the grassy bank of the river and stared at the water as it rushes past. Tokyo has had several good rains recently, so the river is high and moving fast. He watches as the waters sweeps away and wonders if it would carry his thought away where he to jump in. Would it wash away her face? Would it wash away Sano's words?

Sano. Guilt stabs at Kenshin as he registers that he has been gone from the dojo for the last two days, nearly three now judging on the position of the sun. His friends are probably frantic with worry over him. Sano is no doubt blaming himself, thinking that his words or actions are what caused Kenshin to leave. Kenshin knows that he should go back and apologize, reassure his friends that he is not leaving them permenantly; but though his brain tells him to get up and go, his body stays seated.

She might come looking for him, here at the river where he found her that day. What if she comes, and Kenshin is at the dojo? What if he misses her because he goes away?

Kenshin isn't going anywhere. If the others come looking for him, then he will placate them and apologize before sending them on their way. But he will not go anywhere. Not yet. Not while there is still some hope that she will come to the river to find him.


Midori was beginning to become worried. She and Sanosuke had been searching for hours now with no success. They had searched the city from one end to the other, gone into every bar or inn or restaraunt asking if the patrons had seen a short red-head with a cross-shaped scar on his cheek. No one had seen him, night was falling around them, and Midori was becoming worried.

If Himura gave her grey hairs on this damned search, Midori vowed that she would chop off his hair in retaliation.

"Midori, you need to stop for a minute."

Sanosuke was currently holding on to her arm, just above the elbow. He had followed her all over Tokyo, not complaining when they researched the areas that he and the others had already been through. He insisted that she allow him to talk with the people they needed to question. Every few hours, he would force Midori to stop her search and rest for a few moments before they continued. Sanosuke looked every bit as haggard as Midori felt, and yet while she rested her friend eyed the crowd, always on the look-out for a head of flaming red hair.

She sank down to sit against the wall of the shop they had just exited, trying not to let Sanosuke see how much she was shaking. Part of it was because of the wound to her heart that had been Shishio's dying gift to her; she would need a few years to build up her endurance so that she did not weaken so quickly due to stress or labor. But Midori knew that a large part of the trembling was because Himura was gone, because they were searching all over and had yet to see hide nor hair of the man she loved. What if they never found him?

Where the hell was he? Where would he go in this city to grieve alone?

"Where should we look next, aibou?"

She didn't know. She had no idea where to go next. Midori looked up at Sanosuke, saw him register the hopelessness in her gaze. Her friend crouched down on his haunches in front of her, taking her trembling hands in his own rough ones.

"We'll find him, Midori," he whispered, trying to catch her wandering eyes again as she vainly searched the bustling crowd behind him. "He's still in Tokyo somewhere. I know he's here; I can feel it. He's here, and we're going to find him. Don't give up on me, Midori."

"But we have scored the city from one end to another!" Midori blurted out, feeling the stress prickle at her eyes. "Where would he go, Sanosuke? Where would Himura hide away in this godforsaken place that we would not have found him already? Where is he!?"

"I don't know!" Sanosuke pulled away, running his fingers through his hair in frustration. "There's gotta be some place we're not thinking of. Some place kinda secluded, but open because Kenshin isn't fond of tight places. He likes the open air. He likes quiet and meditation, somewhere he can think, you know? But he didn't take his sakabato with him when he ran off, and he's not even wearing a gi, so I'm sure that he didn't leave the city. He's here, Midori! He's somewhere in Tokyo, and we're not stopping until we find him!"

Secluded. Open air. Quiet for meditation. Somewhere still in the city that fit all of those requirements. The puzzle pieces bounced around in Midori's head, clashing with one another as they struggled to fit together. Where in this city could a person go that was private yet open, quiet enough that meditation would be possible without being in a shrine or some other confining building? Where?

When I wanted to be alone, to escape from Himura and his friends and think on my own, where did I run to?

"The river!" Midori exclaimed, jumping to her feet and having to grab for Sanosuke's shoulder to stay upright. "Sanosuke, we haven't been to the river! That's where I went when I was here before to be alone. What if Himura has gone there now?"

"The river?" Sanosuke was stumbling along behind her as she pulled him through the crowds, unmindful of the people she knocked into or their angry shouts and curses, unmindful of the way her katana's hilit constantly smacks the fist-fighter in the face. "But -"

"No, listen to me!" Midori's mind was buzzing, the puzzle pieces all falling neatly into place as she dragged Sanosuke after her on her mad dash to the river. "You said Himura spent hours every day and night staring at the road, did you not? What if he were looking for me? What if he was hoping that I would come back? If one were approaching the Kamiya dojo, anyone at the dojo would see them coming for a long ways off if they were watching the road! He was looking for me! And that day that you were stabbed by Saito, when Himura found me, I was down at the river. It was the anniversary of my Myoushu's murder, and I had wanted to be alone. What if Himura went there when he ran from the dojo, hoping that I would find him? What if he's waiting there now? We have to go! Come on, Sanosuke, run!"


It has grown dark around him. Kenshin lies on the river bank as night lengthens, thinking; remembering.

He remembers the first time he spoke to Midori. It had been a night like nearly every other during the early years of the Bakumatsu. He had been sent out to kill; had completed his mission; had gone back to the inn to clean himself of the blood and catch a few hours of troubled sleep.

And she had been there at the wash stand, splashing water over her bloody arms. He had stood silently behind her for several minutes as she cleansed herself, studying this woman that so many of the Ishin Shishi were afraid of. He had heard the whispers of her skill, had heard the name their enemies had bestowed upon her. Standing in that dark room, examining her from behind as she washed, Kenshin had been frankly unimpressed. She was merely a girl trying to do a man's job. Women were not meant to kill.

And then he had spoken, and she had turned to face him, and everything had changed.

He had looked at this small girl, this young woman; looked into her green green eyes that seemed to crawl with shadows and spark with life at the same time as she eyed him up and down, and he had been transfixed. She was different from the women he had known in his life thus far. She was separate from those weak creatures that must be protected. The nickname, Death Panther, was explained after a glance at her face. This was no mere woman.

She had been a killer.

Kenshin remembers her rude comment about the color of his hair, and the drunken conversation about names some months later that gave birth to his silly nickname - ninjin. She had hated her alias; hated the way the men she killed with treated her, hated her fame. And so Kenshin had bestowed upon her his nickname for her, different from what the others called her but somehow not. He called her kabu, in keepings with the animal that the men around them saw in her; but he did not remind her of the death she brought in her wake, and for her that seemed to make a world of difference. And for Kenshin, to have one person, one peer aside from his commander - one person in the ranks of the killers he toiled beside - that did not call him Battousai was like a gift from the gods. He could be himself around his kabu, in a way that was barred to him around the men. He could be freer around her. He could be happy.

She gave him that escape, and he repaid her by putting his blade through her chest. He had driven her into the arms of some monster like Makoto Shishio for comfort when he had betrayed her and left her for dead. He did not deserve to call himself her friend. He did not deserve her sacrifice. She should have let Shishio kill him; better him than her. And now she is gone from him again.

She will never come back to him, because now she is dead for him twice over, and even her ghost must wish to avoid him.

Kenshin curls into a ball on the riverbanks where he once held his kabu close and cries.


Midori stopped, panting harshly, when she heard the sobbing from some distance in front of them. A glance at Sanosuke, who was clutching one of her hands in his and sweating from their run, showed that the fist-fighter could hear the sounds too: his face had once again taken on that guilty quality, and his dark eyes looked suspisiously bright in the light of the full moon. Midori squeezed his hand once before drawing away.

"Go back to the dojo and tell the other's that we found him. If we do not return tonight, then we will be back no later than noon tomorrow. Go, Sanosuke, and get some sleep. I will take care of Himura."

She moved away without waiting to see if he would obey; she was confident that he would. Sanosuke knew that Midori wished to have a private conversation with Himura, and with the weight of his guilt at his brash words days before still riding heavy on his shoulders, Sanosuke would give Midori that courtesy. She would figure out how to rid him of that guilt later. Right now, she wanted to see Himura.

She just didn't know whether she wanted to kiss him in joy at being reunited or brain him for running off like a child and leaving the others to fret for his safety. Perhaps both.

It was good that her search was over, Midori thought to herself as she rounded a bend in the riverbanks and spotted a shirtless form hunched in on itself. Her body was done. Her legs shook so that she staggered as she walked, and twice in that last hundred feet Midori was forced to stop to catch her breath. She had overdone it today; she was paying for it now.

The things she put herself through for that stupid, red-headed moron...

Mdori flung herself gracelessly down beside Himura's bent form, panting her tiredness into the cool night air. Himura did not move to acknowledge her, and once her breath had settled again Midori turned her head to glare at the man she loved more than life.

"Are you going to sit there and cry all night, you fucking baka, or are you going to pull yourself together?" she demanded irritably.

Himura's head jerked up and around. His lavender eyes, red-rimmed and puffy from his tears, locked on her dropping emeralds as he stared at her in shock and disbelief. His mouth opened, closed, opened again as he struggled visibly to find the words.

"Kabu?" he whispered. "My kabu? Have you come to haunt me for my mistakes?"

Oh, for kami's sake.

"No, you dumbass," Midori grumbled, flopping back to lie in the grass and gaze at the moon, not wanting to see the evidence of Himura's grief any longer. "I am not dead. Therefore I can't haunt you. But, I can put my foot through that empty skull of yours to the grief and worry you caused me today, baka ninjin. Do you have any idea how long I've been looking -"

At this point, the fact that Midori was really sitting next to him apparently penetrated Himura's thoughts, for Midori found herself pinned to the ground by the weight of his body as Himura rained kisses upon her face and neck.

"Kabu," he murmured between kisses as he hugged her close to him. "My kabu, my Midori, mine. You came back to me. You came back as I knew you would. You came..."

With effort, Midori flipped them so that she was lying atop her beloved, sprawled against his chest and panting for breath as the night wavered around her. The kisses stopped abruptly, and the hug grew tighter.

"Kabu? Midori? What is happening?" He sounded panicked.

"I was stabbed in the heart, baka ninjin, even I can't bounce back so quickly from such a wound. I've been looking for you all damn day with Sanosuke, and I'm tired and worn out. Just shut up and lay here." Midori rubbed her cheek soothingly over his bare chest, revealing in the feel and smell and sound of him. She had found him. He was with her again, and Midori vowed that she would not be parted from him for a third time if she could prevent it. Himura was hers, and the gods help any who came against him.

"You scared me today, baka ninjin," she whispered, her own tears now falling from her eyes to his chest as she smiled against his flesh. "I survive a blade through the heart, deal with Saito and Cho and the constant headache of Saito's company, walk all the way from Kyoto just to see you, and I arrive at the dojo to find all in a panic because you have run off? I'm kicking your ass, ninjin, as soon as my strength returns. And then I'm holding you down while Sanosuke, Kaoru-dono, Yahiko-chan, and Megumi-san each have a turn. You baka, what were you thinking leaving as you did? Has my absense addled your brain beyond repair?"

"You have repaired it," Himura whispered into her hair, his hands roaming softly along her back as though to memorize the feel of her body. "I love you, Midori. Never leave me again."

"I didn't leave," she muttered, rubbing her nose over his heart and thrilling at the peace his presence brought her. "I was delayed. I'm not going anywhere any more, Kenshin. You are not leaving my sight ever again."

"I wonder how Kaoru-dono will take to another free-loader in her dojo?" Himura teased softly. Midori poked him in the ribs.

"I have more money than we could spend in three lifetimes, ninjin. Kaoru-dono will have nothing to bitch about. Although, she might not leave me much choice on whether to injure her or not when we return to the dojo. Once she sees that you are well and gets her hands on one of those damned bokkens..."

Midori looked up in time to catch sight of Kenshin's terrified expression. Her laughter rang in the night, washing the air of the taint of sadness and banishing the memory of Himura's tears forever. They were together again, and nothing and no one would rip them ashunder. All was well at last.

Owari.


Sequel will be out eventually. Please review.