A/N: Please read? This is kinda long but important: the story still follows canon, but it all falls apart to the time after Kaoru dies. (I know, I know, it wasn't in the manga, but the freaking OVAs still have me in pieces, even after 19 years later.)

Though we follow canon, this is Alternate Universe. HEAVILY ALTERNATE UNIVERSE, as in Shinigamis and Kamis and the works.

In this story, everything that has happened already did, but somehow, the story will start many many years after Trust & Betrayal. Kenshin is now a wanderer but does not know Kaoru, he has never met her. Only Kaoru remembers it all. Everything that happened between them had happened, but technically, it didn't.

There is a heavy reason as to why their past and the future was altered in such a radical way, please be patient.

Again, everything in the wonderful story happened but didn't. As far as we are concerned, our story starts many years after freaking Trust & Betrayal.

Standard disclaimer applies, please don't flame me for any historical inaccuracies *sob* Also, these are shorter chapters. I need a supplement to my other fic Jewel which I have taken the task of trying to update again.

Thank you. :)

Shichi-fuku-jin- Seven Gods of Luck

Occurrence 1

Okaeri Nasai

Twice he came across this moment, the first one seemed as if it were another lifetime ago. A different lifetime, with everything serving as his first- he was young to the world, not this battle-borne soul who carried the weight of innocent blood on his weary, exhausted shoulders.

And as the wind shifted, bringing a rustle to the leaves and the swaying of the branches of the old cherry tree above, he could not help but clutch his unsheathed katana tight. Drops of blood trickled from where the blade of the sword connected to his flesh…

Buried to the hilt, into the cavities of his chest, piercing straight into his beating heart.

This time her voice was not resonant enough to stop him, on this beautiful spring day when the sakura blossoms fell. It had been so long, and he had been through so much that his battered and bruised soul had already felt numb and void.

He closed his eyes, mustering all he could to envision her beautiful face, trying to summon her voice. If only she could speak to him, just this one time, on the brink of his death, he would be appeased.

But it was only the rustling of the wind that echoed back his sentiments, and thus he opened his eyes. He realized he could barely recall her face, the memory of her voice…

It was clouded by all the weight of the blood on his hands and blurred by the passage of such a long time.

It had been too long.

"Tomoe," he whispered. Wherever she was he did not know if she could hear. He never really believed in the afterlife, anyway… but he would have wanted to find out. And the only barrier that kept him from crossing the line was her memory, and the tingle of her hands as she etched her permanent claim to his soul through his cheek.

And his years as a wanderer hadn't done him good…

She said, before she died, that she had forgiven him.

But he never forgave himself.

The warmth of his blood had left his person, and he was left with bodily coldness, his vision starting to flicker before him. His throat parched dry, he was losing sensation in his fingers. The slow numbing, the heavy breaths, so this was what it felt like to die.

Yet the sky was still abnormally bright, the rain of cherry blossoms was still hopelessly beautiful.

"Life goes on… whether we like it or not," he whispered, catching the last clusters of living breath.

"Indeed. Such is true, with the merciless gravity of time," Came a pensive voice, and he did not expect it at all. Amber eyes widened at the sudden shock, and he lifted his eyes towards the most unusual source:

A woman was standing before him.

Initial thoughts surmised her to be his hallucination, perhaps it was the image of Tomoe, in the delirium of his looming death. But only one sweep had revealed striking differences: this woman was one he had never met.

A stranger's face at the prime of her youth, barely looking ten and seven… clad in an insufferably heavy junihitoe with bells and ribbons adorning her hair-

This woman held impossibly blue eyes.

"I found you," she said, a depth of emotion to her voice that he will never be able to comprehend.

"Are you my Shinigami?" Kenshin slurred, he was losing control of his faculties. "Have you come here to collect my soul," He felt the tips of his fingers twitch involuntarily from blood loss, and he felt pain… pain all over… but he was already used to such.

Just a little more of this pain, then everything, including this figment of his imagination, will slowly fade away.

"No, and not really," she answered. He expected her to elaborate, for her eyes were intense on him. But she never spoke again, at least not for long moments. He was gasping for breath now, his lungs drowning in his blood. "I only came here, so you don't have to go cross the boundaries of death alone." She knelt before him and offered her hand,

And he reached back.

Fingers laced with each other, she held to his hand tight: he parted his lips in lieu of a demand, but he was faltering, lulled into an overwhelming enchantment of peaceful bodily demise. His brows furrowed in an attempt to comprehend. But he was losing, succumbing to an invisible, internal battle.

She held his hand, and much to his delirious, slipping consciousness, the woman pulled him to her and wrapped him in a soul-crushing embrace.

"Okaeri nasai, Shinta." She said, and the miserable ronin finally breathed his last.

Twice she came across this moment, but the first one was another lifetime ago. A different lifetime- her first lifetime- she was young to the world, not this battle-borne soul who carried the weight of the Ecclesia on her ancient, weary shoulders.

And as the wind shifted, bringing a rustle to the leaves and the swaying of the branches of the old cherry tree above, she lifted her vision from the sleeping man whose head was resting on her lap, to the portal she created that connected her straight to her Castle Grounds. In it stood the distorted silhouette of the torii gates that started it all. Although obscured from the many dimensions she had to bypass, she knew it was there by heart. And in her mind, the familiar gates stared back, just like her memories from that nostalgic time: one that would never come again to be, another lifetime ago.

It had been so long.

She knew she had to head back into the portal any minute, she knew that her absence in the palace might alarm her keepers.

She sighed morosely. As the Master of the Shrine of Sempiternal, her movements were always to be accounted for. But they should have known better by now… keeping track of her whereabouts was impossible, considering her position in the Shichi-fuku-jin.

But she couldn't find fault in her keeper's concerns. It was well warranted, and she tried to compensate her sudden absences as much as she could: she had been, in her opinion, a fair and kind deity, she did her job as best as her human limitations could allow.

A small lapse of absence would have been the least of their endless worries, given all the trouble her mere presence brought.

A sudden gust of wind retrieved her from her musings, as the shifting of the leaves above them caused curtains of light to spill against unmistakable red hair. Her heart jumped from the sheer familiarity, but the skip of beat was reflex, only reflex! The sight of his red hair sent butterflies fluttering in her moving gut. She could hear the sound of her blood rush into her head, and she took a moment to herself to calm her haywire emotions.

It had been so long, after all.

But despite the nostalgic, heart-wrenching sight, and the many emotions that came rushing in… she knew one painful detail to be true at that passing moment in time:

He will not know her,

and will not get to know her, even in this temporary bond.

He will eventually move on, leaving her to bear this eternal load of memories forever and ever, or until all eternity permits.

Her heart ached just a little, and she could not deny the twinge of jealousy when he quietly whispered the name of the woman he could never forget, from this lifetime and even in the lifetime that will never be. She watched the ronin quietly as he slept peacefully on her lap, the heartbreaking scar still etched on his cheek, with hair of blinding red partially covering his painfully familiar face:

This was still the face of the man she loved.

The man she loved with all her heart,

Her fingers running through silken strands, combing out the cherry blossoms that settled on his hair…

Her heart pulsated in painful longing.

He fell asleep on her lap as she hummed to him a common song.

"Nothing is of coincidence, it may only seem so." She muttered, words she would fondly dispose to whoever asked for her advice.

The wind then shifted. A sudden monstrous presence hovered about, and the Junihitoe-clad woman cranked her head to the side. It sent the bells on her head-dress chiming softly. Her lips curled into a smile. "Didn't I tell you both to take the day off?"

"You said you weren't set to do any harvests today, Kaoru-shujin." A monstrous nine-tailed fox approached, foxfire swirling on its feet. The gigantic beast morphed into a more compact form: a blonde-haired woman, clothed in one of those fancy western dresses, her ears and nine tails retained. "That was the only reason I agreed to that ridiculous arrangement." Her furry ears twitched. She approached the frail, delicate woman and sniffed her for any injuries.

"This wasn't a harvest, Yuna," Kaoru assured. The fox-lady was fixing a displaced flower in her headdress. Her gaze drifted back to the now-sleeping samurai. The human's gaze softened slightly, a distant emotion flashed in her blue eyes. "You didn't have to worry, this spirit isn't blighted. It's not an Impossibly Wayward Soul."

"Boss Lady, what's happening?" came the voice of a little boy, and all eyes were cast down to the ground. Approaching the pair was a pudgy-bellied, down-filled plush rabbit, sewn together almost erratically, loose fillings sticking out of its felt-material body. It only had one button-eye, the other side held remnants of frayed threads that looked like the other missing button was pulled or rather ripped out crassly.

The junihitoe-clad lady smiled at the living toy, she was slowly, carefully pulling away from the sleeping man. Inch by inch she accomplished, and she rested his head gently on the grass.

"Hey, wait a minute, I recognize that boy!" Yuna knelt before the sleeping male and sniffed, her ears perking up. "It's Hittokiri Battousai!"

"So he is," Kaoru said, almost wistfully.

"I heard about him, he was that merciless assassin… I remember telling you about his lore mere days ago," Yuna snapped her gaze towards the eerily collected deity and shuddered at her nonplussed expression, and she gasped when she realized, "You searched for him!"

"Ahh… Looks like I did." The kimono-clad woman laughed.

The fox-lady gaped in disbelief. "What…" she stammered, and finally, "Shujin?!" was all she could manage.

The plush bunny hopped excitedly around the sleeping samurai. "Waah, this man is a legend in Japan? I have never been around legends before… not even back home in Sicily…" His whiskers twitched as he studied his scent. His wee little body was as big as the samurai's head. "What are you planning, Boss Lady?" The bunny turned, only to see his precious Boss Lady casually walking away.

"Shujin!" The nine-tailed lady called out. Her nerves were getting picked, seeing that her beloved Shrine Master was not paying attention. "Kaoru!"

"I have to go, I'm running late. And I have to change out of these impossible clothes…" The woman waved, heedless to spare them a merciful glance. "Hey, make him sign the Familiar's Vow for me, please." She added.

"Make us what?" The fox-lady huffed.

"Good luck!" A whirl of blue energy consuming the Shrine deity's small frame, "And please be patient with him.

I was kind of fond of him... in that past lifetime."

A gentle smile lifted the corners of her lips, a veil of nostalgia passed by her blue eyes: of warm nights spent together, of quiet viewings under the sakura trees: memories of a lifetime that will never be.

And so she walked through the mirror portal, leaving her loyal familiars to themselves.

She found herself treading through a steady flow of soul traffic, her zori making soft little resonations across the lamplit street. A little nod here, a little hello there, anything to keep her from standing out.

She already did, anyway, wearing immaculate white Miko robes. At least she had not donned her twelve-layer kimono… she looked around and steadied. Souls in various states, humans, and even deformed demons from different eras in time, drifting, walking around, minding their own business.

Then she paused and she completely halted.

Kaoru cast her blue gaze towards the dark, eclectic castle at the top of the hill, absorbed in her thoughts.

In this realm of perpetual nocturne, and the witching hour deathless, the robe-clad woman realized she did not want to prolong her stay. She only planned a short trip in the Realm of the Dead; she had things to do, sleep to catch up to, and she had grown quite tired and impatient from the walking. She thought following the River Styx would distract her, but its sluggish flow and the slow, miserable moans coming from the many unknown faces reminded her of her insufferable existence.

She tapped her sandals on the gloomy brick road, once, twice, and a hearty thrice, closed her eyes.

When she opened them she was in an echoing western throne room.

Velvet carpets, pillars of marble, a grandiose opulence fit for the two great Deities of the Dead and the Living. There were two figures before her, the two immortal gods, seated on their throne of grief and elation.

"I waited for you!" The little child of ashen hair said, and he ran towards Kaoru.

"But I waited for her too!" the other child said, as she tried to push her perpetual groom away.

The children held happy little smiles and robust, blushing cheeks, clamoring for the first hug. The poor woman was in a dither, to smile or to lament on her eternal fate, but the two selfish deities did not seem to mind.

"We heard one of your familiars walked into the light," said the one with the ashen hair, "And it looks like your other one is coming close…"

"Are you in search of another?" The girl clung to her sleeve, "You will need one, that you do," she gasped, seeing the exhaustion in Kaoru's eyes, "Oh, my child… you look famished! Come now," she started tugging her sleeve.

"Izanami-sama, I just need some s—" The world around Kaoru teetered, and in the blink of an eye she found herself sitting before a grand banquet, "…sleep." She sighed in resignation.

"So, about your next familiar," in place of a little boy was a young man sitting on the head position. He had one arm casually around the waist of his lover, who was seated on his armrest, and the other was holding a glass of wine, "I have excellent recommendations. There is that guardian of the Wind Fortress, I heard impressive stories about him,"

"Ugh, he can be quite the windbag!" The goddess crossed her arms before her chest, "I've got someone better: how about the Water Serpent, the one the Sorceress Diurne just harvested a while ago? He's quiet and strong…" she wagged her brows suggestively at Kaoru,

Who only stared back in disbelief.

"Child, we only want to make your work easier! What use are the familiars to you if you do all the work!?"

Kaoru shifted from her seat. Why did it feel like the never-ending search for her familiars evolve into desperate matchmaking attempts? Or worse yet, she felt like the constant object of the Kami's betting pool.

She cast her head down, lost in her thoughts.

Indeed, that was what brought her here in the first place. Her destiny was the collateral of a cruel bet… yet she could not blame the Kamis completely,

Because in the end, she was the one who ultimately chose her fate.

The Kamis looked at her with hopeful eyes.

"So? We have tons of recommendations. what do you want?" The goddess leaned back on her groom.

"You want a strong one?" The ashen-haired god crooned.

The human deity pondered quietly. "It wouldn't matter if the familiar were strong, I would never allow them to step into Zero'clock."

"How about a quick one… you know, someone whose hourglass is easy to fill?"

"It wouldn't make a difference," Kaoru answered, "Since I have the hardest assignments, the familiars end up walking towards the light before they even know it."

Towards the light, Oh sweet repose, and she to remain forever in existence, or until all eternity permits.

A bitter smile crossed the woman's lips, and she lifted her gaze to the waiting gods. Her eyes were azure and still full of fire, her spirit, ablaze, still full of life:

Even through someone else, even through transient familiars, I would gladly take it…

Now, more than ever, I get to see him…

especially him…

walking towards the light…

"I don't need to look for one," Kaoru said, "I have chosen. All I need is your approval to bind him to me in his temporary afterlife."

"Oh?" the goddess leaned forward,

"Who's the lucky soul, Bishamonten?" the god vainly rested his temple on his hand.

Kaoru held her breath, a smile had stolen her lips. She uttered the name of her chosen one for them to hear,

savoring the sound of it on her tongue,

bringing her back to a distant, nostalgic time that would never be.

She already left, but such a short visit it was. After forcing her to fill her belly, they tried to entice her for dessert. But she would not have it, according to her, she still had lots to do, she most especially had sleep to catch up on.

"Maybe this new familiar will be strong enough to do her harvests," said she with the darling eyes, lacing her fingers with her eternal groom's,

"Maybe, and she will have enough time to come and play," answered he with the ashen hair.

"Oh, I doubt it. She, entrusting the occurrences of Zero'clock to a familiar?" She shook her head, "But it would cut her harvest time short nonetheless, with all the binding. She might have idle time to spare… Izanagi, what if she decides to sleep, instead of spending that precious idle time with us?!" she said in between a jealous pout. "Ah, how waggish! The Time Sorcerer Nocturne, the Time Sorceress Diurne, they would never even think of the need for rest, not for one meager minute,"

"But they do not need to, for they are but mortal spirits, they will eventually walk towards the light. And unlike them, she is already bound to us forever." He held the hand of his lovely bride tight.

"Is that true?" she said with a content smile, "We shall keep her with us forever?"

"It is true," The Great Deity echoed, "We shall keep her with us forever."

"Yes, such is the consequence of having changed forever." She nodded her pretty head.

The two gods smiled, content at their musings, their fond thoughts towards the destiny of their eternally youthful daughter of fate.

A/N: Next chapter: Kenshin awakens to a completely different world