Chapter Forty – The Twelfth Lie

On a beautiful Autumn day, an unusual caravan set off from Kasugayama toward Kyoto. Sasuke was being escorted to Honno-ji by Kenshin, Yukimura, and Mai, all of whom wanted a few more days with their friend before he blipped off into the future for a few months. Shingen and I travelled with them, because Kyoto was along the way to Ikuno, where Toshiie was, at last report, living as healer.

At least, that is what we claimed our plans were.

Four of us were lying.

The weather was perfect, the kind of day I would normally have loved riding through, but the preemptive guilt about what the four of us were about to do weighed on me. I had told many lies in my life, most justifiable – although others may not agree with my justifications. Even though I knew the lie I was currently living was for a good cause, I was pretty sure the person who would be most affected by it would not agree.

"You've been quiet these past couple days." Shingen drew Good Horse up to Moonlight's side. Moonlight hadn't had much exercise of late, and shot a glare at Good Horse, just because she was in a mood. I patted her side, and mentally willed her to behave.

"I'm quiet a lot of days." Although usually when I was alone. But to forestall additional questions, I added a burst of inane chatter – apparently my "tell" that I was being truthful. "I'm listening to the day. I love the sound the leaves make this time of year. They crunch underfoot. Under hoof. I also love the way they rattle when the wind blows."

He turned his face into the breeze, and I took a moment to appreciate his profile as his hair ruffled about. "I forget sometimes, what it can be like to taking what amounts to a pleasure ride." Was he stockpiling experiences? Having decided to risk postponing treatment, was he saving up memories to keep if there came a time when he'd be too ill to go outside?

I forced my attention back to the present - if I kept dwelling on that thought, he was sure to stay suspicious of my behavior. "It's what I liked the most about being a courier. Getting to spend a lot of time outside." When the weather was nice, anyway. Or at least, dry. "Especially after… well, I always liked being outside, all my life, but I did appreciate it more after being trapped in that crate."

Shingen brought Good Horse closer, then reached over and ran the back of his hand across my face – a touch so fleeting, it was almost a whisper. "I imagine so. A close brush with death tends to heighten one's appreciation of… everything."

He smiled at me, then turned to face the path again. We rode for a while in companionable silence. I took a few deep breaths and focused on the fact that he was with me now, and not on the separation to come.

"I can't stand much more of this," I said to Sasuke the following day. If the weather held, we'd likely arrive in Kyoto the next afternoon, but after three days of trying to pretend that everything was ok, my nerves were on edge.

Sasuke looked ahead, where Shingen was in the middle of an intense debate with Kenshin. He didn't pretend to misunderstand me. "It's difficult for me too – modern medical ethics being what they are. Yuki and Kenshin are different – well, Kenshin decides what's best and kills you if you disagree. Yuki can't stand the thought of losing Shingen."

"He might… we might anyway." I was not used to feeling this conflicted. Normally I figured out what I needed to do and did it, by whatever means necessary. I always told myself that anyone who was hurt by my actions would have been worse off if I had done nothing… but now I was second guessing everything. "It feels like whatever I do, it's going to be the wrong decision."

"There is no right decision," Sasuke said.

"If you are trying to make me feel better, it is not helping." I don't know what I was looking for in terms of "help" anyway. Maybe all I wanted was a break from pretending.

"Damn it, Katsu, I'm a physicist, not a philosopher," Sasuke peered at me hopefully through his glasses. "Normally, you would have laughed at that."

"Sorry. I know you're trying." I summoned up the ghost of a smile. "Why is this suddenly so difficult for me? It's not like haven't spent the last few years of my life lying to everyone."

He was quiet a long moment – knowing him it was because he was examining the data before him, then choosing his words carefully. "Probably because you never cared as much before."

Ouch. Ok. Not choosing his words all that carefully.

I must have visibly recoiled because Sasuke continued. "Sorry, obviously I'm unlikely to make an adequate psychologist either. I didn't mean to suggest that I ever considered you to be uncaring. Simply that as someone who's known you for almost four years, you often seemed somewhat… apart from things. Once you were revealed to as… well… you, you're having to put all the pieces of yourself back into one person again, and some of the things that didn't serve you as Katsu, or even as Kaya, are ummm… coming back online."

"Alright. There were about three different metaphors tangled up in that, but I get your point." Having my conscience return at this point was rotten timing, but my life was full of rotten timing. "It still leaves me questioning my judgment."

"What I said earlier – that there's no right answer – goes the opposite too," Sasuke said. "It is equally true that there's no wrong answer either." He looked up above the trees, where the sun was resting on the one lone cloud visible in the otherwise clear sky. I suppose he was so used to looking for answers in the cosmos that it was his go to. "Perhaps that isn't much of a comfort, but if you keep telling yourself that, maybe it will be easier to keep up the charade."

"Maybe…" Our conversation was cut off when Yuki and Mai, who had been having another of their siblingesque spats, got tired of bickering and dropped back to chat with us.

Of necessity, due to her complete inability to carry out a deception of this magnitude, Mai had been kept in the dark as to our plans. So Sasuke immediately changed the subject midstream. "What's to question? Even if Dr. Strange kills Dr. Who, Dr. Who could simply regenerate into a more powerful being."

"I'm still going with stalemate." I picked up the thread of the imaginary conversation. "Sorcerer versus Time Lord might be the first working perpetual motion machine."

Mai jumped into the debate. "I vote Dr. Strange. In the blink of his eyes, he can figure out the only way in one billion simulations that will kill Dr. Who… so he'll always be one step ahead."

Yuki slapped his hand to his forehead and groaned. "Not again. It was bad enough when there were only two of you doing that."

It's too bad I didn't have a Sorcerer like Dr. Strange hand to run simulations until he had the correct answer for the current dilemma.

"Is there room for another up there?" Shingen called softly, looking up into the tree where I was currently perched.

I glanced at the next branch that – after an experimental shake – I judged sturdy enough to hold his weight. "Yes, but, I understand the concept of keeping lookout is that one person looks while everyone else – "

Shingen hauled himself into the tree.

"-sleeps."

We had made camp just after sunset, and as with the previous nights, I had the first watch. Which generally was the easiest one, but at least they had given me one.

"Agreed, but I'm not yet ready to sleep." He might also possibly be annoyed at the fact that Kenshin had vetoed even the thought of Shingen taking a watch shift. But by now, Kenshin, as well as everyone else, knew full well how often Shingen succumbed to the coughing fits. There are no secrets in camping.

Shingen rested against the tree trunk, looked around, the pulled a leaf out of my hair. "With the moon shining down on you, you look like a magical woodland creature. An enchantress."

I conquered the urge to roll my eyes at that, have accepted that his flowery compliments were basically a form of Tourettes. Easier to simply be entertained by whatever he came up with next. "In Greek mythology, woodland enchantresses had a habit of transforming men into trees."

"Were I transformed into a tree, you would very likely have climbed me… and it would have been the highlight of my days." His face was shaded from the moon by leaves, but I imagined that if I had been able to make out his expression, I would have seen him wink.

This time the eyeroll won. I had walked into that one. And it did bring to mind the possibility of certain activities… that we'd likely not have time to try in the near future – if at all. My prior gloom returned.

Unlike Shingen's, my face was apparently not hidden from the moonlight, for Shingen said, "There it is again. You are upset about something."

Easier to divert to the thing that he already knew I was upset about. "I am, but as it's something we've already discussed without coming to an agreement, it's not worth ruining a pretty night light this bringing it up again."

Shingen companionably took my hand. "Fair enough."

We were quiet for a while, as I really was supposed to be the lookout. But eventually Shingen asked, "You've never mentioned any other family except for your brother. What about your parents? Friends? Do you think they are stuck in your time wondering what happened to the two of you?"

What thought had brought him to that line of questioning? "There might have been some fellow classmates who wondered at my disappearance – but as for family – no." If the wormhole – and I was probably giving it anthropomorphic tendencies that it didn't truly possess – had looked for two people whose disappearance was the least likely to cause a ripple, it had found them in Toshiie and me. I'd always been a bit of a loner and Toshiie was too busy with his studies (and checking up on me) to have much of a social life beyond an occasional hook-up.

He didn't press for more details… I was well aware that silence was an interrogation technique, because we'd actually discussed such things. For a few moments I allowed the last of the summer cicadas, the rustle of the wind, and the sound of Yukimura's snores filled the space between us. I might not have said anything more, but Sasuke's prior comment about holding myself apart from others had stung. Shingen had told me plenty about his home, family and people, and I had been less reciprocal about my own family. "We never met our father. He left before we were born." All my mother would say was that she had met him at University, and he'd pulled a disappearing act on her. "I'm honestly not sure if he even knew about us. And our mother…" I paused, not entirely sure how to explain, or even if I even wanted to. Certainly it was something that Toshiie and I never discussed, even though I was aware he believed we should. I'd shut him down every time he brought her up.

Shingen squeezed my hand. Maybe he was encouraging me to continue, or maybe he was telling me it was ok if I did not. But that made me feel ok to tell him the rest of it – at least in words someone of this time would understand. Suicide was not uncommon here at all. Seppuku was a ritual, an honorable death for defeated warriors and their families – and I didn't know if Shingen would understand that my mother's act had been something different. She hadn't been defeated by war, but by her brain chemistry. "She was always very sad. Until she finally decided she could no longer stand to live like that." She'd hung on until Toshiie and I had started University, so at least one couldn't claim that she'd abandoned small children. There was that, anyway.

Once again, he squeezed my hand. I appreciated that he hadn't reflexively said he was sorry. "I imagine it wasn't easy – for any of you."

"No. But… it didn't come as a shock." I'd always had a checklist in my head to rate my mother's moods on a daily basis. There had been times when I was afraid to go into her room because I never knew what I would find. Logically, I knew what she had was as much of a disease as if there had been something physical consuming her from within. Logic didn't always stop me from sometimes being angry or resentful that I hadn't been enough for her. It only made me feel guilty when the anger and resentment took hold.

As I looked down on the array of tents below, it occurred to me that this group of people was a stronger family unit than the one that had been composed of my mother, Toshiie and I.

At that moment, the gruff patriarch figure called up to us from under the tree. "Shingen, stop distracting the lookout."

I hadn't been that distracted, since I still had kept an eye on our surroundings, but I wondered if our low-voiced conversation had woken up Kenshin.

"I'm sorry, I found this tree sprite too tempting to resist," Shingen called down to him.

"As I am awake now and not likely to sleep as long as the two of you keep babbling away, I may as well take over." Kenshin grumbled and drew his sword. "Maybe I'll get lucky and someone will attack us."

Shingen climbed down from the tree, then glanced up at me before I made my own descent. "Would it do me any good at all to offer to catch you?"

"Nope. Don't look if it bothers you so much." I flipped myself down.

Once I was on the ground, Kenshin gave me a long look then… patted me on the head.

?!

"Don't spend all night talking," was all he said, before climbing up to take my place.

"He… just… patted me on the head." Kenshin had patted me on the head like I was his little sister.

"Yes." Shingen placed his hand on my lower back and steered me toward our tent.

"Why?" Had he overheard our talk? Did he feel sorry for me?

"Perhaps some day he will tell you," Shingen replied with a finality. "Come on, Devil. Let's make the most of the night." He held open the tent flap.

"Did you not just hear Kenshin caution us not to stay up all night?" I ducked inside and Shingen pulled me into his arms.

"He said don't spend all night talking. I have no intention of talking." He kissed the side of my throat. "Perhaps I'll be permitted to whisper." His voice got lower, not as much as a whisper by a caramel coated come-hither. "I'll tell you how lovely you looked in the tree, how lovely you look now, wrapped in my arms."

…Later, as I curled next to him, his arm under my head, I discovered tears leaking from my eyes. This had been my goodbye, though Shingen would not learn that yes. Though I hoped it would not be too long before we could be reunited, there would then be the necessity of earning forgiveness – if indeed that could be earned after this kind of betrayal.

There was a brush of his fingertip against my cheek, as he caught the next tear before it could travel further on its own. To my relief, he didn't question, saving me the trouble of telling him yet another lie.

We reached Honno-ji just after sunset the next day. Sasuke had calculated that the wormhole would open up later that night and the sound of a distant storm seemed to confirm that. The electricity hovered in the air, a familiar static crackle that felt like there centipedes running along my arms. Yes. It had been almost seven years, but I remembered this.

Citing a concern for Shingen's health, Yuki shepherded us into the temple as rain began falling. The fire damage from earlier this summer had yet to be repaired and smoke stains were everywhere. Shingen eyed a broken beam. "This building is not particularly stable."

"It's also not raining in here," Yuki said, as he plunked himself down against the wall.

A splatter of water hit me on the nose. I looked up to see a hole in the ceiling. "Yes, it is."

"How will you know when this wormhole is open?" Kenshin asked Sasuke, who was poking around with interest.

"You'll know. It's difficult to miss," Sasuke said. A flash of lightning turned the room pinkish purple for a moment. "It may be arriving sooner than I anticipated." He gathered his pack, which aside from containing his modern clothing, also held a letter I had written before leaving Kasugayama. While he did that, Yuki slipped outside for a moment.

In my own things, I had instructions from Sasuke, giving me his best estimate for when the Togakushi "node" would open up – a window of time beginning in about ten weeks. He had handed me the scroll, with a disclaimer. "I can't be completely certain until I am back at my lab. But this ought to work," He had said as he pushed his glasses up on his nose. "At least theo-"

"If you say 'theoretically' one more time, I'm going to borrow Kenshin's sword and stab you myself," had been my reply to that.

"Not one of your daggers?"

"The occasion would call for an upgrade."

Now, as I remembered that rushed private meeting back in Kasugayama, I wondered if Sasuke had been hedging his bets because he truly wasn't sure what was going on with the timeline, or because he didn't think this gamble would pay off at all.

I looked back up at the dripping ceiling and sighed. Shingen pulled me away from the leak. "Get out of the rain, Devil." He brushed raindrops off my hair. "I'm well aware you've spent a significant amount of time in my presence while soaked to the skin, but in this case, it is not necessary." He led me into a drier section of the temple. He kissed the top of my head. "Something seems to be eating at you, and once we are on our way again, I'm going to insist we talk about it."

"That would be good." It would be, if it actually were to happen. Odd though, for him to insist on a conversation, when he'd been ducking so many of my own overtures this past month.

"Sasuke." Mai's voice sounded loud over a lull in the conversation. "I don't suppose you could bring back some chocolate? It might be the one thing I miss that you could actually carry back."

"What is chocolate?" Shingen asked, having caught on to the fact that it was something to be desired.

Mai side eyed him. "Bring a lot."

While Mai conveniently had Shingen's attention, Yuki slipped back inside carrying Shingen's pack, which he'd liberated from Good Horse's saddlebag. He handed it to Sasuke, who slung it over his shoulder.

"It's coming," Sasuke said, prompting last-minute hugs and bro-slaps.

I could still change my mind.

I could grab Shingen's hand and pull him out of here. Kenshin and Yuki would eventually catch us, but it would be too late by then. I could do that. But… could I keep him alive long enough to get to Togakushi? Could I even get him there at all? I remembered that awful morning when I'd managed to get him out of the cave. I'd barely managed to go five kilometers before Yukimura had taken over. That had been in summer, over relatively flat territory; not in winter, in the mountains.

It wouldn't be enough.

I wouldn't be enough.

No – I pushed away my second thoughts (by this time they were more like fifth thoughts). Kenshin's plan was Shingen's best chance to live.

In the flurry of activity and the howling of the storm, I moved to distract Shingen from Yukimura and Kenshin, who had drawn their swords. But while throwing my arms around his neck and giving him a kiss may have begun as a distraction, I willed everything I had not and could not say into the kiss, until emboldened by the way his arms tightened around me, I broke away. "Don't hate me. I'd rather be apart from you and believe you alive and healthy, than watch you painfully slip away."

"Katsuko… what?" That was all he got out before Yuki and Kenshin advanced on him, swords drawn. Realization dawned, and he reached for me again.

"I love you," I whispered, but I don't think he heard me.

He stretched his hand toward me. Our fingers nearly touched, slipping past each other, as Sasuke grabbed him, and pulled him into the wormhole.

Then Kenshin herded us all backward, away from the fog, which disappeared after Sasuke and Shingen in a swirl of wind like a cyclone drawing back into itself.

Only a bit of leftover rain dripping from the ceiling was all that remained of the storm.

"What the hell did you guys just do?" Mai whispered into the sudden silence.