Chapter Forty-One – Miles to Go Before I Sleep

"What the hell did you guys just do?"

Maybe it was my imagination, but Mai's question felt like it echoed in the quiet temple. What the hell did we just do? Saved his life, saved his life, saved his life. Was that the answer? Or a mantra? Please, let them be able to save his life. What if all we had done was send him to a new world where he would die alone?

"It was necessary. Sasuke will take him to a healer in your time, and they will cure him." Kenshin spoke firmly, as if no modern doctor would dare fail in that task, or Kenshin would hop into the next wormhole and stab them in retaliation.

"Cure… of what?" Mai turned to me. She'd not only been kept out of our plans – she hadn't even known they were necessary.

"I don't know. He was dying. He told me he didn't believe he would s-s-survive…" I took a deep breath. "Survive past this winter." Honestly, I couldn't talk, or even think about it any longer, so I gave Mai an apologetic smile, made an excuse about wanting to check on my horse, and went outside. Kenshin or Yuki could explain it to her.

Once outside, I ignored the muzzling rain and buried my face in Moonlight's neck. Up until that last moment, I had hoped that one or all of us would call it off, or that Shingen would change his mind and volunteer to go to the future. But the look of shocked betrayal on his face, and Mai's horrified What the hell did you guys just do, was playing like a skipping record in my mind. I had no way of turning it off. It would likely loop all the way to Ikuno.

"Katsu?" I lifted my head to see Yuki standing there, looking about as uncomfortable as I had ever seen him. "Aw geez, you aren't crying, are you?"

Was I? I brushed my hand across my face. "It's the rain." Who was he to sound so horrified over a few tears when his own eyes were wet? "What?"

He shifted his weight from one foot to the other. "Nothing. I wanted to make sure you hadn't up and left for Ikuno."

Oh. Actually, I'd probably been about ten minutes away from reaching the conclusion that I could just leave. I gave him as much of a smile as I could manage. "Well, to quote Sasuke, there was a nonzero chance of that happening, but I won't leave without saying goodbye."

He scrubbed his hands through his hair so that it stood on end. "Kenshin and Mai will be out in a moment. We can say goodbye to them then."

"Alrigh- what?" We? Them? Did I hear that right?

"He's going to be mad enough at me enough already. There's no way I will let Shingen's woman travel alone to Ikuno." It was said in a casual tone of voice, but the set of his shoulders told me I shouldn't argue.

Even so, I put up a token protest. "I can take care of myself." I could. However, to be honest, I felt torn between wanting to stew in private misery and wanting company to keep me from doing just that.

"I know. You don't have to. Besides -." He looked over his shoulder to where Mai and Kenshin were emerging from the temple, looking like they were a single unit unto themselves. "The last thing I want is to be the odd man out on their trip home."

Hm, ok, yeah. Yukimura trapped for four days with Kenshin and Mai without the mitigating presence of Sasuke was a stabbing incident in the making.

Mai hurried over to me and I braced myself for a lecture. "I'm not sure I agree with what you did."

Fair point, given I wasn't convinced it had been right either.

"But I can't say that I wouldn't have done the same thing, if I were in your shoes, so I understand." She hugged me, and I imagined that she was also offering a shoulder to cry on, if I wanted.

I didn't want that though. If I allowed myself to cry, to really cry, I might not be able to stop. So, I stepped out of her embrace and simply thanked her.

Kenshin convinced us (translation, at sword point) to get a few hours of sleep before setting off, pointing out that we'd be safer travelling in daylight. Yukimura and I reluctantly agreed. After a few hours of fitful sleep at a posting inn on the outskirts of Kyoto, and one last morning 'kill,' I was more than ready to get on the road.

As shattered as I still felt at saying goodbye to Shingen in such a manner, there was, behind that sadness, anticipation of the reunion with my brother. For the first three quarters of my life, he had been my other half, the person who could always be counted on to balance me out, the one person I didn't need to tell anything to, because he'd been there through all of it. Now that we'd missed six and a half years of each other's lives, would we still have that connection?

"Safe journeys, Katsuko," Kenshin said. "I hope you find your brother in good health. He is as welcome in Kasugayama as you are."

Well. That was an interesting idea. I imagined that Toshiie would be in sheer bliss, surrounded by all that beefcake in the castle. "Thank you. But you can't kill him. Toshiie is a healer, not a fighter." At least the Toshiie of my memory had been. But I wasn't the same person I had been seven years ago – I wasn't even the same person I had been that day seven weeks ago, when I shot the sniper out of the tree. Therefore, I shouldn't freeze my brother in time either.

Kenshin scowled. "He must train to fight. It is a necessary skill." He looked ready rhapsodize on the issue, but Yuki stepped in and reminded him that we needed to get going if we were going to reach Ikuno in another three days.

Without any additional fanfare, Yuki and I set off. Behind us, I heard Mai suggesting that since they were so close to Azuchi, they should drop in on Nobunaga so she could say hello to her friends. We encouraged our horses into a trot, neither of us wanting to be anywhere near Azuchi if Mai succeeded in convincing him that was a good idea.

Yukimura proved to be a good traveling companion. Though I at first had resented the thought of company, Yuki was the type to stay quiet unless he had something worth saying. He would occasionally point out something or someone interesting along the route and he had a knack for befriending other travelers to the point where they would tell him their entire life history. It was a useful talent to have – I imagined that Aki would have enjoyed having him as one of his scouts.

"What's so funny?" Yuki asked me, on the third evening of our journey, when we had stopped to camp for the night.

I handed him a bowl of rice, then found a log near the fire to sit on while I waited for the tea water to boil.

"I was just thinking that my previous employer would have appreciated your um, people skills." Then, because he looked a little confused at that, I added. "Basically, I was admiring your ability to talk to anyone, no matter what their station in life."

"Any man," Yuki corrected, with his mouth full. Ok, yeah, his table manners might be a little rough (and Aki... would likely have called him feral). "I can't talk to women, remember?"

Would it be worth pointing out the obvious? Reminding Yuki of my gender when I was dressed as Katsu might actually prove his point, so I approached the issue from another angle. "So, when you talk to a woman, pretend you're talking to man."

Once again, he roughed up his hair with his hands. I could always tell where Yuki's emotions stood, just by looking at the top of his head. "Yeah, yeah sure. If I wanted to have a conversation. I'm terrible at flirting – and I hate it anyway, so why bother?"

"Conversation is really important Yuki." The tea water was finally boiling, so I got up to prepare a couple cups. "If you prefer to just talk, I guarantee lots of women would be happy with that."

That comment was rewarded with a patented Yukimura Eyeroll (TM). "Yeah. Right. Hard to take your word for that. You're with one of the biggest flirts in the country."

Was this some kind of Sengoku era Godwin's Law where all conversation inevitably returned to Shingen? "Well, that's a bug, not a feature."

"Katsu, please don't think you have to take Sasuke's place by making weird comments… Thanks," he added when I handed him a cup of tea.

"Aw. So I shouldn't call you bestie?" I plopped back down opposite him.

"Please don't." He sipped at the tea, and when he didn't wince, I figured I had remembered how he liked it. "What did you mean about the bugs?"

I thought back. "Oh. The flirting thing. I fell for Shingen because of how he treated me when he thought I was boy." His kindness… the way he took me seriously… the way he helped me after I had killed the sniper… the way we could just… talk.

"Huh." I could tell that Yuki didn't believe me, but I didn't plan to go into any more detail, so that was that. "And, not that I was around for any of it," a fact that I was really grateful for, "but I cannot imagine that Kenshin flirted with Mai."

"No. He threw her in the dungeon." He rolled his eyes again (a sentiment I agreed with one hundred percent).

Ugh. Right. She'd mentioned that. "See. No flirting. Although I wouldn't recommend imprisonment as an effective romantic tool. Everyone is different."

Yuki kicked his feet in the dirt in front of him. "Where do the bugs come into it?"

I sighed. "Well, probably you're going to need to find the girl who understands that when you put a bug down the back of her kimono, you're actually telling her that you think she's cute."

He threw a twig at me. "I wouldn't do anything like that."

"If you say so." Anyway, I imagined that if Yuki ever found a woman he wanted to pursue, he would figure it out, or… hmmm…errrmmmm. "When you meet the girl of your dreams, come and ask me, or Mai for help, ok?" Between the two of us, we'd make sure he didn't torpedo the relationship before it set sail.

"Yeah. Alright." Sounded like he didn't think such a girl existed anyway.

"We'll sort you out." Or. Mai would, if I wasn't around any longer.

He was quiet a long time, and we sat there listening to the cicadas buzzing and the wind rattling the trees. "First or second watch?" he eventually asked.

"Second, unless you are really tired." On our first night after leaving Kasugayama, Yuki had had the watch immediately after mine, and I nearly had to dump a bucket of water over his head to wake him up.

What the hell did you guys just do?

What the hell did you guys just do?

Kaya, it was too late – you just cursed him to die alone… as will you. You're a tool that has outlived its usefulness. No use yelling. This time there's no one around to hear you. My hands pounded on the side of the crate, fingers scrabbling at the splintering wood. Without seeing it, I knew the sides of my coffin would be smeared with blood.

I kicked and pounded at the sides of the crate, yelling for someone to hear me.

"Katsu! Katsu! Wake up, damn it!"

Clearing the border between sleep and awake in seconds, I sat up. "What? Are we under attack?" I reached to grab my dagger from where it was sitting next to my bedroll and discovered a fistful of twigs and leaves was already in my hand.

"No. Shit. You were making so much noise I thought you were the one being attacked." His face shadowed by lantern light, Yuki rocked back on his heels and raked his hand through his hair. It was at critical mass. I must have scared the crap out of him.

"Sorry," I mumbled. "I have bad dreams sometimes."

Yuki awkwardly patted my shoulder. "Unless you, um, need a hug." His tone of voice pleaded for me to not need a hug.

"I'm ok. Thanks. It's probably time to switch out anyway." I scrubbed the sand out of my eyes.

"Yeah." He looked away while I got out of the bedroll, a polite, but unnecessary gesture, as I was fully dressed.

"Yuki?" Maybe it wasn't worth asking his opinion, but the dream had left me rattled. Iekane always left me rattled, even if the dream Iekane was only a product of my subconscious. "Did we do the right thing?"

Again, the hands went through the hair. He was likely to be bald by the time we got to Ikuno if he kept that up. "Shit. Yes. We had a good reason. That counts, right?"

Yeah, but that thought wasn't keeping the nightmares away.

But he wasn't finished speaking. "We did it. There's no use thinking about it now." He sighed. "As long as we're both awake, why don't we just get an early start?"

Maybe I should have objected – he hadn't had a chance to sleep… but I wanted to see my brother, so without another word, I nodded and packed up my stuff.

Thanks to decent weather and no sudden obstacles, we made it to Ikuno late that afternoon. Ikuno was a small mining town – small enough that I only needed to ask one person where to find the Healer, in order to be pointed to a small house on the outskirts of town.

In my head, I was chanting, please be the right person, please be the right person as we approached. A woman was gardening out front. When she saw us, she dropped her spade and put her hand to her chest. She jumped to her feet and rushed inside.

This can't be good.

Moments later, a man rushed out of the house, musket in hand. He stared into the road, and raised the gun, pointing it right at us.