Oh man, bet you weren't thinking that would happen.  That makes a change in POV kinda necessary; so let's see if you guys can deal with some handy third person.

*****

Scarlet

Epilogue

*****

"Slow down!" a woman's voice called out across the clearing as two children raced to the top of the flowered hill that was their first destination.  "I'm serious!  This isn't funny!"

"Hurry up, mama!" the girl, who looked to be about twelve, yelled out the weary looking woman who looked like she was barely old enough to be her mother.  "He'll be here, won't he?"

"Of course he will, Yumeko." She sighed and took her time striding across the space between them gracefully, as was her wont.  "He loves to play with you two.  Now, stop and pick some flowers like I showed you."

"Yes, mom!" both children called out in unison, making a great game of gathering all types of wildflowers and then bringing them to her mother, who used a blade of grass to expertly tie them together before she led them further up the hill.  They were going to the top, and they would be there soon enough if they took their time.  Of course, the children hated to take their time.  Kagura sighed slowly as she was passed up again, both of her children running further up the mountainside.  They knew the way to the cave almost as well as she did.  They'd been coming this way for nearly forty years, though it would shock any human to hear that her "babies" were old enough to be middle-aged adults.  Of course, youkai aged much slower than humans did, but that was only something youkai knew.  Or perhaps a few humans who had somehow come to live with youkai.  But Kagura didn't really know of any of those.  Her world was centered around her two children and their monthly visits to the cave she had lived in for nearly a year and a half.

That was where he was buried.

That was where Ginta would meet her, and he would bring Jinkou, her third child, though she let the children go on thinking that they were "cousins" instead of siblings.  It didn't really matter, as long as they got to see each other.  These trips to the cave were therapeutic for her as they were painful, and at least she had come to forgive Ginta, in a way.  After all, she had killed a lot more people than he had, and really, he had tried to save Kouga.

He just hadn't succeeded.

"Jinkou!" she heard the squeal of Yumeko first, and then excited laughter as the children greeted each other, and she had to smile, happy that they got along so well.  After all, it would have made Kouga smile to see, she was sure.  He had been stupid to die for her transgression, and she felt the guilt weigh her down every day.  But until the children were grown, she couldn't possibly leave this world.  And until she died, she could never apologize to him except for in the small ways.  She felt like the flowers were something.  She felt like bringing the children together was another.  And wouldn't it make him happy to know that in the end, everyone got along?  It was his memory that brought them together.  And after Ayame had passed, Ginta had needed a friend just as badly as she had.

"Good day, Ginta." She smiled at him as she finally caught up with her children, who were chasing each other around on the rocks and being generally unruly and overly energetic.  Let them play.  They were just children, after all.  Ginta pressed a purse full of gold into her hand, just as he did every month, and she smiled at him sadly, dropping it into her sleeve so smoothly it seemed to disappear.  Then she moved to her true destination, the single stone that stood in the back of their cave, protected from the elements and from prying eyes.  She knew this place better than any other.  It was where her heart was buried.

"They look taller." Ginta was right behind her as she placed her flowers and knelt to offer silent prayers.  Pleas for forgiveness, for the children's health, for Kouga's peace.  And forgiveness, again.  That occupied her mind almost all the time.  It was the thing that kept her eyes from smiling as brightly as the dead man might have recalled.  It was the thing that made her move about so slowly, like she was dragging a burden far heavier than she had ever been meant to carry.

"You always say that." She told him as she rose some time later, but just as smoothly as if she had not paused at all.  It was always like this.  They would watch the children play.  They would burn some incense for Kouga.  They would wander over the hillside to where Ayame was buried.  They would place more flowers.  The children would continue to play through all of this, as though they didn't understand the gravity of the monthly meeting.

They were young, still, in their own way.

"Last month, there was a fight over in the northern hillside." Ginta spoke up conversationally as they stood from a good vantage point, overseeing the children as they always did.  "A few of my men died."

"I'm sorry." She smiled sadly at him.  All her smiles seemed sad, these days.  They had been that way for so long, it was the only smile Ginta could remember.  It hurt to look at, but not as much as those eyes, that constantly reminded him of the blood that had been spilled between them.  At least it wouldn't happen again.  Never again.

"Hakkaku died." He continued.  There was a long silence.  Kagura did not know many people from the tribe to begin with.  Hakkaku was one of the few she had been able to recognize.

"That's too bad." She sounded genuinely sorry, and he didn't doubt that she was.  They were friends.  Allies, in their own weird way.

"You know…other than me, he's the last one that remembered…what you…you know." Ginta looked rather uncomfortable, and a flash of dull pain, something nearly forgotten, went through Kagura's features.

"Makes a woman feel old, you know." She told him, almost jokingly.  Almost.  "Hearing something like that."

"You could…come live with us.  If you wanted." He had to make the offer before he lost his guts.  "With the tribe.  The children would love it."

"I have no doubt of that." She sighed slowly.  "But I don't think I could handle it.  I'm just an old woman, after all.  And I miss him.  I value my loneliness more than you can know.  It is the closest thing I have to penance, and I must pay it."

"You don't have to…always beat yourself up about that." Ginta felt foolish now.  He'd never expected her to reject the offer.  "I was just as much as fault.  More."

"Maybe." She let her fingers drift through hair that was so long it tangled with her skirts in the whipping wind.  "But I loved him.  And he trusted me."

"I was his best friend." Ginta dug at the dirt with his booted foot.

"I know." Kagura was so distant, staring at the sky wistfully.

"Kagura?" Ginta ventured to ask something else, something that scared him even more than the first question.

"Yes?" she didn't seem to be listening, but she answered him readily enough.

"You think we'll…go to hell?" it had been a constant fear since he'd realized that Kouga was dead.  That he had killed him.  That Kagura would blame herself.  That he had made a mistake with Ayame, and she would never heal, no matter how he loved her.  That he had stolen a child, and that he should have never done it, but it was too late to go back.

"I hope not." She sounded like she might continue, but her pause was so long that Ginta spoke again.

"But…" he prompted.

"Yes."  She finally answered, pulling as much hair as she could back behind her ear, her eyes going back to the children, pained, tired.  Old eyes.  But her face still looked so young.  Who could tell how long she would go on living, wanting to die?

"Oh." There wasn't a lot he could say.  That was what he had worried, and she had confirmed it.

"Sometimes…I feel like this is hell.  My own hell." She turned to him, and her eyes sparkled with tears.  "That must sound stupid.  It isn't that I don't love the children…but they only remind me."

"At least they're happy, no matter how bad we feel." He sighed, stepping toward them, signaling the end of the conversation.

It was time to go home.  They would see each other next month.

And the month after that.

And on.

And on.

*****

The End