Note: This should start the heavy tragedy, I suppose. J Thanks very much to all the people who reviewed the previous chapters.

Cross-Shaped Pain

Chapter Three: Love And Death

(Tokyo)

"Kaoru-dono… are you all right?"

The woman grasped the old wooden plank of the kitchen shoji with desperate determination, until she saw her knuckles turn white. She had to close her eyes, she told herself. Close them for a while… if she did, it would pass.

"Yes, Shinta. Of course I'm all right!" she lied, as she succeeded in smothering the pain and the nausea after some brief instants of agony. Glad to see that the floor did not rise to meet her sight anymore, she felt herself starting to return to her usual self little by little. "But you shouldn't be wandering around the house so much. Today is a beautiful day, why don't you sit outside for a while?"

"I am worried," he insisted. Suppressing a sigh, a pale and tired Kaoru turned towards him, and offered him an arm for support that he refused. "I… can walk alone."

Since he had fairly recovered from the feverish state he had been in when he had arrived, his curiosity about her and her situation had done nothing but increase. Whenever she felt like having a breakdown, like now, he was there watching her, and when he woke up in the morning, he usually took her arm away, and stared at her ugly rashes with an inscrutable glance until he fell into a doze again. Fortunately, at least his relative clarity of mind had brought back to him some fleeting remembrances about the why and when of the incident, but they came and went at the most unsuspected moments. The other day, for example, while he caressed her arm in bed, he had stared at her with doleful eyes, and she had heard him whispering in a soft tone that it was not worth the pain.

"Of course it is!" she had answered with a smile. "For me, it is. No one is going to make me regret my decision for a single moment, not even you!"

And, relatively, it had been the truth. If there was something in the world thatshe knew, Kaoru would not regret it anymore. While Kenshin and her walked into the porch of the house, and she helped him to sit down at his favourite place under the sun, she could not help but revive once more the remembrances of those dark days… (no, nights, for the suffering had come always at night), when the first wound had broken in, and she had been alone in her big house. She remembered herself staring at it with the same obsessive glance that she could see sometimes in Kenshin now, cradling the slowly growing thing for all night long. She remembered her nightmares, in which she died before being able to see Kenshin again, and how then he always returned and found her lying in her grave. Her forces had finally left her because of a sudden weakness and a terrible lack of sleep, and everybody had started wondering about her, worrying, fretting over her, while the only thing she could do was to withdraw from them and dread their discovery. She wouldn't have stood the look in their faces. She wouldn't have stood to see Kenji… to let him know what she had done to him, that she had deserted him too, and seethe at the unfairness of the situation because she knew he would blame his father all the same for this. She remembered herself crying every night, in pain and shame, for weeks. And then… she also remembered the heartfelt laugh that had come afterwards.

I want to share your pain. Please, let me share your pain…

Until now, she had probably been unable to understand even for a moment what that word really meant. She had felt grief when her mother died, when her father died, when Kenshin left her to go to Kyoto, or when Yahiko had told her that Kenshin had contracted a deadly disease. But pain… that had been nothing else than the name of a phantasmagorical barrier which did not allow her to reach the man she loved. It had isolated him from everyone else, even from her, and whenever she saw it in his eyes while his mouth was smiling she felt like aching in frustration. As he had said shortly after they met, her beliefs were those of a person who had never had to kill. Killing, murdering hundreds of people in cold blood, causing the death of the person she loved the most, developing a cold, unfeeling mask that ended up battling to usurp her true feelings in a war that pushed her to the brink of insanity, being alone for years and years, followed by remorse and the hatred of people wherever she went… she had never felt anything like that. And because of this, she did not deserve the naked, sincere glance he granted to the men who had fought in the Bakumatsu, or that, she was sure, he had given to the woman who had seen him kill, that night when both had lain in each other's arms next to the fireside the nigh before she had died for him . All that the little girl deserved was those clouded eyes, and that gentle but false smile. She had lived for years and years with this… until she had been able to change the situation.

Now, effectively, since this had happened to her, Kaoru had come to know what secret nightmares were. She had felt the overpowering shame, the need to hide her suffering. The guilt was hers now, as well as the empty smiles and the glassy eyes, and the suffocating loneliness that came with the knowledge that nobody understood her and that nobody should. Since she had embraced living Death in her own bed one night as he had embraced it every day in the hospitals of the syphilitics, she had learned what pain was, and torn down all the barriers.

She was the one who understood him now, better than anyone.

"Are you…leaving?" he asked, trying to ask the question with an even tone. Still, Kaoru was able to perceive the disappointment in it, and, with care not to perform a brusque action, she knelt at his side.

"I'm going to wash the dishes and take care of the house, but I promise I won't be long. Then, I will come here, and we'll sit together under the sun, okay?"

"All right," he nodded, resignedly . "But… be careful."

"Oh, but that's incredible!" she exclaimed in mock exasperation. "After such a long trip, you come back with exactly the same attitude? I don't know what I'm going to do with you, Himura Kenshin…"

The man lowered his head, and laughed softly at her words. Kaoru smiled too, and turned to get back inside after pecking him in the cheek where the cross-shaped faint signal still persisted. She hated to leave him alone for a long time. She had to because there were things that needed to be done, but still, each fifteen minutes or so she would take care of returning to watch him and give him a bit of conversation, so he wouldn't start to revive horrors once more and curse at his impotence. The events in China had affected him so much that his brain would have had to be entirely lost in order to forget the things he had told her in his letters from the continent. Even in the middle of his fever, she had caught him several times muttering words in Chinese, and when she had confessed herself puzzled at his acquisition, so late in his life, of a foreign and difficult language when he had never known anything but Japanese until then, he had given her an indescribable glance, and had whispered that he couldn't trust an interpreter.

That was how she had reached the knowledge that atonement was impossible until he died. She was aware that he considered himself indirectly responsible of what had happened on the continent, because he had fought in the Bakumatsu to build the state of things that had made the China horror possible, and had even written to her that while his murders kept multiplying and producing other murders he wouldn't be able to rest in peace unless Death forced complete oblivion upon him. When he had returned and she had seen the cross-shaped scar still lingering there, she only had needed to put two and two together.

The woman shook her head sadly at those thoughts, and began to carry the bowls she hadn't been able to pick up before. When Megumi arrived, it would be horribly rude to ask her to do that, but she needed help to clean the house. Dirt would start eating them very soon if she didn't get to it… and she felt so weak…

What a pair of warriors! she could not help but think ironically, throwing the dishes in the water. Two in a house, and unable to help themselves.

She was looking forward to see Megumi, to have her in the house, even if she would have to tell her what had happened. After all, they were both connected by a strong link that would allow the doctor in the end to understand her attitude and her feelings like no one else could, as shocked as she would feel at first. Both of them loved Kenshin, and both had always wished to be the ones to share his burden.

A wholly different thing, though, would be Yahiko's arrival with Kenji, if he managed to convince him to leave Kyoto. Kaoru dreaded this more than anything else in the world, and felt the sharpest pangs of guilt rolling inside her stomach whenever she thought of it. What if, just because of her doings, her son never forgave his father while the latter was alive? What if he…?

The woman put the bowl she had just washed on top of the others, and froze as she felt the nausea creeping up inside her once more. No. Not again… Tsubame had said that she would come…

She was glad she still had Tae and Tsubame around, coming to help her and give her conversation whenever they could, but unfortunately they couldn't leave their work places too often. Yahiko hadn't come back when he had said he would, either, and the dojo was closed now. Her father wouldn't be too proud…

The water glowed with an unnatural light in front of her eyes, just before a sharp pang distorted her view. Suppressing a scream that could alert Kenshin about what was happening to her, Kaoru tried to reach for a safe handle, but felt her hands slipping away in the wetness, towards the void.

As she came down, unable to prevent her fall, the last thing she heard was a voice calling her name.

"Are you sure?"

Tsubame gave a sharp intake of breath, and lost her glance on the carriage that hurried down the usually quiet street they were crossing. Somehow, she had always found it impossible to keep people's glances when they were talking about serious things, and Megumi's right now was too piercing in its shock.

"I… Tae-san and I have talked about it often. We're almost sure. There's… something bad going on with Kaoru-san."

The older woman sighed in frustration.

"But what kind of something? A disease? Or she's just affected by poor Ken-san's state?"

"I hope it isn't a disease...," Tsubame said heartily, doing nothing but increase Megumi's impatience. She had been already too crushed at the news of Kenshin's terminal state when she had taken the train to rush to Tokyo. What had she done now, to deserve that new sinister guessing game? "But she doesn't talk about it, and somehow we don't dare to bring the subject up. She's so… distant. We thought you were the only one who could know and, as I had already written the letter to you…"

"I see." Professionality, Megumi, professionality… "Well, I'm here, if this is what you were expecting," she said with a brief smile. "And, whether they want me there or not, I'm going to bring some order into that house."

Tsubame smiled back, though her smile was brief, too, as Megumi could observe.

"I'm very glad that you have come. Somehow I... well, I cannot help but believe that things will get different with you here. It's a sensation."

"And not a too surprising one, after I've been always the one to knock some sense inside that little girl," the doctor snorted airily. "I'm still every inch as ready to do so."

The younger woman blushed, and shook her head.

"I… don't think you will be able to do anything like what you did the day Kenshin-san left for Kyoto. She has changed so… uh?"

All of a sudden, as she was talking, her words got caught in her throat, and her feet froze in place. Megumi turned towards her, astonished at her attitude.

"What's the matter, Tsubame-chan? Have you… seen…?"

But then she saw it, too, and her question died on her lips. In front of them, twenty or thirty metres away from where they were, a red-haired man was resting exhaustedly, with his back against a tree. His chest was heaving up and down from exertion, but his worried eyes did not cease darting in every direction, apparently in desperate search of something or someone.

"Ken-san!" the doctor cried, running towards him. Equally agitated, Tsubame followed her, and in a mutual effort, the two women were able to hold him and support his tired body. Blood was oozing from his wounds, and staining his fresh bandages. "What has happened? What's the matter?

"Me… Megumi?" he asked in disbelief. As he recognized her features, his eyes widened with urgency. "Megumi-dono… you have to help Kaoru-dono! Quick! She is… she is… she needs you!"

Unable to hear anything else, the woman left Kenshin in Tsubame's care, and threw everything except her medical bag to the ground. Then, hearing a strange sound whistling in her ears, she took a long, avid breath, and started a mad run towards the house.

Had she arrived too late?

An ominous silence hovered over the house when Megumi arrived and got inside through the open shoji. The kitchen was in a dreadful state of disarrangement, with dishes floating in the sink, a lot of things thrown in haste on the floor – by Kenshin, no doubt, in his mad search for bandages, remedies or whatnot - and the table still dirty from that morning's breakfast. Crossing all this quickly, she hurried into Kaoru's and Kenshin's bedroom by a shoji that had also been left open.

Damn, she cursed to herself as she saw the state of the woman who was lying there. She was pale and unconscious, and when she knelt at her side and took her hand in her own she could feel it was burning with fever. Reconstructing what had happened, she dared to venture that Kenshin had carried his wife to the bed after she had fainted, put a wet cloth on her forehead, covered her with a blanket so she wouldn't be cold while the fever advanced, and then, maybe aware that he wasn't able to take care of her reliably anymore - and how painful this should have felt to him- he had opted to go out and ask the first passer-by for help. Stupid girl, she had obviously lost no time in catching the fever he had brought from China. Precautions were something that did not exist in her vocabulary….

The fever is not too high, but it will rise in the next hours. The only thing that can be done is to help to hold it in check, she calculated, rising to prepare the adequate medicine for the situation. Before she left, though, she took her patient's hands to put them under the blanket once more, to prevent her from getting cold….

Uh? What's this?

Megumi froze, and knelt again to look closer at the strange red spot she had seen by chance in Kaoru's hand. Could her hand be bleeding? Carefully, she folded the sleeve of her kimono up… and the spectacle that was exposed in front of her eyes made her cringe.

Wh… What? No! Come on, it cannot be. She can't be so stupid…She can't be so…

Still, what she saw was dreadfully true; the whole arm was covered with the same rashes she had seen on Kenshin's years ago. Her heart refused to believe it, but her medical insight was already making the diagnosis as she stayed there trembling like a leaf. That was syphilis. Syphilis, acquired sexually from Ken-san before the latter left for China. It couldn't be anything else.

And now, the question. Could there have been an accident that nobody knew about? No, her mind answered itself, Kenshin would never have been so careless in anything regarding Kaoru. Half-dead as he was, he had been perfectly capable of rushing to find help when she had fainted. But, if not like that... then… how…?

"What have you done?" she could not help but exclaim aloud, too overwhelmed to get up or do anything else even if the occasion obviously required it. Kaoru's body stirred up at her words, and her eyes slowly began to open in confusion.

"Where am I?" she asked, instinctively trying to push the cover aside. "Shinta…"

"It's me," Megumi informed her in a curt voice. "Leave the blanket in place."

"Me… Megumi-san?" The haze in Kaoru's expression seemed to evaporate in nothing more than a second. "You…?"

"Yes, me," she answered. The younger woman noticed then that the rashes in her arms were exposed, and quickly pulled the sleeve of her kimono over them again, her cheeks reddening in shame. As if she could fool her….

"Please, tell me how this came to pass," Megumi asked in the most patient voice she was able to muster. Kaoru nodded weakly, but then lost her glance in the distance and stayed silent. The doctor's composure was waning in a question of seconds.

"Today, please."

"I…" The sick woman swallowed in resignation, and tried to smile. "I got it willingly. I begged it of him before he left, and he… he gave it to me."

"What?" Megumi gasped. She could not believe what she had heard.

"I was tired to be the little girl who couldn't understand him. I wanted to suffer with him… to share his burden," Kaoru continued, encouraged at the older woman's loss of words. "I wanted to prove to you all and to myself that I could. That I could be... his partner."

Megumi lowered her head and got up slowly, with a mumble that told her patient that she was going to prepare her medicine. She had the terrible feeling that the meaning of Kaoru's words hadn't been able to reach her mind fully yet, but what she had understood was shattering it already.

"Am I… I can't be dying yet, can I, Megumi-san?"

"Don't you dare joking with death!" the doctor exploded at last, in an unexpected fit of uncontrolled anger. "Is the joke not funny enough for you yet? You… you have wrecked your life for all the years to come in a childish tantrum and you still want to laugh a bit more? You will laugh enough, indeed you will, when you find yourself covered with putrid wounds!"

In spite of her present weakness, Kaoru did not flinch at those hard words. Laying her head on the pillow, she looked up towards the other woman, and pierced her with her adamant eyes.

"I'm not joking with death, Megumi-san. I'm serious. Do you know what I promised after the Jinchuu nightmare? I promised I would learn to understand him, and share his guilt and his pain as if I was a part of him. After this vow, he wandered through Japan atoning, and I stayed at home and took care of our child. He contracted syphilis…" Her voice broke slightly at that word, but soon returned again with even more force, almost as a shout. "He was dying, Megumi! Should I have left him alone in this, put him in a room and hide him, refuse to embrace him in fear he would pollute me, or remain at a cautious distance? From him, who had not hesitated to get close to those who were suffering and share their pain! Could I do that? And what about my promise? I promised I would never… leave him alone…"

The effort was too much for her, and she wavered. Before Megumi could get to her, her eyes had closed again, and she fell unconscious once more. The doctor arranged the covers over her with mechanical care, and left the room to prepare the medicine.

"Megumi-san!" Tsubame cried from the entrance. Kenshin was strangely calm, leaning on her, as if she had known since he had seen Megumi rush in there that nothing could go wrong anymore. "How is Kaoru-san doing?"

"She has contracted the fever, too," she announced, in the most professionally cool of tones. "As she was a bit… weakened for several reasons, it made prey on her and it will take some days to drive it away. But it's all under control." Yes, you still have plenty of years to go on, you wretched thing. And I know that in all that time you will never, ever question… "I'm going to prepare a medicine for her."

"Thank you, Megumi-dono," Kenshin said with a grateful smile. He had circles under his eyes, she noticed now, and creases on his brow and all his face. He wasn't forty-six yet, but he had already turned into a small, frail old man.

"Don't thank me yet," she frowned threateningly. "Next, I will get started with you!"

When she entered the messy kitchen again, the woman spilled the contents of her medical bag on the table like an automat, and knelt to search for the item she needed at the moment. As much as she tried, though, she wasn't able to spot it, for her whole vision was blurred with tears.

"Oh, Kami-sama, Kami-sama…," she whispered between sobs. "I didn't… I… I only told you to smile for him!"

For a long while, she wasn't able to do anything else than to stay there, repeating those words over and over as if they were a litany she had to cling to in order to stay sane.

(Kyoto)

"I will come back to your mother and to you, and I'll be with you when you come of age, so you can decide."

Liar.

Kenji gave a strong yell, and lowered his blade to strike repeated times. Considering that he had not been able to sleep for several nights, the strength he put in his exercises was astonishing, but the reason was purely, simply, that he needed something to strike. Hiko knew it, too, and had renounced to make any comments about the fact except a dismissive shrug of his shoulders before he had gone to do some pottery and had left him alone with his "training", or, more accurately, with his demons. And, for once, Kenji had not cared at all.

The young man made a short pause and wiped the sweat away from his forehead. Why did everything have to be so unfair? It was not only that nobody supported his views or agreed with him; no one understood him even, leave alone his grievances. They all took his father's side unanimously before even asking what had happened; Yahiko, Tsubame, his mother, Hiko… But what was so darn outrageous about his feelings? He had simply wanted to have his father around for him and for his mother, hadn't he? He had accepted his reasons, and waited for the day on which he had promised him he would decide, only to be fooled once again, and for that he was the spoiled brat, and the one who was in the wrong and did not want to understand.

In the wrong. Hah! Technically, it was his father who had been in the wrong with his unfulfilled promise. What kind of lawyer would deny this? And that was actually nothing; the extended belief that he did not want to understand made him even angrier. In his opinion, whoever thought this was either short-sighted or a monster. How many explanations he had, not accepted, but eagerly expected, eagerly swallowed, forcing himself to trust them as if they were his only board of salvation? After his father had contracted his disease – something he had never, ever blamed on him, by all kami's sake- he had waited more anxiously than ever, hoping he would get his occasion to decide about their family life one day, make his father live with them and spend the rest of his life at home, with his mother and him, and, and…

…He had promised…

Kenji shook his head furiously, and wiped his face again with his hand, this time in order to wash the tears away. He was glad that Hiko was not in sight, but one could never be sure…

Calm yourself. Stop trembling. Concentrate on acting cool and composed, like an adult…

But how could he, if they did not allow him to? They said that he was a spoiled brat because he was not resigned to let everything happen, like his mother. Because he wanted to have his father at home before he died, and had strongly about his shattered home. According to them, brief, he was spoiled because he fought back. What could he do against such an arbitrary judgement, except getting all mad over it and proving their theories right?

During the time he had spent in Hiko's house, the young man had reached little by little the depressing conclusion he had not dared to reach when he had been at home: His whole life was a failed experiment, if not an accident. His parents could actually not afford the luxury of having children, he bent on his atonement and she bent on him, but somehow they had had him. Therefore, he had been born to be the eternal hindrance who should at least have the decency of letting things happen as if he was not there, without demanding attention on his own. But he was not as good. He was human. And he loved his father as every other son of a human would.

Tears started to gather in his eyes once more, and this time he let them flow for a while before trying to quench them at all. It was hard enough to start having those thoughts in the middle of the night, with that damned old man sleeping next to him and giving the damn correct interpretation to each one of his movements and ways of breathing. He was alone now, and he wanted to use that privilege to wallow in self-pity in peace. The moment he would be with someone, he would already have his ears bursting with all those stories about how strong and consequent his father was. They were all fascinated with him somehow, even Hiko, who called him idiot. He only had to smile, and everybody forgot his flaws. Kenji understood that he was so obsessed with atoning himself and not resting until he believed he had done enough; if he had left the judgement of that rest on the others he would have been acquitted in five minutes. No wonder he felt so frustrated.

Still, not even all these things managed to cloud his perception of the most important issue of all, namely, that if this had happened only to the other people he felt bitter with, he would not have been so angry and hurting in the first place. The problem was that his father had done it to him, too. How could he blame people for being partial towards his father, if he had been so partial himself? The description fitted him too, and for that he was every inch as childish as Hiko had said: whenever his father smiled to him, he forgot all his absences, all the weeks he had stolen from his mother and him when he had arrived late, all his excuses, everything. If his father tried to convince him of anything, be it that he wouldn't do a thing again or that he loved him, he always could have his way easily. He couldn't help it… and it was so frustrating! That was part of the reason why he had fled from Tokyo; for if he saw his father again, he knew he might very well forgive him once more and lose what remained of his dignity. There would always be a motive, always an excuse. However, if he thought that the only way of preventing this was refusing to see his father ever again, he felt a horrible sensation curling up his stomach, too. Was this normal, was this fair?

How could he be so weak?

He had to battle it somehow, he had known it since that day, a year ago. Never, as his name was Himura Kenji, would he listen to words anymore unless he wanted to end up destroyed. He had sworn it when he had decided to come to Kyoto; that he would become a great swordsman who showed no emotions, like Hiko, and that he would be able to battle his unruly heart to prevent anyone from playing with him. Supreme techniques, unparalleled swordsmanship… perhaps his Shishou was right, he did not really crave for them, but the ability of suppressing his feelings and not making a fool of himself, the aura of greatness that made his father always be in the right, as heroes were, would be something he would learn or die in the attempt. The time for talking was over.

"I won't forgive him this time," he said aloud, in a determined tone. "No, I won't! Whatever everyone says! He might as well come himself to Kyoto!"

But, just as he had said those words, a familiar flare of ki suddenly penetrated his senses and interrupted his irate monologue. Kenji stopped at once, and stood in alert. Hiko? No; the old master's ki was much stronger. Obviously, it wasn't his father either, in spite of the ironically appropriate timing…

Yahiko! he realised, feeling a sudden knot in his stomach. Moments later, the bushes that covered the path of the forest opened with a rustling noise in front of his eyes, and the young samurai stepped in front of him. Kenji could not hide his astonishment. It wasn't an image brought there by his musings, he had come from Tokyo.

What could this mean?

"Kenji," he said, as he dusted his clothes up. His face was in tension, and there was a strange gravity in his eyes that the younger man had almost never seen there before. "Come with me. You must return to Tokyo at once."

(to be continued)