Author's notes: I'll admit this chapter took quite sometime, though most of it was written in the week and a half before Christmas. Unfortunately due to my health and the holiday season…never mind the heat, (I don't know about you but the last thing I want to do in 40C plus weather is type on a computer) it just got pushed aside. Anyway, all that aside here it is. Hopefully my piecemeal writing hasn't affected it too much... I have to say this has been one of the most persistent fics I've ever written every time I think it's finished I end up adding a bit more. I'm thinking there's one more chapter to go before I'm finished but needless to say, we'll see! I hope you enjoy it please read and review.

The trees shivered, sending pale flurries of snow out across the road with each whisper of wind. Kenshin's breath hung in the air like a dragon's smoky exhale. His eyes flicked nervously over the snow ahead. The breeze rippled the bottom of his neatly mended haori and fingered the end of his ponytail.

The wind didn't cut to the core with ice laden fingers as it had and the mountain too, had receded beneath its mantel of white. The snow let him pass without attempting to draw him down into its icy embrace. It sparkled, pristine and innocent in the pale winter sunlight, covering the road and draping the trees in white garlands. There were no cold groping hands reaching out to trip him now. He hardly noticed. All his concentration was bent on walking. Walking tall and strong on his cat light feet so that anyone who happened to lurking in the trees might be fooled into thinking that he was back to his old self. But even this was an effort, his leg muscles trembled with each step and the wounds that encompassed his torso stung in silent protest. He stared at the snow ahead driving himself on. His breath came in pants, and his face had grown even paler beneath a thin sheen of sweat. Still for all that, he was cold.

Painfully, achingly cold, colder than he'd ever been. Even with a belly full of hot miso his stomach felt frozen and hollow. A bright fragile ice that held a dangerous, raging torrent of freezing cold emotion in check, glazed his insides. It filled him, consumed him and yet some how left him feeling completely empty. He averted his gaze from the people walking beside him and almost desperately from the stretcher they carried. He ran his eyes along the line of tree trunks that marched up the mountainside, anything so he didn't have to think. Anything so his memory wouldn't conjure up the sound of her voice or image of her face. He concentrated on the way ahead, shutting out the voice inside that told him he'd become the monster that everyone in Kyoto had whispered about. Hitokiri Battousai the demon of Kyoto. Now they really could call him a monster. He squeezed his eyes shut and tried not to see her, the front of her pale kimono bright with blood. His feet slipped faintly in the snow forcing his eyes open. The breeze blew his haori flat against the back of his hakama and sent his hair spiralling over his left shoulder. Mercifully blocking out the view of Tomoe's still, shrouded body.

Yori watched the young man carefully. The medicine seller's bright red hair obscured his face, but she could tell from his rounded shoulders and from the way his feet sunk deeper and deeper into the snow that it was taking all his strength to keep going. How stubborn he was. He wanted to go home. Though his legs still trembled as he stood and any effort made his breathing rapid and shallow. She could hardly stop him, he was as insistent as he was polite. He'd thanked them quietly and very politely, but underneath it, you could feel his iron hard resolve. Watching him, she couldn't help feeling a little anxious. He walked so straight and strong, the two swords slung all too casually at his hip. It was a sham, she knew. His body was still hurt and weak, his emotions still raw and fragile but he was stubborn. It was stubbornness and pride that made him refuse their assistance. So, that even now as they walked beside him bearing his wife on a hastily made stretcher, it was as if he walked completely alone.

She closed her eyes briefly as the image of that thin broken child covered in blood clouded her mind. All that blood, she could hardly believe that he was still alive never mind walking under his own steam. When she'd washed his clothes, the water had turned red. He didn't look like a child anymore, there was something almost frantic flickering dangerously in the depths of those violet blue eyes. It wasn't quite as dangerously bright as it had been. Now it seemed hard and bright, glittering dangerously out of the depths of his eyes. When he'd first been hurt it had been there too but some how it had only aroused her empathy. She understood. She'd buried four children of her own and the pain of it never quite dissolved beyond a deep ache. Yet now his eyes frightened her.

At Kenshin's quiet insistence, her husband had taken him out in the still morning. He'd carefully lifted the cloth covering Tomoe, packaging it up like a sack so the snow wouldn't fall on her broken body. The young woman's face had some how looked serene though she had taken on the hue and coolness of frozen marble. Kenshin unable to hide the tremors coursing though his body had stood in the snow staring at the still figure laying swathed in linen in a huge mound of snow. He'd extended one hand almost touching the young woman's face before snatching it back. The blood still covered her kimono. The path of his katana announced itself in a long bloody gash. He'd staggered back a step or two, his eyes filling with a frantic almost wild dismay. Yuri remembered the way he'd stared at her, his eyes wide, almost wild and dangerously, dangerously bright. She'd carefully and gently caught hold of his arm, fear catching in her throat and lead him back under the over hanging roof. She had paused only to cast her husband a rather pointed glance. Somehow, while she'd made the miso he'd composed and dressed himself. He was clearly restless though even then.

Yuri felt Shino brush against her. He shuffled along beside her his eyes on the small thin man, who had suddenly stopped being their medicine seller. Even to his innocent gaze, the swords that hung at Kenshin's hip, his light, sweeping gait, and the steely glitter in his eyes spoke of a swordsman not a medicine seller. Yet, for all that, his pale face shiny from perspiration and his shoulders bowed from misery only served to make him look more pitiful than dangerous. It was as if he was trying desperately to keep their kind sympathy at bay with his aloofness. Frightening as those glittering violet eyes were, Yuri could still see the broken child hiding behind them, if she looked. His red hair and dark haori only made him stand out stark and remote against the snow, as if he were trying with all his strength to draw the tattered remnants of his pride around him. She sighed, and pulled the bundle in her arms more firmly against her chest. The cool breeze brushed against her face and sent the sleeves of her kimono into a gentle dance. She glanced down at her son and wondered at the world.

Shino watched Kenshin intently. Watching the way his bright red hair clung to his drooping shoulders. He matched his mother's stride, aware of her sleeves swinging softly in time with her step and of her eyes as they followed Kenshin's passage along the road. Kenshin hesitated a little in his stride dragging his eyes from the path to the way ahead, his feet sunk still deeper into the snow. There was something helpless and weary in his gaze. Shino brushed the hair out of his face and in a moment had left his mother's side. He ran around behind his father and grandfather careful not to send a shower of snow up in his wake. He averted his gaze from the carefully shrouded figure suspended between them and fell into step beside Kenshin, who simply plodded on as if he wasn't there.

After a moment or two Shino became distinctly aware of Kenshin's breathing. It was shallow and rapid as if he'd been running and his pupils were wide making his eyes look large and dark as well as glassy. Kenshin seemed old suddenly, the man who'd played with Shino and his friends, pretending to be Koudou Isami had disappeared.

Kenshin had moved so lightly then with an effortless grace that none of the boys could match. His deep violet blue eyes had been warm and kind even if his face had held an expression somewhere between bemusement and embarrassment. Shino gazed up at Kenshin helplessly. That queer rather frightening light still danced at the back of Kenshin's glassy eyes, Shino found it intimidating. The breeze pushed their clothes around flapping Kenshin's haori and played with their hair sending Shino's unruly fringe into a tangle over his eyes. The red head's feet slithered a little in the snow and his breath caught. Shino reached out and caught hold of his sleeve on reflex.

Kenshin started, his mind reeled and pain scorched through his body. Then it seemed out of no where this small hand reached out to steady him. He stared at Shino and the ice inside cracked a little. He resisted the sudden urge to fling Shino aside, and grappled with his own revulsion. Revulsion directed at himself. For a moment, the frantic light in his eyes flared up to full brightness again. His heart thudded. 'Why oh why did people come near him? He wasn't safe he couldn't be trusted. He'd, he'd….' The image of Tomoe's body ice cold and white half wrapt in the shroud came back to him. His eyes burnt, his stomach came back to full churning life. He slithered still more in the snow. Shino's grip tightened and suddenly the wild frantic throb inside died down. Shino didn't let go. Kenshin stood still his breath beating against his ribs, head reeling. The pain still scorched his insides but a little calm filled him, the wild light left his eyes. He looked down at Shino and tried to smile to show his gratitude. Only it looked more like a grimace but the boy with his shaggy hair over his eyes just smiled in return.

The snow surrounding the house was thick and unmarked. The garden Tomoe had cried over lay frozen under a tiered staircase of snow. Even the dark shape of the house as it sat tucked against the rising ground was shrouded in white. Kenshin stood silently staring. At the tree, that over hung their fields its branches coated in snow, and at the house, its roof completely enshrouded in white. The whole place might have been sleeping, everything was so quiet and still. Shino released Kenshin's sleeve and hurried forward to open the door. The door ground, its runners full of snow and grit. Kenshin stepped forward, his mind elsewhere, the breeze flapping his haori and tangling his hair. He gripped the shoji in his hands, thrusting it back with the full force of his arms. It sprang about in the snowy runner, squeaking and grinding as it did. The two men stepped cautiously inside laying Tomoe down gently on a futon. The wind blew a little more forcefully and the two men gazed out at the sky. By silent mutual agreement they hurried, rolling up the make shift stretcher like a bolt of cloth. The wind outside whispered blowing little piles of snow in through the open door way. Yuri paused looking about her as she placed the pot down on the edge of the fireplace. The quiet silence of the house and the darkness swept in round her. Her men folk watched her, waiting. She bowed to Kenshin and followed them out into the snow. Looking back she saw him through the still open door standing very still staring into space. She wondered sadly if they were doing the right thing.

The house was a cold place. The door still hung ajar from his hasty departure. A patch of snow had collected in the step where they left their shoes. He stood on the broad wooden boards feeling a sort of creeping panic rising in his mind as the silence settled ever more deeply around him. It had been along time since he'd been truly alone. Not since his mother had at last given up her struggle with cholera all those years ago. He'd been a lone then too with just her still, heavy body for company in the gathering silence. This was the same only worse. His mind coiled around itself, twisting ever more tightly in a dance between shock, grief and guilt. The silence only amplified it. He'd wanted to come back here. To be alone with his wife and his grief but now he suddenly felt cold and vulnerable. He wasn't solitary by nature. He had always been quiet, but never solitary. His mind churned and the room grew cooler. The breeze slipped through the open door and around the house stirring the dead ashes in the fire place and making his clothes ripple.

He could still feel the pressure of his katana in his hands as it sliced into her body. The deep scream that had died in his throat when he'd seen the look in her deep dark eyes still rattled around somewhere deep inside him. Those eyes had been so calm, so clear so completely without regret. He didn't understand. Here in this house everywhere he looked there were signs of her presence. The vase of wilted flowers, the writing brush and its little sealed bottle of ink. The soft almost phantom like scent of white plum and the after echo of his voice promising to protect her seemed to hang in the air, mocking him.

He shook himself abruptly brushing the tears that had slipped down his face away. It was no use standing here listening to the ghosts of the past. He drew his daisho from his obi and placed them in the corner. His hand lingered over the wakizashi trembling faintly. He'd killed everyone on the mountain hadn't he? So why did he feel this deep disquiet. The breeze rippled past the shoji making it dance in its runner. Kenshin snatched the wakizashi and swung round, his nerves taunt, his heart throbbing in his throat. The silence of the room settled around him. Nothing moved, just his eyes and his heart as it fluttered against his chest. A minute passed, slowly then another, he swallowed thickly and put the wakizashi still in its saya back in his obi.

The fire flicked sending strange shadows racing across the walls. The warm water trickled down between his fingers staining them red as he passed the wet cloth back and forth over Tomoe's marred body. His hands shook and tears unbidden and uncheckable trickled across his cheeks. The wound on his face stung madly, but for once, it didn't bleed. The water in the bucket, slowly took on the hue of a ruby, deep red and glistening.

(2006)