Disclaimer: RK and PMK are not owned by me. Neither are their characters.

This is based on An Assassin's Tale and Green Tea and Haiku. Okita fans please get out your tissues. This is gonna be a tear-jerker.

2. Brothers

May 1868, Edo

"Okita-san, you have a visitor!" Midori called out as she approached the lonely shack some referred to as the Dying House. Indeed, all its occupants ended their stay there carried out for the grave. Tuberculosis, the slow death with the hacking coughs, had claimed many in the past few years. Tuberculosis, like death, was a great equalizer. Nobility, beggar, man, woman or child, it claimed all its victims in the same cruel way.

Not even the greatest swordsman could escape this fate. Okita Souji coughed and wiped away the blood that trickled out of a corner of his mouth. He felt miserable and feverish. It was a sunny spring day and he had fallen asleep at the doorway in the sunlight. Now it was shady and sun had moved. Only a small puddle of sun remained before him. He stuck his bare feet out into the lingering pool of sunlight, letting it drive whatever chill it could from him.

Was he dreaming again? A few nights ago he had dreamt his friend Kenni called on him, Kenni with his cross-scar and a heart far too tender to be the Ishin's top assassin. He was a child doing bloody work most men would not even want to do and suffered tremendously for it. Okita prayed his young friend would be able to recover.

Who was the last occupant before him? A sad little girl who passed away from the dreaded illness, so they whispered. The girl's black cat still haunts the hut, meowing for its mistress. Okita had heard it again at night. Some days, he fancies he feels a presence in the shack. Was that how Saitou senses the dead? Or would he see a little girl coughing in the corner of the room? His mind was wandering again.

"Okita-san, you have a visitor!" Midori's voice jarred him to wakefulness. Was it Hijikata? Or Kondou? However, Okita knew instinctively it would not be them. He had dreamt they visited, just as he dreamt Sakamoto visited… Then they went off to the hills to watch the black ships…

"I'm really sorry about this… Okita-san's in his last days. His spirit is already halfway in the next world," Midori apologized to the visitor, a young man with a remarkable resemblance to the swordsman. "I'll just sit here." A scrap of a bench told Okita his visitor had settled on the crude bench near him. He forced himself to focus.

"A-Akira?" Souji almost leapt up. Akira laughed softly. "Easy there…"

"H-how did you find me?"

"I have my ways," Akira replied with a gleam of mischief. He was slightly burnt by the sun, a little in need of a shave and wore a Western jacket. "I'm working for the Ishin. We found some letters from Nagakura to his sister Midori about a patient. That patient's you. I checked it out with Nagakura-san."

"So it was true. Hotaru told me she met someone in Nagasaki. I thought that person might be you. What did you do? Tell her you loved killing people again?"

"I messed up my proposal. I announced it over dinner with everyone one night and she fled immediately. She told me she likes me but she needed to go sort out her thoughts first. Besides, working at Sakamoto's didn't quite agree with her. Too many guys, too few pretty girls and I'm not always around to keep certain guys out of mischief."

"You wrote letters to her, I never knew you could write so well. She had me read them to her when Umeko-dono or Nami-san was not about."

"I was mad at her for leaving for a while. Took to hanging about the local tavern and brawling at the pier afterwards. Then one day I met some weird guy named Ryouma who talked some sense into me. Said if I can still get in touch with her where she was working, I should. He even provided me with the address. At first I had one of the clerks write for me. Then I picked it up myself."

Okita grinned. He never thought Sakamoto had it in him to play matchmaker. Maybe Umeko-dono had a hand in it too. Goodness knew she was always trying to have the single girls working under her happily settled down. "So how are things for you two now?"

"Well, see for yourself." Okita flinched as Akira handed him a photograph. Tetsu-kun handed one to him from Hijikata-san, and Okita knew Hijikata did not intend to return alive if he lost the battle. "Go on, look at it," his twin urged. Cautiously, he peered at it and immediately broke into a broad smile.

"Akira, what a lovely couple you make!" It was a black-and-white photo of a wedding couple in the traditional wedding garb. Akira was dressed totally in black, hakame, surcoat and all, two swords at his side. He looked the picture of a samurai hero if not for his Westernized hairstyle and the unshaven look. Hotaru was not wearing makeup as far as Okita could deduce from the grainy photo. She was clad in the traditional bridal kimono, with one hand resting on her husband's arm.

Akira chuckled. "Newly wed a month ago. It wasn't much of a ceremony. They said we should get wed before leaving town. So Hotaru's kunoichi sisters rustled up the clothes and a priest. One of them persuaded a photographer to take this for us, a spring-time wedding with the sakura blooming all about us. Ryouma had promised to give us a special gift for our wedding. It's a pity he wasn't able to attend."

Sakamoto had been killed. He was too easygoing and trusting. Akira figured he might have opened the door to his killer, since no one reported any disturbances. Caught by surprise, his friend would not be able to use his sword or pistols. If only Akira hadn't been asked to remain in Nagasaki then to oversee some important shipments… The blond kunoichi Ryouma hired was untrustworthy. She had vanished after the murders with scarcely a trace.

Akira stared pensively into the air, lost momentarily in his thoughts. Okita coughed again, quickly turning away so his twin will not see the blood.

"Hotaru's a good girl," Okita murmured.

"I will treat her well," Akira replied. "She's staying at an inn outside Edo. She's feeling a little poorly from the journey. Ryouma told me someday all this will be over, it will be a new era of peace. I believe him. I really wish you weren't ill, Souji-niichan. We could all live together in a nice house in a peaceful town. I wish you will find some good woman, get married and your kids will play with my kids… but it isn't gonna happen, isn't it…" He blinked away tears that came to his eyes.

"Look, Akira, get your chin up. Don't let my illness get to you and Hotaru. I wish you both the best," Souji smiled. "Now, wipe away those tears. Whatever will Hotaru say if you go back to her in this state?"

"You're right, I'll upset her," Akira agreed. "My name's Ueda Akira now. She doesn't know about us being related. I can't bring myself to tell her everything yet. But someday, I will."

"You mean she hasn't figured it out yet?"

"Well, she did mention I have a slight resemblance to someone she was sweet on once. I guess I don't have the same look as you do."

"Right, you stay in the sun too much and need a shave," Okita Souji joked. He wanted to embrace his brother but he knew he couldn't. "It's a beautiful day, isn't it?"

"I hope to pay my respects to Father and Mother, and Uncle Ueda too."

"Their graves are in the Okita family plot, near the shady cherry trees. Uncle Ueda's just the next plot on the left to ours. It will be nice place for me to watch the world go by when I'm gone… You will put me there soon, wouldn't you?"

"Nonsense!" Akira exclaimed, but deep inside, he knew Okita was being truthful about his condition. To his horror, he saw a black cat slinking towards his brother from the shadows. A black cat, the symbol of death from the dreaded illness, was stalking his twin. Instinctively, he drew his sword and slashed the hapless creature into half. Okita let out a stricken cry as if he had been hurt.

"Akira! Why?" The sudden emotion was too much for him and he choked, coughing up blood.

"A black cat! I don't want niichan to die!" Akira tearfully stabbed the carcass for good measure. "I really don't want…"

"That old superstition?" Souji spat out the blood and wiped his mouth, his eyes unnaturally bright in his pallid face. "Even if it were a white cat, I do not have long… Akira, please… I know my own condition. Every day I feel weaker…" he shrugged. "If it is my fate to go this way, I have accepted it…Look, you got blood on your boots."

"Sorry, niichan, I just find it too hard to accept."

"Akira, I promise you something. Whatever happens, you always have my blessings. Even if I am not around in person, my spirit will be watching over you and your family, as I'm sure Father and Mother have been watching out for us all these years…" Smiling, Okita closed his eyes slowly. "I'm tired… let me rest a while…just a while…" He slumped against a pillar, looking as if he had dozed off.

Akira waited and waited. The evening shadows grew. At last, he reached out to shake his twin. "Souji-niichan?" Understanding dawned on him. "Baka, you said you were going to rest for a while… Sayonara then, till we meet again someday…" Blinking away tears, he went to fetch Midori.

That scene would be etched into his memory, Soujirou peacefully resting against a pillar, with a hint of a smile on his lips.