Kaoru grew ill when the first snow fell.
The first night, she stared at him - "Shinta..." Something haunted - a hopeless sort of resignation, fear in her eyes.
Helpless, he watched her succumb to fever, and he cursed himself. They should have left when they had the chance. The should have left as soon as they were reunited. Listening to the wind howl, pushing snow against the walls, under the floor, Shinta remembered a sweep of long black hair, the palest skin, black upon black eyes - She must be very cruel. She must wish to spite him. ...Or punish him, punish him for all the wrongs he had done.
He had been a fool, a fool to forget - the darkness, the cold. His years as a samurai. The women of the battlefield.
A fool, forgetting to suffer. Now she would punish him.
.
Sometimes Kaoru could sit up and talk and she seemed full of energy, too much energy. She assured them all she was getting better, she would be fine.
But other times, in the evenings, her eyes glazed over and she would plead softly, "Shinta... When can we leave?"
Kaoru's gaze lost in the distance, Shinta struggled not to remember Akira, listless and wasting. He squeezed Kaoru's hands until she looked at him and he told her, "Soon." He held her hand and he promised her that as soon as the weather cleared, they would leave, they would head south. They would find a warm and sunny valley. They would farm.
The snow kept falling. Blistering winds and layer upon layer of white over the buildings and the branches and the fallen leaves, covering the paths down the mountain.
Mirine kept up a steady supply of hot miso broth and soothing words. One evening Shinta couldn't stand to watch Kaoru suffer any longer and he ran out, past Mirine mopping her brow, past the old woman chanting, past Sano's angry glower, Hiro's worried frown. He ran into the dazzling white whirlwind far enough almost to lose himself.
Looking... If he could find her. If he could see her again, perhaps he could plead with her. Perhaps he could trade with her, a life for a life.
Outside in the blizzard with no sight of her, long enough to understand how isolated they were. There was no path out. A storm like this could last all winter.
Shinta cursed and shouted to the freezing winds, "Where are you?"
The night howled in answer, hungry and merciless.
Kenshin remembered Akira, a ghost the day of the battle and Shinta almost believed he had dreamed it out of blood loss and exhaustion, but - You will lose her, he had said.
.
He made it back to the shrine. He almost missed it, but the firelight gleaming through the night drew him back. He was frozen to the bone, but she hadn't come to him. No fathomless gaze, no kiss, no bargain.
He crouched next to Kaoru, and she was so still... Barely breathing. Shinta bowed his head and could have wept.
Then she stirred. She turned toward him, and it must have been the shadows, but her eyes were wide and completely dark. She looked straight at him with those empty eyes, and when she spoke, her voice was as cold and faint as a steady fall of snowflakes whispering through trees.
"Are you fond of your butterfly, little moth?"
Frozen. Kenshin felt frozen with terror. A strangled sound clawed its way up from his chest, through his throat.
It couldn't be. It couldn't be... "Kaoru." He choked out her name, desperate - as if it were a spell, as if her name alone could summon her, bind her, save her.
The snow woman smiled then, closed her eyes, and slept.
.