Part V: Moonrise
 
     No one noticed the red-haired man and the floral-scented woman staring each other.  Dark had settled on the streets long since, and no one was around to notice them in the shadows.  No sound broke the stillness.  It was almost as though time had stopped, frozen for ten years.
     "Tomoe.  Is it you?"  Kenshin's voice quavered slightly.  Fear and hope and love and self-hate warred with countless other emotions within him.
     "Anata?  It can't be you."  Her eyes were filled with as much confusion as his own.
     "You were dead.  I killed you."  Kenshin's voice was dead of emotion.
     "I thought...  My brother told me you were dead."  Her eyes filled with tears.  "He showed me your scarf.  It was covered in blood.  You were dead."
     "Tomoe...  You ran in front of me.  I felt the impact.  You were..."  His hand went to his face before he realized it.  "You gave me this," he took his blood-covered hand away, not looking at it.  "And then you died in my arms."
     They each felt too calm, too controlled.  There was too much feeling; it was too much of a shock.  Each was convinced they would wake up and find it was a dream, that the meeting had never taken place.  They were later to wish it had.
     "You were my husband."
     "You were my wife."
     They stared, strangers who had once been lovers, lovers who had once been enemies.
     A few young men rounded the corner, obviously drunk, singing rowdy songs and stumbling boisterously down the street.  Neither of the survivors of an era noticed them.
     "You made it rain blood.  And then I believed you'd been caught in your own storm.  We should speak of this soon."  Tomoe cast her eyes to the moon peeking barely over the low rooftops.
     "Yes.  We should."  Kenshin's eyes followed her own before he walked away.
     The moon was past its zenith when he at last turned his steps back towards the dojo he had come to call home.