A/N: This chapter picks up right where the last one left off...

Chapter 15: the lesson begins

It was, of course, easier said than done.

But Kenshin knew something was different. For one thing, Battousai was no longer missing—he was back where he belonged, but different than before. Before, Kenshin had always been able to sense the presence of the hitokiri within him, repressed, and separate from himself. But now...

The rain had been poured into the river, and they could never be separated again.

Kaoru-dono had done this, had caused this fundamental change. She'd put a belief into his heart—into Battousai's heart—and it was spreading to all of him, dawning in his consciousness as irreversibly as the process of waking from a dream.

And he was finally able to recognize the philosophy that Kaoru-dono had offered him from the very beginning, not as innocent play-talk, but as a killer's redemption.

It would take a little getting used to.

"Heee," Yahiko grinned, and folded his hands behind his head, elbows high in the air. "I can't believe it, Kenshin! She really did it—she stuffed your soul back into you, just like she said she would, remember? Ha! I guess we can call her... let's see... ghost-hunter Kaoru... I got it! Kamiya Reiryusai: rei for ghost and ryu for hunter—hah! So cool!"

Behind Yahiko, the kids were starting to come around a little bit, realizing there were no more immediate threats to their lives. Several of them seemed to pick up on what Yahiko was saying. "Reiryusai," one of them repeated in a fragile, awed voice.

Another kid wiped his nose on his sleeve and smiled. "So cool," he echoed.

Over in the pile of moaning casualties, a couple of ears perked up as well. "What'd that kid say?" one man asked urgently. "Reiryusai!? What's that?"

"It's that thing that cut off our thumbs," another man answered, voice seething with terror. "Some kind of demon!"

"Hoh," Saitou chuckled. "And so another legend is born." He stepped over the pile of stricken gangsters and approached Kaoru, smirking. "Congratulations, girl," he said as he neared her.

Kaoru looked up at him curiously. "Congratulations?" she repeated, puzzled.

"For mastering your sword-style, of course," Saitou replied coolly. "It seems to me that Kamiya Kasshin-ryu has a new shihan."

"Shihan?" Kaoru blinked, and blinked again. "You mean...me?"

"I know the work of a kenjutsu master when I see it," Saitou informed her. "After all, what was the Shinsengumi if not the finest collection of master swordsmen? As someone who served as a kenjutsu instructor for a team of masters from many different schools, I'm thoroughly qualified to identify when a certain rank has been earned."

Kaoru blushed, hunching her shoulders slightly in embarrassment. "Thank you, but, ehm, wasn't it obvious... I had a lot of help?"

"I heard you say you 'borrowed the speed'," Saitou narrowed his eyes at her. "But mastery requires far more than speed, girl. Mastery is about realization. It's about essence, about philosophy, and it can't be taught: the student must realize for themselves the truth of their art, in order to master it. And that's exactly what you've done."

"That is awesome!" Yahiko commented, and raised his fist in the air in victory. "Good job, Kaoru! Congrats!"

The other kids were taking their cue from Yahiko; now that he was clearly in a celebratory mood, a few of them began to mimic him. "Good job!" one little girl echoed. "Congrats! Yay!"

Kaoru smiled at them, glowing.

"And as for you," Saitou went on, locking Kenshin in the cross-hairs of his wolfish stare, "I know you witnessed the same undeniable level of mastery here that I did, but there's something else you need to notice. This girl," Saitou pointed at Kaoru with the flat of his hand. "She's matured. She's become the Kamiya Kasshin-ryu no shihan, and, she's become an adult. Don't you agree?"

Kenshin looked. Her face and arms were still flecked with blood. And her eyes, which had always sparkled so brilliantly, now shone with light from a new depth of compassion, somehow even fiercer, and... yes, wiser.

"Ahem." Saitou had grown impatient. "You're going to need to remember how to speak at some point. I asked you a question. This girl is now quite grown-up, is she not?"

"h-" Kenshin stumbled over the sounds of words. "-Yes, that she is," he managed.

"Good," Saitou declared. "Therefore, you will marry her."

Kenshin blinked, and bowed his head. "If Kaoru-dono will accept-"

"oh, I will," she affirmed.

"Excellent." Saitou smirked. "Glad we got that cleared up. Now: I have a very long day ahead of me, processing all of this mess. Himura: I need you to run and get a doctor. While I personally feel it will be a waste of good thread, some of these morons will need to be stitched up soon if we are to keep them from dying and tarnishing the reputation of this newly-minted master. The legendary 'Kamiya Reiryusai' herself will stay here with the children and help me keep an eye on things until the police arrive." He looked sharply at Yahiko. "Leaving you, boy, with the task of going to get Commissioner Kawaji and ten or twelve officers. Understand?"

Kaoru, Kenshin and Yahiko all nodded in unison. Not knowing what else to do with Battousai's katana, Kenshin tucked it through his belt next to the sakabatou, evoking the old-fashioned two-sworded samurai look that had been fairly common, not that long ago.

He and Yahiko headed for the gate.

Kenshin made it back to the clinic in record time, and was relieved to find Sano and Megumi still working on just their first cup of sake, sitting comfortably together on the steps where Kenshin had left them an hour or so earlier.

"Two dozen injured?" Megumi repeated, as Kenshin explained the emergency. "I'll need Dr. Gensai for this."

"I know where he is," Sano volunteered. "At his daughter's house in Asakusa. Saw him there earlier today. Want me to go and get him?"

"I hate to leave those two children here alone," Megumi muttered, worried. "Someone should stay here with them. Let me get my kit." She hurried into the house.

Sano glanced over at Kenshin. "So... I see you got Battousai's sword away from him," he remarked. "What happened? It must've been a crazy fight."

Kenshin thought back over the events of the last hour. "Craziest of my life, I think," he reported. "Everything is different now. Kaoru-dono and I, we,"

He stopped, the reality of marrying Kaoru finally breaching the horizon of his mind. The thought of the happiness that would bring him. Peace and happiness. He would have that, with Kaoru. It had occurred to him before, as a vague and distant notion, but had always seemed far away and unapproachable. Now it was real, it was actually going to happen.

"Jou-chan and you...?" Sanosuke prompted.

Kenshin couldn't help it. He smiled. In spite of the chaos, in spite of the violence and bloodshed and all the critically wounded people whose lives still hung in the balance, in spite of the work that still had to be done, and the never-ending evil of human beings in the world— "...we got engaged," Kenshin said.

There was a heartbeat's worth of silence, and then Sano let out a whoop, and practically tackled Kenshin in celebration, shaking him by the shoulders. "HA!" Sano laughed, "You really did? Oh man, it's about time! Good for you, Kenshin-good for both of you! Congratulations!"

Megumi reappeared, her sleeves tied back, tucking her hair up into a kerchief. "For heaven's sake Sanosuke, what's all this racket? I swear you are worse than a dozen monkeys."

"They got engaged!" Sano exclaimed, trapping Kenshin in a headlock so he could scrub his knuckles on the top of that red-haired head.

"Oh my goodness, congratulations!" Megumi said, a completely unguarded smile lighting up her face.

"I want to hear how it happened, every detail—after I stitch up those miserable gangsters." Wasting not a second, she picked up her kit, and hurried towards the street. "Sano, go fetch Dr. Gensai as quick as you can, and have him meet me at the Shuei-gumi's place. Ken-san, do you mind staying here, with our young patients?"

Kenshin nodded, and Sano let him go with a final playful punch to the arm. "We'll party it up later," he promised, heading out. "Kenshin—I can't believe you're finally getting married! You're a lucky man!"

The world seemed to slow.

Megumi and Sanosuke were gone, hurrying down the darkened street, but Sano's words lingered.

You're finally getting married! You're a lucky man!

Somewhere, Kenshin had heard those words before. He started to get a strange, sinking feeling. As he turned and took a step,

knch.

He'd stepped on something, something small and soft. He looked down, and lifted his foot to see what it had been.

Crushed under his foot was a camellia flower.

A camellia—where had that come from? There was just enough moonlight to discern its color; brightly magenta, with its golden crown in the center. Ruined now, flattened. Where...?

You're finally getting married! You're a lucky man!

The world inverted, and Kenshin no longer knew where he was. He was standing in the yard of the Oguni clinic, but everything was gray somehow, frozen. Nothing seemed real.

"Hi," said a voice, and a shadow stepped forward out of the surreal setting.

Kenshin recognized him instantly. Although he'd only seen him once before, and only for a few moments, Kenshin knew exactly who this was.

This was, unmistakably, the ghost of Kiyosato Akira.

Kenshin was frozen in place.

"Sorry about all this," Akira's ghost was saying, gesturing around at the impermeable gray. "And the camellia—the spirit world is quite fond of the 'language of flowers', you know, so believe it or not, that wasn't even up to me. It's a bit dramatic, I know."

Am I dead? Kenshin wondered abruptly. No. I can't be dead.

"Please don't worry," said the ghost, quite plainly able to hear Kenshin's thoughts. "You're not dead. And I won't hurt you."

Considering his circumstances, apparently trapped in a ghost world and confronted by this particular ghost, Kenshin was hardly reassured.

"I'm going to take that sword, if you don't mind," Akira said amicably, and held out his hand. Kenshin was still frozen, both swords at his side.

"Can you move?" Akira asked him after a minute. "No? Well, this might be a little awkward, but, all the same, that sword doesn't belong in the world of the living, so... I'm taking it." The ghost reached out and selected the katana. "This is the one?"

That's the one, Kenshin confirmed, that being the only cogent thought in his mind. The sword I killed you with.

"Excuse me," Akira said, offering the most perfunctory tidbit of courtesy before pulling the katana away from Kenshin, saya and all.

It was the strangest feeling—no one had ever taken a sword from his side like that. It was a little like being undressed.

In spite of having been recently incorporeal; a spirit that could walk through walls and overlap a physical body and even overtake a physical body—in spite of how strange all of that had felt, the feeling of having his sword taken away from him was even stranger.

"I know this is uncomfortable for you," the ghost was saying, his words and tone soft and well-mannered. "But I suppose it will be alright. It was a little difficult to get you here, actually. The rules of all this 'ghost' business aren't exactly written in stone, as you know. It's more like they're written in smoke, and change as often as the clouds. In any case, I'll make this as quick as I can."

Thank you, Kenshin thought, feeling numb. For it to be 'quick' will be more mercy than I deserve.

Kiyosato Akira's ghost gave him a pitying look, and shook his head. "Surely you don't think this is about revenge? We are way beyond revenge, Himura-san. First of all, I wanted to congratulate you for enduring all the trouble I've caused over the past few days."

Kenshin could barely believe what he was hearing. You caused all this?

"More or less," the ghost admitted. "To be honest, I thought it would be a little easier to grant my mother's wish; to lift the grudge that has anchored your wounds all this time. The first cut, mine, that would have been easy to fix on its own—that was just my mother, deciding to forgive you. But the second cut holds the first in place. That second cut was the problem—because it was never Tomoe. You know she never blamed you, after she died. You blamed yourself; your own grudge against yourself is what kept you from healing. So having my mother forgive you wouldn't have been enough."

Kiyosato Akira smiled. "About my mother, by the way, she loves children. And she could use some help, with that field of potatoes. There's an orchard, too. Persimmons and things. Far too much for her to manage on her own, now that my little sister is married and out of the house...Just a suggestion, you know."

An image came to Kenshin's mind, a small group of children, gathered around Kiyosato's mother, filling that mostly-empty house with sound and light. Thank you, Kenshin thought again, humbled by the revelation that the ghost of this murdered man would care enough to speak up on behalf of those recently rescued kids.

The ghost gave a kindly shrug. "You were going to think of it eventually anyway. Now, our time is short, and there's one more thing I brought you here to do. Do you remember the last thing you said to me, that night?"

Kenshin thought back to 'that night', the details sharp and bloody.

Akira winced. "That is a bad one, isn't it? That memory; of me. Sorry about that."

If the world hadn't already been frozen in place, Kenshin was pretty sure he would have felt it slipping out from under his feet just then. The ghost of Kiyosato Akira, for some unfathomable reason, was apologizing. To him.

You have nothing to say 'sorry' about, Kenshin thought emphatically.

"All the same, you should remember me less often, from now on. That is part of the goal of all this, after all. So. Do you remember what you said?"

I said, 'give up', Kenshin recalled, the memory as heavy as stone. He'd said that to a lot of people back then; they had often complied, making his job that much easier.

"No no, after that part," Kiyosato reminded him. "You said to me, please achieve happiness in your next life." The ghost stopped, letting the memory materialize around the words, a gentle smile settling on his face. "You left that wish for me, and I am here now, to return it back to you. This is the final part, of ending the pain that has linked us. Himura-san, please achieve happiness in your next life. And by that I mean, of course, in your 'next life' starting right now: in your new life with Kamiya Kaoru."

The ghost scrunched up his eyes, smiling, and left no chance for Kenshin to reply. The world flipped again, moonlight and motion returned, and Kenshin was back in the world of the living. The camellia bloom had vanished.

And there was only one sword at his side, the sakabatou.

Some great circle was finally complete; the wish he'd left behind on a dead man's back in Kyoto fifteen years earlier had returned, unexpectedly, to his own life.

And it would come true...

The following morning, there was the necessary visit to Minister Ito's office. Saitou tagged along as backup, assuming a menacing position in the back of the room, ready to glare in cross-armed disgust at anyone who might debase themselves enough to imply that Himura's request was in any way unreasonable.

Minister Ito, for his part, was secretly pleased at Saitou's presence. Though he would never admit it openly, Ito was relieved to have Saitou's old-fashioned moral compass in the room, as a sort of a north star of Bushido if nothing else. The continued existence of Himura Kenshin would always make Ito slightly nervous, if he was being honest with himself—but with Saitou obviously vouching for the former hitokiri, Ito could be comfortable being generous.

"As I read these reports," Ito began, shuffling through a stack of papers on his desk, "I notice that the Shuei yakuza recently stepped into a new business endeavor. It seems the corpse of a certain arms-dealing organization from Shanghai has attracted quite a few greedy flies." He re-stacked the papers, folded his hands on top of them, and studied his visitor. "As you, Himura-san, so helpfully toppled that black market weapons business, and have now been equally helpful in eliminating some of the 'flies', the Meiji government is once again indebted to you. Please, name your request."

"Nine children," Kenshin said.

Minister Ito completely failed to hide his surprise. "You want nine children? What on earth will you do with nine children?"

"I'll find them a place to live," Kenshin continued, not missing a beat. "But they'll need to be cared for; clothing, food, whatever they need—and perhaps a teacher, or a nurse, or..." he hesitated briefly, trying to recall the right word—what did European people call it? "A governess," he remembered. "Yes, a governess, with a salary, who will look after them and provide for their education."

At a loss, Ito looked down at his stack of papers. Of course, there it was, a statement towards the end about the nine rescued children: two currently at the Oguni clinic, the other seven collected from the compound and temporarily in police custody.

"You want me to hire a governess to educate the orphans of the Shuei yakuza," Ito repeated, incredulous.

Kenshin nodded. "Yes, I do."

Ito slid a glance at Saitou, who pounced at it.

"Additionally," the old wolf mentioned, voice oozing in cool amusement, "the government should pay for these children to have a weekly kendo lesson. At a local dojo. If they have any aptitude for it, it will be healthy for them. Discipline, exercise...yes. They'll need that too."

"Naturally," Ito agreed, beginning to recover a little from the shock of being asked for something so humble. "Is there anything else?"

Saitou narrowed his eyes, and approached the desk. "My wife is starting up a sort of a war memorial... if you would melt down all the firearms you confiscated from Yukishiro Enishi's Shanghai organization, as well as what you've salvaged from the wreck of Shishio's ironclad, you could make a nice statue to honor those who gave their lives for the new era."

"Ah," Ito's eyes glittered at the return to more familiar territory. Himura was the sort of man who had just asked the government for a cup of tea, to drink it and leave. Saitou, on the other hand, was more accustomed to the game, and was asking for the keys to all the tea factories. "What a splendid idea," Ito praised. "I am deeply moved. The government sincerely thanks you for your patriotic suggestion."

Saitou chuckled. "I'll expect my transfer orders soon, then?"

"You might," Ito stated, giving nothing away.

Kenshin took a breath, interrupting. "Do we have a deal, Ito-san?"

Saitou shot him a look that conveyed just how much he wanted to jerk Kenshin back by the collar and toss him out of the room, but Ito circumvented him.

"We will generously meet the needs of nine children, to include the salary of a governess and the cost of kendo lessons," Ito said benevolently. "So yes, we have a deal." He extended his hand across the desk.

Kenshin took the offered hand, and shook it.

Later, it was time to revisit the Kiyosato residence, to follow through on Kenshin's promise to find the children a place to live. Kaoru accompanied him, wearing her yellow kimono, a bright indigo ribbon fluttering around her ponytail.

"I'm a little nervous," she confided to him, fidgeting with her hands as they stood in front of the old house. "It's sort of like I'm meeting your family, isn't it?"

Kenshin didn't have time to reply before the door slid back, answered by a tired-looking young woman with a newborn infant sleeping in her arms. "Hello?" she asked. "Are you here to see my mother?"

"Yes," Kenshin answered, and smiled as he recognized who she looked like. "You must be Kiyosato Akira-dono's younger sister."

"Yes, I'm Chidori. You...knew my brother?" she asked, looking puzzled.

"Invite them in!" came a cheerful voice from inside the house.

As Kaoru and Kenshin left their shoes, Kiyosato's mother appeared, in the same brown kimono but this time with an apron over it, and her sleeves tied back. A certain expression on her face seemed to indicate how conscious she was that this was not the way she would have ever greeted guests in the old days, but it was the Meiji jidai now—and as she was determined to adapt, she would wear her apron without shame. "It is nice to see you again. 'Kenshin', wasn't it?"

"Yes, and nice to see you again as well," Kenshin replied.

"Is this lovely girl your wife?" she wondered aloud, since it seemed a safe assumption.

Kaoru blushed spectacularly. "Fiancee," she corrected. "I'm Kamiya Kaoru."

"Pleased to meet you. I'm Kiyosato Takako. And you met my daughter, Chidori."

Chidori nodded her head politely, cradling her baby.

They settled in to talk as though they were old neighbors. Kiyosato Takako had heard of Kaoru's father, but had never met him. Chidori, it turned out, had heard of a teenage girl running a dojo all by herself in Tokyo, and had thought that girl was marvelously brave; an inspiration. Kaoru then got a chance to hold the tiny infant for a moment, her eyes trembling with delight at his pink little hands and chubby little face.

And Chidori, seeming to have inherited some of the iron of her mother, wasn't disturbed at all to find out she was sitting next to the man who had taken her brother's life. Indeed, she expressed only relief that there was no more dark curse of an unsolved murder in her family history. She had been young when Akira had died, and she was pleased to have closure and resolution at last.

The conversation darkened for a moment on the subject of Yukishiro Enishi; both Takako and Chidori had known him quite well, and when he was small they had thought he would grow up as Chidori's dearest friend, as Akira had grown up with Tomoe. They were saddened to learn that Enishi had ended up on the streets of Shanghai, and what had become of him more recently.

"You say there is hope for him, as he is still alive," Kiyosato Takako remarked. "But to think of him as a little child, all alone—those are the stories that break my heart the most. The children who end up adrift, whose lives are forfeited before they have any chance to choose anything for themselves. I would do anything to save even one of them."

Kenshin held his breath and listened, and realized he was anticipating the chi-riing of a wind-chime. And sure enough, faintly, he heard it. The confirmation that this moment was especially important, that forces in the spirit-world were paying attention, and gently prompting action.

If it had been anyone else claiming they 'would do anything', Kenshin would have dismissed it. But from this woman, who had forgiven the worst brutality of the strongest hitokiri—Kenshin knew he could take this woman at her word.

And so he came right out and asked her if she could give nine stray children a home. Her hand flew up to cover her mouth in surprise, as she had certainly never imagined doing any such thing, but the light of possibility was kindled in her eyes, and as she listened to the details of the deal that Kenshin had arranged, that light grew brighter until it shone forth as certainty.

Chidori laughed as her mother boldly accepted the challenge of raising nine orphans, not the least bit concerned for her mother's ability to handle it. Chidori decided she would help to hire the governess; she had a few well-educated friends, as it turned out, who might be looking for just that sort of employment.

Like magic, it was coming together. The feeling that it would work out, that many wrongs would be set right, that the future would be better than the present—Kenshin felt that hope rising in his heart, and thought he caught out of the corner of his eye the image of two figures standing hand-in-hand in front of the ink-painting of the crane. When he turned and looked, of course, they weren't really there. But he knew it was them, and he sensed what they were projecting his way:

You've done well.

"Good job, Kenshin," Kaoru-dono must have caught their message also, because she said it out loud, beaming at him. Before she could lose herself in his eyes, she looked away. "This is all thanks to you, Takako-san," Kaoru said. "You're a truly selfless and generous person, to take on this mission in the memory of your son."

Kiyosato Takako blinked in surprise, and then she gave a brief laugh, and clasped Kaoru's hand. "Memory of my-? Oh, no, my dear, that isn't it!" she smiled at Kaoru kindly, patting her hand. "I'll always love him, but, this won't be for my son's sake at all. Rather, it's for my grandson."

They all looked at the baby, obliviously asleep in his mother's arms. "I will work tirelessly to help those children, to make my grandson's world a better place."

Not for my son, but for my grandson? Kenshin could hardly believe it. It was too perfect, it fit too well. "Kaoru-dono," he said, dipping his head forward. "Did I ever tell you about the poem, engraved on this sword, the sakabatou shinuchi?"

"There's a poem?" Kaoru asked, curious. "What does it say?"

"The same as Takako-dono just said: 'not for my son, but for my grandson'. The father of this sword, Arai Shakku-dono, inscribed that same conviction on this, his final blade."

Chidori was impressed. "That makes it sound even more like you were fated to come here," she said. "And if fate is as strong as that, it makes me wonder if we have any choice in life at all!"

"Oh, there is plenty of choice," Takako reassured her daughter. "Fate may play a role, but the most important things, I think we always choose for ourselves." She looked up at Kenshin. "Don't you agree?"

The most important...

Kenshin looked at Kaoru, and saw in her eyes that she already knew that he had chosen.

Her.

Days went by. Eight of the children moved into their new home, while the last little girl remained at the clinic, recovering. Sano and Megumi came over for dinner; Kenshin cooked. Kaoru went to teach lessons, and came home happy, looking forward to a bath. Sano dragged Kenshin out to celebrate his upcoming wedding, and returned home having somehow managed to 'win' an entire swordfish from somewhere, although when Kaoru questioned exactly how they had won it, Kenshin was unable to say. (Judging by the state they were in, however, Kaoru was able to discern that it had something to do with alcohol, and also with jumping in the river.)

The resulting feast included pretty much everyone they knew in Tokyo, including Saitou, his wife, and the boy Eiji, who was very glum about the fact that Yahiko (who was only one year older than him) had gotten to witness the final take-down of the Shuei yakuza. Sometime during the dinner, Saitou mentioned that he didn't have time to train Eiji in any sort of sword-arts himself, and requested that the boy be enrolled at the Kamiya dojo as a student.

Towards the end of the party, discussion turned towards the future of the little girl who had very nearly been eviscerated. Saitou and his wife confirmed that they would be willing to take her in, but Gensai-sensei related that she had become such close friends with his granddaughters that he was considering adopting the girl himself. Dr. Gensai went on to say that she was such a clever and creative child, who often talked about an imaginary friend of hers who could 'change colors'.

Kenshin resolved to visit her.

The following day, Kaoru took off on a mysterious shopping mission with Tae-san, something to do with the wedding, and Kenshin headed for the Oguni clinic.

Two of his favorite little voices greeted him as he stepped through the gate.

"Ken-niiii!"

"Ken-nii! Ken-niichan!"

"Ah, it's Ayame-chan and Suzume-chan, isn't it?" Kenshin greeted them, as they bounded forward and tackled his knees.

"Yaa! Let's play let's play let's play!"

"We have a new sister! Her name is Rie! She's five years old!"

"And I'm four! And she's not really our sister!"

"But, we love her! And we play with her!"

"She got stabbed with a sword!"

"It was very bad—she got stitches in her skin!"

"But Grandpa says she is doing okay!"

"I'm happy to hear that," Kenshin said, managing to get a few words in edgewise around their excited chatter.

"Ken-nii, did you ever stab anybody with a sword?" this startling question came from Ayame, the elder sister, just six years old.

Kenshin looked down at her big brown eyes, brimming with curiosity, and knew there would be another day, another time, hopefully still a few years away, when it would be right to explain. But for now, he patted the top of her head, and then touched the hilt of the sakabatou.

"I have never stabbed anyone with this sword," he promised her. "And I never will."

"Good!" Ayame smiled, her concern forgotten. "You have to meet Rie!"

"Ya! Riii-e, Riiii-e! Let's go see her!"

Suzume grabbed his right hand, and Ayame grabbed his left, and they pulled Kenshin up the steps and into the house, sandals scattering every which way in their excitement.

Little Rie was sitting up in bed, looking healthier than Kenshin had dared to hope. Her eyes lit up when she saw him. "It's you!" she exclaimed. "Doctor said you were a-maginary."

"He's not a 'maginary', he's Ken-nii," explained Ayame-chan. "He's not really our brother, but, he's very nice."

"oh, I know that," Rie said with a little roll of her eyes. "He gave me that spinning top."

"That thing?" Suzume asked. "Wow! I like that thing. It spins good."

"And I know how to roll up the string on it," Ayame stated, with importance. "Let's find it and play with it!"

Kenshin smiled at little Rie as Dr. Gensai's granddaughters began searching the room for the top. "How are you feeling?" he asked her.

"Good," she recited, as if she thought that were the expected answer. Then a guilty sort of look crossed her face. "My... my mom is dead," she revealed abruptly.

Kenshin considered that. "So is mine," he answered.

Rie stared at him, processing this new insight into the ways of the world. The idea that an adult could have a 'mom' was a new one for her.

"Do you miss her?" Kenshin asked.

Rie nodded, her chin moving up and down. "I miss her, and my stomach hurts."

"It will be all right," Kenshin told her. "Your mom is happy that you are safe."

"She is?" Rie sniffled.

Kenshin nodded. "Absolutely, yes, she is."

"Found it, found it!" Suzume exclaimed, and seconds later, the top was bouncing along the floor in a wobbly spin. "It's going! Woooow!"

All three girls were fascinated, and fell to discussing whose turn was next.

They would grow up, these little girls, in the new era... and Kenshin would do all he could to protect them. He felt certain that wherever little Rie ended up, whether with Saitou's family or under the auspicious wings of that painted crane, or even right here, perhaps as an apprentice for Megumi-dono... wherever she went, she would be all right.

And so more days passed, and then a few weeks, and the guests arrived from Kyoto, and Kenshin and Kaoru finally got married. The ensuing party was even better than the swordfish ordeal. There were many happy tears that day; even Sano had to dry his eyes, and Hiko too—although he insisted that was only because that hyperactive 'Misao' creature had jostled his elbow and made him splash his sake directly onto his eyeballs, really, that was what had happened.

Happiness settled on the Kamiya dojo exactly as it had been waiting ages to do.

Finally, after everything, after the Bakumatsu, and wandering, and Jin-e, after Shishio, after Enishi, after the ghost of the hitokiri Battousai—finally, peace.

Finally, love.

It was better than anything else, and it seemed they both awoke each day even more thankful for each other than they had felt the day before.

There was one time in the middle of the night that Kaoru found herself not quite awake, and not quite asleep, but drifting in between. She was used to Kenshin now, beside her, where she'd always sort of known that he belonged. But in this particular semi-dream, she sensed some other presence near her, familiar, small. She looked and saw the ghost of the white cat padding towards her, its fur glowing ever-so-faintly in the dark of the room. She reached out her hand towards the apparition, and her old pet arched its neck to rub its head against her palm. Kaoru rubbed behind its ears and under its chin, and then ran her hand once down its spine. She could have sworn the cat smiled at her, and then it began to fade out of sight, its rumbling purr just barely audible until it vanished. "Goodbye," Kaoru whispered, and woke up in the full light of morning.

It had only been a dream, she decided. A good dream, and she sensed it was the last time she would have anything to do with any sort of ghost.

Then there was a day when Kenshin woke up early, a little bit startled, still not completely used to Kaoru's presence next to him, but getting there. This would be the day, he realized. It was time. He had reached the end of one long span of thought, and was finally going to act on an idea that had been slowly assembling itself in his mind ever since Kaoru planted the seed of it.

Kaoru woke up a little bit later. The kids weren't coming for practice that day and Yahiko was helping out at the Akabeko, so, she would have the dojo to herself this morning. She got dressed in her training gear, tied a white headband around her head, ready to work up a good sweat.

The rising sun was at the perfect angle, flooding the training hall with gold.

"Kenshin?" Kaoru asked, surprised to find him waiting for her there. "What are you doing?"

He was sitting formally in seiza, wearing the white gi and pale gray hakama of the dojo's training uniforms. There were still ten or fifteen of those in storage somewhere; obviously he'd found one.

She squinted a bit at his face; maybe it was the light, but did that scar on his cheek look...less there? The idea that that scar might have started to heal occurred to her; but it was too soon to comment on it. She'd keep an eye on it, she decided. Maybe in a year or two, if it was really fading, she would mention it.

"I have something to ask of you," Kenshin told her. "I've sworn to protect the new era, and the people around me, to the best of my ability. And I think my ability can be improved by learning something new. Since the first day I met you, I've benefited from exposure to Kamiya Kasshin-ryu. I've absorbed it, the energy of it, just by being around you. But it isn't good enough, just to be an observer—instead, I need to actively pursue it. I need to seek it, wholeheartedly. And so..." he bowed forward, as students always do at the start of a lesson, and peeked up at her from under his bangs. "Will you please teach this one...Kamiya Kasshin-ryu?"

Kaoru blinked at him, a dozen responses flitting like happy butterflies in her mind.

Of course, you idiot, of course I will, seemed to float towards the top. She shook her head a little. So, you want Kamiya Kasshin-ryu, do you? Oh, you will GET Kamiya Kasshin-ryu!, another part of her wanted to promise him, a little too eagerly. Ah, this is going to be fun, she thought to herself. Kenshin, thank you, for realizing this is how it's supposed to be. I love you.

But she didn't say any of that out loud, and instead knelt in seiza, and bowed formally back to him. "Yes, I'll teach you," she said, smiling. She met his eyes.

"Kenshin...

Let's begin."

A/N: there you have it, the end. Thank you all for reading! Some notes: Saitou's real-life wife really did start up a war memorial or something. And I liked Minister Ito a lot in "The Legend Ends". You know that fancy dinner scene, on the beach with Shishio? ugh, so awesome. Did you catch Yumi's black kimono in that scene? Yumi was delicious in those movies, her wardrobe, hnnng. Incredible, those movies.

Oh! If anyone has read another story, where Kiyosato Akira's ghost confronts Kenshin, and specifically says he's sorry about the camellias or something-WHERE IS THAT FIC? I looked for it forever, because I was so certain that I had read it before. I couldn't find it, so maybe I did dredge that scene out of own imagination and nowhere else. But if you know of any other stories where Akira's ghost talks to Kenshin sort of like he did in the scene in this chapter, please let me know.

About Arai Shakku's poem: I never liked it, because it seemed to forebode that Kenshin's own son would hate him. I know, I know, Kenji "hates his dad" but come on, not _really_. There's no way he _really_ hates him. I mean, Shakku's son didn't _really_ hate his father, did he? No, I think not. Kenshin and Kenji are going to be just fine. Oh, and speaking of Kenshin and kids! ! ! Do yourselves a favor and re-watch that episode of the anime, "Himura dojo in Shimonoseki". (episode 77, I think?) It's in the terrible third season, I know, but it's on Netflix, for goodness sakes. It is one of my favorite episodes of the whole series. It's completely adorable, and there's that one scene, with Kenshin haggling over the price of groceries, lol, and that other scene, where the fake Battousai is giving Kenshin a kendo lesson and tells him to straighten up and he just sort of awkwardly jerks up, oh my god, how did they get that so perfect?! ROFL! It makes me so happy. Please watch it. (I had a "deleted line" in this chapter where Yahiko wonders what to do with all the kids from the Shuei-gumi, and suggests sending them to the Himura dojo in Shimonoseki, which Kenshin gently vetoes by saying that he's pretty sure that guy already has all the kids he can handle, lol!)

Ok. Sorry for rambling. This story has been great fun to write. To those who enjoyed this story with me... katajikenai.