With loving dedication to my pirate and my ronin.

"It wasn't about love, it was about duty in a time when people had stopped believing in that kind of thing. It was about having a reason to fight, about a reason to keep fighting and pushing our selves to be better. It was about being strong and completing the journey- but it wasn't about love. That much is certain," her eyes focused on the thin ribbon of yellow light as it cascaded down and lay across her open palms with a distant kind of warmth. "You can't just walk away from something. You can't just leave people behind wondering. It was about making things right in a world that was so wrong and twisted to begin with. The three of us were orphans, you see? Anyone who might have been there for us either died or left us behind. The only difference between us was I hadn't had as long to deal with it. Being alone had hardened them and I was still soft. They protected me, but not because they loved me. It was because they wanted something soft to still be in the world. If I lived, it didn't so much matter whether or not they died. They would have saved something they saw as worth fighting for in a world that was slowing forgetting what it meant to be an honorable warrior or even a scoundrel with a heart of gold. They weren't heroes. They were everything except heroes and they were mine. They're out there somewhere. They're living and finding some other softness to rest themselves in. They'll die old men believing they saved their worlds because they saved me. They'll never know they failed and I'm glad for that. I am at peace."

"You could save your life. You could save your miserable life, all you need to do is tell us what we want to know."

She looked up from her hands. They had become so thin. Every part of her was thin, like she was slowly fading away. She met their eyes where they stood outside her cell. "I don't know. The best I can tell you are which directions they went at the crossroads. My heart tells me that they are happy. It tells me that my ronin went and reunited with his lover and my pirate is somewhere on the seas, feeling the wind on his face. My heart tells me they are safe, hidden, and, even if I wanted to tell you where they were, I could not. We said we would meet again, but we knew we never would. At least not in this life."

"Have you no love of your life? No love of your country? What you tell us will not only save your life, it will save this country. We have hunted them for nearly three years to no avail. We have kept you alive here in the hope of drawing them out. They are rogues. They cut through good men who would have helped bring this country into the future along with its people. Men who would have given their lives-"

"They did give their lives. Your men gave their lives to protect what they believed was correct," she replied darkly and looked away, back to the light. It had moved slightly. "You don't carry a sword or draw a blade unless you are prepared to die. They taught me that. Every time they drew steel, they knew it might be their last time to hear the song as sword slipped from scabbard and so they danced in the only music they knew- a death song. And I already told you; none of this was about love. Even now, it isn't about love."

"Then why are you protecting them? Why are you forcing our hand? The shogunate is willing to spare you life and set you free, Christian or not, for information on the whereabouts of the ronin, Jin and pirate, Mugen. There is a signed and sealed letter ensuring your safety. You will never be hunted again."

She turned her haunted eyes upon her jailor and interrogator. They'd learned that torture did no good with her. They knew that, when asked any question, she would fall back on the story of her travels with the ronin and pirate. The two were dangerous men. They had killed several skilled assassins and, unbeknownst to the slight woman who looked so menacingly at them, had both begun assassinating those who might still have any desire to harm her.

"You don't understand," she breathed fiercely. She had grown up quite a bit in three years. She was slightly taller, though no more filled out than at fifteen. It was her heart and mind that had truly aged. She had become strong even after her capture and incarceration. "If you must ask me why I still protect them, you will never understand. I say again, even if by some miracle I knew where they were, I would not tell you. Telling you would only create a prison far worse for me outside this cell. I would have given up my honor and forfeited my duty to them."

"What do you know of these things?" The interrogator scoffed, still trying to get a firm grip on this girl's mind and motives. He had to break her. It had become his quest.

She smiled faintly. "I'm the daughter of a samurai. What do I not know of these things?" She ignored their laughter.

"Your father was a heretic who had forsaken his country and his duty for a foreign faith!"

"No." She breathed and trembled as hot tears rolled down her cheeks. She had thought she'd forgotten how to cry. "He simply found a higher Lord and cause to follow. One of heaven and not of earth. On that I cannot fault him."

Both men snarled. "If the Christian god is so great, tell me why it is that you revere these mortal men, these felons so completely."

She laughed and reached up to brush away the shimmering trails of clear, liquid crystal from her cheeks. "That, Sir, has everything to do with love."