Characters are not mine, appreciate comments though.

Her Wish

She moved across the silent river, almost feeling the water give passage. She shivers in the unfelt wind and combs her porcelain fingers through her eternally dry hair. She loosely puts her kimono on her shoulders, not heeding her nakedness. She kneels on the riverbank, her untied kimono opening in the front. She clasps in her hands a simple top stroking it lovingly like a lover, almost feeling the smooth surface. She sighs in her melancholy.

This was her hell, knowing how once it all felt like but never feeling it again. Knowing how wonderful it was to breathe and knowing you will never take another breath. Yet she could bear the pain, she knew she could, she could bear the punishment of the world, but not this. Seeing in your hands the one thing you could take from the time you once walked the earth. Remembering he whose face you will never forget. And never feeling it’s red tip grace your palm. Never hearing it's soft whistling as it danced for you. Forever burdened with the happiness you once had. Forever remembering the love that burned your soul and eternally shivering in your solitude. This was her hell.

She heard it, a soft whimper, behind her. She withdrew from her reverie and looked over her shoulder. It seemed like nothing at first just a pool of colors a discarded obi made. And then it shifted and her eyes widened. In it furiously trying to extricate himself from the gentle folds he enveloped himself in, was a tiny white fox. She moved closer, taking the animal in her hands. She smiled.

"Do you like my obi little one?"

"What is this snare you have contrived woman? " it yapped.

"A fox spirit!" she exclaimed. And her heart beat a little faster and her face paled a little. There was a story she heard once when she was young. There was a legend that if you caught a fox spirit, it would grant you your fondest desire in exchange for its freedom.

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"Set me free at once!" he ordered his green eyes flashing with fury.

"Grant me my fondest desire." She whispered.

"You humans are all the same, dead or alive!" he barked swishing all of his three tails in his irritation.

"Please." She whispered almost inaudibly. Two solitary drops fell on the fox's nose causing him to look up into her bowed face.

"Of all the humans I have encountered you are the only one who has shown me tears." He licked her face.

She laughed softly at his observation and stroked his head in gratitude for his little display of affection.

"What is your heart's fondest desire?" he asked.

She looked at his tiny face and sighed. At long last, could this be it? She had waited for so long. Swallowed all her pain for so long. Could this be it?

In the draught that was her heart only one memory remained. It was of watching a boy play with the top in her hand, being enveloped in his scent and knowing nothing but his voice. The toy was the only thing she took with her, and perhaps she did not for the dead do not take anything with them on their last journey. Perhaps it was she who made that top with her longing and her need to feel that happiness, although brief, lasted her lifetimes. And it was this happiness that now completed her hell.

And she knew it did not matter. Seeing him smile that one time was worth a thousand deaths. She knew those few days that they were together was worth any hell they could give her.

And in her heart there was only one desire.

She looked at him. He was older now. He had cut his hair. She could almost remember feeling it brush against her shoulder. Has it been twenty years?

"Would you still remember me beloved?" she whispered to his unhearing ears.

"Well?" asked the fox sitting beside her. "What is the price of my freedom?"

She could feel it in her mouth, the words she so longed to speak. It tasted so sweet and oh how she needed to say it!

She saw her come from inside the house, calling him. She was beautiful. The woman placed a child in his arms and left. The boy looked like him. He even smiled like him.

"Of course." She smiled sadly.

The child reached up and touched his father's face. Patting his cheek with his tiny palm, patting the two tiny lines almost fading into nothingness. She looks up at him and sees him smile.

"Well?"

He looks up, folding his arms around the boy protectively. He heard a movement in the bushes. He sees a tiny white fox walking away from his garden. He frowned confused, there wasn't supposed to be foxes this close to the city.

He glances back down to the boy sitting on his lap, he had stopped playing with his face a moment ago and he discovered why. In his tiny hands was a little top. He lifts it up for his father to see, delighted in his prize.

His eyes fall upon the toy in his son's hands, the shiny red tip upturned. His eyes light up with recognition for a moment, only a moment. Then they return to their gray mediocrity. The top looked almost familiar, but it wasn't.

His gaze wanders across his garden, a discomforting feeling at the pit of his stomach. A misplaced scent envelops him in a solitary embrace. Wafting through the wind and kissing him farewell. His wife does not wear this perfume and yet…he shakes his head and carries his son inside.

He takes one last look over his shoulder. The feeling still persisting.

As if he was supposed to remember.

end

ok what the f*ck was that about?

ok the mystery is solved, Tomoe wished that Kenshin forget her coz she knew he would never be happy until he does, since he has decided to move on, she just wanted him to be happy, with or without her. sad right?