JINSEI E NO MICHI/THE PATH TO LIFE

"Forward,two foes to your left,sweep right.....dive!"
I hear her cry these words,not with any form of fear but determination.
She is absolute in her refusal for even one sword of a foe to cut me,my eyes burn and I cannot gather left from right from the strange powder thrown at me.

I obey ever direction she calls out,being sure to block out the wailing of the slashed apart men around me,I can not see how she blocks it out so effectively and listen to the way the wind changes,to her words and to a remembrance of how to win a battle my father taught me before I watched him be slain behind a shadow's light at a home where I can no longer return to.

"Men don't win battles,swords are nothing,hands are fallible.Only GOD and the will to save someone,something wins.Not the desire to kill or the knowledge of it."

I wish I could show him how hard I have tried to be a man of honor while living in the shadows,cursed for a moment in time and not some evil like a shaman called me to be.
I wanted to be like my father,save my mother who died as bravely as he had.

"Leave here!"I yell behind me,I hear her footsteps nearing mine,I try to shove her back to keep three more fire glazed men that are so inhuman that I fear I can not keep them away longer,the powder makes my whole body come alive like it is aflame soon to be.
She takes the hem of my kimono sleeve that peaks out of my armor and pulls me down from an attack,I hear her begin to breath hard.

Before I know it,the men are all collapsed,the fiery pain in my body is ceasing and my eyes begin to clear,enough so that I see her now crouched on the ground and the men who had previously served with me under Takamori-Sama are now,those that I had not slain, awake as they were and frightened trying to plead for there lives,others attempt seppuku but I stop them with a swipe to close to there throats to allow them the opportunity.

"Should you dishonor the girl who tried to save your life?I was slaying each of you when you became aflame and attacked us,I would not have gone to this effort as she had,don't waste your chance to redeem yourselves......" 

My words seem to reach them,the last nine men rise,clear the rest who could not be saved and they proceed on to clear our route home,the road is dark and the skies are alive with the stars that look down like eyes that seem disappointed at us,a star shines on her though like she is some kind of princess that is delighted on by it's maker.
I certainly see why.

"Itoshi hito-chan...."I murmur looking at her,I kneel down next to her and gently swipe stray hairs from her face,feeling annoyed I incidentally put old dirt and blood on her by the action and I watched her smile just slightly by the moment I touched her.
"How can I just watch our lives play out over and over again,watch her choose me and die by something awful,choose him and live a living death or be alone and lost.What do I do to save my Itoshi Hito-Chan...."
I pray,after her fashion,I never knew the one she prayed to very well but I prefer HIS manner of everything and I want whatever will be her life,I fear her death.

I can not survive the last time again.
Never again.

I pick her up,she burrows herself into my chest not in the slightest bit caring over the propriety of it or the fact I have not been cleaned.
She just stays there and breathing softly as she had the first time I saved her life,or hers mine whichever it truly is.
"Will I ever see your face?I saved your life you know,a girl likes a reward."
"What makes you believe you will like my face?I am known as a shadow and am renowned for being cursed as my namesake and scarred.So why?"
"Because I just know...I like you even if you were hideous like the boar from yesterday,but eyes like yours and those shoulders give me reason to believe...."
"Hush...."I whisper at her,biting the inside of my mouth to keep from laughing out loud,she quickly slumbers again,humming my mothers favorite tune softly for too brief a time.

Both of them always to brief.