MOSUKOSHI TAIZAI SHITE KUDASAI/STAY A LITTLE LONGER

SAKURA
PRESENT

His eyes run with tears after all the powdered poison that was thrown on him,he carries me in his arms gently but I feel how he strains to keep himself upright let alone the effort to stop his muscles from shaking from exhaustion.

He still just won't let ago.

"Noroi...."
"No."
I stifle the rebuttal for a few moments,looking over his shoulder to see the unexpected victory in the form of strewn bodies and it still strange to me to have the complete quiet from seeing the undead actually remaining dead now.
It was almost beautiful how efficient we were,my words his sword and it became like a dance watching how we just became one mind.
One.

The bodies of those undead monstrous samurai like warriors became as ash in moments and I only heard a brief soft sigh of relief from them as the last false breath left them,the ravens that flocked around us left all but one,it's eyes almost seemed impressed but also a touch.
Concerned.

I do not have much time to undo all of this.
For now I have a wound to tend to that is not even mine.
Though I think it hurts me more than it does Atarashi hikari.

"Please...set me down."
"If I do I will not be able to rise again,if I release you again I will not have a hold on you.Again.No,no I will not set you down."
I look at him,I see the blood starting to become deeper in the spots on his chest that he had been shot,I can tell at least from the way of the wounds position that none of them are fatal but he will pass out fairly soon if he doesn't rest now.

"I thought I am still owed a prize for saving your life?Right?If not a look at your face then what of a rest by a lake and a little less blood.Fine?I am already a connection to blood and wearing it on my favorite kimono is a fashion no no."

If he weren't wearing that mask I would get a nice sight.
I see the flash of a smile again on his face where the mask is broken,breaking away more.I also see more and more beads of sweat rolling down and it is getting too cold at night for that to be heat related.

"I am not leaving this time,I am not going to be with Tennami this time or gone to seclusion.What I have to do is something  else entirely I think.But for now I am staying.Okay.Please Atarashi hikari."
He pauses then,just for a brief moment and lets a few more steps forward,nearing the small riverside where is a little place for a fire and a horse by the large section of trees to the left of a downward path,one I had forgotten all about that leads to an ally of Takanori-San.

"I love winning a prize for patience,for victory and for resolve.I made you a promise that I intended to keep.Wounded or no.You have gotten some of your prior times back but not this one I see."

I am honestly made dumb,I look at him and he sets me down softly onto the little branch by the water,I try to speak my confusion about what he meant on that yet after a solid thirty seconds he crouches on to the ground falls back and begins to hum his mothers tune for a bit with the expression of a blissfully happy boy.

A blissful but very bloody boy that I give a slight expression of confusion towards and it is like the child in him makes a brief appearance and he laughs so heartily I forget for a few not long enough moments that he was renowned for being very evil in battle and fierce.
For a not long enough moment I feel like just a school student having a crush on a boy and waiting until I can finally hear the words we all crave to hear.
For so many moments I watch the happy moment,laugh with it.

Knowing I do not have much longer to have it,The way he slowly stops his own laughter proves he knows as much and our eyes meet briefly in that sudden moment of reality,a bit of defiance of acceptance I see in his eyes but they seem to drop when those eyes of his.
The eyes of my only love.

See my resolve.

LATER

"What is the matter?Blood has never been an issue before."
Noroi asks me,his voice is deceptive.

He certainly knows why I am at a pause now.

"You know more than a little why!Couldn't you,sort of pull the-the kimono on your shoulder up a bit higher?"
"All you see is the tip of my shoulder and my chest right now.You have never seen a chest before?We have been at an estate covered in samurai at every end,helped tend to those said men with wounds on backs,arms and chests.My wounds are on my chest and back and they do not feel very good."

His words have bite to them but his eyes are nothing but mischievous.
"I do not know them like...I am not used to...Oh please just cover up quickly."
"We have been married.More than once.You never seemed frightened before."
My eyes flick between his,I hold onto my fabric,the clean fabric he brought a long because it turns out he scouted this place in case the battle ended up where it did although I have no prior life memory of anything happening to either of us there but now is not the time for that I am too nervous right now to even look at him properly.

"We are not married though now are we?Now just...oh I can't talk to you."

He smirks,I see that under the mask as the victory becomes more evident when my blush shows up clear under the moonlight.

I separate the fabric,the sewing needles and such to the best sight line I can have in this dark and clean his wounds.
It doesn't cease to hurt and amaze me what some will do to others.

He has so many scars across his chest new and old,mostly small ones done from knives.I hate how vividly the memory arrives to me of the origin of those scars.
Also even so,I try not to look anyway too long after I clean the wounds up which gets him to start laughing again.
 
"I am not complaining.I miss your touch,I never get to have it long enough so do so as often as you please Hitoshi ito."
The term makes me pause and miss a moment with the needle and I accidentally hit the non harmed flesh,his eyes flash comically.
I hate myself for laughing but it wanders out now at will.

"You are the idiot distracting me.Couldn't you have been plump with no dimples?Would have made doing this much easier."
He doesn't miss a beat though in reply.
"So it means in reply that you like what you see still?I do manage to train every moment I can hoping to earn a distracted glance or two."
If my blush weren't telling enough my eye roll would have worked wonders,I try to forcefully turn him around to tend to his back wounds now that I have seen to my best the ones on his chest but he asks me softly before relenting to me.
"Do you mean it?This time you ARE staying?No more of being with that snake and killing yourself slowly,no more dying children,no more being away from me.Do you mean it?"

He eyes look onto mine softly,they look like a lifetime of lifetimes of bad memories are hidden there,I suppose after the last three months of my life may look the same as his eyes do.
I nod,words unable to find release now that levity is gone like the sun has done,he obeys and turns his back to me.Noroi seems to keep his eyes fixed high to the heavens to stare at an impressive moon that seems so much more beautiful than a moon has been to me before,even so this river that slowly flows down giving a serenity to a heavy sensation in my heart,A goodness from GOD to help steady me as I tend to Norois last wound.

I do not know really what comes over me,I am not his wife now but after I finish tending to his wound and move away those items. I wrap my arms,careful that I place them away from every pitifully done bandage,around his waist.
I feel his sudden and harsh intake of breath and I think I have I hurt him so I start to pull away but his hands take my hands back and tightens my arms back around him again,I even put my head to his back where I can hear his breathing steady again.

I know that soon I will have to talk about the last three months,what must be done.
What I must do.
Yet.

Another minute can elapse into an hour.
My forever with him can not happen so let that minute elapse while I hear a soft breath and a heartbeat that beats just a bit more.

For me.