On The 60th Day

Day 59
Yuya sat on the porch, one leg hung over the smoothed wooden planks. The other leg hugged close to her chest. The grass below tickled at her calf with the slight breeze.

Yuya's gaze drifted across the tall grasses, seeming to dance in the late afternoon sun. The bright bands of gold slanting across the roof filtered through the surrounding valley leaving patches of bright yellow in the reeds as the sun began to set.

Yuya sighed, tucking her chin to her chest.

Benitora, Yukimura, and Sasuke were most likely halfway to the town on the other side of the woods by now, Kyo having risen early in the morning and ordered them away.

Yuya had been angry at first, heat flooding through her cheeks in indignation.

But she had quickly realized that she was grateful as well.

The heavy oppressive silence which had filled the house in the last three days had become almost more then she could bare.

It had seemed to stifle the very air she was trying to breath. The dread and foreboding trying to choke the lungs right out of her.

The house was still silent now, but it was a different silence. Gone was the palitable grief and dispear, the anger that brushed against her in all parts of the house.

Now there was simply quiet.

Yuya heard the shojo door to her room slide open with a soft scrape.

Only one still remained.

And his silence was something she could tollerate. His nearly unshakable presense since running off the others was something she was also grateful for.

Yuya smiled watching the reeds dance in the wanning light.

Kyo had never been one for emotions, and in a way it was comforting.

He was the same as he had always been, just as silent, just as brooding.

But something in the air around him was changing too.

Yuya continued to study the field as Kyo took his place beside her, the one that had once been occupied nightly by Sasuke.

Yuya wondered if that was why he filled the space.

After hearing Sasuke express his concern for her being alone.


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"Kyo says we should go," Venem flashed through the young boy's eyes. "It isn't fair that he gets to tell us what to do! It should be your choice! You're the one who's...who's.."
Yuya's eyes slipped shut at the memory of the trembling swordsmen in her arms.

He'd felt so fragile against her as he cried once more, for her, for them, and for himself too she realized at his choked cries.

"Oni-chan, please...Oni-chan.."

Sasuke was crying for her, and for his own saddness, but also for everyone the young boy had ever lost, or never had.

So many of the lives around her were peremeated--riddled with tears and saddness.

"Why should you have to be alone...?"

"It's okay sasuke, I am never alone, I carry all of you. Here." her fingers gentley brushed her temple, "And here, Always here."


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She smiled softly now as her fingers rested against her heart once more.

He'd stayed with her on the porch until Kyo and Yukimura had come to collect him bags already packed.

He had risen silently and accepted the pack Kyo handed to him.


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"You'll stay with her?" Sasuke's voice was hard despite the tears he'd cried.
"You promise?"

Demon Eyes Kyo didn't make promises. I

nstead he'd taken the boy's spot on the porch, and remained there for every night since.


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Quietly meditating as she watched the sun set, and even after she dozed off in a fitfull sleep wrapped in her bedroll.

Yuya had thought to protest on the fist night, it was not the first time she had slept in a room with him it had happened on occasion durring their travels but always with the rest of the group rooming with them as well.

And she had slept near him in the woods on their travels as well.

It should not be any different now that they were alone.

In a way it was almost nice as well.

A small piece of normality in the mess that had been made of her life.

As her time grew short Yuya found the tightening in her chest grew worse and worse.

Not as much from the waterwyrm, which chose odd times to stir now, but from anxiety.

She didn't know what it was like to die afterall.

Yuya had always imagined she'd die an old woman surrounded by her family and grandchildren--if she ever found a descent man to marry that is, and with the rif-raf she traveled with that wouldn't be easy mind you.

But the sting of reality was that she was going to die a young bounty huntress--just entering her prime.

She was going to die alone.

With no one but a demon eye'd killer for company.

At least he was easy on the eyes, if nothing else.

Yuya smiled inwardly. Not that it made much difference.

Kyo's good looks did about as much to help de-sour his personality as a feather did in aiding a brick to fly.

Yuya felt her heart clench for what felt like thethousandth time, and she wondered once again if perhaps there calculations were wrong, and she had less time to live then a day.

"Breath Yuya, You're heart just skipped a beat."

Kyo.

So calm, so unemotional.

He was her anchor, her calm in a turrent of wind and rain that pummeled her body and her senses.

My brother once said, It takes much more courage to live, then to die.

And I have never been afraid of life.

So why do I now feel like such a coward?

"Yuya, Breath"

Air filled her lungs as she inhaled deeply. The sweet scent of something blooming beyond the clearing brought tears to her eyes.

"Kyo..."

She paused unsure of what she wanted to say.

Or maybe it was that she knew what she wanted to say, but wasn't sure how to word it.

Yuya was almost positive her heart knew exactly what it wanted to say and how to put it.

It was her that was too afraid to find her voice.


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"It isn't fair Yuya-han," Benitora's eyes glistened with tears. The normally bouncy and gung-ho young man's features weighed down by the creases of his frown, the anguish and anger in his eyes.
"I still feel responsible. With Kyo one the ground, I should have been the one to protect you. All the joking and foolish horse play I've occupied my time with, While Kyo has single mindedly pursued becoming stronger I've free lanced with it. Kami-sama you should hate me, for not being there! I should have protected you but I'm weak! So weak and pathetic..."

He'd turned his back to her unable to look into her eyes any longer. The shame and regret waying down his shoulders, pinning his slumped form to the floor when he wanted to run.

Yuya smiled wrapping her arms around him.

"You have so much strength Benitora, I don't want you to regret the time we knew each other because you feel like you failed me in someway."

He turned, "I would never regret knowing you,"

Yuya met his somber gaze. "And I have never regretted any part of knowing you, or in traveling with everyone. I would not trade a moment of the time we spent, and the memories I have even if it would buy me back the rest of my life."

Her voice faultered for a moment.

"I'm afraid to die, Tora-san. But I'm more afraid that you might become consumed with regret and forget to live."

"Honor me that way, become stronger, not so that you can dwell on the past, mulling over what could have been. But so that you can live in the present, and look forward to the future."

Strong arms clasped her firmly against his chest.

"I have always been a fool.To hardheaded to see clearly what is before me. But I will do this."

He met her eyes again, "Kyo is going to stay with you. At first I was angry at him. But I have nothing to be angry about. It is only right that he be the one to stay, for while a part of my heart will always be yours..." He paused, the softest smile Yuya had ever seen gracing his features. "It has always been obvious whom all of your's belonged too."


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Yuya focused her eyes once again on the samurai before her, legs curled hands relaxed in his lap, the ever present sword beside him on the deck.
What would you say?


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"What's it like to die Yukimura?"
Head tilted to the side. "I have never died Yuya-san, therefore I'm afraid I'm terribly ill-equiped to answer this question."

"But you've almost died...right?" She could remember numerous times that members of their group had seemed close to death, on more then one occasion from fighting each other.

Yukimura frowned, something he didn't do often though it did little to hide his beautiful features. "Why do you ask me, Yuya-san?"

Yuya bit her lip, unsure of whether to answer truthfully or not.

"I wanted to ask Kyo," she paused "But I was afraid he wouldn't answer me, he spends so much of his time being quiet."

"He is meditating,"

"I know what he's doing,"

It just seemed to her that Kyo picked a strange time to become holy.