End of A Weary Day--Formating Revised 12/21

A/N: Sorry this chapter ended up so short, but that is what happened when I had to split the other one in two. I had to find a good place... and this was it. So, this is what you get. WINK. It is however almost exactly what I would have written following the earlier chapter any way... so it all worked out.
More or less.


Glossary: Koishii=Dear/Darling, Aman=Lover, Saiai=Beloved, Aisai=Beloved Wife, Anata=Beloved Husband, Netsuai=Love Passionately, Setsuai=Love Deeply, Aijou=Love, Kieri=Beautiful, Hai=Yes, Doushita=What is wrong?, Shimatta=Dammit!, Kuso=Shit/Bullshit!, Onegai=Please, Kiobito=Sweetheart, Yousha=Forgiveness/Forgive,

Chapter Eight

Do Stars Burn Out?


\"Excuse me... Onegai, let me through... I have to get by... I have to get out of here... Onegai let me through...\"

Tears streamed down her face as she struggled to get past people who just did not seem to understand the urgency of her need to be gone from this place, and the frantic tone of her voice grew with her mounting frustration and need to run. \"Onegai... LET ME THROUGH!\" But then she felt it. It came down hard on her right shoulder first, then it was yanking her roughly backwards completely off her feet and into the waiting arm of The Battousai. In one swift and liquid movement, he lifted her off her feet and threw her over his shoulder forcing the air out of her lungs with a loud ‘Whoosh\' as her stomach landed roughly against the hard muscle and bone. Then they were flying through the streets at a speed Kaoru could only wonder at as Battousai somehow managed to navigate around every obstacle that appeared in their path, including the unknown hundreds of people.

It seemed to Kaoru that they had covered an enormous amount of distance, and she was totally disoriented as to where they were. Her stomach hurt from bouncing up and down on Battousai\'s shoulder, and she was feeling like a sack of potatoes that had been carried too long and too far. Her legs and shoulders ached from the unusual position, and she just wanted him to stop and put her down. As if he had heard her pained thoughts, Battousai suddenly stopped his headlong flight of speed and pulled up into a slow lope and then dropped at last into a slow rhythmic walking stride.

\"Onegai...\" Her voice was hoarse and scratchy as she tried to get his attention. \"Can we stop please? Kenshin? Onegai... it hurts being carried this way for so long. Can\'t we please stop?\"

\"No.\" Came the short sharply spoken reply and Kaoru realized that she was still dealing with the Battousai, and it did not seem that he was in the mood for being reasonable at the moment, so she tried something else.

\"Where are we going? Battousai?\" She asked tentatively. \"Will you tell me where we are going?\"

\"No.\" Another short reply. Kaoru felt as if her whole world were falling to pieces. First she catches Kenshin... No, she catches ‘Battousai\' with his mouth and arms wrapped around THAT WOMAN, and now HE was taking her somewhere and it seemed as if HE were more angry than she was hurt. Confusion and defeat both came to roost in Kaoru\'s troubled mind. What did HE have to be angry about? SHE was the one who had caught HIM doing something he should not have been doing. If anyone had the right to be angry, it was HER. Anger suddenly boiled up inside of her, and she started to feel the beginnings of feminine outrage wriggling into her heart. Just who the hell did he think he was man-handling her like this? Well, she was done with it, and she was not putting up with it for one more second. Kaoru balled her hands up into tight little fists and took aim.

THHWWAACCK! SMMAACCK! TTHHUUMMP!

\"Hey! What do you think you are doing, Woman?\" Battousai growled angrily, and with
one great heaving flip, pulled Kaoru over his shoulder and dumped her unceremoniously onto the hard ground at his feet. \"I did not deserve THAT.\" He glared at her as he reached back and rubbed the back of his head and shoulder.

\"You did not deserve..... EWWWWWWW!\" Kaoru was on her feet in a flash and swinging another well aimed blow at the side of Battousai\'s scowling face, but he was prepared for her and ducked out of the way.

\"How How dare you tell me you did not deserve THAT or anything else I decide to do to you, you arrogant philandering piece of...\" She took another swing that was meant to clip him in the jaw, but he side-stepped her and she stumbled ungainly past him forgetting to finish the insult she had been about to deposit on his most deserving head. \"Shimatta!\" She swore as she struggled to regain her balance, and then turned to face him in all the glory of her seething anger; however, she felt a small twinge of... what? as she looked into the irritated face of the Battousai who was standing several feet away regarding her with hooded golden eyes, and his arms folded in an almost bored pose across his chest.

\"Are you quite finished?\" He asked in that horrible sarcastic voice that she hated. It was the one he only used when he was particularly peeved about something he felt was beneath his attention but he was being forced to deal with it anyway. \"We have more important things to do than stand around all afternoon and evening while you take pot-shots at me.\"

\"Like what?\" She hissed at him in her best malevolent voice. \"Like what you were doing with your mouth attached to that... that piece of contraband while I was patiently waiting for you in another room?\"

\"It was not what it seemed to be, Kaoru, and I would have explained that to you if you had stopped for a moment and allowed me too.\" His eyes narrowed dangerously at her as she ‘humphed\' in his face.

\"Really...\" She spat nastily. \"It was pretty clear to me WHAT it was, Kenshin. IT WAS A
FUCKING KISS!\"

\"KAORU!\" He roared in her face.

\"WHAT?\" She roared back as she stood up and faced him nearly nose to nose her blue
sapphires glittering with righteous anger and feminine... jealousy?

\"Stop cursing, dammit! It does not become you, and for your information, JOU-CHAN,\" He leaned into her face until their noses were touching and snarled furiously. \"It was not a ‘fucking kiss\', it was a one-sided kiss. You just happened to walk in at the right moment to catch the half-an- instant IT took place in.\"

\"Bullshit! You had your hands on her, BATTOUSAI! Or were those another red-haired Samurai\'s hands I saw pulling at her waist and not yours?\" She met his fury without so much as a flinch as her hands rose and planted themselves on her hips in indignation.

\"Hai! They were mine, JOU-CHAN, but they were PUSHING her away... if you had stopped for one moment, BEFORE you jumped to conclusions and forced me to drag you all the way out here to straighten this whole fucking thing out, you might have noticed that LITTLE detail, but, noooo, you had to go getting all twisted out of joint and run away making me chase you down the street like an errant child.\"

\"I... Are you expecting me to believe that SHE KISSED YOU?\"

\"HAI!\" They stood nose to nose and toe to toe like two furious titans squaring off in
preparations for a mighty battle, but neither were willing to launch the first physical attack. The battle of words and wills had clashed and sparked as the lovers swung their swords of furious outrage, pain, despair, disbelief, denial, and, above all, fear.

Silence settled between them and around them as they glared into each others eyes searching for deceit, the truth, the one thing that would make everything the way it had been when they had woken up in each others arms that morning. They were searching for the Love that had been there, but was now hidden and perhaps gone beneath the powerful emotions that were coursing through their veins and spirits at that moment. Where was the Love? Was it gone? Or...

\"I...\" Kaoru\'s furious gaze began to falter as she stared into the furious but steady and
truthful gaze of her lover. \"I... you... we...\" The strength of her resolve began to crumble as she read the honesty of his words within the glowering depths of his burning golden eyes, and suddenly she was ashamed and could not meet his look any longer. Kaoru dropped her eyes and her head as the heat of a shameful blush rose to stain the purity of her pale cheeks. She even backed up a step away from Battousai as she felt her heart constrict with a mountain of guilt and remorse. \"I...\" Her voice was so small Battousai had to strain to hear it. \"I am sorry...\" She said as she began to fiddle with her fingers in discomfort. \"I sh-should have trusted you more... I-I have dishonored you.\" Then to the utter horror of the Battousai, this proud, stubborn, willful woman slowly dropped to her knees before him in repentant submission.

Her mane of ebony hair drifted over one shoulder and lay across one breast as she lowered her head in supplication, and her now fragile appearing hands were folded demurely in her lap as she sat unmoving before him. Battousai felt a large lump rise in his throat and he swallowed hard against it trying to make it go away, but it persisted and he felt a squeezing pain surround his heart. She was debasing herself before him because she felt she had dishonored him by being jealous and jumping to foolish conclusions, when all he wanted was to explain to her what she had seen was not what she believed it to be. This was the worst thing that could have happened.

\"No...\" He spoke softly and the fury of his gleaming golden eyes suddenly began to ebb as the warm violet and purple tones of the kind and loving Rurouni started to take over. \"My Sweet Angel... Do no do this.\" Pulling his sakobatou from his belt, Kenshin knelt before the submissive Kaoru and tenderly lifted her chin so he could look into her devastated pools of deep blue. \"Do not do this, Saiai. You have not done anything wrong... I understood why you thought what you did about that horrible kiss, that is why I had to find you and catch you before you got away from me.\" Gently he let his hand cup her cheek as he cocked his head to one side and spoke more earnestly. \"I had to stop you... I had to tell you... I had to make you understand and believe me that it was not what you thought. I would never... I could never... She was trying to seduce me from the moment I began asking her for information. I resisted her and rebuffed her advances. I even became angry because she would not desist with her games, but I never dreamed she would resort to the cunning treachery she used on me just before you came into the room.\"

\"What...\" Kaoru\'s voice was a raspy whisper as she tried to meet his eyes and listen to his explanation. \"What did she do to you?\"

\"I turned from her, and as I did, she grabbed my sleeve and pulled it hard enough to cause me to stumble backwards toward her. It was pure instinct that made me reach out and grab her. I was looking for some sort of support to right my balance, but then she was wrapping herself around me and kissing me. It all happened in such a brief moment, I hardly had time to gather my wits and try to push her away before you walked through the door... and then it was too late.\" Kenshin raised his other hand to cup her other cheek so that he held her whole face within his comforting embrace. \"I could not think what to do... then you were running away from me and all I could think of was stopping you before you got away completely... before I lost you.\" He leaned into the stillness of her and pressed his forehead against hers, and rubbing it in a feline-like caress across her skin, he let out a long sigh of uncertainty. \"Was I successful, Koishii? Did I catch you in time, or... have I lost you? Kaoru? Have I lost you, Saiai... have you gone from me? Did we burn too brightly like the falling star that explodes in the midnight sky and has it\'s one brief brilliant moment of greatness, and then fades away into the ashes of memory? Have we become a memory, My Angel? Am I alone again? Onegai, Saiai... Onegai... tell me the truth, and whatever it may be, I will respect the wishes of your heart. If you no longer wish to be with me... I will withdraw... somehow, Kaoru, I will withdraw. All I want is for you to be happy, and I cannot bear it if it is I who brings you unhappiness.\" A trickle of wetness appeared over his cross-scar as his voice faded into silence and he waited for her to answer him.

\"Ken-shin... do not go... Onegai... Aishiteru Saiai... do not leave me... stay, onegai, koishii, stay...\" Thick emotion filled her voice as her trembling cold hands slid between his wrists and cupped his damp face. \"Onegai... do not leave me... Aishiteru... Aishiteru... Aishiteru Kenshin... stay...\" A heavy sigh escaped his chest as he dipped his head and tenderly brushed his lips against hers.

\"Aishiteru, My Aisai... My Kieri Aisai... Onegai yousha... yousha Kaoru... yousha...\"

She sniffled and shook her head as her hands brushed at his tears. \"There is nothing to forgive, Anata... It is I who needs your forgiveness.\" Gently she rubber her cold cheek against his damp one and whispered in a deep pain filled voice. \"Can you, Kenshin? Can you forgive me for not trusting you... for not believing in you? Can you forgive me for dishonoring our trust?\" She shook against him as a silent sob tore its way free from her emotionally swollen throat.

\"Hai, My Angel... Hai, though I do not believe you need my forgiveness either.\" His arms stole around her and he pulled her into his lap so he could bury his face into the thickness of her hair and nuzzle the curve of her shoulder. \"Just tell me you still love me, Aisai... tell me you still love me and want me with you and the world will be right again.\"

\"Aishiteru, Saiai-Kenshin... I love you will all my heart and soul... and I cannot imagine my world without you beside me. It would be a lonely dark place and I would never be able to bear living in it... I need you with me. Please stay with me, Saiai, please say you will always stay with me, Anata.\"

\"Hai, that I will.\" He pulled back and looked into the loveliness of her face and finally
allowed the beauty of one of his smiles to cross his handsome face. \"I could never be with another... only you, my beautiful Kaoru. Only you can touch every emotion and every side of me at one in the same time, yet still be the lovely and desirable woman that you are. There could never be another woman for me but you... nor for Battousai. I do believe he was as frightened as I was at the possibility of losing you. It would appear that he is quite smitten with you, Koishii.\" The soft touch of his hand curved around her cheek as he gazed lovingly into her eyes. \"I cannot say that I blame him for that... No, that I cannot.\" And then Kenshin leaned into Kaoru and parted her lips with his and pulling her close to him, he tried to pour his whole heart and soul into a single deep and tender kiss that left them both breathless and hungering for more when he pulled away.

\"Saiai-Aman...\" His voice was husky and filled with a tone of urgent desire. \"I want...
Kaoru...\" His hand moved to firmly cup the softness of her breast as he trailed the tip of his tongue along the edge of her jawbone and up to the sensitive spot just behind her ear. Kenshin felt her shudder in his arms and he slipped his hand inside the ‘V\' of her Kimono to caress the soft, pliant flesh he loved so much. His fingers easily found the taut hardened point of her nipple, and he tenderly rolled it between his thumb and forefinger as he listened to her sharp intake of air, and felt the trembling strength of her hand as it dug into the thickness of his hair.

\"Oooooooooo Kennnsshhiinnn....\" He loved to listen to her voice when passion came to take control of her senses and she ceased to be the rational woman he loved and became, instead, the wild thing that he craved more than the air he breathed to stay alive.

\"Aishiteru, Saiai-Angel...\" He said tenderly next to the sensitive shell of her ear just before he laid her down on the ground and covered her with his weight.

\"Kenshin... the people...\" Kaoru pushed at his chest half-heartedly as he nuzzled into the depths of her throat and his hands worked at the knot of her obi beneath her.

\"What people, Koishii?\" He asked huskily as he pulled the obi free and laid it on the grass beside them. \"There are no people... there is only you... and I... and the river, Aisai.\" Then his hands purposefully spread her kimono and under kimono open baring her creamy breasts to the touch of his tender lips and tongue. \"We are alone...Saiai. We are alone...\"

\"Ooooooo...\" Her shoulders arched upward into the caress of his mouth as she let go of her last inhibitions and wound her fingers through the wild red mane of his thick hair and urged him closer to her. Kenshin obliged her by gripping her to him tightly and rolling onto his back with her on top. As he did so, the naked glory of her breasts tumbled into his face and he began to suck, lick, and fondle them leisurely while he listened to her moan and whimper with the pleasure he was giving her. Suddenly Kaoru reared back pulling Kenshin up as she went. Her hands were back digging into the shaggy depths of his hair as she pulled his mouth closer into the throbbing ache of her breast\'s begging him to suck on her hardening nipples.

\"Onegai Saiai... Onegai...\" Her voice was like a fire in his soul, and Kenshin willingly
opened the moist heat of his mouth and sucked Kaoru\'s aching peaks deeply inside pulling on them just enough to bring a high pitched moan from his lover\'s lips as he did. He could feel her shuddering and trembling against his chest as her need and desire grew, but he was not ready yet to be finished with this. He wanted more from her... and he wanted to give her more before that moment came so he ignored the pressure of her heat where she sat straddled his lap... and his swollen manhood.

He let his hands slid around her waist and then dip down to capture the curve of her buttocks in each palm. A sigh of satisfaction washed across the nipple he was laving with his tongue as he squeezed Kaoru\'s butt just hard enough to wring a strangled cry of passionate hunger from her, and then he slipped his hands beneath the fabric covering her rounded flesh and proceeded to rub and caress the smooth spheres of her butt again. Kaoru shivered beneath his hands and unconsciously ground her heat down hard against Kenshin\'s erection bringing a ragged groan of pleasure from his lips. \"Saiai...\" He rasped as all of his grand intentions suddenly disappeared beneath the blazing heat he could feel through the thin material of his hakama. It only took a brief moment to untie the belt and remove the obstacles of the under fastenings, and then he was free and she was open and ready for him. Kenshin\'s hands gripped Kaoru around the waist and guided her with perfect accuracy down onto the tip of his hardness, and then in one swift upward thrust of his hips, he impaled her with the full length of his shaft.

Though she made not one sound, Kaoru\'s head fell backwards on the thin stem of her neck and her mouth opened into an almost perfect ‘O\' as the incredible sensations of having her chosen mate joined to her in every way possible way. Kenshin groaned thickly and slid his hands upward along her back until they curled over her shoulders allowing him to support her better as she leaned away from him. The moist hunger of his open mouth moved urgently across her exposed chest and throat as he reveled in both the glorious sensations of her heated flesh responding beneath his touch and the snugness of her sex as it passionately gripped his swollen rod of aching desire, and as her hips began a grinding gyrating motion against his, Kenshin once more felt the joy that only the love and passion of this one woman had ever brought to him, and he pulled her back to him and captured her panting mouth in a kiss that devoured them both with its depth of emotion and need.

“Keeennsshhiinn…” Kaoru rasped his name as she tore her mouth away from his and pulled his head back into the swollen ache of her breasts. “Take them…” She breathed as she rubbed the pale rounded moons against his mouth and nose. “Onegai, Aman… take them. I-I need you too.”

“Kaoru…” Kenshin’s voice was hoarse and strained as he raised one hand to tangle it in the masses of her ebony lock at the nape of her neck and then pulled her head back further exposing her to him without pulling her away. “Setsuai… My Aman… My beautiful Angel… Setsuia…” As his open mouth and tongue began to once more lick and suck at Kaoru’s beautiful breasts, Kenshin also took the opportunity to roll her back over onto her back so that he could gain the leverage he needed to take her into the golden abyss of sexual fulfillment. He lifted one of her legs over his shoulder and leaned into her pelvis as deeply as he could. A violent shudder followed by a thin strangled cry greeted his movement, and with a satisfied smile in his heart, Kenshin pulled part way out and then thrust back in pushing for the same depth.

“Aaannyayaaa….” Kaoru cried out beneath him and the knee that was bent over his shoulder flexed powerfully as she strained against the pressure-pain pleasure he was evoking deep inside of her body. Kenshin watched as the cords in her neck stood out with the effort she expended and her amazing response to him gave him the confidence to go on.

As he closed his deep purple eyes and let himself go, Kenshin took up a regular steady but very deep thrusting pace that had Kaoru moaning and thrashing beneath him in a way he could not recall her ever doing before. They had made love many times, in many different ways, and he had always tried to satisfy her as well as he could. There had been nights of wild uncontrolled passions where they had both lost control of their rational selves, and there had been other nights filled with the long sweetness of loving touches and kisses that had finally found their way though the door into the world of fulfillment. There had even been times wrought with laughter and teasing that were more like the game-playing of children than the sexual romping of adult lovers, but this… this was different than all of those other times. This was… this was the first time Kaoru had ASKED him to do anything, and it was the first time they had almost lost one another because of a foolish misunderstanding. Kenshin realized as he felt Kaoru’s body shuddering with pre-climactic spasms, that this was their way of reaffirming their commitment to one another. Both of them had been so afraid that everything had been lost, so afraid that the glory of ‘them’ was over that they had reached out with that fear and grabbed onto each other with such a great relief. This was the result.

In the aftermath of this coming together, both Kenshin and Kaoru had remained silent as they retied and readjusted their clothing. He carefully and quietly replaced his sakobatou into the left side of his belt, and then, without looking at her, hesitantly held his hand out and waited.

She stood for a moment and looked at the proffered hand and at his silently bent head, and then Kaoru took a silent step toward the humbly waiting red-haired man she loved so dearly and tenderly slipped her hand into his. She swallowed a tiny sob of joy as she felt the strength of those long slender fingers wrap themselves tightly around hers, and she gently squeezed them in return. Still Kenshin made no sound nor did he look at her, but he did tentatively pulled her close to his body until she was near enough for him to drop his forehead onto the soft curve of her shoulder.

“Kaoru.” He whispered in the smallest voice she had ever heard him use. “Aishiteru.” The word was spoken with the simplest of truths, and Kaoru felt as if her heart might burst with the surge of emotion that suddenly filled it.

“Aishiteru.” She breathed back and stepping closer to him, buried her face in the hollow of his throat and burrowed in snugly. As she did, his free arm tentatively rose and wrapped itself around her back, and with his hand splayed open between her sharp shoulder blades, he tenderly pulled her in closer to his chest. Kaoru responded by lifting her free arm and wrapping it around his shoulder, allowed her herself to relax and mold into the contours of his body.

Thus, the lovers stood silently, quietly holding each other as the glory of the Moon rose in the deep blue-purple sky, and the rushing waters of the river rolled past each bearing witness to the everlasting bond of a love that could have only been born within the loving hands of God.


There… I hope that appeases all…… I do not think I have ever written a story that has had so many complaints launched about it in such a short period of time... sigh *

I want you to know, I rewrote this and the part of the other chapter that goes with it about 6 times before I finally came up with this. I was not prepared to rewrite what I had already written, but… for my faithful readers… I will always try to accommodate. That is why I left the other chapter intact. There were many who liked it just the way it was.
God Bless… Please Review Tsuki-san