“The past does not repeat itself, but it rhymes.” - Mark Twain

Edo, Japan: Genroku Year 3

The streets of Edo were bustling with activity in the early evening as Takeshi walked slowly through his precinct. He knew most of the people around him, from the merchants to the craftsmen to the street sweepers. He hadn’t had a serious case on his hands in a few weeks, and the peace in his district gave him a sense of accomplishment.

Along his casual walk, he took a report on a suspicious person seen loitering around a fish stand, broke up a fight between two drunken brothers, and checked in with the neighborhood’s night-watchman. He came across nothing that seemed worth making an arrest, and so he kept walking, nodding to people he knew and just generally keeping an eye out for trouble.

After a while, he left the busy, well-lit streets and started walking deeper into the darker allies and byways where any real trouble would be brewing. Those streets proved just as peaceful as the others, and when the night-watchman tolled midnight, Takeshi started for home.

He had only made it three blocks when a cry caught his attention.

“Help!”

His response was hard wired into his psyche. Before he really knew what he was doing, Takeshi was running through the allies, searching for the source of the shout. It didn’t take him long to find it.

The yoriki soon found a little boy, one of the street urchins Takeshi often saw running around the area, stumbling towards him. With a deft arm, he caught the boy and managed to subdue his struggling with two firm hands on his shoulders.

“Jiro! What’s wrong?” His voice was quiet and soothing as he tried to get the boy to calm down enough to talk intelligibly.

After a few moments, he managed to get the words “shrine,” “girl,” and “attack” out of the frightened boy. With a quick thanks and an order to go run home to his parents, Takeshi took off running again.

There was only one shrine in his district.

Pretty soon, he heard the clash of weapons and angry shouts. Paying no heed to social niceties or religious traditions, he scaled the steps of the shrine three at a time, sword drawn and gleaming in the moonlight. The sight that greeted him at the top of the steps was far from what he had expected.

A young woman was fighting against an entire host of men. And doing quite well if he was any judge. He stood gawking for a moment.

Gods above and below, she’s so beautiful.

Shaking off the thought, Takeshi cried his challenge and threw himself into the fray.

*****

Sunnydale, California: 1999

When Spike had felt the bullet tear through his body, he had been unpleasantly surprised. As much as he could have lived without a forty-five round ripping a hole in his chest, it had nothing on the sinking feeling in his gut when he realized that the soldier trying to pound in his face was none other than Buffy’s boyfriend, the elusive Riley Finn.

Just when he was about to give up hope of ever seeing the night sky again, the slayer grabbed the boy and ripped him off of the vampire’s chest. Spike watched the emotions flicker across her face and was amazed. Anger and worry were replaced by surprise, and then there was a hardening of her features that he took for determination.

Then her fist smashed into soldier-boy’s chin.

If the situation had been different, he would have laughed at the surprised expression on Finn’s face as he had his ass handed to him by an invisible opponent, but Spike was simply too shocked to take much note. All he could think was that he was thankful he was already lying on his back, because he knew his knees wouldn’t have supported him had he been standing.

The next thing he knew, Spike was being shoved through the hole in the wall, followed by the slayer and the limp form of her boyfriend. Or was it ex-boyfriend? He really wasn’t sure after the punch she had just handed out. When Buffy slid the grate back into place, he allowed his demonic features come to the fore in order to see in the dark.

Buffy finally looked at him. “Can you climb?”

The gunshot wound still hurt, but nothing short of the final apocalypse itself could have kept him in this building any longer. “Yeah.” His eyes fell to the prime source of his confusion. “What about him?”

Buffy’s face was hidden by a screen of golden hair as she looked down at the body between them. “I can’t carry him.” She sounded so torn and confused. Spike could understand completely. “I don’t know what to do.”

She looked so fragile in that moment that Spike reacted on instinct. He found himself patting her on the shoulder and offering her words of comfort. When her tiny hand covered his, he let his fears fall away. She had decided, and for once, he had come out on top.

The climb was problematic. The walls of the vent were slick, but there was more than enough room to maneuver even with the swords hanging across their backs. Between the two of them, they eventually found a chute leading to the outside world. With a well placed kick from Spike’s booted foot, they were free.

Two swords were tossed out into the grass. The vampire climbed out first and offered a hand up to the slayer even though his muscles were burning with exertion. After he pulled her out, they both rolled onto the grass. While the slayer tried to catch her breath, Spike chuckled to himself.

“What’s so funny?” Buffy asked petulantly.

“So what’re we gonna do next weekend, slayer?”

Her breathless giggles mingled with his. “What about ‘Who says there’s gonna be a next time’?”

“What about ‘Shut up and get back in the bathtub’?” he retorted.

“Well, we could always come back and muck up the works for our friendly neighborhood Dr. Moreaus some more. That could be fun.” The slayer’s voice was light, but there was a thread of iron running through her words that caught Spike’s attention.

“You declarin’ a turf war on some fellow demon hunters?” He tried, and failed to keep the hopeful confusion out of his voice.

The slayer scowled, suddenly serious. “Hunters? No. What those guys are doing is not hunting. It’s dangerous and stupid and I don’t even want to think about what would have happened if they had managed to wake up Orochi.”

“Say the word, slayer, and I’ll be there with bells on. I bet the two of us could put a whole world of hurt on their operation if we put our minds to it. Might even get a medal for valor from your precious Council.”

Buffy just laughed again before propping herself up into a sitting position. “Speaking of which, we should really be getting back to Giles’ place. I bet he’s polished through one of his lenses by now.”

He scowled with mock anger. “No more bathtubs?”

“No more bathtubs,” she laughed. With a final chortle, Buffy dragged herself up and stretched, joints popping after the cramped confines of the chute. When she offered him a hand, Spike took it and allowed himself to be pulled to his feet.

They found themselves standing toe to toe, barely a hair’s breadth between them. Spike’s fingers itched to smooth her golden hair back from where is lay, mussed from the climb and shining in the moonlight. Controlling the impulse, he simply grinned: an honest smile, not one of the sarcastic leers he tended to wear around her. When she looked up at him as if seeing him for the very first time and smiled, an unneeded breath caught in the vampire’s throat.

Gods above and below, she’s so beautiful.

The moment passed, but the effect didn’t as the once enemies retrieved their swords and walked back towards the busy streets of Sunnydale.

*****

Two ghostly forms watched as Buffy and Spike walked away.

“Do you think they know what is to come?” asked Kaede.

“No, but I have the feeling that they will manage just fine,” replied Takeshi. “I have never met two such warriors. It’s a pity we never knew them in life.”

The slender slayer sighed. “I will miss our garden.”

“It’s their garden now, if it even remains a garden. I get the impression that the slayer might prefer a beach. We knew this would happen.”

“I know. Their bond to the swords supplants our own, but I will still miss it.”

Takeshi wrapped ghostly arms around his wife’s waist. “I will too, beloved,” he finally admitted.

The translucent forms stood for a moment in the clearing, each basking in the other’s presence. After a few minutes, Kaede spoke again. “I wonder if my father knew what he would start when he gave us those swords.”

“We can always ask him on the other side, not that we will be there long. Warriors for the light are too rare for the Powers to let sit idly by. I would imagine that we will be spun back out into the mortal realm soon enough.”

Kaede smiled to herself. “But we are bound now. That much will remain from our time in the garden. No matter how many lives we lead until the wheel of time finally stops, we will never have to fight alone again.”

“Yes, and neither will they.”

The two warriors stood in the warm California night, savoring the final moments of this life. There would be others though. They would carry different names and different faces, but their souls would ever be the same, and now they truly had one another for the rest of eternity.

“I am ready, Takeshi.”

The ghostly samurai simply responded by pulling the slayer closer against his chest. The two forms, one light and one dark, started to glow. Soon the light from one was indistinguishable from the other and their radiance burned with a cold white flame. With a blinding flash, they were gone.

Gone, but no longer alone.




A/N I would like to thank my beta, LimitlessD, for her proofreading and encouragement. I'm a big coward sometimes, so her hardheaded bullying has a lot to do with me posting at all. Here's to you, D.