We leave Rika and Jun with Bashira, deciding it will be safer for the two of them to stay out of the village as much as possible.  Ryuu stops by the house to grab our bags, and I remain on the porch while he is inside, watching Osamu walk among the grove of trees.

I carefully touch my obi where I stuck the small origami flower that he had given me.  Bashira had tried to dodge my questions about why she had a wedding kimono when she seemed to have no love interests, but she had finally told me the truth, leaving my heart to ache for her with the progression of the telling.

"Are you ready to go, Sakura?" Ryuu asks, reaching out a hand to me.  He has both of our bags slung over his shoulder and a light smile touches his lips.

Accepting his help, I run my fingers across his cheek.  "Yamane Osamu seemed to be saying goodbye.  Do you think we will see him again?"

My husband kisses me gently before taking my hand in his.  "I cannot say that I know the future.  I know that whatever lies before us will not be easy, Sakura, and I fear that it will be far more difficult for Rika and Jun than even they think.  And I believe that Yamane Osamu knows more than he lets on."

I thread my fingers more tightly in his, feeling the truth of his words deep within.  The moment that someone suspected that Jun and I were not who we said we were or the traitor within the Amachi clan decided to dig deeper into the truth of the matter, our future would likely become deadly.

"We need to write a letter to Taro," I tell Ryuu.  "Or rather, you need to write a letter to Taro.  If we hide what has happened, it will allow suspicions and worries to fester within the clan.  Besides, we all need something to rejoice in during these never-ending days of war.  The future of the clan is a step closer to being secure.  Once Rika and Jun have a child, there will be someone to take control of the clan eventually."

It falls silent except for the sound of our feet following the path back to the village.  Then, he tugs me to a stop and places his hands on either side of my head, our bags dropping to the ground.

"Are you going to be all right with this, Sakura?  To watch someone take your place and to watch his children lead a clan that should have been your child's birthright?"

"Oh, Ryuu.  It would have never been my child's.  To have a child when I was the head of the Amachi clan would have shattered my whole identity.  Any child of mine would have either died an early death on the battlefield, wondering what happened to their parents or would have killed along with me.

"I am content to allow Rika and Jun's children to take authority over the clan when their time comes.  I never want a child to go through what I went through," I answer, my eyes latched onto his amber gaze.  "You and I could have never existed if I had not stripped off the identity of Lord Amachi Junichi.  Even if we had found a way, we would have been in danger every time that we decided to come together."

A look I cannot quite decipher flits across his face before his lips come down against mine.  A thousand butterflies take flight from my stomach, infecting my blood, even as the taste of Ryuu ingrains itself within my heart.

"As much as I would love to remain here and continue to kiss you," Ryuu says huskily, breaking away, "we best get to the village inn before someone sends out a search party."

I laugh and tighten my hold on his hand once he has reclaimed our bags from the ground.  And we set off once more.

The owner of the inn welcomes us warmly though there are strange shadows in his eyes whenever the Yamane name comes up in the conversation.

After his wife shows us our room, Ryuu sits to compose a letter to Taro while I change out of the white kimono, intending to return it to Bashira in one piece.

"Ryuu, can you help me undo this knot?  Bashira tied it a little tighter than I expected,"  I ask, turning my back towards him.

I feel his fingers move against the cloth carefully.  "Taro is going to have questions when we return to the Amachi clan.  He will likely be the first to notice the similarities between Tadashi and you, and he will want to know where I found you."

The obi loosens, and I pull it across my body before looking towards him.  "I am an orphan with no family, and the shinobi took me in.  You met me under the service of the shogun.  We fell in love, and the leader of the shinobi gave permission for us to wed.  That is the majority of the truth, omitting the fact that I am Amachi Junichi, and it will explain any inconsistencies in the way I behave as everyone knows that even women are taught basic defensive skills under the tutelage of the shinobi."

Ryuu sighs but does not argue, returning to the composition of his letter after running a light hand across my back.  I look through the bag that I assume Bashira packed, pulling out a less formal kimono and allowing it to fall over my undergarments.

He sighs again.  "Sakura, this is going to be dangerous.  Even if Taro believes every word that we say about your past, someone is going to pry too deep, find a person who cannot keep their mouth shut.  The traitor has enough suspicions about the truth that the moment we return, they will see through everything."

"Has Emi said that?" I say, taking a seat next to him and placing my hand against his.  "I am not worried, Ryuu.  Every day that we have together will be a blessing, and I refuse to let someone within the clan destroy us.  Stop worrying and just write the letter."

Ryuu kisses the top of my head.  "You are right, Sakura.  Your secret has been safe for seventeen years.  I will finish writing to Taro, and then we will see about getting something to eat."

A few hours later, with the missile on its way to Taro and a meal resting in our stomachs, Ryuu lies on the futon, watching me brush out my hair.

"I like your hair longer," he whispers, getting up and running his fingers through my hair.  "Short never looked right on you.  And there is more for me to touch."

I set the brush down and turn my head slightly as he presses his lips to the back of my neck.  My entire body feels like it is waking up from a long slumber, one that I just became aware of.

Rika had spoke on what little her own mother had told her about the night after one wed, and we had laughed even as we wondered how different preparing for our marriages would have been had both of our mothers still been alive.

"You are shivering," Ryuu says gently, leaning against me and wrapping his arms across my stomach.  "Does this worry you, Sakura?"

"I do not quite know how to feel.  I am nervous but excited.  I am unprepared yet ready.  I am certain of nothing except that I love you and I trust you," I mutter, twisting around to rest my head against his chest.

He lifts my head to seal my words with a kiss, which starts out achingly gentle before becoming almost desperate.  My hands reach out, coiling behind his neck and pulling him close enough that I could feel every muscle in his frame.

"I love you.  I love you so much," he whispers with an edge to his words.  "I would never hurt you intentionally, Sakura, and I know that we both are inexperienced in what usually happens tonight.  Stop me if you feel uncomfortable or you do not want to continue on.  I never want to force you into something that you do not want."

"I trust you," I repeat, and with those words, he picks me up and carries me to the futon.

My world centers around him, yet it expands to encompass all the stars that lie in the sky outside.  His kisses, his caresses, ignites something that I did not even know existed within me, and I finally start to reclaim all that was stolen along with my identity.

Our breath mingles, our heartbeats pound in unison.  And as we come together for the first time, I feel our souls entwine.  There is no longer a me or a him; only an us exists in those moments, and I hold him that much closer, letting Ryuu fill the cracks in me that I thought irreparable.

He is overwhelmingly gentle, and I hear my words about trusting him return to me.  And I find them to be true; I trust my childhood friend, my husband, my lover, with every part of myself, even the parts that I am not sure I trust myself with.

"Sakura," he sighs against my neck, the sound of it hitting my skin and rippling across the entirety of my body.

"I love you, Ryuu," I manage, hardly hearing my voice say that words even as I reach out for the stars that seemed so far away before but now are within my reach.

And when we have touched the stars together, felt their heat searing into our bodies, Ryuu rolls over, arms tight against me.  A sweat-dampened lock of hair falls across his forehead, and I cannot resist the urge to move it, feeling as if he is my north, my way home.

"One day," he whispers, his voice rough, "I will kiss every scar that has marked its way across your skin.  Each one is a tale, ones that I wish to reacquaint myself with."

Ryuu's fingers trace the one that runs across the swell of my left breast.  "I forgot about that day until now.  You were sick with fever for days, and every time that I tried to convince your father to let me see you, he refused.  My father said that it was because he blamed me for what had happened to you, but now I think that it was because he was afraid that I would see the truth about you."

"You have seen the truth about me now, Ryuu," I answer, resting my head in the crook of his shoulder.  "I think that for all the times that my father told me that he would destroy you if you ever learned the truth, he hoped that you would find a way to keep me safe from others that would use the truth against me.

"Though I do not think this is quite how he envisioned us."  A wry smile touches my lips even as he traces the quirk of them with a light finger.

"I think, despite everything, that my father always hoped that you would figure out a way to cast off the identity of Lord Amachi Junichi and that I would not leave you behind when you did," he says.  "And I understand now why he continued to hope that my mother would come back to us.  If he felt even half of what I feel for you, he would have never stopped waiting for her."

A small laugh escapes me, and exhaustion starts to tug at my eyes.  I scoot closer to him, tucking my arms up against his chest.  I feel warm and content and safe within his embrace.

And I think he knows that because he curls his body around mine, and kisses my temple gently even as my eyes drift close.

The last thing I hear before sleep takes me away is the sound of our heartbeats beating in tandem with each other, confirming that this was how the next part of our story was supposed to start: together.

And what I need to remember is simple: I love Ryuu, he loves me, and we trust each other.