Sakurako sat at a lounge chair. The view overlooking the Tokyo skyline is as breathtaking as ever. She sits, a couple glasses of champagne sitting comfortably on the table in front of her. One close to her, untouched. The other near the otehr seat. She waits. She expects company soon. She already told her butler to be patient with dinner and to keep it warm.

"So... Henry..." She wispers in a comfortable and whistful tone. "What trouble did you get yourself into..."

She leans back, looking to the stars, which barely shine down through the light pollution of the city lights.

"I'm glad you didn't forget..."

"I'm glad you didn't forget, either, Saku."

Endeavor whipped around like a shot. And there he was behind her, walking out of the darkened far end of the room like he was always there, and there was no thing more natural than for him to simply step out of the shadows like a ghost. Like nothing ever happened.

Endeavor decided she wouldn't wait this time. She sprung up without so much as letting her fluttering heart skip a half-beat and fairly well leapt into ronin's arms, surrendering herself immediately and completely before the moment had a chance to steal this embrace from her again. "Oh, Henry!" she finally cried out once her arms had been tightly secured around his midsection, a sort of bawling exclamation of joy that bordered on tears. Henry wrapped his arms around the girl's tiny frame and embraced her, a sense of cathartic relief worn upon his unaging face. He nuzzled his face into the smooth, billowing pink hair that crowned Sakurako's head, inhaling her smell, feeling her pressed against him, her arms wrapped around him, her heart beating full against his chest, gripping tightly to the perfection of the moment and the warmth of the love that enveloped him.

"I missed you so much, Saku", he whispered just loud enough to be audible as what might have been tears began to well up in the corners of his eyes. "I'm so happy you didn't forget. You didn't give up. You didn't..." He trailed off just then, unsure of what else to say, and more lost in the sick happiness of the moment so long overdue and still so tenuous. He hugged her even tighter, bunching up her outfit in his outstretched palms as they clenched her back, and surrendered to a couple of tears. Henry leaned in and kissed her gently on the cheek, and Sakurako looked up at him, smiling, and kissed him back.

"Let's sit down", she said. "We have a lot to talk about."

"We do", ronin agreed, releasing his hold on her waist and following Endeavor towards the setting she had set for them.

"Please, sit. Have a drink", she gestured towards the untouched glass of champagne.

ronin blanched somewhat sheepishly. "Thank you", he remarked, and took a polite sip from the glass. The protocol for sipping wine was not entirely unlike that for drining tea, but for some reason, the long-stemmed, thin, fluted glass and the act seemed stilted and childishly awkward on ronin.

Sakurako smiled politely. "You certainly snuck up on me, there." She leaned back in her chair, an obvious attempt to put her guest at ease.

Placing the glass back on the table, ronin smiled somewhat wistfully, "When one knows a little of something, he tends to make a show of his knowledge, as if to prove to all that he has understanding. But it is not enough to understand, and the master does not need to show, only to know. The master is without showiness and does not seek praise or attention, as he knows that he is able."

Endeavor smirked slightly. "The 'Hagakure', ronin-chan?"

"Paraphrasing", ronin replied, smiling somewhat. "Men wiser than I." His expression very suddenly turned grim and downcast. "I'm sorry, Saku. I know that I've already said it, but I feel like I owe you so much more. I wish I could somehow make it up to you."

Sakurako was surprised to see ronin so vulnerable. It was obvious that he was having a lot of trouble with the situation. Somehow, he was unsure of himself, something she never pictured ronin being. Did she really have that great an affect on him? Did he really care so much for her feelings? She watched as he shifted uncomfortably in his clothes, wearing his suit like a constricting shroud.

Henry looked into her eyes, a new resolve and confidence suddenly stirring in his own. "I love you, Sakurako, and I'm sorry that I had to go away. I beg you to forgive me."

Sakurako sighs.

"Ro... Henry... There is no need to ask forgiveness. If there is something I've learned, is that there are such things that are beyond ones control. You've done nothing wrong."

She leans foreward slightly... "But if it's absolution you wish, I give it." She smiles earnestly and honestly. "Just seeing you again has erased anything I had thought ill of..."

She leans back to sit in the chair normally. "I had feared the worst, Henry. You... just dissapeared back at the raft without a word. At first I wondered if you had just some urgent matter that required your attention, but the days became months... I... Honestly thought at one point you were..."

She chokes up. A tear falling on the well-tailored synthetic silk of her dark crimson china-dress, uncharacteristic, but showing her more mature nature.

"I... thought you were lost to me..." She looks down, as a lock of her pink hair, which had been neatly done in a single bun and held by sticks, falls over her face. "I've lost much, but that loss if it was true... I just couldn't bear..."

"When I heard from you, my wanderer, after all this time.... I could only want to say I wanted to see you again..."

Henry felt like a world-class heel.

It was all his fault, of course. Not his choice, per se. He didn't want to go. Quite the contrary, he especially did not ever want to go, especially to the place he went. He didn't have a choice. But still. It was his fault. And he agonized over the fact that he caused the woman he loved pain.

"Thank you for being so understanding, Sakurako. You humble me with your barest touch yet again, and the beauty and nobility of your soul consistently remind me why I love you as I do, and could not possibly choose otherwise. Not ever." He smiled somewhat impishly, trying to set her at ease, and gently kissed the back of her hand, cradling it in his own. "I want you to know how much time passed for me while I was gone, but the truth is that I don't know. There were places I was forced to that time doesn't exist the same way as it does here. It felt like a long time, and if the rest of my life is an accurate gauge, I'd say that I was probably away from you for around thirty to forty years. Not that it matters all that much, since, as you can see, I haven't aged a day." He smiled apologetically, still holding her hand in his. "I could have come back to the moment after I left, in theory", he continued. "I could now. I could go back to the very moment I left and make it like nothing ever happened. But if I did that, some other Sakurako in some other place would have me, and you'd be left here, alone. And don't worry about her, because for her, I'll be back eventually, too. Does this make any sense?"

It did, of course. Sakurako was brilliant -- more than brilliant enough to understand hypothetical time travel, dimensional flux, parrallel universes -- and Henry knew that. The question was just a veiled way of saying "Are you okay with this?", which, again, Henry already knew the answer to. Sakurako just nodded affirmation.

"Besides", Henry added, "doing dumb things like that is what got me in trouble in the first place." He looked to the floor bitterly, pausing a moment before he continued on. "No matter how far away I am, I can also feel my chrono-spatial anchor, like a lighthouse. It's a beacon I can always come back to. But that beacon isn't static. Time progresses differently on certain planes, and while I'm away, life is continuing on here. And this time, while I was away, around ten months passed here. But for me, who was traveling primarily on planes where time moves much faster than it does here, it was -- roughly -- around two score in years. So when I finally gained my freedom... ...I rushed back to my anchor immediately and contacted you. I wanted to just come to you, but I thought--"

"No", Endeavor cut in. "No, not ever. Don't be silly, Henry." Earnestly, kindly, she looked back at him. "Believe me, I understand. I'd never forget you. Not even in all the time I was gone did I--" This time, Endeavor cut herself off. She wasn't sure if ronin knew about what had happened to her in the Hikari Maru, about the elseworld, about twenty-five missing years... Caught up in a moment of mild panic, she paused, letting her sentence linger midway.

ronin cut in, albeit only after a few seconds of Sakurako's gaped-mouthed silence. "Of course I know, Saku-chan."

Sakurako was willing to write that off. Henry could pick up surface thoughts, so even if he didn't know already, he did now, and she knew he was smart enough to piece it together, cool enough not to overreact and sharp enough to understand. She had a bigger issue on her might right now, a question she was afraid to ask. It had been forty years for ronin, and before that, they had ten minutes together after another forty-five years apart. It had been a long time for her, too, but only a third as much time had passed, and she had been very busy, and...

"No", ronin responded to her thoughts. "No, Sakurako. Don't be silly." He smiled at her lovingly. "Like I'd need to see somebody else after having met someone as wonderful as you."

Temporarily thrown, Endeavor stared back at him, tentatively forming the thoughts in her head to speak in response.

"And I've been pretty busy, myself. But even if I wasn't," a large grin spread across his face, "there still wouldn't have been anybody in my life since you."

"Henry, I do love you more than anything I have loved before. How could I move on so easily? Time is of no importance. It is the time we have together that is."

She takes his hand with her free hand.

"I could never replace you."

Her bright eyes seem to capture the light from all the lights of Tokyo, the island, and the balcony.

"No matter how many universes we've traveled, we always come back here, to this spot. We have a bond, Henry. Something that can never be broken..."

ronin looked back into the perfect pink saucers of Sakurako's eyes and, for an almost imperceivable moment, he was unconditionally and truly happy. No worries, no doubts, no troubles. No problems, no pain. Only the woman he loved looking back at him with a love that had proven itself time and time again, a crystalline thing of stoic endurance...something he hoped would never change.

"Henry", she calls me. I wish she knew what that meant. The implications contained in that simple title. ronin knew about Sakurako. She had always been candid with her life, and was such a public figure who lived so loudly that she was hard to miss. She had her private side, of course, and was really quite deep if one bothered to get to know her, which was one of the things ronin loved about her, but he nevertheless felt he understood her on a visceral level. He knew where she came from. That level of intimacy, however, was not shared, and as Sakurako addressed him again by a name he shed lifetimes ago, he was reminded of a time not so long ago when he was a very different man, but a man he must nevertheless be accountable for. It was time Endeavor knew.

TB Continued in 'An Unmasking'