AUTHOR'S NOTES (otherwise known as the lengthy introduction):

After four years of no updates, I have finally decided to continue this fanfic. Actually, after rereading the chapters, I am revising all the current chapters on here and finish it to the end. This means that I am taking out all the old chapters and re-uploading them with fresh, newly revised ones including ones that have not been included in the original, uncompleted version of "True Love". I noticed that there are a ton of flaws and I really want to make this a good fanfic, especially since there aren't that many Enishi-centric fanfics out there. This is probably due to the fact that the Revenge/Jinchuu arc is beginning to be released on a wide scale to anime fans where four years ago, the only way to actually get this arc not included in the anime was through scanslations and translations.

So, if you are new to this fanfic of mine, I bid you welcome and hope that you will bear with me for this long author's note. I warn that this deals in the aftermath of the Revenge/Jinchuu arc, so there are probably a great amount of spoilers that you might not have caught up with yet (or maybe you have...I haven't kept up with the English version of the manga for a while). I am also horrible at updating, but I do plan to update this as often as possible -- which is most likely only going to be once every three to four weeks. Unlike how I wrote this four years ago (while I was still in high school and had no life whatsoever), I actually have more important things to worry about other than updating. I apologize in advance if you're too impatient to wait an entire month per update, but this is as much time as I can allow myself to.

If you are a former reader and have waited patiently for these past four years, I can't thank you enough for actually putting up with me. I actually had wanted to continue on where I left off all those years ago, but unfortunately life loves to intervene and for a while I had forgotten how much I loved Ruroken and particularly the Revenge/Jinchuu arc which Seisouhen unfortunately didn't go into as much detail.

For former readers (new readers, if you're curious to what the original looked like, please click here), here are some changes that you will see in this revised version:

->longer chapters - I typically write chapters the old fashioned way in a notebook in pencil before I type it up and post on here, my website, and Mediaminer. The original chapters were around 5-6 pages handwritten; these will be about 7-8 or more handwritten. You probably won't notice the difference, though, as they might probably look the same length as before (I have really tiny handwriting, so I can't ever tell if a chapter will be extremely long or not).

->less romanized Japanese - To be honest, it never occurred to me back then how much it would annoy people when mixing the two languages together. Now that I'm not in high school (the period in which I first plotted out and wrote "True Love") and have a bit of more years on me (not a lot, but hey, it's better than none), I realize that mixing languages is annoying to an extent. There will be the typical basics ("hai", "ie", "konnichiwa", etc.) included in here but that's as far as I will go. At the end of each chapter will be a glossary of unknown words for those who haven't caught up in the Japanese language.

->the ages of Rin, Ran, and Yumiko - Rin and Ran were originally three years old. Their ages in this new version will be four to five. Because of this, Yumiko's age is upgraded to 22 years old after I recalculated Enishi's age to around 24-25 years old if you consider that Tomoe died when he was only 10. Although, I could be wrong in his age.

->more character development - This might not have bugged some people, but it really bugged me how shallow my characters and the Ruroken cast were.

->extended timeline - In order to keep the plot going at a steady pace (this means that, yes, it's more chapters than the uncompleted original of 10; I had meant for the entire thing to be 14, but that's not going to happen this time...)

->Yumiko's family - Although I won't go into precise detail, you (as in the former readers) will notice that I've changed them a bit from the original.

And thus ends this rather lengthy author's note. The others won't be this long, I promise. Enjoy!

DISCLAIMERS: Rurouni Kenshin doesn't belong to me blah, blah, blah. It belongs to Nobuhiro Watsuki, Shonen Jump, blah, blah, blah.

WARNINGS: Spoilers from the entire series. I'm following the manga storyline and not the anime storyline. You have been warned.

-Rurouni Kenshin: True Love-

Prologue - A Time to Remember

(Kyoto, Japan, 1916)

A solitary figure squatted in front of the stone slab, the object decorated with the engravings of four names behind it and a vase filled with white and violet irises and incense sticks that the figure had put in earlier. The figure just sat silently in front of the stone, dressed in a dark suit that looked brand new, a hat to cover the white color of his hair and sunglasses to hide the jade in his eyes. Memories, both good and bad, treaded across his mind as if he was rewinding time.

How long had it been since they met? How long was it when they each mended their hearts and lives?

How long had it been since he had this feeling of loss?

Although he could no longer use a sword or fight, the man still had his sixth sense as the shadow of another person approached him from behind. He glanced back at the younger man coming towards him who looked every bit the mirror image of his mother. Like the man, he too was dressed in a dark suit, although his jacket was unbuttoned and his shirt untucked.

"Otousan," the younger man said to him. "It's time to go."

"Ah, I was just about finished, anyway," the white-haired man said, struggling to stand up by putting the majority of his weight onto the wooden cane he had in his left hand. His younger companion quickly came to his aid.

"Hmph, my legs are just not what they used to be," he muttered as a gesture of gratitude.

The young man couldn't help but chuckle in amusement as they began their slow pace away from the stone slab.

"Since when did they ever work right, otousan?"

"Hush, boy, you sound like your mother when you say that."

"Well, at least I know where I get my sense of humor from."

As the father and son, or rather surrogate son but still his son nonetheless, continued on their path away from the site, the man began to reminisce to how it all happened: how they met, fell in love, and mended each other's hearts...

GLOSSARY OF UNKNOWN WORDS:

otousan - father