The bud of a winter blossom Chapter 2
I woke up in the morning to the sun peeping through the shoji doors of our room with the humming of birds, the silhouette of the cherry blossom tree peeped dad was still asleep in the other room. "Mmm, my head hurts" as I laid my hand on my head sloughing as I was still on the futon, "Ah, I remember now I was in Shimabara last night" I got up to get ready while I waited for my dad to wake up. I went to freshen myself up and enjoy the wonderful weather. 'Sigh' I loved the scene of cherry blossoms but for a weird reason when I use my powers the blossom changes to white but it's ok I like to admire it from far away anyway.
"Oto-san, you awake?" a voice came out from the room. "Yeah, I'm awake come in" I moved the shoji door to the right and let myself in, "excuse me" I slid the door closed. "Sorry Suzuki can you get me a cup of tea?" he pinch the top of his nose with his eyes closed "Ok" I went to go get tea for father. I placed the cup of tea on my dad's desk, "Oto-san, how was the meeting yesterday?" he answered while he kept writing, "It went good we now have the shinsengumi as our allies as if they have us as allies" he put the calligraphy brush down. "I want you to stay here in Kyoto and stay by the shinsengumi as their ally in my place" I shook" yes father I bowed down "But I introduced you as Haku shin" I looked up at my father "That's my codename isn't it".
With us hiding out true names would protect the 'Itakimori plate' especially to our powers in the younger generation like me and my brother. From birth we were trained to become aware to protect ourselves and the family. To me I thought even though I'm in a nobility family I thought I would be the one to be protected but I guess this just shows I'm not useless to anyone. The afternoon came my father took me with him to the shinsengumi headquarters, "Ah, Hiji-dono" a man in a yellow vest and black hakama pants and another beside him was a man in a long ponytail with purple eyes and grey hakama pants. "Welcome again Hiji-dono" he looked over and saw a boy beside him and that was me. "This must be Haiku-san?" he looked at me with pure strength in his eyes, "Kondou-sama, Hijikata-sama, it's a pleasure to meet you" I deeply bowed to them, along the way there were the other captains watching me and my father while hijikata and kondou came to welcome us. "so that's Hiji-san and Haku-san" a man smirked with brown hair and green eyes with a cat like look, his attention was towards me instead of my father I felt a bit weird like chills going down my spine. "Well, now come on in and well discuss matters and continue on from yesterday shall we?" my father accepted and we went into a room just the four of us and discussed about how I'll stay here as proof we will stay by them as allies till then.'
"Well I should be going, I leave the rest to you Haku" my father turned his head to me and winked "Yes!" after that my father left but before he started to go back my brother was there to escort him back to be safe, "There's something I want to give you before I go" he tucked his hand into his sleeve to pull out a sliver snowflake pendant with a crystal in the center. "This belonged to your mother" he put it around my neck. "I know this isn't enough but to leave you behind like this and only a gift to replace my absence I'm really sorry also on the top of that I have no means of where your mother is as well" he looked at me in a sad face. "I know you wouldn't know mom is out there I just need to keep hone my skills so I can know for sure where she is so don't worry about me" I snuck a smile to him, in my own thoughts I felt frustrated that I don't even remember her voice I remembered what she looked like but as the generation before me she was the 'snow maiden' which meant she can hide her aura very discreetly and well that's why I need to hone my skills farther than any host of this power had been passed down for the females of the family. After that my father and my brother left without me I went back to the room where I was going to stay. "Haku, you there?" a voice came, I answered "Yeah I'm here, come on in" the door opened to reveal someone in a black yukata with darkish purple blue like hair in a side ponytail with a white scarf and two swords placed in the right." Ah, Hajime-san, what do you need?" my head tilted "Were heading to eat some food and I was wondering if you wanted to come with us?" I agreed to go though I felt a little hesitant about going the only how knew I was a girl is my father I hid myself pretty well for them to not know.
We were on our way with, Nagakura-san, Okita-san, Yukimura-san, Hajime-san, and me we went to eat but I ate little because I didn't have much of an appetite. Hajime looked at me, "Are you ok haul-kun?" I looked at him "I'm fine really, don't worry about me" but it struck me, thereon sitting across from Hajime she was the same girl who I pulled from the rogue samurai when I first came but what is this feeling I'm getting from her it's almost as if she's not human somehow I don't know what it was but door sure she wasn't human just like me but in a different way but I didn't try to ask because I did not want to be too involved with the internal affairs with the shinsengumi so kept my nose out of it. After all the fun I was the first to leave because they were causing too much noise for me to hear myself think. While on the evening streets of Kyoto busy as ever, I saw something in the sky almost as if I was a stream of sparkling snow I knew that signal a familiar is here to send me a message it knew where I was but I had? To get out of sight so I wouldn't be found doing unhuman like activity so I quickly ran to an alley way where it was far away to hear the message it said "Suzuki I know you've been having trouble getting used to Kyoto so I sent my familiar to you and send word from time to time keep up with the good work, father" 'sigh' worried as always but I can understand it's a first being on my own here in Kyoto with that message that had been reached the butterfly turned to dust but then turned to a little flower and blew with the rhythm of the wind and my eyes followed the little petal go. I headed back to the headquarters and saw something in the streets a glimpse of a woman who looked like MOTHER! I swear I saw her but with the crowd I lost her, so I used one of my familiars I bit my thumb drawing a little bit of blood and summoned my dragon Ryuji, I asked him to follow someone that looked like my mother, he remembered what she looked like because Ryuji was with me since I was born, "Please report back if you find any clues" and he was off.