A certain ebony haired woman was walking in the dark with a tall midnight blue haired man. Both of them had swords, in case anything happened. Safe to say, they expect for everything to happen to them. History repeats itself and that's why Chizuru didn't have to turn around to know the same thugs were chasing them both.
"Shit! Are you sure these are your regular thugs?" Ryunosuke swore and caught up with Chizuru.
"What do their eyes look like?" Chizuru asked, not hesitating to take a turn.
"Normal. I panicked, it is night after all." Ryunosuke told her and stopped at a dead end.
"Were you cornered here, Chizuru?" He asked and held his sword.
"No, I just want to avoid artificial demons." She sighed while her eyes were closed and she too held her sword.
Ryunosuke smirked and wanted to laugh at Chizuru's vain attempt to avoid the upcoming furies. Why is she trying to make a joke at a time like this? Both of them knew the furies are bound to appear. They took out their swords at the same time and killed the thugs, their swords gleaming in the moonlight. Blood was splattered everywhere, it reeked of it. Surely, those furies were going to catch the scent by then. Those things would go mad with the overwhelming scent.
"I'm starting to think we did this intentionally. We could've killed these thugs with a swift pierce through their hearts." Ryunosuke chuckled darkly and heard feet running towards them. He quickly got into his fighting stance and so did Chizuru.
"Maybe." She simply answered and saw those familiar scarlet eyes glowing in the shadows.
They got into a battle and the duo struggled, furies are inhumanely strong after all. Chizuru had the upperhand because of her blood heritage, but it was Ryunosuke's first time fighting furies. Chizuru had trained him how to fight furies by getting into her demon mode and dueled with him, but he was struggling nonetheless. Disregarding the pair's inexperiences, they still got the job done.
"You're tougher than them, but I'm still lacking with my swordsmanship." Ryunosuke stated and flicked the blood off his blade.
Chizuru looked at him fondly and felt like a proud mother. What he said was true, Ryunosuke was never gifted in fighting but he tried very hard to par with her, a demon that trained with a sword for all her life. After being reborned and given a second chance, Chizuru trained with a sword the moment she knew how to walk without her legs shaking constantly. She put the males in her dojo to shame with her skills, considering she was fueled with passion to master the art of sword fighting.
"Well, well, well. What a sight." A wry voice sang.
Chizuru and Ryunosuke snapped their heads to the voice and didn't have to think twice to know who belonged that voice. It was none other than Okita Souji. Of course, the man with the jade eyes didn't know them. Not even Ryunosuke. Because in this reset, Ryunosuke was never picked up by Serizawa but Yukimura Koudo, Chizuru's uncle. The reset didn't really stayed in the safe zone, some things drastically, yet not so drastically, changed.
Souji, Saito and Toshiro watched as the pair put back their swords after facing away from them. The only injuries that were inflicted on the furies was piercing stab through their hearts. It seemed very clear that the seemingly defenseless girl and the edgy looking man knew what they were dealing with. The pair couldn't look more suspicious than they already are.
"Who are you two?" Toshiro asked them in his usual stiff tone.
"I'm called Ryunosuke. This girl here is Chizuru." Ryunosuke replied with ease.
"Why are you here? Only senseless people would wander around Kyoto at the dead of the night." He questioned them again, his hand inching closer to the hilt of his sword.
"We just arrived Kyoto. We are searching for somebody and we thought, you, the Shinsengumi might know where he is." Ryunosuke explained.
"What a stupid lie." Souji sneered with a dry grin on his face.
"We're not lying! The very person we are searching for is the creator of these things, these furies! We traveled far from Edo just to search for Yukimura Koudo! My adoptive father!" Ryunosuke fought back, making Chizuru sigh.
Ryunosuke was still the same Ryunosuke. He told Chizuru that himself. He told her because he remembers everything before the reset, nothing about him changed. He was still ill-tempered and reckless. The only thing that he gained after the reset was the knowledge of sword art. Chizuru held his shoulder and squeezed it, trying to calm him down. The gesture didn't go unnoticed by the ever so observant Hijikata Toshiro, the Vice Chairman of the Shinsengumi organization.
"How can we know you're speaking the truth?" Toshiro questioned and took out his sword, pointing it at Ryunosuke's neck.
Chizuru, who had enough of wasting time trying to convince the ever so skeptical man named Toshiro, did the unthinkable. She outright gripped on his blade and guided it to her chest. The blade was pressed against her chest and blood seeped through her fabric. Her palm bled too, clearly by the blood dripping off her arm. The three Shinsengumi members widened their eyes by Chizuru's bold act, Okita was slightly amused by it, and Ryunosuke looked worried. He wasn't worried how that sword hurt her, he worried that the three men would get suspicious with her wounds being healed so quickly.
"If we had lied, then you would've killed us from the start, right? Our knowledge on the furies, our knowledge regarding my uncle's duty to you, that would've been- no, that was already enough to prove that Ryunosuke had spoken the truth." Chizuru firmly said and never faltered looking into Toshiro's eyes.
Souji and Saito had to give it to her. Even Ryunosuke. She was bold to grip on his sword like that, but their eyes would have popped out from their sockets when she pressed the blade against her own body. Her brave act with staring into Toshiro's eyes was also something that was to be applauded for. Toshiro was known to be intimidating but the small petite girl didn't look away for a second. Souji's insencere grin turned into an amused one, taking a liking for Chizuru already. Saito was rather intimidated by Chizuru, who dared to challenge his superior that way.
"Fine. Let go of my sword and stop your bleeding. We're going to our headquarters to discuss." Toshiro said after regaining his composure.
Chizuru complied and let go of his sword. The owner of the sword put it back into it's sheathe and looked at the girl holding her bleeding palm before turning around to lead their new guests to their headquarters. His other subordinates followed him suit, still stealing glances at the mysterious pair sometimes. Chizuru and Ryunosuke walked side by side as the men that wore bright blue clothing lead the way.
Chizuru was still holding on to her palm even though the injury completely disappeared seconds after she let go of the sword. Ryunosuke took out a white clothe and offered it to Chizuru.
"Take this to wrap your injured hand." Ryunosuke told her.
Chizuru shook her head silently and pushed his offer away. Ryunosuke took her uninjured hand and gripped it tightly to convey the true meaning behind his offer.
"Chizuru, take this and wrap it around your injured, bleeding hand, got it?" They are gonna get suspicious if your injured, bleeding hand isn't so injured and bleeding anymore moments after getting it so injured and bleeding.
Chizuru finally got it and nodded, again, silently, and took his offer, wrapping the clothe around her bloodied hand. Their interaction was observed closely by Saito and Souji and shrugged it off because they convinced themselves that Ryunosuke was just being protective over her. The blue haired man looked surprise when she pulled that move, so it was understandable that he would fuss so overly about it. It reminded them of Kondo, even Toshiro. Their superiors would literally ban them from fighting for a month if they got a heavy injury.
"We have arrived." Toshiro claimed and there they stood in front ot the Shinsengumi Headquarters.
'Still the same.' Chizuru nostalgically thought and made a melancholic expression.