Chapter 6: Retributions
Inspiration didn't strike Saitoh until well past midnight, and it came from the most unlikely of sources, but even vermin could make themselves useful at times.
Saitoh kicked the Ishin corpse at his feet. It would do. He swung his katana downwards and severed its head.
"What are you doing captain?" His second-in-command asked.
"Preparing a gift fitting for a lady." Saitoh said as he lifted the skull by its hair.
All he lacked now was a bento box.
****************************
Moronic orders deserved moronic responses, so with his bento box in hand, Saitoh headed for the Takagi's 'first thing in the morning', like he was ordered to. His nightly patrol had just ended, and the predawn grayness still shrouded the city - etiquette normally prohibited visitors from calling on their hosts at such an ungodly hour, but a samurai's duty must come first, and if such duty and personal interests should coincide, killing two birds with one stone became an issue of efficiency.
Besides, Saitoh looked forward to hearing Tokio chirp to HIS tune. It was time to force the unconditional surrender of that silly fool.
He pounded on the front gates of the Takagi estate and barked, "Shinsengumi business."
That small phrase usually brought a household's inhabitants scrambling out of their domicile at their topmost speeds, either to comply with his every whim or to try to kill him - he didn't much care which, for such events provided a welcomed break to his otherwise monotonous day. And as usual, he wasn't disappointed. A servant - half dressed, out of breath, and barefooted - rushed to pull aside the heavy gates to let him in. But before he could enter, the servant fell to his knees.
"We are innocent, samurai-sama!" The man cried out repeatedly while banging his forehead against the stony pavement.
For a moment, Saitoh was almost tempted to ask what the servant was innocent of - spontaneous confessions often produced such fascinating and blackmail worthy material, things that could later be used against adversaries like Tokio. But Satioh dismissed the impulse; he hardly needed help to sink the girl.
"I'm here for Takagi Tokio." He cut in.
The servant looked up in confusion. "But ... but she's still asleep, sir."
Which was the whole point. Saitoh had wanted the girl dragged out of her warm bed and into the chilly spring morning just to do his bidding, and to show her who was in charge. However, his scheme depended heavily on the servant acting with all due haste. So to encourage the proper behavior, Saitoh thumbed his katana out of its scabbard. That sent the servant scrambling off, almost running for dear life. Perhaps he ought to ask the servant to hand Tokio over to him in chains; unfortunately, he didn't have any with him and he doubted that the servant would keep any around.
Too bad, next time.
Saitoh stepped past the entryway and invited himself into the estate; the servant had departed in such a zealous haste, the man had entirely forgotten to usher him in. Saitoh strolled into the central courtyard. Even though the place had none of the gaudiness that marked most merchant residences, he could still smell the money in the air. The courtyard was larger than the public square, filled with frivolities that must have cost a fortune, like the intricate carvings on stone slabs underfoot that no one would ever pay attention to. No wonder Tokio ended up such a brat, her father probably threw money at all her problems and made them go away, giving her the illusion of invincibility. Well, he planned to do society, and the girl, a favor by knocking some sense into her. Besides, revenge was always sweeter when served hot.
He smirked.
The servant soon returned with Tokio in tow. And like a terrified villager appeasing an angry god, the servant pushed Tokio into his presence like a sacrificial virgin. But to her credit, Tokio acted more like an abducted princess than a hysterical blood sacrifice. He wondered how long the little kitten could keep her composure before her mask fell off.
Tokio dipped to her knees with all the aplomb of a highborn lady, and bowed deeply - even more than protocol required, "You honor us with your presence, Saitoh-sama. How may this unworthy one be of service?" She said in a melodic cadence that played like music to the ears, sounding not one bit angry or frightened, just silky smooth, and after her bow, she even kept her eyes demurely downcast.
It almost made him wonder if the servant had found the wrong person in haste. But the girl before him had the same slender eyebrows, the identical pair of large brown eyes, and even the small red lips looked no different - it had to be Tokio.
"You look horrid." Saitoh said just to get a rise out of her, not that his statement was a complete lie - too many strands of hair escaped her high ponytail, and she was dressed in a light yakuta instead of a formal kimono. By all social standards, she was a mess, but strangely, the imperfections added to her beauty. Wisps of her loose hair cascaded down by her heart shaped face, framing her delicate features, and the yakuta displayed the slenderness of her waist in a way that a kimono never could. Not that he felt compelled to point out all his observations, only the ones that would crack her 'miss congeniality facade'.
But instead of growing angry over his insult, Tokio bowed again. "I shall attire myself more properly in the future. Please forgive my negligence."
And Saitoh's jaw nearly dropped. The girl might look like Tokio, but she behaved nothing like her - perhaps Tokio had a saintly twin. Or a very stout mask.
No matter. He had the girl firmly in the palm of his hand, and he knew ways and more ways of cracking her under pressure. "I have something for you." He growled into her ear while pressing the bento box towards her. "Open it."
The girl eyed the object in his hand with obvious fear, and he gave her a bloodthirsty smile just to push her to the edge of panic. Oh, his revenge was going to be delicious.
"I'm unworthy of such a gift." She bowed again, and took the opportunity to wiggle slightly away from him.
Not that it fooled him any. He had seen much more impressive escape attempts before. So the girl wasn't such an ice princess after all, the kitten had shown her little tail. It was time for her to grovel for mercy. "I insist that you accept my generosity." He grabbed her hand and forced it towards the lid of the black lacquered box.
She started struggling so hard she toppled the box over.
And its content rolled onto the stony ground.
The servant behind Tokio gave a terrified scream then dropped in a dead faint, and Saitoh expected Tokio to follow suite, but she simply looked at the skull curiously. No groveling, no retching, no going pale, not even fear. Nothing
In fact, her reaction was so anticlimactic Saitoh wondered which part of his plan had gone awry. He thought he had her all figured out, but she acted like she wasn't even human.
"That is so exceptional." Tokio said, seemingly in admiration. "I've never seen anything like it before. Did you get it from the gaijins? Or did you do it yourself?"
And Saitoh found himself staring at her with no idea how to reply. What was she talking about? But whatever it was, he didn't like her tone, it sounded a little too happy - almost as he had showered her with gifts. Did the girl like corpses? Maybe he had made a bad mistake coming here with an object of her sick obsession. He had known that she was not quite right in the head, but he had attributed it to her lack of common sense, not psychosis. She was supposed to be frightened out of her wits.
Or maybe he did too good of a job and had caused her to snap permanently.
He hoped Tokio wasn't going to start howling at the moon.
"The smell ... do you use chicken blood?" Tokio asked.
"I am a samurai in middle of a city, where would I get chicken blood?" He asked incredulously. Her questions made no sense - the girl's brain was a scrambled mess. Perhaps he should have gone with the roses, he didn't know how unstable the female mind was.
"Hmm ... the gaijin spend their time making such strange things." Then like a kitten curious about a new roll of yarn, Tokio half crawled towards the skull.
And Saitoh had a sudden image of her rolling the severed head between her hands like a toy. Some concepts disturbed even him. He grabbed her arm from behind and stopped her progress. "Go back to your room."
Tokio reached towards the skull with her free hand. "But you said I can keep it."
He distinctly remembered saying no such thing. The girl was insane. Revenge aside, for the good of society, she should be committed to a mental hospital. Maybe he ought to check with the local police for any unsolved serial murders, just in case this psychosis predated him. "You are not well. A girl should not be playing with corpses. You need help." He flatly declared.
Which only earned him a blank stare. "What are you talking about? Isn't that a wax figure?" Then, a light seemed to dawn on her, and all the blood drained from her face. She started retching. "What kind of a psycho murders someone just for a sick gift?"
And for the second time that day, Saitoh found himself speechless. That girl's behavior changed faster than the blink of an eye. He had no clue what Tokio did with wax, but perhaps she fashioned it like play dough, no wonder she praised the skull like a work of art. At least there was nothing wrong with her. But that also meant she had foiled his perfect plan for revenge - this required a reformulation of strategies. However, before he could sort out all his thoughts, Tokio reached towards him.
For his daisho pair.
The action was so incredibly stupid and unexpected, Saitoh got caught staring while she grasped the hilt of his katana and tried to draw it. But her angle was completely wrong - her motion required her body to go one way while his grip on her other arm required her to go in the opposite direction. So the blade only moved a few inches before getting stuck in its scabbard, and she half hanged onto it, trying not to fall over. "What are you doing?"
"I'm trying to kill you." She said with such composed and determined sincerity, he had no doubt she believed it.
Nor did he have any doubt that she still believed in tooth fairies. While he admired her for her courage, this was the most inept assassination attempt he had ever seen. She had zero chance of slaying a trained warrior, twice her weight, even under best of circumstances, much less while kneeling at his feet. And she dared to draw his katana? Bushido required him to kill anyone, including another samurai, for offering such an insult. The girl had a death wish. "What do you think you are doing? I can behead you for just touching my weapon. And even if you do manage to kill me, it will only grant my children the right to slaughter your entire family."
That paused her for a second from her endeavors. "You have children?"
"No, I ..." Saitoh didn't know why he even bothered explaining. He could feel himself being sucked into her vortex of warped logic - he needed to regain the conversation, fast. "Why are you trying to kill me?"
"Because all it takes for evil to triumph is for a good man to do nothing!"
"You are not a man."
"So you admit you are evil!"
Saitoh sighed. The conversation had deteriorated into absolute nonsense, in fact, it was beginning to resemble dialogues from melodramas - Yamazaki was right, Tokio was entirely out of touch with reality. Bushido required him to execute her for slighting his mettle, but he might as well be squashing a bug for crawling on the wrong object. The girl wasn't evil and posed no threat to society at large, and being ignorant isn't a crime; otherwise, Takeda would already be dead.
In the end, Saitoh didn't know whether to laugh or to make her cry. He just wished that she didn't live in such a fantasyland of her own - it was impossible to threaten a naïve fool who had no survival instincts.
Tokio drew him out of his thoughts by giving his katana another small tug. She certainly was persistent. And part of him even grudgingly admired her for her efforts to carry out her own version of 'aku suku zan'.
But the girl really could use a dose of reality.
He slapped her hard across the wrist, and she yelped and released her grip on the hilt of his katana. He wondered how he ended up in such a ridiculous fix. He supposed he could still kill her and try to explain it to Hijikata. Or, he could pretend that nothing happened and head back home to his bed.
He opted for the latter. He had had a long day, and the girl was giving him such a pounding headache. "Just don't tell anyone about your run-ins with the Shinsengumi."
And having fulfilled his orders, he shook his head and walked away.
But before he could make a clean escape, Tokio called out after him, "I don't want your head! Take it with you!"
He didn't even bother to respond to that one.
*********************************
Saitoh woke up slightly after lunch feeling even more exhausted than when he went to sleep. The image of Tokio cheerfully dribbling the severed head like a bouncing ball plagued him the whole night, and it still bothered him - he didn't know why for he had seen worse in real life. But bothered him it did.
And unsettled him she did.
He had never met any woman like her before. They usually either trembled silently in his presence or prattled on incessantly until he told them to shut up. None of them had ever dared to disagree with him, much less provoke him. Women used to fit into such nice and neat categories. But she turned all that upside down.
Her influence was like a loose thread in his mind, the more he pulled on it, the more everything unraveled. But he hated loose ends, so he tried to eliminate them wherever they arose. By pulling on it.
He slammed open the shoji door of his room and stepped out - only to be greeted by an enlisted men.
"Hijikata-sama wishes to see you." The boy bowed respectfully.
Saitoh wondered how long the idiot had been waiting outside of his room. He dismissed the kid and headed out to the bathhouse for a quick shave. He had a pretty good idea what Hijikata wanted.
And as soon as he stepped into Hijikata's office, the black bento box atop the desk confirmed his guess.
"Would you like to explain this to me?" Hijikata asked.
But Saitoh didn't know where to start. Should he begin by telling Hijikata how deeply disturbing Tokio was? That she was more dangerous than anyone had thought? That she had somehow prevented him from exacting his revenge without him even realizing it? That ...
In the end, Saitoh opted for the shortest answer. "No." He had nothing to explain.
It earned him a quizzical look from Hijikata. "In that case ..." Hijikata paused for several seconds, as if trying to recover from an internal confusion. "I'm assigning you to guard duty for Kondo-sama for the next month."
In other words, baby-sit stupid politicians. Every Shinsengumi captain dreaded that task, but for once, Saitoh didn't mind. Guard duties usually took the whole day, and that meant he would be spared from attending the mixers and he would never have to see HER again.
Good, let someone else deal with that psychotic.
Saitoh nearly thanked Hijikata for the favor.
---------------------------------------------------
Next Chapter: The Visitor
Special thanks to Kamorgana for pre-reading.
*************************************
Japanese terms:
Yakuta - Japanese bathrobe.
Gaijins - Europeans.
Daisho - The long and short sword pair that samurais wear.
*********************
Response to Comments:
Thanks to: Blades of Ice, Jaded Ayumi, dadsnavygirl831, saitofan108, Wolfgirl, and Airna
Firuze Khanume: It would be snowing in hell, and Saitoh will still refuse to apologize to Satan! :)
Alyson Metallium: I hope the story will continue to retain your interest.
Kamorgana: Thank you for all your great advice and ideas!
Wolf Of Mibu: Thank you very much for taking the time to point out my mistakes. I hope to avoid similar errors in the future.
JadeGoddess: Tokio is not giving information to the Ishin, Saitoh was wrong in his supposition. I'm sorry that the previous chapter wasn't clear.
Leila Winters: I can't imagine Saitoh sending anyone roses either.
Merryday: Thank you very much for pointing out 'pommel' vs. 'pummel'. I've never seen the word 'pummel' before. I looked it up in the dictionary and found that it was an alternate spelling. Thank you for the learning opportunity.
Mary-Ann: No, Saitoh hasn't seen the end of the story. Saitoh-torture is too much fun :)
leah Durose formerly luna699: What a nice guy. There really should be more Saitoh fans out there!
EEevee: Unfortunately, Tokio is still alive in the TV series. That's the problem with prequels, everyone already knows who's going to survive.
Seproth: Saitoh isn't his real/birth name; it is the name he used to join the Shinsengumi. So you are correct, the historical figure didn't join the Shinsengumi under his real name.
Charmed-Anime: Sorry for the wait.
Inspiration didn't strike Saitoh until well past midnight, and it came from the most unlikely of sources, but even vermin could make themselves useful at times.
Saitoh kicked the Ishin corpse at his feet. It would do. He swung his katana downwards and severed its head.
"What are you doing captain?" His second-in-command asked.
"Preparing a gift fitting for a lady." Saitoh said as he lifted the skull by its hair.
All he lacked now was a bento box.
****************************
Moronic orders deserved moronic responses, so with his bento box in hand, Saitoh headed for the Takagi's 'first thing in the morning', like he was ordered to. His nightly patrol had just ended, and the predawn grayness still shrouded the city - etiquette normally prohibited visitors from calling on their hosts at such an ungodly hour, but a samurai's duty must come first, and if such duty and personal interests should coincide, killing two birds with one stone became an issue of efficiency.
Besides, Saitoh looked forward to hearing Tokio chirp to HIS tune. It was time to force the unconditional surrender of that silly fool.
He pounded on the front gates of the Takagi estate and barked, "Shinsengumi business."
That small phrase usually brought a household's inhabitants scrambling out of their domicile at their topmost speeds, either to comply with his every whim or to try to kill him - he didn't much care which, for such events provided a welcomed break to his otherwise monotonous day. And as usual, he wasn't disappointed. A servant - half dressed, out of breath, and barefooted - rushed to pull aside the heavy gates to let him in. But before he could enter, the servant fell to his knees.
"We are innocent, samurai-sama!" The man cried out repeatedly while banging his forehead against the stony pavement.
For a moment, Saitoh was almost tempted to ask what the servant was innocent of - spontaneous confessions often produced such fascinating and blackmail worthy material, things that could later be used against adversaries like Tokio. But Satioh dismissed the impulse; he hardly needed help to sink the girl.
"I'm here for Takagi Tokio." He cut in.
The servant looked up in confusion. "But ... but she's still asleep, sir."
Which was the whole point. Saitoh had wanted the girl dragged out of her warm bed and into the chilly spring morning just to do his bidding, and to show her who was in charge. However, his scheme depended heavily on the servant acting with all due haste. So to encourage the proper behavior, Saitoh thumbed his katana out of its scabbard. That sent the servant scrambling off, almost running for dear life. Perhaps he ought to ask the servant to hand Tokio over to him in chains; unfortunately, he didn't have any with him and he doubted that the servant would keep any around.
Too bad, next time.
Saitoh stepped past the entryway and invited himself into the estate; the servant had departed in such a zealous haste, the man had entirely forgotten to usher him in. Saitoh strolled into the central courtyard. Even though the place had none of the gaudiness that marked most merchant residences, he could still smell the money in the air. The courtyard was larger than the public square, filled with frivolities that must have cost a fortune, like the intricate carvings on stone slabs underfoot that no one would ever pay attention to. No wonder Tokio ended up such a brat, her father probably threw money at all her problems and made them go away, giving her the illusion of invincibility. Well, he planned to do society, and the girl, a favor by knocking some sense into her. Besides, revenge was always sweeter when served hot.
He smirked.
The servant soon returned with Tokio in tow. And like a terrified villager appeasing an angry god, the servant pushed Tokio into his presence like a sacrificial virgin. But to her credit, Tokio acted more like an abducted princess than a hysterical blood sacrifice. He wondered how long the little kitten could keep her composure before her mask fell off.
Tokio dipped to her knees with all the aplomb of a highborn lady, and bowed deeply - even more than protocol required, "You honor us with your presence, Saitoh-sama. How may this unworthy one be of service?" She said in a melodic cadence that played like music to the ears, sounding not one bit angry or frightened, just silky smooth, and after her bow, she even kept her eyes demurely downcast.
It almost made him wonder if the servant had found the wrong person in haste. But the girl before him had the same slender eyebrows, the identical pair of large brown eyes, and even the small red lips looked no different - it had to be Tokio.
"You look horrid." Saitoh said just to get a rise out of her, not that his statement was a complete lie - too many strands of hair escaped her high ponytail, and she was dressed in a light yakuta instead of a formal kimono. By all social standards, she was a mess, but strangely, the imperfections added to her beauty. Wisps of her loose hair cascaded down by her heart shaped face, framing her delicate features, and the yakuta displayed the slenderness of her waist in a way that a kimono never could. Not that he felt compelled to point out all his observations, only the ones that would crack her 'miss congeniality facade'.
But instead of growing angry over his insult, Tokio bowed again. "I shall attire myself more properly in the future. Please forgive my negligence."
And Saitoh's jaw nearly dropped. The girl might look like Tokio, but she behaved nothing like her - perhaps Tokio had a saintly twin. Or a very stout mask.
No matter. He had the girl firmly in the palm of his hand, and he knew ways and more ways of cracking her under pressure. "I have something for you." He growled into her ear while pressing the bento box towards her. "Open it."
The girl eyed the object in his hand with obvious fear, and he gave her a bloodthirsty smile just to push her to the edge of panic. Oh, his revenge was going to be delicious.
"I'm unworthy of such a gift." She bowed again, and took the opportunity to wiggle slightly away from him.
Not that it fooled him any. He had seen much more impressive escape attempts before. So the girl wasn't such an ice princess after all, the kitten had shown her little tail. It was time for her to grovel for mercy. "I insist that you accept my generosity." He grabbed her hand and forced it towards the lid of the black lacquered box.
She started struggling so hard she toppled the box over.
And its content rolled onto the stony ground.
The servant behind Tokio gave a terrified scream then dropped in a dead faint, and Saitoh expected Tokio to follow suite, but she simply looked at the skull curiously. No groveling, no retching, no going pale, not even fear. Nothing
In fact, her reaction was so anticlimactic Saitoh wondered which part of his plan had gone awry. He thought he had her all figured out, but she acted like she wasn't even human.
"That is so exceptional." Tokio said, seemingly in admiration. "I've never seen anything like it before. Did you get it from the gaijins? Or did you do it yourself?"
And Saitoh found himself staring at her with no idea how to reply. What was she talking about? But whatever it was, he didn't like her tone, it sounded a little too happy - almost as he had showered her with gifts. Did the girl like corpses? Maybe he had made a bad mistake coming here with an object of her sick obsession. He had known that she was not quite right in the head, but he had attributed it to her lack of common sense, not psychosis. She was supposed to be frightened out of her wits.
Or maybe he did too good of a job and had caused her to snap permanently.
He hoped Tokio wasn't going to start howling at the moon.
"The smell ... do you use chicken blood?" Tokio asked.
"I am a samurai in middle of a city, where would I get chicken blood?" He asked incredulously. Her questions made no sense - the girl's brain was a scrambled mess. Perhaps he should have gone with the roses, he didn't know how unstable the female mind was.
"Hmm ... the gaijin spend their time making such strange things." Then like a kitten curious about a new roll of yarn, Tokio half crawled towards the skull.
And Saitoh had a sudden image of her rolling the severed head between her hands like a toy. Some concepts disturbed even him. He grabbed her arm from behind and stopped her progress. "Go back to your room."
Tokio reached towards the skull with her free hand. "But you said I can keep it."
He distinctly remembered saying no such thing. The girl was insane. Revenge aside, for the good of society, she should be committed to a mental hospital. Maybe he ought to check with the local police for any unsolved serial murders, just in case this psychosis predated him. "You are not well. A girl should not be playing with corpses. You need help." He flatly declared.
Which only earned him a blank stare. "What are you talking about? Isn't that a wax figure?" Then, a light seemed to dawn on her, and all the blood drained from her face. She started retching. "What kind of a psycho murders someone just for a sick gift?"
And for the second time that day, Saitoh found himself speechless. That girl's behavior changed faster than the blink of an eye. He had no clue what Tokio did with wax, but perhaps she fashioned it like play dough, no wonder she praised the skull like a work of art. At least there was nothing wrong with her. But that also meant she had foiled his perfect plan for revenge - this required a reformulation of strategies. However, before he could sort out all his thoughts, Tokio reached towards him.
For his daisho pair.
The action was so incredibly stupid and unexpected, Saitoh got caught staring while she grasped the hilt of his katana and tried to draw it. But her angle was completely wrong - her motion required her body to go one way while his grip on her other arm required her to go in the opposite direction. So the blade only moved a few inches before getting stuck in its scabbard, and she half hanged onto it, trying not to fall over. "What are you doing?"
"I'm trying to kill you." She said with such composed and determined sincerity, he had no doubt she believed it.
Nor did he have any doubt that she still believed in tooth fairies. While he admired her for her courage, this was the most inept assassination attempt he had ever seen. She had zero chance of slaying a trained warrior, twice her weight, even under best of circumstances, much less while kneeling at his feet. And she dared to draw his katana? Bushido required him to kill anyone, including another samurai, for offering such an insult. The girl had a death wish. "What do you think you are doing? I can behead you for just touching my weapon. And even if you do manage to kill me, it will only grant my children the right to slaughter your entire family."
That paused her for a second from her endeavors. "You have children?"
"No, I ..." Saitoh didn't know why he even bothered explaining. He could feel himself being sucked into her vortex of warped logic - he needed to regain the conversation, fast. "Why are you trying to kill me?"
"Because all it takes for evil to triumph is for a good man to do nothing!"
"You are not a man."
"So you admit you are evil!"
Saitoh sighed. The conversation had deteriorated into absolute nonsense, in fact, it was beginning to resemble dialogues from melodramas - Yamazaki was right, Tokio was entirely out of touch with reality. Bushido required him to execute her for slighting his mettle, but he might as well be squashing a bug for crawling on the wrong object. The girl wasn't evil and posed no threat to society at large, and being ignorant isn't a crime; otherwise, Takeda would already be dead.
In the end, Saitoh didn't know whether to laugh or to make her cry. He just wished that she didn't live in such a fantasyland of her own - it was impossible to threaten a naïve fool who had no survival instincts.
Tokio drew him out of his thoughts by giving his katana another small tug. She certainly was persistent. And part of him even grudgingly admired her for her efforts to carry out her own version of 'aku suku zan'.
But the girl really could use a dose of reality.
He slapped her hard across the wrist, and she yelped and released her grip on the hilt of his katana. He wondered how he ended up in such a ridiculous fix. He supposed he could still kill her and try to explain it to Hijikata. Or, he could pretend that nothing happened and head back home to his bed.
He opted for the latter. He had had a long day, and the girl was giving him such a pounding headache. "Just don't tell anyone about your run-ins with the Shinsengumi."
And having fulfilled his orders, he shook his head and walked away.
But before he could make a clean escape, Tokio called out after him, "I don't want your head! Take it with you!"
He didn't even bother to respond to that one.
*********************************
Saitoh woke up slightly after lunch feeling even more exhausted than when he went to sleep. The image of Tokio cheerfully dribbling the severed head like a bouncing ball plagued him the whole night, and it still bothered him - he didn't know why for he had seen worse in real life. But bothered him it did.
And unsettled him she did.
He had never met any woman like her before. They usually either trembled silently in his presence or prattled on incessantly until he told them to shut up. None of them had ever dared to disagree with him, much less provoke him. Women used to fit into such nice and neat categories. But she turned all that upside down.
Her influence was like a loose thread in his mind, the more he pulled on it, the more everything unraveled. But he hated loose ends, so he tried to eliminate them wherever they arose. By pulling on it.
He slammed open the shoji door of his room and stepped out - only to be greeted by an enlisted men.
"Hijikata-sama wishes to see you." The boy bowed respectfully.
Saitoh wondered how long the idiot had been waiting outside of his room. He dismissed the kid and headed out to the bathhouse for a quick shave. He had a pretty good idea what Hijikata wanted.
And as soon as he stepped into Hijikata's office, the black bento box atop the desk confirmed his guess.
"Would you like to explain this to me?" Hijikata asked.
But Saitoh didn't know where to start. Should he begin by telling Hijikata how deeply disturbing Tokio was? That she was more dangerous than anyone had thought? That she had somehow prevented him from exacting his revenge without him even realizing it? That ...
In the end, Saitoh opted for the shortest answer. "No." He had nothing to explain.
It earned him a quizzical look from Hijikata. "In that case ..." Hijikata paused for several seconds, as if trying to recover from an internal confusion. "I'm assigning you to guard duty for Kondo-sama for the next month."
In other words, baby-sit stupid politicians. Every Shinsengumi captain dreaded that task, but for once, Saitoh didn't mind. Guard duties usually took the whole day, and that meant he would be spared from attending the mixers and he would never have to see HER again.
Good, let someone else deal with that psychotic.
Saitoh nearly thanked Hijikata for the favor.
---------------------------------------------------
Next Chapter: The Visitor
Special thanks to Kamorgana for pre-reading.
*************************************
Japanese terms:
Yakuta - Japanese bathrobe.
Gaijins - Europeans.
Daisho - The long and short sword pair that samurais wear.
*********************
Response to Comments:
Thanks to: Blades of Ice, Jaded Ayumi, dadsnavygirl831, saitofan108, Wolfgirl, and Airna
Firuze Khanume: It would be snowing in hell, and Saitoh will still refuse to apologize to Satan! :)
Alyson Metallium: I hope the story will continue to retain your interest.
Kamorgana: Thank you for all your great advice and ideas!
Wolf Of Mibu: Thank you very much for taking the time to point out my mistakes. I hope to avoid similar errors in the future.
JadeGoddess: Tokio is not giving information to the Ishin, Saitoh was wrong in his supposition. I'm sorry that the previous chapter wasn't clear.
Leila Winters: I can't imagine Saitoh sending anyone roses either.
Merryday: Thank you very much for pointing out 'pommel' vs. 'pummel'. I've never seen the word 'pummel' before. I looked it up in the dictionary and found that it was an alternate spelling. Thank you for the learning opportunity.
Mary-Ann: No, Saitoh hasn't seen the end of the story. Saitoh-torture is too much fun :)
leah Durose formerly luna699: What a nice guy. There really should be more Saitoh fans out there!
EEevee: Unfortunately, Tokio is still alive in the TV series. That's the problem with prequels, everyone already knows who's going to survive.
Seproth: Saitoh isn't his real/birth name; it is the name he used to join the Shinsengumi. So you are correct, the historical figure didn't join the Shinsengumi under his real name.
Charmed-Anime: Sorry for the wait.