Okita walked down the hallway of the Shinsengumi station. The note he had found on his desk that morning was clutched on his hand. Okita stopped at the door with the sign saying 'training room'. He opened the door. Then he closed it and nearly walked away if not for Hijikata leaping out of the room and dragging him back.

"Oi, oi Okita! Don't you dare you ditch me, b*stard, it's your shift today here too!" Hijikata dragged Okita back into the room. Then he plopped Okita down next to him. Hijikata ran his hand over his hair and lit a cigarette, gesturing at the huge crowd of men opposite them.

"Okay, trainees, stand." One hundred Shinsengumi "wanna-be"s stood up, each in black jumpsuits. Hijikata cleared his throat. "Okay, this is the orientation for the Shinsengumi's new officers. Of the hundred guys we have here only ten would receive the official uniform and katanas, you get my meaning?" A hundred men nodded assent.

Hijikata sighed. "Before the tests, we would like for you to understand more of the strict set of rules that we follow. Now, guest Okita Sougo, the famed Shinsengumi star fighter would like to outline the more important regulations of the Kyokuchuu Hatto." Okita nodded seriously and stood up. He nodded to Hijikata. "Would you stand as well to demonstrate, Vice-Captain?" Hijikata dumped his cigarette into his ashtray, unsure of this new politeness. "Sure."

Okita turned to the one hundred pairs of eyes staring at him. "The first thing every officer should remember is that in any situation, force is needed, and we provide the force. Like so."

He flicked the safety on his bazooka and blasted Hijikata right through the wall.

By the time Hijikata managed to get back in the room, Okita was already halfway through his lecture. "At every opportunity, use your bazooka. Especially in Kabuki district, where more of the terrorists and the lazy no-goods live. Katsura usually hangs around a soba restaurant and there is this sidekick of his, a giant white penguin. If you see anyone of anything concerning the Jouishishi, blast them to hell, you got that?"

A hundred men nodded. Some were taking notes.

"Also, if you see a young yato female in a Chinese dress and a giant white dog with weird eyebrows, at any cost please tie her up and deliver her to me-"

Hijikata slammed Sougo's face into the wall, creating a spiderweb of cracks. "Fool! Everyone- ignore everything he just said! At every sign of violence, please try to resolve things peacefully. At a last resort use your bazooka! We the officers primarily use our katana for most of our fights! if you see Katsura, do not directly attack him, but try to figure out his hideout and other Jouishishi men! If you see a Chinese yato female don't mail her to this sadist... Gak!"

Okita had slammed Hijikata's face into the floor with his foot. "One last thing. If you are met with any complaints or problems, say that your name is Hijikata and he will take care of the rest. If you accidentally destroy anything valuable, say that Hijikata's fault and he'll take care of-"

Hijikata leaped up and tried to give Okita a buzz-cut with his katana. "What the hell? I'm not a scrapegoat for anything that you guys do!"

Okita bent backward and evaded the wild slashing. "You weren't?"

Hijikata snarled and punched Okita through the door. Then he turned to the men and said, "Time for the testing. Here, follow me." He walked out and looked around, both ways down the hallway. Okita was nowhere to be seen. Hijikata looked back into the room. Okita was handing out pieces of paper. "Here, this is my address, and this is a photo of Kagura, the yato-"

Hijikata grabbed his face and threw him out the window. "Idiot!" He glared at the trainees. "Follow me," he said and led them to the gym.

At the gym, he showed them the ring. It was about fifteen feet by fifteen feet, the typical boxing platform. Then he made the men line up. "The test is just this; you will be given a katana and Okita would be also given a katana. You have to be in one piece and conscious after ten seconds in the ring with him."

Every man nodded. Although he did have a reputation, Okita was only a boy of about eighteen years. Surely men twice his age can block him for ten seconds?

"Don't hold back, because he won't. If you die, you will be remembered as a failure. Any volunteers?" A few raised their hands, confident of themselves. Those were experienced fighters. Okita stepped into the room, holding two shiny katanas. He smiled evilly at the trainees. "Let the party begin," he said. He needed to blow off steam.

Kondou walked past the training room. He wanted to see how everything was going. Out of the thousands that applied, only this hundred was chosen by their reputation, records, and health conditions. Only the top are accepted to the Shinsengumi. After all, not many survive Okita's attempts to kill Hijikata or the Yorozuya's mess-ups.

And with Okita testing them, it will be a surprise if ten trainees even managed to not be sent to the hospital under emergency critical statuses.

Kondou opened the door.

He closed it.

And left.

Yamazaki was shuffling papers in the Shinsengumi office when Kondou opened the door to the files. His face was a pale gray and he was shaking. "Y-yamazaki, if anyone d-dies during the training session, who would be blamed? Not that a-anyone is dying in the training sessions, t-though."

Yamazaki shrugged. "I'm not really sure. I don't think anyone had actually died in the training sessions, although I think some were very very close to death."

Kondou laughed crazily. "Yamazaki! Write your resignation form! I've finished mine! If we get out of here fast enough we might keep our resumes clean!" Then he ran towards his office and slipped on the floorboards, crashing and hitting his head on a stray nail. Blood pooled.

Yamazaki stuck his head out his door. "Good god, what did he see in that room?"

Okita wiped blood off his katana... And Hijikata stood next to him force-feeding fifty men mayonnaise. "Eat up, men! This is the food of life and all we eat here at the Shinsengumi! There is a regulation that you must consume five bottles a day, trainees!"

Half the men were unconscious and beaten up and the other half were vomiting.

Hijikata sighed. "Such weaklings. Only fifty men made it through your fighting match and now the other half don't even have to stomach for mayonnaise!"

Okita looked over to the huge crates. "I think that they have enough of a resistance if they managed to eat that much."

The real monster of the Shinsengumi...

Isn't the sadist.