"He committed Seppuku and died with honour.."

A regular sniffling echoed each shuffling footstep as the two men made their way through the headquarters.

"Sano..."

The shorter redhead addressed his older friend, keeping his gaze fixed onto the cracked concrete floor. "Your nose, is still dirty.."

His companion instinctively reached up and rubbed his nose with the back of his palm, trying to stop himself from sniffling as much as possible. However, he found that he was unable to stop his own nose from running, along with the few hot tears that sprang without warning.

"I can't.. I can't help it." Sanosuke admitted, dropping his arm and hunching his shoulders.

The 10th unit captain had to admire his friend. Despite his small stature, he was nothing short of strength, both physical and especially emotional. Sanosuke noted that Shinpachi never cried, not when Ayumu died, not now when Yamanami died. In fact, everything was left up to the 2nd unit captain to be the strong shoulder to lean on.

The two paused in their steps, as they saw their third person crouched on the steps, his head buried in his knees. It was evident how the young man tried to control his sobs, but his shoulders were trembling slightly despite the clenching fingers on his knees.

"Heisuke.." It was Shinpachi once again who murmured his friends' name in a comforting manner.

Heisuke perhaps was the worse out of them three. He held the closest relationship with the late vice-commander, and it scarred him the deepest that the older man had merely vanished in an instant. The 8th unit captain had until now, refused to give his regards to the late man, stubbornly insisting that it were impossible that Yamanami-san had truly died.

"Is it really alright if you don't say good-bye to Yamanami-san?" Shinpachi continued, forcing a reassuring smile, although it tore him from inside as well.

Heisuke hesitated from answering, but eventually slowly raised his head to face the other two. His eyes were swollen and red from crying, but his face was stoned and lack of expression. "Did that man... really commit Seppuku?"

There was a moment of silence, and the short redhead squatted, lowering himself to eye level to face his friend. "Kondo-san said it himself.. Yamanami-san, he bravely accepted his punishment and committed Seppuku.."

The 8th unit captain felt his chest tighten once more, and soon his shoulders began to tremble as his emotions began to overcome him. Before Heisuke realised, his eyes were wet once more, as with the streaks that stained his cheeks, before the droplets fell to the concrete ground.

"And to think we just saw him.. To think we really met him, and talked to him a few moments ago.."

Dark spots appeared on the crumpled fabric, as well as on the dry ground. Shinpachi watched his friend struggle to keep the tears from falling, and Sanosuke felt his own swirling emotions overcome the strong composure he had been holding.

"He's really dead isn't he? Dead... Yamanami-san..."

Shinpachi turned a glossy gaze towards Yamanami's grave at the sound of Heisuke's pained voice.

The fresh tombstone was visible in sight, together with two lone figures standing over his grave. He sighed slightly, watching the trembling figure that was bending over the tombstone.

"Takara-san..."

--

"Rest in peace.. Yamanami-san." The bottle of sake was tipped over, the liquid flowing down the tombstone with the vice-commander's name engraved on it.

Takara bowed her head in respect for a little while longer, her hands clasped in prayer. She had stopped crying for quite some time, finally gathering herself to pay respect to Yamanami's grave. It had been only minutes before his death, that he had returned to the Shinsengumi. Everyone had crowded around their vice-commander, flooding him with questions of his whereabouts the past few days.

He had smiled of course, but answered none.

The next moment, Hijikata had emerged from the back, his face ashen gray, and his expression a mix of pain and shock. For a man who often concealed his true emotions, this time he had been unable to do so. With the same shaky voice, he had announced the seppuku of Yamanami, and proceeded, stoned, back to bury the body.

Shakily, Takara stood up, and Susumu picked the empty bottle up for her. He did as much as he could for her that day, knowing that she was on the edge of breaking down anytime again. On their way to Yamanami's grave, Takara had been cursing how she had cried so much lately. The shinobi listened intently to the younger girl's bitter comments, and let her vent out her frustrations through her tears and curses.

"I'm not sure I can take another death.." she had said truthfully, gritting her teeth and trying to stop her tears.

That had gotten the teenage boy worried, and he began to wonder of worst-case scenarios on what the unstable girl might do in a state of rage and depression. He didn't say of course, that there would probably be a hell lot of deaths soon. Susumu wanted no part in reminding the young captain that they were after all, going into war.

The two of them walked silently back to the headquarters, when they espied a cloaked figure crouched outside the entrance of the Shinsengumi. Nearing the stranger, Takara's stomach gave a lurch when the person raised her head.

The familiar brown hair and blue eyes were unmistakable. No, it was the pain in her eyes that was unmistakable. There was only one person Takara knew who could be hurting so terribly, that it showed in her eyes how a hope was shattered and a love was torn.

Takara recognised the Shimabara woman, and felt her sorrow arise once more, this time for the older woman.

"Akesato-san.."

-

Tetsunosuke trudged forward with the arrangement of flowers in his arms. He was ordered to get a bouquet of flowers for Yamanami's grave at a shop in town, and he had done it willingly despite being ordered to. Yamanami was the one vice-commander whom Tetsunosuke looked forward to seeing, and it was Yamanami who had gotten him out of the closet during the Ikedaya-raid.

He was grateful for the bouquet, for they were large enough to conceal his red and watery eyes. Inhaling the sweet scent of the array of colours, he stopped in his footsteps when he came across the last woman he could bear to see.

"Akesato-sama.." The page managed to croak out, his voice cracking slightly at the sight of the disheveled woman.

The cloaked lady turned slowly, to face the boy who had called out to her. She immediately pulled tighter at the cloak, concealing the bottom half of her face and resorted to ignoring him. Akesato had no intention of speaking to them.. These damned devils. They had killed him, drove Yamanami to the point where he ended up committing seppuku.

She would kill them. Kill them all..

Despite her furious thoughts, Akesato found herself with no anger. Yamanami wouldn't want her to be angry with the Shinsengumi. He had told her before, that it was his own fault that anything should happen to him, that he was upset with them...

Her faded memories became clearer, each picture cutting deep into her heart. She found herself sobbing uncontrollably, tears falling endlessly down her cheeks and onto the ground even with the cloak covering the bottom half of her face.

A rustling of leaves, and Tetsunosuke found himself placing the bouquet of flowers on the ground. He reached out to the devastated woman, enveloping her in a warm hug.

The Shimabara woman hesitated at first, but finally relented and tugged at the young page's cloaks. Her cold fingers entwined the fabric clad on him, quickly stained with wet spots from her falling tears. Tetsunosuoke was stunned, she knew, at the sheer force that she was exerting while pulling at his clothes and burying her face deeper into his chest.

But his small arms stayed firm around her shoulders, and he tried his best to comfort her with his soothing hug.

So she really couldn't hold it back any longer. And let herself cry out and yell.

"...YAMANAMI-SAN!!!"

-

The brush danced across the paper as it produced smooth strokes of each letter, despite the trembling hand that held it.

Haiku. Hijikata had constantly repeated to himself, after burying his friends body. He needed something, anything, to focus his mind on for fear of his thoughts drifting back to that horrid scene. So true enough, he had retreated to the comforts of his own room, lit his pipe and inhaled such a deep breath that it made his lungs burn and his head spin.

It felt good anyway. Anything would feel better than what he was feeling now.

His brush was lying on the table, still, and dead- No, no. Hijikata corrected himself from thinking that. Of all words, just not that one. A usually flippant topic now seemed to bear the weight of the world, his world at least.

He picked it up hastily, fumbled for his haiku book which he failed to find, ergo resorted to pulling out pieces of paper he found around his desk. Important if they were, he wasn't sure himself but it didn't matter. Nothing mattered as long as he could decently write his haiku and take his mind off that bloody scene and the body with the bloo-. Hijikata stopped his train of thoughts forcibly, realising at the same time he was biting down too hard on his pipe.

And there he was, finally writing some haiku. But somehow it all wasn't working out. A few times his brush seemed to have a mind of it's own, pulling out unwanted strokes of each word like puppets on a string and ultimately leading to the kanji of Yamanami's name. He had to swallow hard, to get rid of the lump in his throat which he feared might emerge as a scream. Hijikata crushed the paper, crushed it, he told himself, like how he would crush his enemies.. like how.. how he had crushed Keisuke's entire life because of what he had done. Damn it.. Not again. DAMN IT!

The devastated man swung his fist and slammed it on his table, upsetting the ink tray that lay atop. It flew up slightly, the ink splattering all over the remaining papers. The liquid spread quickly, stealthily almost, and the papers were coloured completely. He cursed aloud, picked up the papers quickly, but dropped them almost immediately when they seemed to suddenly be stained blood red. Blinking quickly, the ghostly image disappeared and it was black ink again. Hijikata blamed the smoke, but he felt the inside of him still rigid and frozen in fear.

He was used to it, the smell of blood, the ounces of it he saw everytime he killed. But there was something different about it this time.

Like a wolf, he could tell that Yamanami's blood had smelt differently. Somehow the blood of someone close smelt too foul to take, the sight too sickening to handle.

And the blood, oh god, the blood that gushed out like a burst pipe, that stained everything around them, it had been everywhere, there was just so much.

Hijikata exhaled, putting his pipe down on the table. He could no longer smoke for the knot in is stomach seemed to be suffocating him.

So much blood, and he dreaded deep inside, because he knew there was going to be so much more.

-