Disclaimer: I don't own Peacemaker. Now, on with the story!
Men and Women
Prelude: Girl behind a man's facade (Shinji).
I am neither man nor woman. Of course, I never wished to be this way. In fact, from the moment I was born, I was bound to rigid concepts about the distinctive roles of the two sexes: men were born to make humanities; women were born to make babies. Those who crossed the boundaries were viewed as a disgrace.
I know. I am one of them. For a while, I was so confused that I was on the brink of insanity. Until one day I reached the realization that genders and capabilities shouldn't be mingled. In war--and in life too--, your enemies don't spare you on account of gender. Whether you are man or woman, your capability of death is the same. I have learned this after days of encountering decayed carcasses strewn around the dark corners--and sometimes in open light--of Kyoto while on patrol duty. How I ended up in the middle of this bloody war is a long story. Perhaps it was fate, a matter of chance that I joined the Shinsengumi.
I was the only new recruit on the First Division. Under command of a young captain named Okita Souji(rou). It's only proper that I should mention him, seeing that he is popular beyond reasons. Kendo child prodigy, ladies' man, schizophrenic, gay lover of a certain "demonic Fukuchou", so the rumors go. To me, however, he was nothing but a regular two-face. In battle, he becomes a devil. His ki alone was enough to make his opponents shit their trousers. But on any other given occasion, he becomes a kid. If you weren't informed, you'd swear he's one of the orphans at the temple, after watching him constantly munching on sweets and pampering his pesky piglet.
Why am I thinking all this, you ask? For the simple reason of killing time, why else? Yet it turned out that there's only so much time to be killed while waiting a turn to place order for lunch. Especially when there's a goddamn letcher in the way:
"Feel that ass! Damn, this girl gotta be class A! Hey, how'bout me and you at Shimabara to night?" The vulgar comment was directed toward a shy waitress girl who was too timid to retaliate.
I don't have patience for letchers. So I stomped on his foot.
"You want to fight, you son-of-a-bitch?" growled the letcher as he grabbed me by the collar. I shook off his hand and said:
"No. If you want to do monkey business, buy a real whore and do it elsewhere. For now, get your ass out of the way so the rest of us can order."
The letcher was as mad as a rabid mongrel. He punched me in the face but missed because I moved quickly out of the way. The second punch was stopped byOkita before it hit my nose.
Throughout the whole lunchtime, everyone gave me strange looks. They were astounded that I--a rookie--had the nerves to brawl like that.
"Shinshirou, is something wrong?" inquiredmy captain in a curious tone after we stepped out of the restaurant.
"Iie, Okita-san. Why do you ask?"
He beamed a rather sheepish smile, "Nothing. It's just that you usually keeps to yourself. This is the first time I see you're so provoked."
I didn't reply. Partly because there was no proper response, and partly because something else, more imminent, seemed wrong to me.
"You over there! We are the Shinsengumi patrol force, show us your identification!" The addressed ronin never bothered to answer. He fled into an alley nearby with us on hot pursuit.
The alley turned out to be a designated lieu for an ambush. More than a dozen of Choshuus were waiting for us, each armed enough for a sufficient workday in a slaughterhouse.
"This will be the place of your burial. So prepare to die, Miburo bastards!"
Okitawas smiling as he unsheathed his katana. Smiling in the face of death. How I hated such foolish people like him who were willing to throw away their own lives for no immediate purpose in this hell of a war. They don't know how much life is worth. Priceless.
Nontheless, I whipped out my sword and fought. I slashed and stabbed like an animal. Blood gushed forth. So much blood you don't even know if it's yours until you feel pain somewhere on your body. Then it's too late.
These Choshuus have been informed of Okita's skill. So they focused their attacks on him, knowing if they could take down the leader, the rest of the pack wouldn't be that much of a trouble. Their strategy was low, though in war nobody cares about the honorable aspect of tactics.
His Sandanzuki was, indeed, a lethal technique when dealing single opponent, no matter how formidable. However, it was not designed to use on a crowd of seven or eight experienced ronins synchronizing an all sides attack.
Having decapitated my own opponent, I rushed forward and thrusted my blade on another one that was about to stab Okita from behind. I'm not doing this out of valor or special affections to him; all I knew was that if he dies, then we all die. The Shinsengumi had made a rule that compels the whole division to fight and die on the spot, in case their captain was killed in battle. Die fighting a lost cause. How goddamned stubborn we are.
Choshuus were like fleas, you know. There was no way to get rid of them completely. Plus, fighting to defend yourself alone is hard enough, not less watching out for someone else at the same time. Unlike Okita, I was no sword prodigy. I was distracted. Before I could pull the blade from the stomach of the man in front of me, another Choshuu aimed his sword at my captain's ribs. There was no time to think. Hell, there wasn't even time to direct my sword to stop the thrust.
So I took it.
I winced as my legs crumbled...It's been a long time since I felt this kind of pain. The type of agony that made me want to tear my chest out...But that's alright...I felt it.
Because, man or woman, I was still human...afterall...
I was a little amazed that I landed in a warm bed instead of a firey pit called hell.
I strained my eyes and looked around.
This is our compound. And my wound's been stitched and bandaged by someone unknown.
Yet when I saw where my injury was, I was struck with horror.
"Ayumu-san, this is a very mean joke! Shinshirou is not a girl! He's as much a man as I am!" Just outside the shoji door, Okita's voice rung clear in a childish dismissal.
The shoji door slid opened.
Okita's eyes darkened as they took sight of my shaking, half-naked figure, of which was fruitlessly covered with my nervous hands. He didn't speak, but his cold, unrelenting stare that never looked away made me shivered. Yet at the same time, my face and head were red hot it was unbearable. A whirlwind of excruciating heat emerged along with the shameful sense in my heart was swallowing me up whole. Okita's look alone was cruel, almost feral; it pierced through my very soul. I was left mute, without a pretext to defend myself. No words were spoken, and Okita's chilling stare continued to haunt me even after he left.
"Little sister." murmured Ayu-nee, her hand on my tremulous shoulder. "I'd like to know your real name."
"Shin...ji." I bit down the word, as I was on the verge of crying.
"Shinji-chan. Do you want to cry? Cry out loud. Scream, wail, weep, whatever. Don't hold it back. Tears flowing inwardly is the saddest and most painful thing, Shinji-chan. Cry them out."
I burst into tears. I cried like I did when I was a child. It's been so long since I've cried out. Too long.
"Do you know, little sister, how great it is to be able to cry like a child?" said Ayu-nee as she tapped on my back like one would to calm a baby. Ayu-nee's shoulder sleeve was dampened from my tears, but she didn't mind. She went on with her caring, big-sister voice:
"A child cries when it's sad, or angry, or hungry, or abandoned. It cries out loud to get rid of those unpleasant emotions. Unlike us who tried to hide them to ourselves. Once something else catches the child's attention, it'd move on quickly. But grownups never do."
"Ayu-nee, is...being a...girl...such a...bad thing?" I asked with a hoarse, broken voice. I cried so much my throat was dried and hurt, and my eyes became sore and red I couldn't see a thing. "But I'm not even a girl!" I exclaimed bitterly. "If I was truly woman, I'd be a wife tending after my own family right now. I never had that chance!"
"Little sister, don't be so hard on your self. You are a woman, period, nothing else." Disbelief was in Ayu-nee's voice. Even she couldn't imagine what happened to me when I told her my story, between the sobs choking my throat.
I cried myself to sleep. My dreams took me back to my childhood, before I ever set foot inside this gathering of murderers, before I shaved my head and became a man, before I was considered utterly ruined as a woman...