Blades, Knives, Steel and Mettle L The Wolf
17th year of the Meiji . Tokyo.
Later, during dinner, he would not tell his wife about the way his junior officer's eyes bulged out when Seta Soujiro followed him inside the station.
It wasn't that he was trying to hide that fact, rather that it was simply the way things had always been. Saitou never told her any of the details of any of the things that he did as Fujita Goro. Nor did she ever ask for them in any of the ten years they had been married.
Tokio was, after all, an official's daughter and had been trained well. It was enough for her to know that he served always some higher person or purpose – and would only tell her as much as she needed to know. She supported him – and for that, he was (as he had stated many a time to other people) a fortunate man.
The children wriggled in their seats impatiently as they waited for him to sip his after-dinner tea. He raised his eyebrow at his eldest son, Tsutsomu – now a child of eight – who immediately responded to the silent glance by sitting still. As for the other two, Saitou sighed – they were too young to be expected to do more.
He put down his cup of tea as he addressed the young man who he and his wife had taken in after his brother was killed by one of Shishio's goons. He had been a young boy then, but now would inevitably wander off and leave this place. But for now, he was simply a godsend to Tokio. "Eiji --please take the boys outside."
As the boys cheerfully opened the door and ran into the courtyard, he took out a cigarette and lit it with one of his always precious matches. She smiled at him then – his reward for patiently waiting until the children were gone to indulge his little addiction. It was the same smile that had likely charmed the daimyo in Aizu so very long ago into making the match between samurai and loyal retainer. It was a smile that soothed him – and had secretly made it easier for him to settle down after a lifetime of hell. She eased the loneliness he felt as one of the last of the wolves of Mibu.
"My husband is in a good mood today."
"Not exactly," he took a drag on his cigarette, savoring its flavor before slowly exhaling the smoke. "I'll be leaving tonight."
Her eyes fluttered closed not once, but twice – the only sign that the news was unwelcome. Not even with a half-second she had slipped back into her gentle Buddha-like wise and calmly poured more tea. "How long will you be gone?"
"A few days. "
A few days, and a few days more, and perhaps more after that. That is how it always was.
And she sipped her tea, her face serene and impossibly strong in its silence. Uncertainty was nothing new to Tokio, although the past few years it had been relatively quiet—until rumors started surfacing.
To Hokkaido, to Aizu, to other places he had no particular fondness for – to those places that belonged to Saitou Hajime, Fujita Goro was called again by rumors. Rumors of war and rumors of ghosts – all which turned out to be simply that.
Rumors.
But they were rumors designed with him in mind, and for what reasons, he hadn't known. Instead, for months he was away from Tokyo and Tokio, on a fruitless quest for dead men. And when he returned, the government was waiting.
And so Tokio's bright eyes burned into his conscience as he took his leave later that evening. He had broken an unspoken promise by returning to the things which he had thought left behind.
Her face quiet and voice uncomplaining, it was only her eyes that spoke of her unhappiness as later that night, he slipped back into the night and into the darkness.
--
So the task of conducting surveillance at Yokohama fell to Cho. Or rather, Cho and foundling Soujiro.
Normally, any sort of assigned work irked Cho. Even if it was one ordered by that wolf-man, which in most cases meant it was semi-interesting – Cho was , by his own admittance, just not the spying type and like his 'boss,' did not give a rat's ass when it came to the Meiji government.
But this was one little job that just couldn't be left alone… not when it was Soujiro who himself brought the piece of news that Saitou had thought worth following up on.
And of course Cho, ever so dying of curiosity of what dragged Soujiro into Tokyo, couldn't just not tag along.
He sighed. He was just too easy going.
As for Seta Soujiro, what had changed? Outside, there was the same almost childish face, but the years of wandering had altered him as well. The unflappable broomhead did not know how to explain it except that where there had once been a constant and unwavering smile, there would sometimes be an occasional flicker of some strange emotion across the younger man's face and lapses in attention as they took that afternoon train down to the port city.
"Where have you been," was the question that Cho wanted to most ask, but he already knew Soujiro would simply just smile and cheerfully tell him something along the lines of "Here and there and everywhere." And he would be right. Seta was ragged, and as disreputable looking as that rurouni redhead, who had wandered for ten years to get that way.
And a few hours on the train would barely be enough to cover five years of tales and stories, he knew. So instead he waited until the annoying attendant left them in their box, and grinned, focusing on the task at hand. "What trouble you think is festering in Yokohama, kid? Foreign folks are everywhere there, and they're bound to bring trouble just by their presence. Tokyo may be modernizing, but Yokohama is where the true action is. People come in and out of there all the time—trading, and all that sort of stuff."
"Or to look for certain connections—" Soujiro turned his gaze away from the window of the moving train towards the other man. "Or people."
"So you looking for connections?"
"Maybe," Soujiro gave him a rather blank grin. "But I don't have a sword anymore, so can't get very far."
"Just take one of mine," Sawagejo grinned back as he thought about the swords he carried. "I promise to give you a good one."
"I don't think these sorts of folks would talk to me even then," Soujiro beamed, not even showing any resentment at that reality.
Cho snorted. Even if the kid had and was changing, he still had that same face. "Damn fools. People in this era grow more stupid by the year. So I'm to help you."
"Fujita-san thought you'd be useful for something like that."
Chou puffed up a bit. "Well, you know, he and I have a real good understanding of one another these days. I mean since he came back, I figured might as well do the same. If a ex-Shinsengumi can suck it up, so can a former Juppongatana—"
"We're going to try to hire ourselves out to get information—pretend to be just a bunch of average goons. Saitou-san said you'd be perfect for that role--"
"Perfect!" Immediately, any small semblance of affection or respect Chou had for the wolf dissipated into a stream of very unusual curses that would make any real man proud.
Notes: Well, I lost my notes. Yes, this was going to be a side story explaining/developing other side characters who had cameos in Another Chance as well as another look at the 'mass conspiracy' Saitou had been playing with (in which the mysteries of that other story were only a smaller piece). And so intending to find those notes, I left this story on the side while I pursued other non-fanfic things. So the first part dealing with Tokio and Saitou was written shortly after that last installment like last year? Cho and Seta's fun in Yokohama, however was the part I am trying to recollect. Back to the drawing board and rereading the other fic and then back to the other fics, which I intend to update. .
As for the years and dates, the only important thing here is that this takes place after Kaden, and the manga framework of history and characters is what this 'continuation' is loosely based on.