Disclaimer Shinsengumi Imon Peace Maker and Peace Maker Kurogane belong to Nanae Chrono. No infringement upon her copyrighted material is intended.
Summary From alpha to omega, this is Okita Souji. Gen. Spoilers for the entire series. Rated K.
Continuum
1.
It begins. Not with a birth, but with a sword. Or perhaps it isn't that. Perhaps Okita Souji wasn't born with umbilical chord and labor pains. Perhaps Okita Souji was born when his hand first touched a sword. Perhaps.
It begins when he is nine years old.
"Do you want to learn?" Kondou Isami asks.
"Yes," he says. His voice is small, like his hands and his feet. He is a very small boy.
Kondou's nod of assent is complicated, but he smiles.
2.
The insistent nudge against his ankle is a pig. Souji bends down and picks it up. "Hello," he murmurs. He names the pig Saizou and takes it home with him.
The other members complain – the pig is ill-behaved and rude – but they complain quietly. There is some rustic charm about Saizou's fierce protection of Okita, they think, but that charm doesn't outweigh the catastrophe Saizou makes daily.
3.
He meets a fifteen-year-old boy with red hair and wide eyes. The boy is small for his age and dreams large dreams of revenge. He is very much a child.
Souji is not a child, and he understands the difference between children and oni, so he gives the boy a slip of paper and tells him where to go – Ichimura Tetsunosuke will make his decision wittingly.
4.
Tetsunosuke's outcry and the man's recognition wipe the calm smile from Souji's face. It had been in good fun; Sanosuke, Shinpachi, and himself anonymous, unbound by Hijikata's strict code.
The day ends with a man dead in an alleyway, and still Tetsu smiles, because he doesn't know.
5.
Does anyone have a truly good reason for taking up the katana? He's not sure.
6.
They whisper and Hijikata's eyes are worried and dark. Like cotton, or silk, the threads are coming unbound. It happened at the Ikedaya Jiken, and Okita can still feel the blood sliding through his mouth.
It is then, that he knows there is something more than a bad cough that doesn't go away. He smiles, anyway, because there is life yet to be lived.
7.
And then there are lighter times, when the sky is warmed by the sun and everyone is smiling. He buys candy and enjoys the peace while it is there to be enjoyed.
8.
He begs and pleads; his soft voice goes ragged around the edges and his eyes are clenched tight against the man before him. So much respect, so much affection. He knows what the price is
9.
Morning is sluggish blood through veins and sunlight is somehow subdued. Yamanami Keisuke is dead and by his own hand.
On some level, he understands that Yamanami's death was not his fault; it was choice made, in compliance with Hijikata's request. That still doesn't make the horizon any less gray; that still doesn't change the blood on his katana.
"I don't want your filthy hands," the woman who visits screams, and Souji understands. It is the first time he admits, aloud, that he was the one responsible.
This will be the undoing.
10.
He knows what's coming. How can he not? Still, he smiles and focuses on other things, better things – cheap candy and Hijikata's haiku book basking in the sun and Saizou arguing with Tetsu with stubborn grunts.
A black cat walks by, and he gives it a tight grin.
11.
He doesn't have to be told.
"Being a doctor really is hard, isn't it?"
He doesn't have to be told, he doesn't want to hear it. He already knows, and the knowledge is enough. Speaking the words would only ruin the day, and even though the disease is there, and even though it will kill him, he refuses to let it own him.
He smiles. He laughs. He lives.
12.
It ends, like everything, with death. Ironic that he isn't slain, that it isn't seppuku. It ends with bloodstains and herbal teas.
And years after the end, after revolutions and world wars, there still is his memory – Okita Souji, he was undefeatable.
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Notes Crit is welcome. Please point out any errors.