I own nothing but my OC.

Chapter 48: Burning Bridges

"Sensei." Sumiko said with a serious expression on her face as soon as she saw Koudou the next morning, when he came to her room with breakfast. Koudou froze as he entered the room and stared at her, shocked.

"Why… Why is Kazama-san lying next to you on your futon?" He asked with trepidation, looking every bit the part of a father who had just found his daughter in a compromising position, as he struggled to keep ahold of himself and not drop the trays of food. "He didn't…"

"No! As if I would be sitting here so calmly if he had…" Sumiko said, sweat-dropping as she blushed, embarrassed that he would even think that. "Get your mind out of the gutter, Sensei. He just stayed to keep an eye on me."

"Keep an eye on you? For what purpose?" Koudou asked, furrowing his brow with worry. "You didn't try to escape, did you? Because in your condition—"

"Shut up…" Kazama grumbled sleepily as he sat up and started rubbing the sleep from his eyes. "It's too early for this much noise."

Sumiko sweat-dropped. He obviously wasn't a morning person…

"What are you doing in her bed?" Koudou asked sternly.

"Protecting her." Kazama replied succinctly. Koudou stared at him incredulously with a look of blatant disbelief on his face.

"Can't you do that from somewhere else?" He asked, chagrined. Didn't he realize how inappropriate that was?

"No." Kazama replied bluntly, regretting nothing.

"Hey, whoa..." Shiranui said, pausing in the open doorway when he saw where Kazama had spent the night. "Looks like someone had a good night." He commented, smirking.

"Yes, it certainly was." Kazama replied with a smirk of his own.

"Don't say such misleading things!" Sumiko snapped, blushing furiously.

"Ah! You're blushing, so something must've happened." Shiranui leered playfully at her.

"It did not!"

"I held her all night long." Kazama said, looking rather pleased with himself.

"You're doing this on purpose!"

"Kazama, you should not tease her so." Amagiri said calmly as he arrived on the scene. "I believe that may be a little too far for a joke."

"She's just being shy. She's an Edo woman. That's how they show their shyness, with denial."

"You're the one who's in denial…" Sumiko mumbled, sweat-dropping.

"I suppose this calls for a celebration. I shall cook some red beans with rice to mark the occasion." Amagiri said as he turned to leave.

"Eh?" Sumiko said, taken aback. He seriously believed that stuff Kazama just made up?

"Sumiko… couldn't you have waited a little longer? I'm not ready to give you away yet…" Koudou said, leaning against the wall in his own little corner of woe.

"I—I said nothing happened!" Sumiko shouted in exasperation. "Listen to me!!"

—∞—

"Sensei… I didn't want to say anything in front of the others, but we need to talk." Sumiko said seriously as she followed Koudou into the room he had set up to use as a lab. Kazama and Amagiri were seeing off Shiranui, who had been called away for business with Choshu. "It's about Kaoru."

"Kaoru?" Koudou asked as they entered the lab, and he turned around to face her, surprised. "You know about Kaoru?"

"He paid me a visit last night." Sumiko said grimly. "Do you know him, Sensei? Because he claims to know you."

"Ah, Kaoru." Koudou said, looking down. "Kaoru is a pitiful child."

"He's a psychopath, Sensei." Sumiko said flatly, startling him with her callousness. "He tried to pour Ochimizu down my throat last night. If Kazama-san hadn't come when he did, I'd probably be a rasetsu right now."

"Oh, Sumiko… I'm so sorry… but you have to understand… Kaoru has not has an easy life." Koudou said remorsefully. "And it's through my own fault."

"Your fault?" Sumiko asked, furrowing her brow slightly. "How?"

"… I am not Chizuru's real father." He confessed. Sumiko was surprised, but she held her tongue, waiting to hear the rest of his explanation. "Years ago, when Chizuru and Kaoru were only small children, their real family, the main branch of the Yukimura clan, was destroyed. But the two of them somehow managed to flee all the way to the village I was living in at the time with our smaller branch of the clan. Some of the others were afraid we might be next. When the Nagumo family caught wind of the incident, they decided to use our desperate situation to their advantage. They said that if we let them take one of the twins into their family, they would forgive us for the 'incident' with your mother. Naturally, they wanted the girl, but after what happened with my sister, I was afraid for Chizuru and what kind if future she would have trapped with those murderers. I resolved to give them Kaoru instead and go into hiding to raise Chizuru myself in order to prevent her from ending up like my sister. I thought Kaoru would be all right since he was a boy, but it seems he suffered a lot due to my selfishness…"

"Is that why you gave him the Ochimizu?" Sumiko asked quietly. "Because you feel guilty?"

"That's right." Koudou said, closing his eyes. "I couldn't do anything to help him back then, and it's my fault he turned out the way he did… the only way I can make it up to him now is to help him fulfill his dream... Which as it so happens, is also my dream."

"Fulfill his dream? What dream?" Sumiko asked as a sudden feeling of dread began to creep over her.

"Why, to revive our clan, of course." Koudou said, opening his eyes. Sumiko took a step back. She didn't like that look in them. That wasn't the Koudou she knew looking back at her.

"And how are you…" She started to ask, when she caught sight of some of research notes he had left out. "!" Sumiko gasped in alarm as she snatched them up and began scanning them. Her eyes widened in horror. "Sensei… these aren't the notes you've been showing me… these aren't for a cure! They're for creating a stronger type of rasetsu! What are you thinking, Sensei!?"

"I was thinking we could use them to revive the clan." He replied with a smile, shocking her. "I must admit, I was at loss after all those failures in the Shinsengumi, but you managed to root out the source of the problem right away!" He said as he turned his back to her and opened a box to pull out a vial of the finished product. "With this we can create rasetsu who can stand in the sun, and it's all thanks to you! I really should have asked for your help sooner."

"I didn't want this, Sensei!" Sumiko said, feeling betrayed. "You know that, so… So how could you use me? You said we were family…"

"We are family!" He said as he placed the vial back inside the box. "Don't you see? I'm doing this for you and Chizuru as well. With these rasetsus, we can wipe out the humans, the same way they tried to wipe us out. Once the humans are gone, we can rebuild our clan with them and pay back the Nagumo clan for what they did to you and your parents."

"Sensei… are you even hearing yourself? You're talking about genocide!" Sumiko said sternly, furrowing her brow.

"You were raised by humans, so you may feel like you're one of them, but you're not." Koudou said as his expression hardened. "The sooner you realize this, the better."

"But I'm not completely oni either, am I?" She retorted. "I'm half of each, so that means I'm part of both worlds. It feels like I'm sitting on a fence with one foot on each side. Up till now, I've only had humans pulling on one leg, but now you oni are pulling on the other. Each side wants to me to pick one over the other, but at the same time, I'll never truly belong fully to either side, will I? If you all keep trying to force me to choose, at this rate, I'll be ripped in half. What's wrong with being both? What's wrong with being a little different? If everyone in this world were the same, it'd be damn boring! You guys are always going on about 'oni this' and 'human that', but from what I can see, there's really no big difference between the two where it counts. Oni and humans are both 'people', and people come in all shapes, sizes and attitudes. There are good people and bad people in every group, but one drop of dirty water won't turn the whole ocean black. Weeds can pop up anywhere, in any garden, but that's no reason to stop enjoying the flowers. Sensei, you should know that what you're doing won't make anyone happy, least of all Chizuru. If she knew what you were up to, it'd break her heart. Two wrongs don't make a right. Revenge is empty and destructive. People need to live their lives with a clear conscience. Sometimes, when you try to walk on a straight path, can you end up getting yourself stained with mud. However, as long as we never give up, the mud will eventually dry up and fall off. You've let yourself become stuck in the mud, Sensei." She said, taking a step forward. She held her hand out to him. "Please, let me pull you out. Let's end this before more people get hurt."

"That was quite a speech, Sumiko." Koudou said wanly. "I'm sorry… I didn't realize you would be this adamant about it." He bowed his head and let out a sigh of regret. "I was hoping to take you with me once you got better… but now I see that's impossible. Our views on the subject are far too different."

"So, no matter what, you still intend to go through with it?" Sumiko asked, furrowing her brow in disappointment.

"And if I say yes? What are you going to do then?" He asked, glancing at her out the corner of his eye as he tucked the box of Ochimizu vials under his arm and turned to face her.

"I'll stop you." She stated solemnly with grim determination. He stared at her for a moment in surprise before laughing.

"Stop me? What are you going to do, kill me?" He asked dubiously. His smile fell when her expression remained the same. She wasn't backing down. "It's such a shame, Sumiko." He said sadly.

"!" Sumiko exclaimed when he suddenly shoved her back harshly with his free hand, sending her stumbling back out of the room. Sumiko winced as she scrambled to get back onto her feet, but before she could re-enter the lab, Koudou threw an oil lamp at the threshold of the door.

CRASH!

"I'll tell you right now, Sumiko." Koudou said calmly as the flames blocking her way in began to spread. "There is no cure. Reversing the transformation caused by the Ochimizu this late in the game will kill the host. If you try to save your friends, you'll just end up killing them faster."

"Sensei!" Sumiko cried out, taking a step back as she shielded herself from a gust of hot wind. When she looked back again, Koudou was gone, and the fire was beginning to devour all of his notes and research materials. For a moment, Sumiko just stood there, then she bit her lip and clenched her fists. She turned and ran and began yelling as loud as she could to alert the rest of the castle. "Fire!"

—∞—

They managed to put the fire out before it spread to the rest of the castle, but the entire lab had been destroyed. There was no trace of Koudou or the box of Ochimizu vials he took with him.

"So… Koudou has betrayed us." Kazama said after hearing Sumiko's account of the events leading up to the fire.

"Indeed. He has strayed from the path of the Oni." Amagiri agreed. "It can't be helped. We will most likely have to kill him."

"W-Wait, hold on! I agree he must be stopped, but do we really have to kill him?" Sumiko asked anxiously, furrowing her brow. "He's still in the planning stages. He hasn't actually done anything yet…"

"You think he will change his mind?" Kazama asked.

"… No." Sumiko replied regretfully after reviewing how he had reacted to her pleas to stop. "He won't listen to me, but there's someone else who might still be able to reach him." She said determinedly, raising her head. "That 'business' Shiranui said he was being called away for, he's headed for Koufu Castle, isn't he? Imperial troops are preparing for another battle in Katsunuma."

"!" Amagiri said, startled that she already knew such privileged information. He glanced at Kazama, wondering if he had told her, since he only appeared to be mildly surprised to hear her mention it.

"And if they are?" Kazama asked calmly.

"Then that's where Koudou-sensei will be." Sumiko said grimly. "If he intends to go through with his plan to make more rasetsus, they'll need blood. I was able to catch a glimpse of some of his notes before they were burned. He's resolved their issues with photosensitivity and silver to some extent, but he hasn't fixed the cause of their bloodlust. And the best place to get large amounts of blood without drawing attention…"

"Is the battlefield." Kazama concluded while Amagiri nodded in understanding.

"And also…" Sumiko said hesitantly, hoping she wasn't about to give too much away.

"Also?" Amagiri asked.

"Chizuru will probably be there."