Rurouni Kenshin © Nobuhiro Watsuki. Saitou contemplates betrayal, blood and faith as he deserts the Shinsengumi.
I have betrayed everything.
I am a fool, a traitor, a dog.
Okita lies dying, choking on his own blood. It spills through his fingers like water. He cannot breathe for the blood. He cannot sleep. He cannot wake. I left him. I have abandoned him to his death.
"Ne, Hajime-kun, I feel like I'm part of a family." Some family. When I close my eyes, the world is still washed in Yamanami's blood. You cut his head off, Okita. You swung your blade down and painted the sky red. A man who was like your own brother. The only man who could contain Hijikata and Kondo.
You killed Serizawa Kamo. Would you do the same to me? Slam the blade in, push it deeper, deeper, drag it down and twist it up until it punches through the other side?
Maybe that's why I disliked you, Okita Souji. An animal underneath, that's what you are. What we all are. You tried to bury your wolf, tried to dig a deep hole and fill it with quicksand. It doesn't work like that. Battousai cannot chain his dragon. I cannot muzzle my wolf. You cannot kill the animal inside.
…Perhaps I'm looking for something to really hate in you, Okita. A reason to betray you. The Shinsengumi was something real, something to die for. Makoto. Faith. I had faith, I believed in truth. I felt that that was all I needed.
I could waste ten years desperately groping around for every shard of lost glory and honour, fighting for the old world and its values and its truths and its hopes and its dreams and…
No.
Spend ten years on my knees, like a dog?
Aku Soku Zan. I shall walk into this new age. And it will be my sword that tears the sky open and paints the world red.
Notes: Okita Souji was the captain of the Shinsengumi first unit. He died of tuberculosis in 1868. Hijikata & Yamanami were the vice-commanders of the Shinsengumi and Kondo was the commander. Serizawa Kamo was the former commander who was assassinated, probably by Hijikata, Okita, Kondo and Yamanami.
Note for sai-bunny: In the Meiji Era, Saitou worked for the new government- for the very people who destroyed the Shinsengumi. This fic is centered around his decision to join their police force. So yes, it is set after the final battle when Saitou leaves the Shinsengumi forever- this isn't his spying mission, this is his later total abandonment of the group.