A/N: As I continue writing and developing this story, I have decided that I will avoid the use of honorifics in dialogue with the exception of instances where Saito, Souji, Chizuru, and the gang refer to each other. I just can't seem to ditch them there because those honorifics are such a huge part of how the characters express their relationship to one another.

It does seem like I have a couple of people reading, so I will keep posting! These chapters are coming out at lightning speed, so please make sure you are on the correct one so you don't skip ahead. Our first reader's choice is coming up very soon, so I hope you guys are as excited as I am!


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November 1863

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And so, I came to live with the Shinsengumi as their charge. I helped with minor chores where I could, and in return received a roof over my head and the promise of searching for my father. It took time for me to grow used to the idea of relying on humans to such an extent, but in the two months that I continued to fake a steady recovery from my injuries, I began to grow somewhat fond of the simplicity of this new lifestyle. It felt odd being able to relax and fall asleep in the same place every night for so long. Father and I had never stayed in a single village for more than a few days at a time.

The doctor — Matsumoto — who'd treated me after the monster attacked me in the alleyway came to visit often, concerned for my recovery. By a stroke of luck, I was able to convince him of my medical prowess, and he did not insist on inspecting my wounds more than necessary. His verdict was simply that I was young, and sometimes the young do recover faster than expected. He told me of his time with my father, and the more I learned, the less I understood about his disappearance. From what I could gather, my father had been working with the Shinsengumi for several months. He had been practicing medicine together with Doctor Matsumoto in a clinic in the capital, making good headway and quickly growing their business when one day approximately one month prior to my arrival in Kyoto, he simply vanished. He'd taken none of his notebooks or manuscripts; he had even left all of his personal belongings behind.

Doctor Matsumoto mentioned nothing of my father being ill, either, and looked surprised when I asked about his failing health. He described my father as a healthy, robust man who rarely needed help with anything. All this information worried me more and more. I couldn't help wondering if we were speaking of the same man. How had he overcome his illness? How had he escaped those cruel men? If my father had managed to escape his captors, he would have written to me. He would have tried to find me. Yet, everyone who knew me as his daughter said the same thing: "He never mentioned he had a child."

As though sensing my growing sorrow and restlessness, Doctor Matsumoto decided to take action in an effort to help my situation. We spent much time together working side by side in the first several weeks of my stay, taking care of an outbreak of lice in the barracks, treating minor ailments, and conducting inspections to improve hygiene. Though I did prove myself capable in the field of medicine, I was still surprised when, at the end of that short time, he suggested we pay Kondou a visit so he could give me his personal recommendation. Gathering the leaders of the Shinsengumi, Doctor Matsumoto recommended that I take a post with them as their primary physician. With traffic at Matsumoto's clinic in the capital growing and his duties taking him elsewhere for extended lengths of time, he had fewer and fewer opportunities to visit headquarters and take better care of the men.

When Hijikata argued against this, the doctor reminded him of the last physical he had conducted and the disastrous results therein. He began to read off the many health problems the warriors at headquarters faced, and I knew I would have my work cut out for me if I was to accept responsibility for them. Even with their resident medic, Yamazaki Susumu, helping me with my tasks, this would be a full time endeavor. To say I had the confidence to take up the title of "physician" was to say I was ready to blindly jump off a cliff trusting in a soft landing. Though I had been working at my father's side for over a decade and had taken over his duties for the last several years due to his illness, I knew nothing about taking care of a compound full of men. Not to mention, I worried my duties would take me farther from the goal of finding my father overall.

Despite Matsumoto's glowing recommendation, Kondou, Sannan, and Hijikata seemed to hesitate, but not due to a lack of faith in my abilities. Something else gave them pause, something hiding in the shadows of their exchanged glances and vague body language. I wondered, then, if it had something to do with the monsters I'd battled in the alleyway and the reason I had lost my freedom in the first place. Would being their physician somehow bring me closer to that truth? Did I even want to move closer to something so secret?

Naturally, I couldn't help but wonder if all these secrets had something to do with my father. Certainly, a physician trained in Western medicine was a valuable asset. I learned everything I knew about the Rangaku philosophy of medicine from years of my father's diligence and hard work. Rangaku physicians were rare, yes, but why were the Shinsengumi so desperate to find him? Doctor Matsumoto or any other physician could have cared for their men with equal efficiency. Even as the three leaders agreed to Doctor Matsumoto's proposition and named me the Shinsengumi's physician, I held onto that thought and decided to keep my eyes open.

I was given new attire befitting my station, a kimono, hakama, and haori ensemble made of expensive robust silk the color of the inky black night sky. Kondou requested that I continue disguising myself as a man, both to facilitate my role as a medical scholar and to avoid causing a stir by having a woman in the compound. I was moved by how much he trusted me and my abilities. Yet, despite my repeated requests, he was quite reluctant to allow me to join his men's patrols. No matter that I'd told him I wasn't a child or that I could care take of myself. He insisted on acting like an overprotective father to a daughter. I even tried to refuse his offer of a physician's stipend, but my rebuttals were met with stern glances and a thorough lecturing on how 'worrying for my father was well and good' but I should start looking out for myself in case I had to build a life on my own.

I hated him for implying that my father may never be found, but with each passing day that brought no further news of his whereabouts, I was beginning to feel the shameful shadow of defeat looming over me. Every night, I prayed to the stars for a clue, for even a shred of evidence that he might be out there somewhere. How could someone with a reputation like my father simply vanish overnight? Why hadn't he contacted me in all that time? At night, I lost sleep obsessing over theories and answers to those questions. During the day, I toiled to bring the compound and the men within to a better state of health. I took some measure of relief in focusing entirely on my work during daylight hours, as staying busy kept the doubts and fears for my father at bay.

"Why do you care so much where he is?" Souji asked me out of the blue one day. I'd just stepped out to the kitchens to check on a brewing batch of cold medicine when he intercepted me in the hall. Under the pretense of a break from our daily duties, he coerced me into sitting down on the wooden steps with him for a chat.

"He's my father," I replied. "Of course I need to find him." I did my best to act natural around Souji, even if simply being near him made me nervous. He had quite a reputation among the men. It was whispered that he and Saito had taken the most lives among the warriors in the Shinsengumi. Like the others in what I'd taken to calling the "core" of this group, his skills with a blade were practically legend. From the first moment I'd met him, he hadn't stopped treating me like cat toying with an butterfly. Sometimes, his eyes would be so cold…I wondered if he wanted to break my wings simply to see me despair. Yet, he'd never hurt me since that night. He hadn't treated me unkindly. His teasing riled me up, but he always played with me at a distance, as though there was a constant and unbreachable wall between us.

Upon hearing my reply, Souji directed a rare and very sober gaze upon me. Startled by the absence of his typical jovial mischief, I looked towards the surrounding gardens as though lost in thought. I couldn't handle his emerald eyes looking into mine for too long. Everything about him unnerved me, and I hadn't forgotten at all that he'd seen something only my husband should have been entitled to.

"Chizuru-chan…" there was something endearing and simultaneously frustrating about the way he said my name. "Have you considered that he just abandoned you?"

I tried not to let his words cut into me. Souji was playing with the butterfly in my heart again, saying things that would tug an emotional reaction out of me without fail. He loved seeing me drop my mask of civility and politeness to reveal the vulnerable girl beneath.

"He wouldn't do that."

"Hmm," he huffed, his voice dripping with disbelief, as though to say 'Well, aren't you a fool?'

"Why would you think a father would abandon his own daughter?" When he didn't answer for a while, I stole a peek at his profile. If possible, his appearance was even more unkempt today. A chilly breeze blew past, bringing with it a faint aroma of eucalyptus and musk. His auburn hair was damp, I realized. He must have just had a bath after a rigorous morning of training. I thought I recalled seeing him and Kondou sparring in the courtyard earlier.

That thought snagged my attention enough to really take a look at his face. Normally, I tried not to, for it brought forth a flurry of emotions I wasn't yet capable of dealing with. This time, though, something unusual caught my eye. His full lips, which were normally quirked up in a smile looked pale today. Though a pink flush tinged his cheeks after his bath, the rest of his face had an unhealthy tone. His complexion suggested exhaustion. The physician in me took over at once.

"Okita," I said. "Please turn this way."

"Huh?" As soon as he moved, likely to protest, I stood up and moved two steps down. Shifting in front of him, I stood between his bent knees and reached out to take hold of his large wrist. The heat of his skin made me suck in a breath. I pressed my fingers to his wrist to check his pulse and placed my free hand on his forehead. His bangs tickled the back of my hand. I'd been wondering if his hair was as soft as it looked. All the while, Souji mumbled protests, but I had no ear for his childish banter right now. I bid him to open his mouth and stick out his tongue, to which he eventually complied when he saw there was no room for argument. I checked his eyelids and felt around his neck then leaned forward and listened to him take a few deep breaths.

"You have a fever," I frowned at him. Even more, I frowned at his damp hair. "Your complexion is bad, your pulse is weak, and your breathing is strained. It's cold outside today. Why didn't you properly dry off before leaving the bath?"

"You nag like an old hen," he chided, sticking out his tongue at me playfully. "I'm fine, Chizuru-chan. I just had a bath. Of course my body feels hot."

I had a plethora of retorts for his excuses at the ready, but he halted my incoming diatribe when he slipped his big hand around mine and held it in his. His palms were rough and calloused. I shivered at the texture.

"Or maybe it's hot because Chizuru-chan is here," he said, tugging me forward until my palm rested on his chest. "What do you think? Can you feel my heart racing?"

I knew my face had caught fire, but I refused to acknowledge how easily he threw me off balance with his empty flirtations.

"Okita-san," I sighed. "Please don't try to change the subject. Judging from my examination just now, you may have caught a cold." I gave him a very stern look when he didn't allow me to pull back my hand. "Please let me go. We will go to my study, and I will prescribe medication for you. As your physician, I recommend you stop drinking sake for at least two weeks and take rest until your fever subsides."

He didn't look pleased. His lips pursed together in a rare display of his actual emotions. "No," he replied. "I'm on patrol this week."

"I will, of course, write my recommendation to Hijikata-san-"

"Chizuru," he warned.

"And to Kondou-san, if that's what it takes to make you listen."

That stopped him cold, as I knew it would. I didn't understand their connection, but for some reason, Kondou had great influence over Souji's actions.

"Don't bother Kondou-san with something this ridiculous." His glare could have burned a rice field to the ground. He narrowed his cat-like eyes at me. Had he been an actual cat, he might have added a hiss to that statement. "Just who do you think you are, anyway? You've been here less than three months and you think you can boss people around?"

I refused to back down. "Kondou-san charged me with taking care of your health. Yours and all the men here. I am merely performing my duty."

"Is it your duty to nag people and stop them from doing what they're ordered to?"

"If that's what it takes to keep you healthy, then yes."

A muscle in his jaw worked as he ground his teeth together. That and his poisonous glare were the only outward signs of how much my threat to write to Kondou had unsettled him. But, why? Men came down with colds and fevers often. Most were happy for a chance to rest. Why was Souji treating this like a punishment?

"Tsk, fine." He pushed me back and away from him. I lost my balance on the steps, and it was only thanks to my quick reflexes that I didn't go tumbling to the ground. "Let's go, then." He folded his arms across his chest like a child denied candy and refused to look at me again.

Letting out a breath, I took him to my study. This room had been another gift as part of my new appointment with the Shinsengumi. Most of the shelves were empty, but Doctor Matsumoto had gifted me many manuals and manuscripts from his clinic that he was no longer making use of. He'd even brought over all of Father's old texts that he'd left behind, along with a priceless item, too: a silver set of surgeon's tools. When I'd first learned of its existence, I couldn't believe it truly belonged to my father, for silver was our natural enemy. Again, I'd wondered if Matsumoto and I knew the same man. Yet, just as quickly, I recalled my father's kindness. I knew that he would have used the silver tools to help others in need, even at the risk of hurt to himself.

"Please a wait a moment while I find the medications," I told Souji. My study was still a mess and needed quite a bit of attention. I didn't want him stomping over valuable books or tearing out pages by accident. I'd just been so busy running my initial rounds with the men that I hadn't quite had the chance to settle in yet. Hanging up my outer black haori, I tied up my sleeves and looked around for what I needed.

"How do you stay in here all day?" Souji grumbled. "It's stuffy. I can't stand the smell of all these herbs."

I forced a smile. "Stay healthy, then, and I won't have to bring you in here very often." Walking to one of the taller shelves, I sighed in frustration when I saw the jars I needed placed on a shelf out of my reach. Someone had purposefully rearranged my medicine jars. The handiwork of mischief, no doubt. Yamazaki was well loved by many of the men in the compound, and many saw me as an intruder that had cut in and taken his place. In truth, Yamazaki had expressed his relief, for his primary occupation was stealth and shadow rather than scholarship and medicine. Many of the men made no attempt to hide their contempt for me. My short stature was the topic of many a well timed joke, as was its perceived relation to my supposed manhood. I wondered what these pranksters would do if they knew I was a woman. At it was, I couldn't be insulted by their pranks. Just very very frustrated and even more exhausted.

"Okita-san, forgive the trouble, but I would be obliged if you could reach something for me."

He stood leaning against a wall, his arms still crossed but his mood much improved now that I was asking him for a favor.

"I don't know, Chizuru-chan…you threatened me earlier and now you're asking me for help?" He chuckled. "I'm a sick man, remember? And you're trying to make me work?"

I rubbed the place between my brows, right above the bridge of my nose, where I felt a headache coming on. What was wrong with me? I knew better than to ask Souji for anything and expect a straight answer or action. Tugging on the old desk in the corner, I maneuvered it in front of the shelf. The sly green-eyed fox in the corner watched me huff and puff as I wrangled with it but offered no assistance. When all was done, it gave me a good extra two or three feet to work with, and I climbed it readily. When standing on my tip toes, I managed to just reach the jars I needed. One by one, I tucked them into my apron and took out some rice paper pouches, folding the corners to mark them.

One fold for morning. Two for evening. Surely that sly fox could keep up with something this simple. Diagonal fold for –

I heard a sharp crack and suddenly felt weightless. The jars went flying out of my arms, and I panicked, fearing they would shatter and spill the precious medicines I'd spent hours making. I wanted to reach for them, but my body instinctively sought safety. My fingers clambered to grab onto the shelves to restore my balance, pulling all of them towards me.

"Chizuru!"

A quick savage pain shot up my leg. Everything happened so fast I barely had time to react. The room erupted in a deafening cacophony of sound. When I could open my eyes again, I felt tears tugging at my eyelids. The old desk had snapped beneath my weight, and in my scramble for balance, I had pulled all the shelves forward and toppled them. Thank the stars most had been empty, but weeks of work lay strewn all over the ground in a colorful rainbow of white, blue, and yellow packets.

"Hey, I asked if you were hurt," Souji asked, giving me a gentle shake. He sounded so close. Pulling myself out of my horror at the sight of my lost medicines, I realized that my feet weren't touching the ground. Heat crept up my neck when I felt Souji's arms beneath my knees and around my shoulders. He was carrying me. Strange. I'd never seen his brow furrowed quite like that before. If I didn't know it was impossible, I might have assumed he was actually worried.

"Please put me down. I'm alright." Keeping my voice steady was quite the battle.

"Wait," he said when I started squirming to get away from him. He set me down on my rump instead of on my feet. I was about to complain when he touched my leg. I hissed in pain and flinched back.

"Okita-san, what are you—"

"Shut up for a second, would you?" He lifted the hem of my pant leg, his rough fingers brushing up my calf. I wanted to demand he let me go, but I opened my mouth and let out an agonized moan instead. His fingers came away coated with blood. "The wood from the desk must have stabbed into you. I'd say 'let's go have a doctor look at that', but I guess that's you, isn't it?"

Okita Souji had shown me several kinds of smiles over the course of the past months. Mischievous, threatening, amused, a cover to hide uncertainty. This one, however, was completely different from them all. His lips pressed together in a different kind of way, setting his mouth into a thin but charming line. It was quite special, and I was so entranced by it that I completely forgot about why I shouldn't want him to see me wounded.

"If you stare at me like that, Chizuru-chan, I might have to do something you won't like."

"P-Please, Okita-san," I said, clearing my throat. My mouth had gone dry. "Please back away so I can start cleaning all this up."

He chuckled, but obliged, leaning back then getting to his feet. He clucked at the mess around us. "Look at this disaster. Does this mean I don't have to take the medicine after all?"

"I have everything marked and color coded," I said, tilting up my chin with a measure of pride. "I will likely be able to salvage most of these pouches." Ignoring the pain in my leg, I got to my feet and dusted myself off. "It doesn't seem like my leg is hurt badly. Just a scrape. Here—" I stepped towards the pile on the floor and rummaged through it for a moment, finding what I needed. Handing Souji three white pouches with unique folds on them, I explained my folding system.

"Seems simple enough."

"I will check on you tomorrow, Okita-san, and I will know if you haven't taken the medication. For now, I will not write to Kondou if you promise me you will rest for the next several days. I will discuss your patrol duties with Hijikata as your physician."

"Just one question, though," he cut in. "Why would you have things placed so high up on the shelves when you know you can't reach them?"

I hesitated to answer that. I didn't really want anyone to know I was being bullied by some new recruits.

"I suppose I wasn't thinking it would be a problem. I've been so busy I haven't looked at my storage in some time." I faked a smile, hoping he would accept my response.

"Hmm. Well, I'm glad you weren't hurt."

I caught his sleeve as he turned to leave. To make it easier to speak to him despite my embarrassment, I focused my gaze on the tatami. "Thank you, Okita-san. I wasn't hurt only because you were here."

A beat. Then — "Well, if our doctor fell down and broke her pretty neck, who knows what we would do without all her nagging?" And like that, he slipped out the door without looking back.

A whoosh of air left my lungs. I sat down as though my puppeteer had cut my strings. Lifting up my pant leg, I grimaced at the sight of a splinter the size of my index finger stabbing into my leg. After yanking it out and applying some pressure over the wound, I waited for it to start healing.

…and waited. Yet, even after a solid amount of time, the flesh did not begin to stitch together. Limping to my work bench, I opened my satchel and took out my steel set of tools. I couldn't recall the last time I'd needed to stitch myself back together. I thought back to the night in the alleyway where I'd first met the monsters. Back then, my wounds had festered. That was far from a normal occurrence for a demon such as myself. Our people carried their powers in their blood, and if too much was lost, at times our wounds healed slower. But, fleshrot, sickness, and disease was something we were supposed to be immune to as a whole.

After bandaging my leg, I sat back to ponder on this. Was it possible for demon powers to weaken over time? I hardly knew a thing about our people save for the stories my father had told me in my youth. He spoke frequently of our pride and our traditions, of the decision to avoid human conflict. Of course, I still had faint memories of the fire that had taken my village when I was just a child. The Yukimura clan had been slaughtered by an army of humans, and it was only thanks to the man I now called "Father" that I had lived to the next sunrise. Though my true parents had been killed, I only knew Father's love and care. As far as I was concerned, he was truly my sire in many ways, blood or not.

As I began to clean up the mess in my study, a toppled stack of books caught my eye. Fishing out the one on the bottom, I ran my fingers over its cover, my eyes wide. No human would have known the crest drawn upon in expensive inks. This was the symbol of the Yukimura clan, the same one carved into the tang of both of my swords. Flipping through the pages, I held my breath. Everything within was written in the language my father and I had worked to develop together, a secret code that allowed us to communicate without the humans understanding us. We'd written notes to each other in the past, some letters…but the entire tome before was filled with it. Something fell out from between some of the pages. I reached down to pick it up; my heart stopped.

There, plainly outlined step by step was Father's elixir, the one I had developed using my blood to help him recover from his terminal illness. As a pure blood demon, my blood was stronger than his, and I'd been more than willing to use it in a desperate attempt to cure him. Had my father been making more of the elixir? Is that how he appeared so healthy to others? But, how? How could he have made the elixir without my blood?

The blood drained from my face.

Images of the monsters in the alleyway flashed before my eyes.

It couldn't be. No. My father would never have anything to do with something so heinous, so sinister. To give demon blood to a human would mean sentencing them to a horrible and painful death.

Yet their wounds had healed so quickly. Like a demon's. And their hair had been stark white, like my own when I chose to release the guise of my humanity.

No. Impossible.

I felt sick. My stomach churned. I knelt on the floor, convinced I would vomit when someone rapped at my door.

"Yukimura-kun," a soft baritone called. It was Saito. Stars, no. What a terrible moment for him to come.

"Y-Yes?"

"Is everything alright? Some of the recruits said they heard a commotion and the sound of breaking glass."

"Y-Yes…I'm sorry for the disturbance. I dropped some of my tools."

"Are you hurt?"

I fought a bout of dizziness. My tongue felt swollen and awkward. I so badly wanted to answer Saito, but I couldn't move. The shock of it all…finding the book, the thought that my father might somehow be involved in all this…it was too much to accept. I railed against it, clawed my way back to a calm state of mine.

"Yukimura-kun, I'm coming in." Without waiting for me to answer, Saito slid open the door with great force. His left hand rested on the hilt of his sword, his eyes sweeping the room. When he saw me sitting limp among the broken glass and spilled powders, he rushed to my side. I don't know how I ended up on the other side of the room, but what snapped me out of my daze was Saito holding my hand between his own. He seemed to be examining it for cuts.

"Saito-san," I said. "I'm alright. I'm not hurt badly. Just a scrape on my leg."

"How did this happen?"

"There were some items on the higher shelves. I climbed the desk to reach them and lost my balance." Like Souji, I couldn't read what might be going through his thoughts in that moment. If anything, he was even more of a closed book. In all the months I'd been here, I'd never seen his facial expression change from the look of calm and stoicism I saw upon it now. "Okita-san was here before. He made sure I was alright. Truly, I am sorry for causing everyone concern." I bowed my head.

"I will speak to Hijikata and arrange Yamazaki to assist you in cleaning all this up—"

"No!" I said too quickly. He blinked at me. "I mean…I don't want to trouble anyone. I was just being clumsy." I rambled out some half-hearted explanation about how I wanted to take responsibility and make sure everything was salvaged that could be. Naturally, I couldn't say a thing about the tome I found, or the horrible implications within. I needed time now to understand everything I'd seen. I had to investigate.

"If you believe that is the right course of action, I will leave you to it," Saito concluded. I nodded, and though he seemed to hesitate, he left the room in short order.

I'd prayed every night to the stars for a clue about my father. As I held the damning tome between my hands, I wondered if I'd innocently wished for something I would later grow to regret.