I don't own Hakuouki or any of it's characters.


Chapter 15

They rained down on the enemy like hellfire, blow by slice, dark shadowy figures seemingly made of smoke and blade. Susumu felt a wave of relief wash over him as he heard the dying cries of hundreds of mutated horrors, his forces had come in time, cloaked in the night they became deadly ghosts armed with even deadlier weapons, so they saved the shinsengumi, his friends.

Pride bloomed in his chest as he thought of his small group of operatives, each deadly in their own right, each unique. Given the right circumstances they were a force to fear, a sentence to death in the most efficient way.

He looked down at where Heisuke was still lying, broken but not dead and felt a smile form on his face. He knelt down alongside his friend.
"Heisuke." he said softly "Heisuke, where are the others?"


Shinji sat peering down at the chaos below. He had sensed the turn of battle before it had begun, was it luck…no…maybe it was because he knew how Susumu's mind worked?

He had felt the warnings of a battle changing and had fled, before he could get caught up in the madness below, leaving his comrades to die at the hands of Susumu's agents.

He had stayed for Kasumi.

He knew her to be somewhere below and was hanging on to a faint hope that he would take her away with him. He had waited to no avail. Her raven hair never showed, the glint of her wakazi nowhere to be seen.

After a long wait he stood with a huff, rising from his perch long moments after the battle had ended.
"Maybe another time" he sighed as he picked up his gear and left to meet his master.


Hijikata clutched at the nape of Okita's haori, gripping it with white-knuckled desperation.
"Okita…Okita!" he shouted at his friend, Okita swung his katana wildly at the silent air, stumbling on the severed limbs of the many they had killed.
Finally, frustration won and Hijikata jerked Okita down to the ground, forcing Okita's body to connect with the grass in a loud thud.
"Okita! Stop!" he shouted, staring down at his frenzied friend.

Recognition slowly washed over Okita's face as his madness lifted, leaving him exhausted and at the verge of a new bout of bloody coughs.
"Toshi-san?" he blinked confused, clearly not knowing where he was or why his friend was staring down at him with worry-filled eyes.

"Okita…you…are you okay?" was all Hijikata could manage as he saw his friend come to his senses.
"What happened?" Okita asked dizzily as he felt the rumble of coughs slowly rising up through his chest.
"You...were overcome with…bloodlust."

Horror.

As Okita's mind focused on what had happened mere moments ago, his heart sank lower than the pit of his stomach.
Neither men knew what to say, long moments passed as they stared horrified at each other, to a well-trained swordsman, bloodlust was the ultimate disgrace. Losing control was never an option.
After another few seconds Hijikata murmured softly: "I won't tell a soul"

A quick nod of thanks was all Okita could manage before Susumu and Harada came crashing through the underbrush.

"Okita! Are you okay?" Harada shouted still limping, but ignoring his own pain the moment he saw Okita on the ground.
"I'm fine" Okita answered briskly as he heaved himself up and walked towards Susumu and Harada, wiping a thin rivulet of blood off his chin.
"For now…" he heard Hijikata murmur as he passed him.

Hijikata cleared his throat loudly before speaking.
"We should go back to the camp, we have some things to…talk about." He said pointedly staring at Okita as he passed him, leading his men back to the main camping area.


As they entered the clearing, Hijikata immediately started taking a headcount.
"Seems we were lucky tonight." He said to himself as he noticed that many of the men he has presumed dead, were not injured fatally.

"Harada, get yourself to a healer." He ordered as he raised his hand to attract Nagakura who had just come from the opposite side of the clearing.
Harada made no complaints as he limped over to one of the two healers working near the open firepit.

"I have summoned more healers here as well, they should be here by morning." Susumu informed Hijikata in a low voice.
"Thank you Susumu, you have done us a great service today." Hijikata smiled at the spy master.
"How did you know?" Okita asked as he inspected the damage surrounding them.

"We've been gathering information for months." Susumu started. "After the incident at the Mori Clan Estate, I posted a few agents in the surrounding hills, we've been watching their every move…I…had a bad feeling."
"Hahaha, always bet on a spymasters' bad feeling." Nagakura laughed as he gave Susumu a hard congratulatory slap on the back.
"Thank you Shinpachi-dono." Susumu coughed. "Although I think I might have to see the healer now as well." He grinned as he feinted a back injury from Nagakura's previous gesture.
"…Sorry" Nagakura smiled impishly.

Still carrying a full smile, Susumu continued.
"Two days ago I got word that a large force had left the Estate and was heading this way, I went to scout and found them not too far off. I recalled most of my agents here, hoping that they would arrive in time…we were lucky."
"I doubt luck had anything to do with it, Susumu." Hijikata smiled. "I would rather say skill."
"There was luck Hijikata-dono." Susumu said adamantly. "Some of my agents had to travel from far to come here."

"Say…how did you do that? Tell them to get here I mean, we don't have that many carrier pigeon's around." Okita asked in a puzzled tone.
"There are a few ways…only known to Spymasters."
Hijikata felt a small smile grace his lips as he noticed the pride in Susumu's voice, it was rare for him to show such an emotion and even rarer for him to admit to any skill of his own.

"Susumu, I have to be honest and admit that I never thought of you having 'forces'…I mean it's just you and like three other agents, at least that's what I always thought."
"Not in the least bit Shinpachi-dono." Susumu smiled. "I have the largest network of spies and agents in Kyoto, there are many people that gather information for me, some are harmless and only listen, but many are…more dangerous than you would expect. Let me show you" he smiled before letting out a loud whistle that resembled an owl hoot.

After a few moments the shadows between the trees started shifting, undulating like it had a life of its own and to the Shinsengumi's greatest surprise, people slowly emerged from the darkness. Many people.

They were silent, not a leaf cracked as they stepped out of their hiding places, the slight breeze not giving a hint of their presence.
Stunned, Okita looked around him as the clearing filled. He recognised faces, the girl that traded flowers down the road from their base, the old man that spent his days fishing outside the city gate, the barmaid that Harada has been trying to bed for months.
All those faces, some he knew he had seen before, others were as foreign as the new dawn. There was at least eighty agents standing in the clearing now.

"Holy shit…" was all that Nagakura could utter as he stared wide eyed at the force that came from nowhere.

"Susumu-san." Hijikata turned his gaze from the agents to him. "I knew of your network, but never imagined it would have grown this large." His voice held a clear tone of amazement.
"Something that I have wondered about for years is your second. Does the spymaster have a second in command?" Hijikata asked.

Susumu shuffled around uncomfortably.
"It…doesn't really work that way…it's difficult to…"

A silvery laugh came from the darkness, interrupting the answer Susumu was clumsily trying to give. He sighed and glanced sideways, only to notice Okita's face change to an expression of utter surprise, if not shock. Susumu was momentarily puzzled until he heard another soft giggle and he could just imagine the smile on her face.
He let out and exasperated sigh.

"I do have a second." He corrected himself, staring into the darkness. "She's just devilishly impossible to work with."

He couldn't help but smile as she slipped from the darkness and came walking towards the group of men, her long raven hair catching the fire light, glinting in a myriad of shades of blue and purple.
"Meet Yamazaki Kasumi, my second in command...and my sister."

Okita's heart leapt.