By the time you come back, please, even just a little, be back to your old self...


A Weak Beast made out of China
OkitaxKagura
~5~ Festival


Over-crowding streets with adults and children.
The variety of stands and stalls that lined up next to each other in a straight line strongly pushing away the darkness of the night with their bright warm lights.
Smiles seen in whichever direction you look at and all enjoying the festival wherever you set your eyes.
This is what a festival is, and supposed to be.

But within that environment, was an odd pair whose faces didn't brighten along with the crowd.
These two included: the Vice-commander of Shinsengumi, Hijikata Toushirou and a mute china girl, Kagura, who had amnesia.

Hijikata's face was originally unsmiling as it was, but as for Kagura, she had not smiled once, even after coming here to an exciting festival.
And beside the pair...was one guy who seemed to be highly enjoying what he was seeing...
... Yamazaki Sagaru.
He stared with sparkling eyes in hunger as he found delicious foods lined up and stared longingly at the envious sight of children's scooping goldfish.

WHAM!

"What's the point in you getting all excited!"

Hijikata's smack made Yamazaki hold his head dearly as if attempting to ease the pain, but then straightened, looking at his vice-commander with realisation when he understood the words that were thrown to him.

"Oh, right. Kagura-chan!" Yamazaki exclaimed, and then turned towards the shorter figure beside him, "what do you want to do, Kagura-chan?"

Yamazaki attempted to make a conversation but she seemed in no state to be interested in anything as she held the untouched candyfloss in one hand and keeping her head on a downcast.

The three ended up walking around to search for anything Kagura might be interested in, yet failed to find anything she wants to eat nor even catch her slightest interest all the way until it finally became time for the last event.

The fireworks.

No girl hated fireworks.
The two Shinsengumi members kept being hopeful as they walked towards the hill beside the Edo River to see the result of their last resort to cheer the little China girl up. But when they rested upon the grass and observed the fireworks lit up in the night sky, they sighed, not at the beautiful scenery, but at the failure of getting any response from the doll-like Kagura.

"I wonder if Captain would've made a difference if he came with us..."

"I wonder..." Hijikata sighed as he lit his cigarette with his mini 'My-Mayo' lighter.
It was then that Hijikata felt a presence, spying them from the shadows.
But this wasn't the first time he felt it.
In fact, he had felt that they were being watched since their arrival to the festival.

Is their target us, Shinsengumi? Or...

Thinking this was something to inspect properly, Hijikata stood up and stared down at Yamazaki who has a confused look upon his face.

"Eh? Vice-Commander? Where are you going, sir?"

"Inspection. Yamazaki. Make sure you don't let your eyes off her," Hijikata ordered, "or else you go through seppuku."

"Ehhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!" Yamazaki screamed in fear while watching his vice-commander walk away leaving the two behind.
He then repeated his scream as his face streamed with two rapidly gushing rivers when he turned around to see the red-haired small girl already long gone and nowhere to be seen.

"Where did Kagura-chan go when she hasn't even gotten her memory back yet..."

Thinking how convenient it would have been if she was wandering around in the usual bright, red china dress, Yamazaki started to go look for her.

"...ah-," Yamazaki let out a relieving breath before trying again, screaming furiously after finding Kagura with another person,"Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!"

After walking around for a good few minutes, Yamazaki found Kagura with no one but that Joui leader, Katsura Kotarou!

...who was trying to offer some takoyaki.

"Would happen to want to try one of these? It is very tasteful! Or more like, can you please buy it for my sake? Please! We need to have part-time jobs to earn money since the Joui really need the money to support the group."
The said Joui leader, revealed that he was a terrorist ever so casually and ever so casually doing some selling at a part-time job in a public festival.

Kagura, stared up to the tall Joui leader and to the equally tall white substance, aka Elizabeth, before she shook her head in rejection to the offer.

"What! You do not like takoyaki? You shouldn't be picky with your food! Well, it cannot be helped then. I will give you this Nmaibou instead. Now, now. You don't have to eat this immediately so take it home. Eat it when you feel hungry," Katsura informed and handed Kagura a few Nmaibou.

"KATSURAAAAAAAAAAAAA!"

"Hm?"

Katsura quickly prepared into a 'ready for an escape' stance, but finding who it was, stopped half way.

"...oh. It's just you."
Katsura sighed deeply as if to say "don't scare me like that," and stood upright again.

"WHADDAYA MEAN 'IT'S JUST YOU'! I AM A SHINSENGUMI MEMBER TOO! DON'T LOOK DOWN ON ME!" Yamazaki raged and pointed his sword at his opponent.
Katsura didn't even twitch a brow and instead, started to lecture Yamazaki.

"Do not take out your sword in front of a weak and fragile girl! You, are you even qualified to be a policeman! Be ashamed of yourself! Your job is to protect this weak and fragile girl, is it not!"

Yes... he's absolutely right in ever way...

Yamazaki put away his sword in defeat and he lowered his head in shame.

"I deeply apologise..."

He then stared at the ground while he was bent in half, suddenly realising what he was currently doing.

Eeeh? Why the hell am I apologising to a joui extremist!

"Yes, well, as long as you understand," Katsura forgave Yamazaki and then turned 90 degrees away from Yamazaki, ignoring his existence in a mere second as he spoke to Kagura.

"You stay well with them, understand?" Katsura told Kagura and to her nod, he nodded back, "good."

Katsura and Elizabeth then took their leave, with Yamazaki and Kagura watching over them, disappearing into the crowd.

"Waaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhh! What did I just do! I just let an extremist, a terrorist, a joui leader leave so easily! I am disqualified as a Shinsengumi policeman! This is definitely a seppuku for me! What the hell should I do?"
To Yamazaki who was pulling his hair and screaming his head off in terror with tears pooled in his eyes, Kagura handed him the Nmaibou that she had gotten just minutes ago from Katsura, as if to comfort Yamazaki.

"...eh?"
Yamazaki reached out for the Nmaibou and read the wrapper.

[Nmaibou, AN・TEI・ZAI*(The Lolly: Apricot Liquor) Flavor! Mini candy version!]

Yamazaki's face expression contorted.

Ehh! Anteizai (stabilizer) is a flavour!

And more over, doesn't this say liquor?
If I recall correctly, Kagura-chan is still a minor...

But kind of getting the fact that Katsura was trying to cheer her up in his own way, Yamazaki handed back the Nmaibou to Kagura-chan.

"Thanks, Kagura-chan. But this is meant for you, so I think it's better for you to keep this for yourself."

Kagura just stared at him with huge round eyes, not entirely understanding what Yamazaki had just said.


When Hijikata came back to the odd pair, they started heading back to the headquarters where Sougo stood, leaning against the entrance, waiting for them to come back.
When he heard the sounds of footsteps heading his way, he flickered his closed eyelids open and greets the three.

"Did you enjoy yourself?"

Sougo asked as soon as they were a few steps before the entrance.
In response, Kagura gave a small nod in response, but the two behind her had 'plan was a failure' written across their faces.
Confirming their expressions, Sougo set his eyes back on Kagura, and glared.

"Did you play any games?"

"..."

"Did you eat something?"

"..."

"You didn't dare just walk around for the entire night, did you?"

"..."

Toward the cold words Sougo spat at her, Kagura couldn't look at him in the eye any longer and lowered her eyes to the ground.

"I told you that if you didn't fully enjoy yourself, I wouldn't take care of you anymore, didn't I?"

Becoming irritated by the second with the mute girl, Sougo grabbed Kagura's arm strongly.
She flinched and felt her body shiver in fear, but her emotions suddenly turned from fear to surprise when she found that Sougo was pulling her, dragging her somewhere.

Kagura stared at the back of Sougo who just ran without any explanation, and she didn't know what he was thinking at all. She didn't know where he was trying to take her.
What she did know, was only the fact that her wrist that was pulled by Sougo, was burning.

Kagura's face contorted in pain as she turned back to see Hijikata and Yamazaki already so far away in the distance.

"Oi, Sougo! Where the hell are you going!" Hijikata shouted at the top of his lungs.
But his voice was too far away to reach Sougo's ears as Sougo just kept pacing towards the darkness of the night, forcibly pulling Kagura along until they were both consumed by the darkness.


*There is no such word (as in each kanji).
Just randomly inserting random kanji to make up a word, just like Katsura's usual Nmaibou flavours to get rid of the Shinsengumi squads coming after him.
The second letter isn't really 'liquor', but more of the meaning 'drunk', but I couldn't find any better kanji so, there!
And there is a mini lolly version! I saw it! I bought it! It's the size of your palm! v);;

! It's been aaaaaaaaaaaages since I last updated this one (or any FF recently, actually ^^);;
Been busy with HELL of a lot of things...
I don't know if I can even keep submitting this series...
But I'll try my best, so thank you to those readers out there who still are there for me.
Hope you enjoyed reading~