Chapter 3 – A Point of Perspective
Hijikata-san worked hard to keep his strength up, to keep him ready for battle at a moment's notice, and it was all about to pay off.
In the dark of the chill night air, shadows spilled over the high walls surrounding the compound, hushing into the building, searching for something… or someone.
The man woke to the abnormal creak of the ceiling in the corridor outside, and decided to investigate. He took up his sword and cracked the door just enough to peer out.
He could see nothing but the shadows, nothing to alert him, save for the feeling in his gut.
A shadow moved.
Hijikata wasn't too sure if what he'd seen was real, but it was always better to be safe than sorry when lives were on the line. So he slipped down the hall after the nothingness, and watched it transform into a man as it headed for the floor. It opened a panel door and slipped inside.
Hijikata wondered what the shadow could want with that room, and realised too late that the room belonged to the young woman. He hurried forward to stop the man, and was rewarded by the soft thud of a blade as it hit something.
Standing in the doorway he saw the sword sticking out of the sleeping woman, and wondered for a moment why she hadn't screamed. It would seem that the assassin wondered the same thing, for he pulled back the sheet covering the sleeping form, and was rewarded with a pile of pillows instead. He swore, and it was only then that he realised he was being watched.
Hijikata moved.
It only took a second to dispatch the man; he didn't even spill much blood.
Then the vice-commander had another task to complete, he had to find the woman, before anyone else did.
There was a small cry and a thud from his right, and so he ran towards the noise. The training room, that was where it was coming from, Hijikata ran faster.
He ripped open the door to see a man fly into the wall beside him and slide down it, unconscious.
The woman was on the far side of the room, slowly being backed into a corner. The assailants couldn't get too close to her because of the spear that she wielded with unknown ease. She stuck out again, slashing viciously at the two left standing before her, not just trying to hurt, but to kill.
Hijikata raised his sword and struck down one of the men, and the woman struck out at the same time, skewering the last man through the abdomen, his blood splattering over the floor and wall, staining the woman's clothes, and dripping out of her hair and down her face.
It was at this point more of the Shinsengumi arrived, having been alerted to the commotion by Susumu. They stared at the mess the training hall was in, and even more so at the blood-soaked woman, what the hell was going on?
She flipped the body off the end of the spear, and then dropped that on the ground too, before heading for the man slumped against the wall near the door. Hijikata let her, she deserved some revenge, and these men would die before they'd tell her anything she wanted to ask them.
She calmly wrapped her small hands around the man's throat, and started to squeeze.
He woke up and struggled against her, pushing his hands against her face, trying to pull her hands away, making sickly gargling noises as his life was forced away.
She stopped when his eyes rolled back into his head and he stopped struggling.
She stood slowly, and walked, no, more swished past the gathered Shinsengumi towards the bathhouse at the back of the compound.
Tetsu saw her, covered in blood, and backed away from her in terror; his brother caught him and held him tight, staring in shock and fear at the strange woman too.
She was a demon…
Soji followed the woman, staying back just enough to not provoke her, and listened as she filled the bath tub with cold water, and jumped into it fully clothed still.
When she was under the surface, Soji could still hear her scream.
Throwing back the door Soji reached into the water and pulled the screaming woman out and held her close to him. She was crying too, but he couldn't tell what was tears and what was cold bath water.
Most of the blood had been washed off of her in the dunking, but her clothes and hair were still dirty. Soji pulled her limp frame out of the tub and stripped the outer layers of her yukata off of her, leaving wet, but clean under-garments on view. He didn't look at that, he just wrapped her in a towel and held her to his chest, rocking her slowly.
Kondo-san arrived and looked in at them, nodding to the young captain and passing him a tub of soaps and soft cloths for washing; he then pulled the door shut and left them alone in the dim to work things out with the woman's demon.
Now she knew what it was like to kill… now she knew what it was like to give up your soul to a demon, and let it have you in every way… now she knew what it was like to be forever tainted…
You can never recover from something like that, not even in the next life, because you had no soul to be judged, you became nothing once you died, you ceased to exist…
Perhaps it was too late to save her from the demon, but hopefully Soji could still save her from herself…
(AN: Well, here's a new chapter, I know things might be a little confusing through this chapter, but that's what the next one is for. It'll be mostly talk and explanations, and then you'll understand everything and more! Woo! R&R please!)