Thanks to all for your patience, as this chapter took a bit of time. Many thanks to a friend of mine for looking this over and helping me make things more visualize-able. ^_^ From this point forward, until further notice, chapters will be coming out weekly on Saturdays. Thank you all for reading. ^-^
The next morning, before sunrise, Okita woke with the feeling of his blood stirring within him, swirling restlessly underneath the placid surface of his deep red eyes. He sat up on the mat, and licked his lips lazily, using one finger to remove the sleep mask. He was thirsty for violence, much more intensely than usual. Maybe he would go pretend he was doing rounds somewhere, where he could sleep it off, away from all these people. He dressed in his Shinsengumi uniform, and walked out to the park, where the bench used to be, dragging his sleep mask and his bazooka sleepily.
Meanwhile, Kagura felt the same pull of blood in her veins, and she woke up, patting Sadaharu on the head, slipping into her red Chinese-style dress and black boots, and leading him out the door.
"Ne, Sadaharu," she said in a small voice, "let's go for a walk."
When she reached the park, she saw Okita laying in the grass, his chest rising and falling not quite evenly, his eye mask over his eyes. She let Sadaharu loose to wander the darkened park, and wondered how she could get over this. Unlike Okita, she was positive she would not be able to ignore it through lethargy. She suspected he had developed this habit of trying to sleep often beacause his sadistic nature provoked him, too, to violence at times. But she simply could not imagine trying to sleep it off like him. So, instead, Kagura punched the ground as hard as she could, letting out her anger in three powerful punches. Finally, frustrated, she burst out,
"How come it's hard like this sometimes?" throwing herself down onto the ground.
"That's what I want to know." Okita didn't remove his eyemask, "But you make it through in the end."
"Of course, uh-huh. After, if what I have to do is for my friends, then it's no problem." She agreed seriously.
"No problem, eh?" he asked lazily.
"No problem, uh-huh!" Kagura insisted defiantly. She picked herself up, and shoved a piece of sukonbu into his mouth.
"Oy!" he reacted irritably. A minuted passed while he chewed on the sukonbu. Somehow, incredibly, he was still thirsty for a fight, for blood. He could see that Kagura herself was almost imperceptibly trembling, barely holding it in. "Ne," he offered, "I know you're a girl. But wanna fight?"
She sat up, turning to look at him. "I might kill you." Her eyes flicked away from his for just an instant, ashamed, and then she met his eyes, hers filled with bitter knowledge of her own power.
"You'd be in danger yourself. But we both know that we both need this." His opaque eyes held a fair understanding of her strength, and confidence in his own, offering his logical view.
"Are you serious about this?"
"Yeah," his voice low, "I'm serious."
"Thank you." she whispered.
"Save that for after I beat you." he said, pocketing the eyemask, and lifting his katana. She stood, raising her umbrella.
Their fury did not surface at once.
At first, Kagura felt shy, and Okita was uneasy, unsure what he would do if he killed her, doubtful that a fight would be enough. Neither of them had tried something like this before, as intentionally.
He raised his sword, and swung it with one hand, half-heartedly, parallel to the ground, in a level arc. She carefully put out her umbrella to counter, perpendicular to the sword, but he refused, at the very least, to let her push the katana away. He held his ground, clapping his left hand onto the sword as well. This resistance triggered a tiny response in Kagura, one eye of the monster dubiously flicking open, and she jumped over the sword, aiming a careful punch at his face. He lifted the flat of his sword straight up, to block it, and swung it upwards at her, still calm.
And then his monster awoke. He attacked, no longer with the flat of the katana, but with the sharp sides. She countered one swing with the umbrella, and knocked the next down with a kick. He retaliated by slicing toward her. Kagura leapt back several meters, and then ran at him, swinging the umbrella rapidly, so that it was almost no longer visible. It was just a purple blur.
He braced himself, bending into a crouch. It was not, however, your average defensive position. His sword was not across him protectively, but in the last instant, he moved it so that it was pointed as if to skewer the oncoming Kagura. She, however, saw it, tucked the umbrella down the back of the neck of her red dress and dodged with a leap forward into the air, coming down with her hands beneath her. She clapped the sword between her hands, so that it was essentially impossible for him to use it, using the momentum from her jump to pivot around the blade still between her palms, and aim a kick to the side of Okita's head. Instead, he took his left hand off the katana, and caught her ankle, holding her foot immobile just inches from his head.
Then, with his right hand, he swung his sword out of her hands, twisting it, aiming to slice into her side. Kagura, forced to release the katana, whipped out the umbrella with her right hand as she dipped headfirst toward the ground, and countered Okita's swing. He had to let go of her ankle against the force of her counter, and, in the last minute, she pushed off the ground with her free hand, and flipped out of his reach. She landed in a crouch.
He watched her flip, his red eyes lit up with a feral glow. Kagura could feel the monster in her belly rumbling in content. They were both sizing each other up. The sun had not yet risen, but there was an red tint tinging the horizon.
In the same instant, they both flew at one another. She swung her umbrella at his head, and he aimed his katana for her neck. They met somewhere in the middle, and held that position for a the entirety of an eternal minute, pushing with their full strength one against the other. If it had lasted any longer, who knows which one would have won the battle of brute force. As it was, Okita pulled back, and began slashing indiscriminately. Kagura responded, counterattacking with a punch and an umbrella to the side of the head. They were both somewhat bruised, and scratched, but, maybe surprisingly, neither one was significantly injured. They jumped apart once again, sizing one another up.
Then both exploded into action. Dust flew from the backs of their shoes, biting their heels. They charged at one another at breakneck speed, sword hands behind their backs, building up all the force they had, everything they had into this one hit.
At the same moment, two paces away from each other, they both stopped, one foot braced against the shock of their momentum, their arm muscles bound like a spring. They swung.
Impact. It rattled down their arms, shaking them to the core. She shot backwards, her arms clinging to the umbrella, feet spaced apart, the heels leading them together, leaning forward into a stop.
He too had stopped. He was waiting. She breathed, pushed off. On the offensive.
A swing, two, three, over her head, left, right, as she approached him, her feet pounding his heartbeat into the pavement.
He sank into a defensive posture. Spreading his feet, his left foot pointing forward, his right foot directly under him, perpendicular to his left.
Now her swings were within range. He countered them one for one. One to the left, hit away, above his head, a flick upward, to the left, the left, above, to the right, the left, and then the right again, each one matched by him, beating out her heartbeat on her umbrella with his katana.
She leapt back, took one breath. And then he was on the offensive.
He swung toward her, to the left, above her head, and she met each one, her purple umbrella a blur of starless night, meeting the glint of his shining katana, as it etched stars into her night sky.
The thump and klink of each blow rang through the park. Two jet black silhouettes against the faint foggy light of the city.
Kagura's eyes were alive, the blue glowing, locked with his shining red ones, as she leapt above him, swinging powerfully downward.
He smiled darkly, let go of his katana with one hand. He used the katana to parry her attack, and punched upward with his other hand. His one-handed parry was barely enough to hold off the monstrously strong attack until the effect of his punch caused her to crumple. She fell to the ground, immediately rising into a feral crouch, so that her chest was barely above the ground. She bared her teeth at him. His eyes flashed boiling crimson. The sun was now streaking the dark sky with dark red and purple.
The two flew at one another with a rage directed at the universe, their fate, and themselves. Physically directed at one another, of course, in a flurry of mad slashing, punching, and kicking. They remained in this mad tangle of flailing arms and legs for a while, then both delivered a strong punch. Her fist hit his left arm, and his did likewise.
They both stepped back, their blood simultaneously settling. Okita looked at Kagura.
"I'm alright now." he said.
"We can't be doing this all the time." she met his eyes seriously, "It doesn't do either of us too much lasting good."
"I know." he acknowledged. "But, thanks for trying it with me." He sounded apathetic again, trying to settle back into his comfort zone, laying on the ground, hands under his head, looking up at the early morning sky. Kagura flopped down on the ground a couple feet away, facing away from him.
"I wanted to fight, too." Kagura admitted gruffly.
"I ought find a more consistent way to deal with it," Okita seemed bored, pulling the sleep mask over his head, "But it seems useless either way."
"Ne," said Kagura quietly, rolling over on her side to look at him, "Did you know why I gave Sadaharu that name?"
"No." the eyes on the mask were pointed skyward, but Kagura could feel that his voice was directed at her.
"Actually," she said, "There was a Sadaharu 1. He was a bunny I had, when I was a little kid."
Okita waited.
"He slept outside, but one night, I took pity on him, and let him sleep in my bed with me."
He considered this mutely, listening.
"But that night," she whispered, her voice barely audible, "I had a nightmare. And I held onto Sadaharu 1 like no tomorrow. I-I must have thrashed around all night, because..." her voice broke, "because when I woke up, he was all stiff. That's why I'm glad I have this Sadaharu. Because I love Sadaharu 2, and he can take it."
He reached out and pulled her next to him with one arm. She rolled over under his arm, facing away from him, curling up.
"I'm pretty strong, and life can seem like a nightmare sometimes, I'm sure you understand," she began.
He wondered if he had ever said that to someone sincerely, I'm sure you understand. But in this case, it was the most natural thing. They both knew that they understood their mutual violent tendencies.
"But, I can live in your life with you... If you'd like," she ventured, "I could be your Sadaharu." He reached out, slowly, his hand landing on her shoulder, and pulled her close to him. Within seconds, she was asleep.
She rolled onto her back, in his arms, snoring softly, and he leaned up on his elbows, lifting his sleep mask apathetically to look at her sleeping figure. He reached out to lift one of the tassels hanging off one of the odango buns. He said just one more thing before pulling his eyemask back over his eyes, and falling asleep next to her.
"I'd like that a lot." he replied.