Chapter 4: Wooing a woman requires a set of skills that no man owns in full.

The flicker of cameras deafened and the flashes blinded as Hijikata stood behind Keiko and Kondo as the press and various reporters badgered them with questions right outside the Shinsengumi headquarters.

The Vice-Commander took the chance to actually get a good look at their charge, finally, and without worry about being frozen.

Until now, he's only been able to get a glimpse of how she appeared mostly because her icing powers prevented him from getting a good look and that he really paid no attention to women, especially to details (and especially if they join Sougo in attempts to murder him).

But it is not that he generally ignored the existence of women – simply – only a very few could ever capture his attention and only one actually did.

After observing her, he noted that she did resemble Katsura. But, really, any person with long dark hair looks like him because the gorilla-author doesn't have much of an artistic repertoire for facial distinctions. So he couldn't claim their relation simply through that.

Like any other decently pretty Japanese woman except that her features were sharp and cold to match her eyes.

Then, he realized that she wore all black. He hadn't noticed earlier since black is standard for the Shinsengumi, but the dark black silk kimonos with dark grey flowers aren't very standard at all – for a woman, no less. And were those gloves?

"Yamamoto-san, are you really Katsura Haru – despite the fact that her death has been confirmed?" a reporter shouted out to her, bringing Hijikata's attention off from her.

He mentally shouted at Yamazaki for failing to bring that detail to him during his report.

The questions continued.

"Can we get a statement?"

"If you are a daughter of the Katsura family, how did the Jouishishi faction find out if you've been going by the name of Yamamoto Keiko?"

"Yamamoto-san!"

Keiko raised her hand and her eyes, politely demanding their silence. When they complied, she bowed her head slightly.

"Thank you for your time. I am Yamana-," she coughed. "I am Yamamoto Keiko. I am an employee of Sunset* Advertisement and Image Development. Three weeks ago, I was asked to act the part of the hostage in a real hostage setting to prove to the Edo society that the Shinsengumi is a functioning and competent police force. The rumor that I was Katsura Haru was leaked out to the Jouishishi as bait to have them attempt a kidnapping."

Hijikata attempted to mask his surprise at her statement. He glanced at his superior who, uncharacteristically (but not completely rarely), carried a stoic face as the cameras continued to flash and click.

Keiko went on, "I was chosen, specifically, due to my similar appearance to the late noblewoman, Katsura Haru, with whom I shared a close friendship. Therefore, on behalf of Sunset, we apologize for the deception to the public and to the Shinsengumi for even they were unaware of this agreement which was decided only between me, my superior and Matsudaira-sama," she said as she bowed again.

The reporters returned to their frenzy.

"Will you continue to work with the Shinsengumi to improve their image?"

"Was this in response to the increasing appraisal of the Mimawarigumi after their recent successes?" (At this, Hiijikata cringed).

"Were you compensated at all?"

"Yamamoto-san!"

Question after question bombarded her but all she did was bow again and stated that she had no further comment.

"She's awfully good at saving face." Johnson muttered as she watched Keiko enter back into the Shinsengumi Headquarters through a television screen. The old woman was sprawled on the tatami of the Japanese-style room, her small and old frame taking up hardly any space. She rustled through a gift box of dried persimmons set before her and grabbed one wrinkly blob of dried fruit with her own wrinkly fingers.

"More that she is good at weaseling out of thing," a voice responded from behind her.

"Well, haven't you turned into a dog with a bite? You were such a nice boy too." With a flick of her wrist, she popped a whole dried persimmon into her mouth and smacked her lips as she chewed.

"…"

"You don't need to force yourself to watch any of this, ya know." Johnson peered over her shoulder and examined the man who kneeled in disaffected silence. Another persimmon thoroughly chewed as she eyed him up and down.

Powerful yet restrained – seemliness ran from his posture to the muted expression on his face. He was a servant of competence and potency, this man of mystery – of mystery even to Johnson and Johnson wasn't sure if she liked that because she typically knows everything.

The man responded, "Johnson-dono, I am the one in charge of her performance. I must observe her progress." He replied, his gaze lowered out of respect.

"Why the Shinsengumi? With your history with them, you certain you would wanna put her in their midst?"

"They are all capable men with loyalty and skill that rival my own. The Amanto would need that if their wants are to be fulfilled."

"But the pride and arrogance of the Shinsengumi is their best trait. That's why you cut off ties, innit? You sure you want that and her stubbornness to be carried down into the next generation of this planet's leadership?"

"That is why I am assigned with the task of raising her child, Johnson-dono."

Johnson pursed her thin white lips. "…Why do you insist in using such titles? They are not even your own to use."

The man took a moment and then bowed apologetically but compulsorily. "If you do not mind, I would still desire to address you with the terms that belong to my father and my homeland." He stood to leave, his kimono robes shuffling against the tatami. "Farewell, Johnson-dono."

Johnson simply sighed and returned her attention to the television. Another persimmon. Then she muttered, "Your wife is just as troublesome as you are, Keiji"

Back at the headquarters, Hijikata lit his cigarette and followed his superior and Keiko through the hallways, utterly and completely frustrated.

"Kondo-san," Hijikata slurred, "Did you know any of this?"

Kondo stopped dramatically, causing Hijikata to stop and flinch. Then the Commander turned around, his eyes full of tears. .

"NOOO!" He sniffled. "Why doesn't Pops tell me these things?"

Hijikata exhaled in frustration.

Keiko simply blinked. She stiffly reached out and patted Kondo on the shoulder in awkward attempts to comfort him.

"I'm sorry, Commander. But it all turned out for the better, no?"

Kondo nodded and wiped away his manly tears.

Then, suddenly, he stopped his blubbering.

"Ah, Keiko-san, your hands are very dainty." Kondo muttered suddenly in a low and tender voice. He held her hands in his and gently peered into her eyes…

…leading Hijikata to scream "WHAT THE FREAKING F*CK" in his head and Keiko to drop her jaw in horror.

Without warning, she bludgeoned her forehead into Kondo's and sped off all before Hijikata could even register what had just happened.

"Kondo-san!" Hijikata cried out, worriedly. He rushed to his Commander's side only to find him out cold.

"KONDO!"

"Where the heck is she?" Hijikata mumbled as he roamed after putting Kondo in his room. As the Oni no Fukuchou stalked around for his prey, he tried to make sense of what he just saw…it wasn't really working.

'Seriously, what was that? Did Kondo just – no, no, no – he's too obsessed with that Shimura woman to make moves on another, right?'

Hijikata spat out his distaste with his standard "Tch". He would rather deal with the crazy Shimura than Queen Elsa any day.

He could feel his frustration growing ever since he had reluctantly accepted the order to protect her and when he felt like everything was about to reach the boiling point, he realized that the headquarters were empty. Eerily and unsettlingly empty – like the feeling that would form in his gut whenever their charge unleashed her freeze-ray-for-eyes on him, like a nightmare that could swallow him whole.

"…Where is everybody?" he questioned aloud.

"They're all in the mess hall." Sougo's voice resounded from the room besides him.

Hijikata immediately flung the door to the side, revealing Sougo dangling from the ceiling by a rope that tied him in a masochistic position.

"Oi, Sougo…Did you decide to become an M?"

"No no, it's not like that, Hijikata-san," the captain droned as he swung to and fro. "It's just that our charge really knows her knots."

"…Did you force yourself onto her?" Hijikata wasn't sure if he should add an 'also'.

"Eeh, I'm not that kind of person, Hijikata-san,"

"Really? Really? Your characterization says otherwise, you S-b*stard."

"I simply asked her if she was willing to have my **** ****ed into her ***** ***** **** ***."

"Oi, that's worse than forcing yourself onto her! Anymore than that the author is going to be forced by the admins to change the rating."

"Does it really matter though, Hijikata-san? This is a Gintama fanfiction, the readers should know what they're getting into if they read/watched this vulgar silver soul crap for 10/7 years."

"Oi. Don't justify your profanity with half-truths." Hijikata stuffed a hand into his pocket as he released his frustrations in a hardened sigh. "Why is everyone in the mess hall?"

"Yamamoto-san ran towards that direction, screaming about taking hot ramen broth and burning our overexcited crotches."

"OI! That wasn't even censored!"

"Then the rest of the men ran after her."

"Tch. That woman's really asking for it if she's bringing everyone to one place." Hijikata spat as he started running off towards the cafeteria.

"Hijikata-san, are you really going to leave me hanging - like this?" Sougo called after him, still swinging. "…Hijikata-san…

…but this actually isn't that bad."

"Come on, old lady, just let us see her!" some Shinsengumi officers shouted at the large woman guarding the door to the kitchen of the Shinsengumi mess hall.

"As if I'd let you dirty men into the kitchen!" she shouted back. "The kitchen is the haven of all women! There is absolutely no way we're going to let you in!"

"Argh, just let us past!"

"Hell no!" she screeched.

Keiko blinked her deadpan eyes as she heard the brawl starting just outside. She was sitting on a large metal table in the middle of two stovetops, a bowl of ramen nestled on top of her thighs.

"..." She turned to the other women manning the kitchen. "As much as I would like to displace some of the typical gender stereotypes, thanks for letting me stay here and eat ramen." She mumbled as she slurped up a couple noodles.

"No problem," one replied as she washed the dishes. "A pretty girl like you deserves better company. And get off the table, we make food on that."

"Eh, stop it," Keiko coquettishly laughed through a subdued smile while pulling her feet onto the table to sit cross-legged, "You're making me blush." She started chugging the rest of the soup then released a sigh of satisfaction.

"If you keep eating your ramen like that, you won't be the only one blushing. And get off the table," another cook noted.

Keiko glanced to the side, finally noticing the crowd of men crowding around the serving area with wide grins and dark blushes on their faces. Some of them even drooled.

She cringed and turned to one of the cooks.

"Did I, perchance, eat my ramen with my lips perked and my face all flushed and in a way that was erotic at all?"

"Yeah, pretty close. You weren't doing it on purpose then?"

"Dammit." She finally stood on top of the metal table.

"We told you to get off!" a cook screamed at her while throwing ladles in her direction as Keiko spoke patronizingly at the Shinsengumi, "If any of you step inside, I will personally cut off your Neo Armstrong Cyclone Jet Armstrong cannons before you can say ''Calcifer'."

But that just egged the men on even more. "Hai," or "Yes, Sophie," or "Nee-sama, please spit into my food!" they screamed in masochistic joy.

"Get off the d*mn table!"

Suddenly, a large explosion burst through the line of horny men, knocking nearly everyone (even the kitchen staff) down except for Keiko, who magically stayed on top of the table and simply had her black clothes billow about her like a majestic f*cking swan.

"You can't stay in there forever." Hijikata muttered as he stepped into the mess hall that he had just bazooka-ed into shambles.

"Sure I can." Keiko calmly retorted. There's food, sake, and women – everything that a person needs to live a life is all in here. "

"That. Shouldn't. Apply. TO YOU!" He yelled, repositioning the bazooka onto his shoulders for another go, his eyes ablaze.

"Fukuchou! Stop! She's supposed to be protected by us!"

But any warning was unheeded because the Demon Vice Commander had already released his anger in the form of missile flying straight towards the woman in black. She threw up her gloved arms to block it and felt herself being thrown against a wall.

Then, after the explosion, after the smoke settled, she forced her eyes open and found herself in a mess of …

"Mayonnaise?" Keiko lifted her mayo-covered arm in shock.

Indeed, the woman had been thrust into the Vice Commander's personal mayonnaise reserve by the force of the explosion.

"This is such a waste." She muttered, inspecting the lumps of the off-white cream that covered her body.

"Oi." Hijikata snarled as he slowly stomped into the kitchen through the settling smoke. "Have you calmed down yet, you little -?"

Then he paused, shocked by the scene before him – Yamamoto Keiko was licking mayonnaise off her wrists.

She stared up at him with her large, beautiful eyes. A sumptuous tongue parted her rosy lips, indulging in the bits of heavenly cream that peppered her soft skin.

He blinked. Hard.

But the image hadn't disappeared, instead, a deluge of completely uncharacteristic fantasy swept over him and he started to imagine himself pushing her down and helping her clean up the mess with his own mayonnaise-starved lips and-

Wait.

'What!? Beautiful!? Tongue…No, wait, I'm looking into her eyes-!'

And he was frozen.

_ I really don't like how this site does page breaks. Totally ruins the flow. Oh, wait, crap. That's what I'm doing right now, huh? Oh, well.

Keiko sat crouched over her left arm, a myriad of technical tools at her feet and a cloth bag at her side. She found refuge in one of the storage facilities a good distance away from the sleeping quarters. There were blankets, portable heating units, a stash of instant ramen in her bag and an extensive barricade of old building parts and boxes blocking the door.

She felt safe, well, for now.

"Dammit." She threw down a small screwdriver and wiped her hands on her pants. "They completely restructured the technology. It's going to take a while until –,"

Then a loud crash and the sound of her barricade falling apart erupted about her.

"So this is where you ran off to, huh?" Hijikata's typical slurring voice emerged from the midst of the wreckage.

Keiko stood up quickly, gloving her left arm with remarkable speed and arming herself with a screwdriver.

"What were you doing?" Hijikata asked, eyeing the mechanical tools.

"Giving myself a tattoo." She quickly responds, again, in a completely flat tone. She lowered her hand, realizing that he posed no threat…yet. "I see that you managed to thaw off and find a way in."

"No thanks to you, you damned woman."

"The author didn't even try to censor that one. Anyways, may I ask for a reason for you being here, Vice-Commander?"

"I need a heating unit. Winter is coming and the heated floors aren't enough." He stalked his way towards one of the ones Keiko had pulled out from their dusty homes. "Especially with you around, you d*mned ice woman."

"Ah, there we go."

"What have you done to my men? It's like a shoujo manga in here." Hijikata kneeled beside a heater and inspected it.

"You read shoujo manga?" she said incredulously and pulled something out of her bag and places it on her face.

Hijikata coughed as soon as she turned to face him with a pair of Groucho glasses and its obnoxious fake nose, fuzzy eyebrows and moustache. "Maybe that's why I can't take you seriously." Keiko continued.

"I don't want to hear that from you with those on! Take those off!"

She complied and stuffed them into her bag. "Besides, it's more like a seinen reverse harem bordering on a hentai than a shoujo manga, right?"

"How would I know!?" He yelled, hoping to disguise the fact the he was blushing at the mention of the more adult genres. "Either way, it's as if this universe turned into Hakuouki."

"…You do read shoujo manga, huh?"

"Shut up. What have you done to my men? Why are they coming to you like dogs in heat?" He frowned, remembering that even he had nearly succumbed to the "heat" despite the cold.

She framed her face with poised fingers and batted her eyes. "It's cuz I'm so beautiful and sh*t."

"Oi."

Keiko simply scoffed and started rebuilding the barricade.

"Well, oni no fukuchou, I'm hoping to camp out in here for the night so if you could kindly leave and not tell anyone – that'd be great." She said, half-hearted in her attempt to be polite.

"As if I'd let a woman – as d*mned as you are – stay out in here."

"And into a den of Bakufu dogs in heat? Besides, women aren't allowed in the Shinsengumi (which makes this whole arrangement absolutely ridiculous)."

"We're ordered to protect you."

"And you men are doing a fine-," she stopped herself and sighed. "It is really my fault that your men are acting like it's mating season even though it's nearly winter and I cannot quite explain it now so please," she bowed her head, "leave."

Hijikata repressed his groans as he reluctantly decided to comply because he could feel the flood of fancy seeping into his better judgment when she suddenly becomes polite. If he stayed any longer, who knows what he could have tried. And he didn't want to find out. He considers himself as being better than men who had no control over his carnal desires.

But, damn, her in those striped panties- 'STOP! Stop. Stop. Stop. Crap, the author didn't even censor- you could censor a lot quite a bit if Yamamoto-san – NO! No. No. No. Okay, leaving now.'

He managed to maintain his composure as he walked past her.

"You should change into something else other than that. Wearing all black is ominous – it's like you're in mourning." He muttered while he crossed the threshold.

"…It sure seems that way, huh?"

'What the hell does that mean?' he asked himself, making his way to his quarters.

The moon was high in the dark and chilly sky when Hijikata finally crawled into his futon, ready to go to sleep. The day had been long and tiresome.

Who knew that keeping his men from humping a girl would be so hard?

Who knew that keeping his own desires in check would be so hard?

He didn't even like her. In fact, he might even actually hate her. Yet whenever he was in her presence, he could feel something in his soul weakening – he couldn't quite name what was happening but articulating it hardly mattered because, in the end, he didn't like it, at all.

He settled his heavy head into the pillow, eager for some rest and disliking the idea of what tomorrow might bring with that mass of pheromones that he was assigned to protect.

Then, he could hear the door to his room slide open and close and sensed someone enter but no killing intent. He squinted his eyes open and saw Keiko's figure kneeling besides him.

"Dammit. I'm actually hearing things and hallucinating now, huh? Freaking fantasies." He grumbled and rubbed his temples.

"Oh? So you do have fantasies about me?" Keiko whispered and while Hijikata reacted, he found himself face to face with the barrel of a gun.

"God f*cking d*mmit."

A/N: Decided to pick this back up again due to the renewal of the anime. Favorite/review - it's greatly appreciated! Thanks for reading!