Chizuru attempts to kill her baby and commit suicide after Kazama took her by force in Saitou's route
Notes: I wrote this first chapter during a break, so take the errors with a grain of salt.
This is not related to my fanfic "twenty-three nights"
Chapter 1 headcanon is inspired by @ygpgsgl on Ao3, aka @Jane on Discord. She gave me this idea out of kindness on Discord.
context :
Kazama had forced Chizuru to come with him in Saitou's route. In this story, which is taken from Saito's story in the game, Chizuru had only been Saito's wife for a few months at the end of the Kyoto Winds section of the game and had met Saito the same way she had met him in the game. They just fell in love sooner then got married and continued their life in the Shinsengumi headquarters as Saito couldn't provide a better place to live with Chizuru, but Chizuru was completely content. All the rest of the events are the same except that Kazama is not on absolutely good terms with Kodo or Kaoru like he is in Saito's route and his beliefs on the water of life are different so he'll probably end up killing them and the rasestu like he does in other routes even if he used to cooperate with them.
Kazama forced Chizuru to come with him. Chizuru had been Saito's wife for a few months, and she had a miscarriage when she was with Saito. Saito had previously been able to defend her and save her from Kazama, but this time, during the beginning of the war, Kazama fought Saito again, and this time, Saito was unable to save Chizuru
Kazama thought he had gotten rid of Saito by seriously injuring him. He was about to make the final move and kill Saito but Chizuru started panicking and threatened Kazama that she would commit suicide if Kazama killed Saito then she promised that she would come with him only on the condition that Kazama promises Chizuru not to kill Saito. Kazama accepts the condition but harshly forces Chizuru to leave the scene, so he has a few last words with Saito, who was injured, wounded, and not even able to carry his sword again.
Chizuru left, but she still doubts that Kazama kept his promise. She worries that, even if Kazama hadn't killed him, Saito might have died from his severe injuries. She also fears that even if Saito didn't die of his injuries, he was unable to reach his comrades and was killed by other enemy soldiers, weakened by his wounds. She hopes that her husband Saito is alive and coming to save her once he heals but at the same time, she is suppressed by the fact that chances of Saito being alive are low to nothing even though there is no absolute proof that he is dead.
Kazama starts his journey with Chizuru, and he is aiming to take her to his village.
Amagiri is on this journey too and is trying to stay with Chizuru and Kazama so that Chizuru can feel safer due to his presence. Kazama respects Amagiri and does not expel him despite knowing Amagiri's intentions.
Even though Kazama is forceful and perilous, he tries to prove himself as a good husband to Chizuru despite how much Chizuru thinks of him as a devil and dangerous man. He tells her that his brutal acts were due to his cross with humans, and he had and has nothing against her.
He doesn't hurt her. He tries to make her accept him as her new husband. He brings her gifts that are fine kimonos and hairpins, and he gives her promises of a very comfortable and fine life, but of course, Chizuru doesn't trust him.
During Kazama and Chizuru's journey to his village, Chizuru attempted to run away at least twice, and every time, Kazama caught her and dragged her back to the inn they were staying at She had a sword fight with Kazama once, but he overpowered her, and she managed to catch him off guard and stab him in another attempt, but she still failed.
While on the journey, Chizuru and Kazama have enough conversations and arguments on different topics and one of their most prominent talks is when Chizuru asks him what he would do if his child hated him for all he made its mother go through to which Kazama tells her that it doesn't matter what his child thinks of him. In another time, she asks another question that makes him mad at her.
In a talk they have after one of her failed escape attempts and while she is severely exhausted, Kazama tells her that even if he leaves her alone then another Oni will come for her and even if Oni stop pursuing her then some Oni will probably steal her baby if she has a baby with a human. That only makes Chizuru suppressed by more despair. Drown in sorrow and sadness, Chizuru tells Kazama that he must at least act like a loving husband if he doesn't love her in exchange of her becoming pregnant and Kazama who is not sure if he can act the way she wants, doesn't say anything and tries not to discuss this topic with her.
Chizuru's attempts to flee are not only due to her unwillingness to be with Kazama but also due to her concerns about her future child.
She is worried that Kazama will force her to give birth to a child, then take the child from her and deprive her of mothering her own child. Kazama denies having such intentions and promises her not to do such a thing to her or her child, but Chizuru doesn't trust him.
She's also afraid that even if Kazama is honest about everything he told her, maybe people in his village are not like him. That's especially because Kazama had let her know that the main reason why he came for her and took her against her own will was the pressure from certain people in his clan and he warns her that some Oni are ruthless and oppressors.
Kazama has sex with Chizuru at least three times during their journey and Chizuru is not really willing to do that, but she is so drowned in despair and hopelessness that she just lets Kazama, who already considers her as his wife, do what he wants to do. However, at the same time, Chizuru secretly uses poisons and contraception recipes that she bought during her first escape attempt by the money she got from selling a few of the gifts that Kazama gave her. Kazama has little knowledge about contraception methods, and therefore, he doesn't pay much attention to the herbs that he finds in her stuff. He thinks Chizuru is keeping them to either commit suicide or poison him, but he has no idea that they are to prevent pregnancy. He merely pays attention to Chizuru's well-being to make sure that she is not killing herself.
Kazama holds the perforce wedding before they reach his village. He does that, so Chizuru doesn't have to endure the attendance of the Oni who made him do what he did to her.
Even though Kazama is a brutal man and even though he had taken Chizuru against her consent, he has no hate for Chizuru, not even when she makes him mad and he tries to make their relationship work, find some comfort next to her and he is unsatisfied with her current state.
If it was not due to the impressure of some of the Oni in his clan, then he was not even going to force her to be with him. He states all of that clearly to Chizuru several times.
Kazama's lack of attention to the fact that there is no love between him and Chizuru and lack of attention to the fact that she is heavily grieving her ex husband made Chizuru previously suspect that Kazama actually has his own lover in his village but when she arrives at the Kazama village later, she realizes that her suspicions on that matter were wrong.
Chizuru confronts Kazama on that matter several times. She asks him if he is going to have the chance to live the life with love while he deprived her of her husband that she loved and deprived her of her chance to continue living her own love life. She asks him if she will only give birth to her own child while he takes her child from her and gives it to another woman that he loves to raise. Kazama feels utterly fed up and bored whenever Chizuru brings up this topic and just tells her that her thoughts are wrong.
He understands that it's natural that Chizuru has these thoughts, but he finds this topic extremely tiresome.
At last, when Chizuru arrived in his village later, she realized that Kazama was honest about what he told her and he really didn't care about the existence of what she describes as love in this marriage because he's just like that.
The journey is very hard for Chizuru, and Kazama doesn't like himself for how he is making her go through all she is going through. He keeps giving her promises of a well fortunate life. He tells her she will need nothing while she is with him and that she will be safe.
The journey lasts for weeks before they arrive in the Kazama village at last, and Chizuru is in a bad mental state.
She is also worried that maybe she won't be able to use contraception in his village, but she has plans for that in her mind. One of the reasons why she intends to keep using the contraception herbs and poisons even after they are officially married and are in his clan is because she thinks it's probably possible to have a divorce especially if she writes letters to Sen who most likely doesn't approve of this relationship.
Once they enter his village, Chizuru is not really willing to meet new people, but very soon, Chizuru realizes that some of the Oni there are just exactly as Kazama described and warned her about; they trample the weak and they just do it less than humans but that's all and it's not a matter of good Oni and bad humans but bad Oni and worse humans. More seriously, she meets the people who made him pursue her.
All of that happens when a feast is held the night they arrive.
She and Kazama sit next to each other, and he speaks to her in a low voice and warns her about the people who pushed him to bring her and will probably have more plans in their heads.
One of the reasons why Chizuru could cope staying with the Shinsengumi before she had trust in them and before she gained their trust was her experience of working in Kodo's clinic and dealing with sensitive cases in which the patient's companions don't believe that she and Kodo have done everything they could do for the patient. That's when normal people who were her friends a few days ago can become a threat as medics getting killed was not an uncommon crime.
Now, both her experiences of practicing in the clinic and cooperating in the Shinsengumi headquarters were aiding her skills in communicating with Kazama's allies.
Chizuru knows she is not good in manipulating or showing a fake personality but she is tactful and keeps her guard up and avoids showing much of her real emotions or thoughts on anything while she interacts with those people and other people. She must show no shock, no pain, no fear, and no feelings of hurt under any of the circumstances even if they know how she feels as they certainly know how she feels. Most hardly, She mentally readied herself to hear harsh remarks and questions.
From the first day, Chizuru and Kazama move to live in a manor who is his manor. When Chizuru first walks there she thinks to herself that this mansion is big enough for even a horse to gallop a little inside of it and it's nothing similar to the little room she was living in while she was in the Shinsengumi headquarters. Kazama teasingly asks her if she likes the place or not, to which Chizuru ignores him as she is deep in thoughts. At last, she realizes that she is too exhausted to think and decides to just rest her body and mentality. Kazama sleeps next to her since their first night there, and Chizuru doesn't request a separate room.
Before they fall asleep Kazama tells her that she must hold on to her chance of having a baby instead of losing both her chance of being in a relationship she wants with a man she wants and her chance of having a baby. After seconds of silence, she tells him about her miscarriage that she had when she was with Saito, and Kazama asks her if her miscarriage had made her more willing to have a baby or not to which she says she's not sure.
So Chizuru's main fears since Kazama almost killed Saito in front of her are four; she's been worried that Saito died, she fears that Kazama will lock her somewhere and force her to give birth to a child or more than one child then deprive her from her right to mother her baby or babies, she fears that even if Kazama doesn't do that then other people will do it while he is not capable of protecting her and lastly, she fears that even if she manages to escape then worse people will chase her. The fourth one is the main reason why she had not been completely dedicated to running away.
I'll skip many details here
I'll tell you about the details later
A short time passes, and the first thing Chizuru seeks are to resume pursuing medicine and chemistry, which are important fields of science among Oni for Oni can get ill and she got ill once and had a miscarriage, and chemical recipes can severely affect the Oni body with the water of life being proof of that. This way, she has access to contraception poisons and recipes.
The second is to receive letters from Sen and write to her.
Through the information that she gets from Sen, she learns that Kazama was not telling her lies but Sen doesn't tell her if Saito is alive or not and even though Chizuru had accepted Hajime's death she fears hearing certain information on him being dead so she refrains from asking her. Of course, Chizuru keeps discussing her other concerns with Sen.
With time passing, Kazama gets to know more about Chizuru's expectations of him and learns that she expects him to be more like Saito Hajime even though she doesn't say that straightforwardly.
Chizuru is still grieving Saito even though she doesn't talk about that, but Kazama knows that. He knows that sometimes she is crying, too. It happens a few times that when they are both supposedly sleeping at night, Chizuru gets up and leaves the room to sit in the garden or another room and cries. Chizuru knows that Kazama knows about her, but they don't speak about that.
What adds to her pain is learning about the results of the contracts between Kazama, Kaoru, and her father, Kodo. Both Kaoru and Kodo had been lying to Kazama and other Oni about the efficacy of the water of life and now she fears that Kazama will aim to kill her father Kodo too even though he refrains from speaking about that matter with her. It's not as painful as when she learned that Kodo was approving of everything she went through, though.
Kazama has to leave the village again, and Chizuru insists that she goes with him when he travels, and even though that's dangerous , Kazama has no choice but to accept. If things are very dangerous, then this way, she stays in some house or inn while he is away from her for a few days, approximately instead of being away for weeks. Chizuru is also trying to contact the Shinsengumi again by traveling with Kazama even if she is not aiming to run away.
She doesn't love being with him, but Chizuru would be in more distress when he is away. She's not having enough trust in him, much less in his people, so of course, she prefers if she is not alone among his people without him.
As a result, she manages to see the Shinsengumi again. Her feet tremble, and she feels dizzy as she walks to where they are because she thinks she'll probably see Saito at any moment.
Finally, she and the Shinsengumi are brought together again, and she learns that they were aiming to save her but had no clue where she was.
Having no choice but to know everything now, she asks them about the fate of Saito, and she is told that Saito is dead. He was killed by other soldiers.
So, after a few months of grief and hope, she learns that Saito was dead the whole time, and now she can finally collapse. Immediately, she tells them to take her to where his grave is. There, she sits in front of his grave and allows herself to sob.
It's almost nighttime when she gets up to return to where she and Kazama are staying.
She refuses to stay with the Shinsengumi as she believes that Kazama will attack them again if she does so.
Before anything, she had asked the Shinsengumi to give her any of Saito's belongings that are left, and she learns that his swords were stolen, but some of his belongings are still there She wraps them in a bag and takes it with her.
It was raining when she spent hours next to Saitou's grave, and now that she was on her way back to the inn, she's all wet, and parts of her clothes are muddy. She merely wrings her wet hair, takes off her most outer layer of clothes that is muddy, holds her wagasa, and continues walking obliviously to the cold. Her steps are slow, and her head is hanging down as she is dragging herself to her destination. It's not because she doesn't want to reach the inn, but it's because of how numb she feels.
Then she chokes on all her feelings when she enters the inn and shows no sign of her emotions of hurt and pain, but still, she looks very exhausted and tired. Her expression is dark when she sees Kazama again, but she quickly ignores him.
Upon seeing Chizuru in that "dark" state, Kazama regrets pursuing Chizuru from the beginning, and he thinks to himself that if she runs away now, then he'll accept it and let go of her.
Two weeks later, Chizuru realizes that she is pregnant. It's either because her Oni healing abilities had become immune to the birth control herbs and venoms she was using or because she was not using them properly enough. The imagination of the possibility of her hurting her fetus during the last few weeks via poisons makes her stop using any recipes now, but she doesn't tell Kazama about her pregnancy.
We'll skip many details here
A few months passed, and Chizuru had been keeping up with the Shinsengumi and Kodo and Kaoru's plans. She learns that Kodo had been killing and oppressing so many people with the water of life project, and she just accepts that Kodo will probably be killed soon, either by humans or Oni. As for her brother, she wishes if and only if they could have known each other for a longer time before he turned against her. Maybe if her brother had someone like her to take care of him, then he wouldn't have turned into the person he is now.
She remembers her childhood memories, including the faces of her deceased parents and little Kaoru.
She keeps writing to Sen and receiving letters from Sen.
She knows the Shinsengumi are near their end, and she has no choice but to accept that and accept the deaths of more of her friends.
Kazama still regrets forcing Chizuru into this marriage and tries to make up for Chizuru by giving her more welfare.
However, he hopes that now that she is pregnant, then all his problems and her problems in this relationship are solved.
A few months later, she gives birth to her powerful Oni child.
Keep in mind that Kazama took Chizuru at the end of Kyoto Winds time, Chizuru was pregnant for 9 months, her baby is at least 1 month and a half now so we are now in the fourth year of hakuouki plot and the second year of edo blossoms time therefore Kazama is literally keeping Chizuru safe and the human world is falling apart and the Shinsengumi are few months before their end.
So if Chizuru runs away, then she is putting her life and her baby's life in certain danger and at certain risk, and she can't return to the Shinsengumi at all.
A feast is supposed to be held after Chizuru gives birth to her baby so they show the baby to everyone but Chizuru is not fond of such a ceremony at all and is not willing to participate with her baby. Kazama tells her it's disrespectful if they don't show the baby to the people who are willing to see it especially because they have brought gifts for her and the baby and insists that she participates and brings her baby with her. Chizuru is still unwilling to take part in the party or the gathering at all, but after Kazama's continued insistence, Chizuru finally accepts with the condition that the gathering is simpler and she stays only for a short time then leaves with her baby.
Due to her Oni abilities, Chizuru heals fast after giving birth to her baby, and their baby has a good effect on their relationship. Chizuru loves the comfortable experience of holding her little bundle, and she wants to live it to the fullest.
Keeping their newborn baby between themselves every night when they sleep has a good effect on their relationship as well.
Both Chizuru and Kazama get along better.
Chizuru caresses Kazama more and speaks more with him. She lays on top of him and caresses his face, and she is willing to have sex with him more romantically.
Kazama is not a fool. He knows that she is not passionate about him, but he hopes that now that she has a child, she completely accepts him and accepts this life, even if only for the sake of her own child.
So, after some short good time passes, Chizuru shows a darker expression again.
She is deep in thoughts a lot of the time. When she is deep in thoughts and gazes at the same spot, her expression is similar to when she was traveling with Kazama after he killed Saito and is similar to whenever she was plotting before attempting to escape or before having a volcanic fight with Kazama. At some point, when she looks into Kazama's eyes, her expression is similar to when she stabbed him during their journey.
Occasionally, her child is in her embrace, and she is staring at it while thinking. She stares with cheerless eyes when she is alone or an ambiguous gaze if Kazama is around her.
She doesn't pay much attention to Kazama's presence, and Kazama merely stays away from her since he knows she is not willing to have him close to her anymore.
He suspects that she is up to something, and from the way she looks at her baby while she is thinking, he assumes that she is thinking of escaping with her baby and putting both her own life and her baby's life at risk.
At last, he speaks with her one evening and tells her that he knows she doesn't want to be with him, but she has a child now, and she must cope for her child's sake.
He doesn't say anything about her plans of escaping.
She tells him that she has been coping for her child's sake, but she was also coping with the hope that he changes which he didn't change at all and she can't bear being with him anymore.
Kazama feels quite weary of this talk and says the three of them are just trapped in this situation, and she must just accept it and cope.
She is not willing to have more talk and only tells Kazama to leave her alone.
Chizuru's plot is to move with her baby to live with Sen in the Yase village and then probably run away from there.
Before leaving her, he tells her that if she is comparing herself and him with other men and women who have a different life than them then she must know that none of those men who she compares him with would ever do what he has done for her and her child.
Chizuru doesn't care about those words as she had developed a habit of repeatedly ignoring Kazama overall.
She has the propensity of crying again, but this time, it's for her baby. She loathes the fact that her child will mentally suffer heavily due to his parents' relationship. Like how she tried to cope but she couldn't, her child too won't be able to cope.
This time, she doesn't only consider Kazama at fault for what she is going through, but she is also considering him at fault for what her baby goes through. She believes her baby will suffer because of Kazama.
One evening, Kazama wants to speak with Chizuru again. Chizuru is not willing to talk and ignores Kazama, which irritates him. He gets mad and confronts her about her intentions to escape and tells her that even if she runs away, then he'll drag her back with himself. He tells her that he'll tie her to himself if he has to, but she won't escape.
Then he reminds her of what he said to her during their journey; that no matter what, he'll always be standing right in front of her even if she runs away, and she'll escape nowhere.
After this fight, Chizuru declares that since he never cared about the existence of love in this marriage then he should not expect her to grieve him or care if he is killed by anyone when he is outside the Kazama village because like he said it is not important if they love each other or not. That's also a un_straightforward way to tell him that his child won't care much about him either when it's older as Chizuru won't tell the child anything nice about Kazama.
While he is still angry but mute, she asks him if he thought coping is the same as accepting? She can have a passionate night with him and the next morning hear about him being killed and feel nothing for him.
Before he says anything, she honestly says she was trying to accept this life not for herself or her child's sake but for the sake of having a better relationship with him and the possibility of discovering something between the two of them but now, it is different.
Then she simply ignores him and is not willing to have more talk with him.
One thing Chizuru learned from being with Kazama is that a hot metal cools off fast like it was never dangerously hot. She knows Kazama regrets forcing her into this miserable marriage.
Kazama used to often ease his anger by having a good meal, drinking, resting, and sometimes having sex with Chizuru, but this time, he couldn't calm his mind after his quarrel with Chizuru.
Now, Kazama, feeling extremely mad, goes to one of the Kazama members who pushed him into taking Chizuru by force and encouraged some other members to do the same. He cuts him in a manner that is not deadly but painful, and the room's ground around them is full of splashed blood. Then he exits the room with blood on his face, hand, arm, and clothes. He returns to his manor with that state and doesn't clean himself immediately.
Chizuru is somewhere outside with her baby when that happens. When she returns, she sees Kazama in that state and is slightly shocked but simply ignores him.
Of course, other people learn of what Kazama had done, and soon, they guess the reason behind Kazama's act. Members who didn't approve of this forced relationship from the beginning understand him even though they don't speak about that and don't interfere. Although marrying someone that the person didn't love was common, Chizuru's state was different since she was already married to another man that she loved when Kazama started pursuing her.
So now both Chizuru and Kazama are heavily irritated.
Due to the current circumstances, it's difficult to travel to the Yase village, especially with a baby. That's something that Sen informs Chizuru in the letters. However, Chizuru is persistent in leaving Kazama village. It's not that Sen is plotting Chizuru's escape plan with her because traveling to the Yase village is not considered an act of fleeing. Anyhow, Chizuru thinks she must hold on more patience for now.
One of Kazama's main habits is having sex with Chizuru even if they are in bad terms, and he's good at practicing this habit. The night after their last intensive fight, Kazama bathes then goes to Chizuru, who is preparing to sleep and has sex with her again while their baby is sleeping next to them on the futon.
It's something he believes is normal to do as a couple as long as he had never hit her or hurt her, and it's not necessarily a way to make up after their arguments.
At last, and days later, Kazama accepts to take Chizuru to the Yase clan by himself so she is safe on the road, but their plan is to only stay there a short time so she sees Sen.
While they are staying at some inn on the road, Chizuru decides to just escape now. An hour before she makes her move, she looks at Kazama, who is smoking on a porch and says a silent goodbye. Her heart aches as she stares at him.
An hour later, Kazama is sleeping. The weather is rainy and it's nighttime. She gathers lots of stuff and wraps her baby in a thick and warm bundle before she hits the road.
She gets completely wet in the forest, and the weather is cold. To keep her baby safe, she opens her collar and keeps her baby against her own skin. That comforts the child in this distressful situation, and the child is not wet.
Kazama wakes up later and realizes that she is not in the room. Her baby is not there either, and their belongings are not there either. Like a crazy person, he jumps from his place and runs out of the inn to find them.
By the time Kazama was close to them, Chizuru was muddy, struggling to keep her baby dry, warm and clean from mud and her baby started crying, which put both her and her baby in more distress. Her baby is moving its mouth against her skin, looking for her nipple and crying because Chizuru is not stopping to feed it.
Kazama sees her from afar and cries her name, and runs through the mud to them. Utterly tired, helpless and hopeless, Chizuru decides to just commit suicide and die with her baby before Kazama reaches them. She quickly slows poison and immediately falls on the ground. She looks at her baby's face and hesitates to kill it, but she has no choice. If her baby stays alive while she is dead, then it will suffer endlessly, and she can't save herself now. She hugs her baby tightly and then tries to quickly put the poison in its mouth. Fortunately, Kazama catches them and even though he doesn't know she is aiming to kill their baby, the poison falls from her hand and away from the child as Kazama grabs her but he realizes she was trying to commit suicide because she is losing consciousness. Momentarily, he leaves the crying baby under the rain and on the muddy surface and sticks his hand forcefully in her mouth, so she throws up to which she throws up blood. Instantly, he cuts his veins deep and fills her mouth with his own blood, and she finally starts healing and regaining consciousness. Their baby is coughing and crying by that moment.
He jerks her from her clothes and demands she answer him why she has done what she did.
"This is the only way I can set myself and my child free from you." She says, and she refuses to return with him now no matter what.
He gets mad and cries at her, asking her what has he ever done? She tells him to leave them alone.
Kazama insists that they speak when they are back in the inn, but Chizuru refuses to return with him.
He grabs her from her kimono and almost begs her to accept to return with him. As she is still refusing, he is almost about to drag her back forcefully, but the baby starts crying louder.
The baby, who was wet, hungry, and sleepy, starts crying louder. Kazama opens Chizuru's bag of the stuff she gathered to find dry clothes to wrap the child with. He takes off its wet ones and wraps it with a warm cloth. Chizuru asks him if this is the first time that he cares about his own child as she takes the child from him to breastfeed it. She looks like she is pained because she regrets attempting to hurt her child.
Kazama tells her he is apologizing and sorry about everything and promises her that he will make up for everything. Chizuru says she doesn't care, and she only and only wants not to see him again. He swears that he didn't even imagine her doing what she did.
Feeling helpless, he says he will have a big manor as big as the one they live in in the Kazama village built for her in the village so she'll never see him near her. He will never disturb her with his existence anymore and will stay away from her, which doesn't convince Chizuru.
At last, he confesses that he loves her and doesn't want to lose her even if they don't have a child.
Finally, he sighs and suggests he takes her to the Yase village where she stays with her baby, and he returns to the Kazama village as he has no other choice now but to accept Chizuru's continued insistence for separation.
For their baby's sake, Chizuru accepts to get up and return to the inn. There, she watches her child sleeping comfortably and warmly, and she completely regrets what she was attempting to do to her baby.
Chizuru is only thinking about her baby and the terrible act that she was going to do to it, and says it's the most thing she regrets in her life.
After their child is sleeping in fine warmth and they clean themselves, Kazama kisses Chizuru deeply, and they have sex completely naked in the dark room, and it's still nighttime. Later, they lay next to each other like that.
Kazama, assuming that if Chizuru stays with her child in the Yase village for a longer time, then she will never return to him in the Kazama village, asks her to change her mind, and withdraw from her decision to leave him.
Kazama asks her if she believes there is never something good he has done for her. She admits that he didn't hurt her and he was kind and caring to her, but she had been extremely tired.
He replies that they are at war after all, and one way or another, they are all affected by the outcomes. He is not exaggerating on that matter since Chizuru keeps up with the Shinsengumi who are reaching their end, and both her father Kodo and her brother Kaoru are close to the execution.
He pampers her a little more, and they have sex a second time. At last, she holds his face and smiles warmly at him before kissing him deeply on the mouth.
Of course, this is not the end of the headcanon. I just finished writing Chizuru's attempt to commit suicide with her baby and Kazama's reaction to it. There is still more to post here.