The monk was chanting again.
How a man could fill his life with so much chanting and meditation perplexed Saitou. Diligent introspection never struck him as a particularly useful pastime. Once you knew the timbre and direction of your life, why dwell upon it? Why would anyone wish to ponder the unknowable mysteries of life? They were, by definition, unknowable. The excitement and the vicariousness lay in the actual pursuit of the course life would take.
The monk’s large frame took up a good quarter of the hut where they had been dwelling all winter. They’d arrived on the northern coast once again in mid-October, after journeying from Abashiri to Sapporo for supplies.
It was to their surprise that they found every supposedly captured city perfectly intact. The people there, mostly native Ainu, had suffered not a single casualty. No buildings had been destroyed, no women or children harmed, no men forcibly conscripted.
However, some language problems prevented a full revelation of the entire tale. The Ainu appeared, as well, reluctant to speak on the matter. They knew of the ships, which they called “the Great Black Beasts from the West,” but would expound no more upon the subject. Neither would they offer comment on their circumstances.
And then, early in November, winter hit with remarkable force, stranding the men in the third ostensibly “captured” fishing village they had visited. The people there, simple but kind, gave no impression of being under duress, provided the “Rockbreaker” and “Yellow Eyes” a small hut in which to temporaily reside as well as to function as a base from which to conduct further inquiries. In return, the pair assisted the villagers with the mundane tasks that characterized simple Northern Hokkaido life, everything from repairing boats and huts, to hunting seals, to watching children (a task which Saitou always delegated to the monk and which Anji appeared to quite enjoy).
The name of the village translated roughly as Blue Cove. It lay situated upon a small inlet of the Sea of Othotsk, and contained no more than three dozen families. Mealtime fare consisted of dried and salted fish, to which Saitou’s stomach at first violently objected, apparently much to the amusement of the monk. But at least the villagers had tobacco, grown and dried during the summer season, and that allowed him to while away some time.
It was during the winter that the pair were able to learn more about the ships, after slowly engendering the tentative trust of the native peoples. The ships had arrived the previous year but had not attacked the village. Rather, the men from the ships had come inland to speak with the people. They revealed the plans of the Meiji government to take the Ainu’s land. Since the inhabitants had heard tales of encroaching central government presence steadily occurring in other villages, they were stricken with panic. It was clear that their very way of life was under siege.
The leader of the ship’s men said that he did not wish for the Meiji people to take the land from the Ainu. He had plans to seize the entire island of Hokkaido, and when he did, the land that was already occupied by the native peoples would continue to acknowledge their sovereignty. There would be no movement to force the Japanese culture upon the Ainu, nor would there be any hint of taxation levied. For all intents and purposes their culture would be preserved, and their territorial possessions left untouched. It was, in short, a promise of autonomy.
Of course, the Ainu had no choice but to accept his terms. They knew that if the leader wished, the town could have been levelled by cannon barrages when the ships first arrived. But the ship men had offered peace. If the Great Beasts were to make war against the Meiji, then they would be friends of the Ainu. In accordance with the ship’s captain’s wishes, the villagers dispatched a rider south to advise the nearest Tonhen-hei troops that the village had been captured in a bloody battle.
The ships left in early summer, promising to come again to Blue Cove the following spring.
Saitou questioned the Ainu at length about the identity of the ship’s master. He was, they said, a giant of a man, who wore foreign clothing and carried a spear as tall as a house. He personally vowed to return with guns and rice, both products hard to come by in the bleak and isolated northern villages.
Return.
Already winter had fallen away to midspring, and there had been no sign of the vessels, here or at any of the nearby “captured” villages.
It was time to start planning a new tactic, since patience, this time, was proving ineffective. But with that damned monk chanting all the time, how was he to even think? At least Chou could be threatened. You could hold a sword to Anji’s neck for an hour, and the man wouldn’t even blink; he’d just continue to chant.
“Sirs! Sirs!” It was the young woman, Mei, to whom the hut belonged. It had been constructed as her bridal home, but her intended husband had died before they could be wed. She pushed open the reed door hurriedly. “Quickly come! The ships! The ships come.”
And with this news, Anji finally stopped chanting.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
“You lose! Ha. Didn’t I tell you all that a washerwoman’s daughter doesn’t belong here? Didn’t I?”
The girls around Oyasu Masae all nodded in agreement. Despite the fact that most of them were the daughters of important Meiji officials or foreign ambassadors, the real reason they didn’t question Masae was her formidable ability with the bokken that hung from a belt at her side. Fortunately, she had not been combating her opponent with the wooden sword and instead, had merely won a game of shogi. The other player, Harada Shikiko, dipped her head in response and passed her most prized possession, a tiny mirror, across the table to the winner.
“You shouldn’t bet if you aren’t sure of winning, Shikiko-kun,” one of the girls advised.
“What does she know of winning?” Masae opined. “She’s been a loser all her life. She’s only here because one of her relatives died and left her mother some money. No breeding at all. Not like me.” Masae turned and looked at the small house far across the lawn of the Tokyo Women’s University. “I’m going to marry Okita-san.”
A general cry of oohs and ahhs leaped from the starry-eyed faces of the young women clustered around the outdoor table.
“Oh, he’s so …”
“Handsome, just like my papa.”
“I’ve met your papa; he smells of fish, not at all like Okita-san.”
“Why, you …”
“Okita-san is brilliant, don’t you think?”
“Well, yes, of course. Have you read his book of poetry?”
“No, because Sumiko-kun always has it checked out from the library.”
“No fair, Sumiko!”
“Nonetheless,” Masae said, quieting the girls with her strong voice. “I’m going to marry him someday. Because I always get what I want. My father sees to it …”
“Your father?” The hissing voice came from just beyond the circle, causing all the girls to turn their heads in order to get a good look at the speaker. Standing in the tall grass, which came up far past her ankles, Jikiri snorted and crossed her arms. “Your father is little more than a horse-faced tax-assessor. Don’t overestimate your importance, Masae-kun.” Jikiri pushed her way through the throng of girls easily, despite the fact that her size set her shorter than even the youngest. With a snarl she grabbed the mirror in Masae’s hands and handed it back to Shikiko. “Doesn’t your father perform enough thievery for your entire family, Masae? Besides, gambling is not allowed. You could get expelled. You do not want to get expelled, do you, Masae-kun?”
Rolling her eyes, the tall girl sounded a low harrumph and turned to walk away from the table in a huff.
“Thank you, Jikiri-chan,” Shikiko muttered. “I don’t know why I let her bully me into betting my mirror.”
“Because you have the spirit of a field mouse, Shikiko,” Jikiri noted. “And mice are always the first to get picked off by owls. Try not to be so stupid in the future.”
“Ano … I …”
But Jikiri didn’t stay put long enough to hear any more. She’d already pushed her way back out of the circle of girls and was heading toward the house across the field.
“Who is she? She looks too young to be at school here,” one of the new girls asked.
“Eh? That’s Okita Jikiri.”
“Okita-san has a daughter?”
“Nuh-uh. I heard she was his niece.”
“Cousin is what I heard.”
“Well, no matter what she is to him; she’s just about the grumpiest girl I ever met. Scary too …”
Jikiri opened the door of her mentor’s office to find the once much-feared captain of the First Troop of the Shinsengumi standing in front of an easel in a smock, his left hand on his hip. His other hand held a long paintbrush at his lips.
“Shouldn’t chew on that, Okita-san.”
Okita jumped, dropping the paintbrush on his toes, his hands flying comically into the air.
“Aieeee! Jikiri-chan. Such a fright.” His hands fluttered at his chest as he turned around. “Now I know why all the great artists die so young.”
“Don’t play stupid, Okita-san; you knew this Jikiri was here before she even opened the door.”
“Hmmm? That’s what Saitou-san always says. But I figure, it is such a tragedy to go through life never to be surprised by anyone’s entrance. I might as well pretend and make the best of things.” Okita bent to retrieve the paintbrush and placed it on the small tray beside the easel. “You look nice in your uniform, Jikiri-chan.”
Jikiri scrunched up her face and shifted her weight, resisting the urge to pull at the thin blue tie around her neck. She didn’t want to talk about her uniform. The Western-style top made it impossible to draw her kodachis at any reasonable rate of speed, so she had finally had to give up wearing them strapped to her chest. And she didn’t even want to talk about the long navy-blue skirt. “What does Okita-san paint, eh?”
“Take a guess.”
Jikiri stepped forward to observe the canvas. By Kami, Okita-san was a bad painter. “Looks like a bluebird trying to stuff a frog in its mouth.”
The left corner of Okita’s smile twitched.
“Maybe you should stick to poetry, then, Okita-san.”
The right corner of Okita’s smile twitched.
Attempting to change the subject, Jikiri motioned toward a vase of flowers in the corner. “Those are nice. Did you pick them in the garden?”
“Eiji brought them for you earlier in the day.”
Jikiri’s left hand twitched.
“He invited us to dinner.”
Jikiri’s right hand twitched.
“You don’t have anything better to do, do you, Jikiri-chan?” Okita untied his paint-covered smock and folded it before placing it on the tray beside his paintbrush.
“Yes, yes. This Jikiri has an appointment to go on a killing spree of all the flower vendors in Tokyo.”
Okita’s brown eyes grew wide as he placed his hand on his ward’s shoulder. Momentarily, Jikiri felt certain that a look of stern reprimand had crossed his face. But then his sunshine smile chased away any inkling of anger. “Be careful, Jikiri-chan. Making jokes can be habit forming.”
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
“Captain Harada! These two men were waiting in the village. Said they wanted to talk to ya. And they ain’t Ainu, neither.”
The bulky captain had been leaning on the railing of the ship, peering out toward the sea. As he stood and thrust his arms to the side, several of his joints cracked. “S’at so?” He turned to observe the newcomers to the main deck of the Shikiko. Saitou’s eyes narrowed as he took in the visage of the supposedly dead Shinsengumi captain. He was tall, with a mane of unkempt black hair that fell at his shoulders when not held aloft by the sea’s wild winds. Harada had a much more rugged look about him now, with a shade of a beard and deep lines cutting across his weathered face. “What’s this? A monk? Come to save our souls, friend?”
The crew laughed raucously at their captain’s words. Anji, however, moved only so much as to glance at the man standing to his left.
“Harada.”
The single word caused the entire ship to plunge into silence. Harada stared at the man before him for several seconds, as if trying to place the voice and face. Finally, he threw his hands up in the air and exclaimed, “Saitou-san! I thought you were dead! You disappeared after Toba Fushimi; no one knew if you had escaped or if the Ishin Shishi had finally …”
Saitou lit a cigarette. When Harada got going, there were only two options: punch him in the mouth or get him drunk. (And sometimes, even the latter didn’t work.) Since he could currently do neither, he decided upon patience.
“Men! This is Saitou Hajime! Perhaps the strongest swordfighter of the Shinsengumi. Hopeless with a spear, though.” Harada chuckled, his laugh echoed by the ship’s crew. His eyes sparkled with the same flame of amiable roguishness they had carried during the revolution. “Well, Saitou-san, you are certainly an honored guest here. And your friend too. Though I never figured you to be the sort of man to take up religious practice, eh?”
“He has his useful moments.”
Anji did nothing in response. It was harder to get a rise out of the monk than it was to get one out of Tokio.
“Well, come, come, Saitou-san. Let us adjourn to my cabin. We’ve much to speak upon. And I could use a nip or barrel to drink.” Harada turned, lifting his long spear from where it lay against the railing. “Subake!”
A man wearing a red handkerchief around the lower half of his face stepped forward. “Sir?”
“Continue the operation as planned. Send my regrets to the village elders. I will visit them tomorrow.”
“Yes, sir!” Harada’s first mate (Saitou assumed from the way he began to subsequently order the crew around) clamped a hand on Anji’s shoulder and said, “Sake Subake at your service, friend. How’s about some food? What’s a monk eat anyway?”
Harada’s cabin wasn’t much in the way of home-style comfort. A few maps strewn across a table, rickety wooden chairs, a cot in the corner with a faded blanket crumpled to one side, a small trunk, and an oil lamp were the only furniture to be seen. A few assorted trinkets hung from the ceiling and the walls, several strings of shells, a monkey’s skull painted red for luck, and a faded photograph of a young woman dressed in a dark-colored kimono.
“Well, make yourself at home,” Harada announced, sitting down cross-legged on the trunk. “You know, I almost didn’t recognize you in a plain gi and hakama. Course, the last time I saw you, your uniform was damn near soaked through with blood. I couldn’t tell if you were bleeding to death or just coated from head to toe in gore. How did you survive Toba Fushimi, anyway? Last I noticed, you were fighting that damnable Hitokiri Battousai.”
“Cannon blast,” Saitou replied. “A nearby impact sent both of us flying. By the time I came around, the enemy had secured victory. I crawled into a nearby grove, found a creek, and ended up floating downstream, avoiding capture.”
“So ka? You always were a tough one, eh, Saitou-kun? Guess the cannon blast finally got the Battousai, huh? Ain’t no one heard of him since Toba Fushimi.”
Saitou decided he had more important topics to pursue than delving into the history of Himura Battousai following the Bakumatsu. Besides, his intimate knowledge of the former assassin’s life would bring up too many questions, the answers to which Harada need not yet know. “Aa. Dead.”
“So, how’d you end up here?”
“I’ve been teaching kendo in Hakodate.” A convenient lie, but one which Saitou doubted Harada would check. “Some of my students are Tonhen-hei. They’d heard rumors, so I came to find out the truth. What do you have here, Harada? Piracy on the high seas?”
Harada stood and opened the trunk upon which he had been sitting. He pulled out a jug of sake and two bowls from within. “Piracy? No, Saitou-kun, there’s nothing in Northern Hokkaido for a man to take. These villages have little more than dried salmon and reed huts. Any treasures they might have contained have long since been plundered by the Matsumae Clan.” The captain poured sake into one of the bowls and slid it across the table to Saitou. “Drink?”
“No.”
“No? What’s this? One of the best drinkers of the Shinsengumi refusing the offer of sake? After all this time, how can you refuse a drink from your compatriot, eh?” Harada flipped his mane of tangled black hair over his shoulder as he slugged back a cup of sake. “You used to be able to match me, drink for drink.”
Saitou fingered the rim of the low sake cup pensively. It was true; he and Harada had gone a few rounds back in the day. A few rounds? No. A slew of rounds. They drank to fallen comrades. They drank to fallen enemies. They drank to new recruits. They even drank to Okita’s goddamn fish.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Kyoto, During the Bakumatsu
“Pour.”
Saitou slammed his cup down on the low table and leveled his gaze at Harada, who was half-lying on the tatami, his fingers threaded through his unbound hair. The young woman kneeling nearby, one of several of the ladies who kept the Shinsengumi headquarters from falling into aesthetic disarray, leaned forward and obliged the request.
“You say everything the same way when you are drunk, Saitou-kun,” Harada drawled, raising an eyebrow at the gratuitous peek he was getting of the young woman’s cleavage as she refilled his cup. It was, of course, the very reason he’d positioned himself so low on the tatami. “Everything. ‘Pour.’ ‘Shut up.’ ‘Die.’ All the same.”
“Shut up.”
Harada laughed, knocking back his sake to keep up with the other captain. “You ever met a man in such a perpetual bad mood, ’Kita-kun? Even when he’s liquored up, he scowls.”
Okita looked up from his spot in the corner, where he’d been nursing the same cup of sake for the past hour. “Could be worse, Harada-san. He could get drunk and pick fights with barn doors in front of a throng of Kyoto’s residents. Tell me, did you win that one? I forget.”
Harada’s jocularity took a sudden plunge as his hand hit the tatami and his torso popped up. “Why, you little runt … I oughta fuckin’ teach you to keep that smart mouth of yours closed …”
“How do you plan on doing such a thing, Harada-kun? You can’t even stand up.”
Harada literally rose to the challenge, pushing himself up, setting his feet apart to keep from swaying. “C’mon, ’Kita-kun. I’ll take ya on. And for your information, I beat that damn door to a pulp, just like I’ll twist your scrawny little …”
Okita chuckled in response, the twinkle in his eyes growing brighter as he slid his back against the wall, pulling his body into a standing position. The scene resembled David cornered in the towering shadow of Goliath.
Harada closed the distance in only three steps, his right fist reared back in preparation to slam Okita’s head against the wall. But as his arm flew forward, at the last second, he pulled his punch and flicked the end of Okita’s nose with his index finger. “Bad piggy.”
The pair had some sort of ongoing inside joke having to do with Harada’s farm-bred background. In response to the other captain’s exaggerated taunt, Okita lifted his cup of sake and overturned it on top of Harada’s head.
Saitou smirked. And Okita noticed.
“Yatta, Harada-kun, we win the day! He doesn’t always scowl.”
“Hey, this isn’t even sake,” Harada muttered, licking a few drops from his nose. “It’s just weak tea …”
“Idiots,” Saitou hissed, slamming his cup onto the table. Before he could growl for it to be refilled, the attentive young woman produced the sake jug and began anew. While the Okita and Harada Show was a marked distraction from his mind’s constant toil, if they became any louder, Hijikata would show up and then there really would be trouble. “I’m off to patrol.”
“Alone, Saitou-san?” Okita asked.
“Aa.”
“You should take some of your men …”
Drinking his last swig of sake, Saitou stood. “I’ll never find him with those noisy morons clomping around behind me.” After sliding the shoji shut, he stepped to the side, cloaking his ki as he listened to the rest of the conversation.
“Do you think I pissed him off, ’Kita-kun?”
“No. Some men drink to forget themselves, but with Saitou-san, each drink causes him to more vividly remember what drives his life. I assure you, the katana at his side won’t be going through barn doors this evening.”
“Well, why don’t you knock a few back and go join him, ’Kita-kun?”
Okita’s laughter spilled out of the room into the hallway. “Harada-san, I’m an eighteen-year-old whose stature and looks get him laughed out of brothels and who strikes fear into the rest of the women he meets. What, exactly, do you think happens to me when I get drunk?”
“Mmmmm? ’Kita-kun, I was wrong; you’re a lusty little piggy. Eh, don’t worry, my friend. If a guy like me can find a girl, you can too.”
“Yeah, maybe, but I’d like to meet one in a nicer place than a brothel. Oh, wait. Isn’t that where you met your woman, Harada?”
Saitou heard Harada’s heavy steps cross the room once again, thumping beneath his considerable bulk.
Thwip.
“Bad piggy.”
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
The sake in the cup rippled as Saitou continued to tap his finger on the side. Sake. Well, it did always seem to make his mission clearer, his purpose more certain. Tokio would forgive him this, if in the end, it allowed him to complete his task and come home.
He lifted the cup, tilting it slightly toward his host before bringing it to his lips. Ah. That was it. Warmth slithered down his throat and came to nestle in his stomach, fighting off the lingering Hokkaido chill. Seconds later, the cup hit the table beneath Saitou’s spread fingers.
“Pour.”
“Ah! Much better!” Harada declared. “To what do we drink, Saitou-kun?”
“To past and present battles.”
“Yes, and to past and present friends, ne?” Harada leaned forward to refill the cups. “So, what do you think of the Shikiko, eh? A dozen cannons, all in working order. I plan to park her right in Hakodate Harbor, when all is said and done.”
“The ship is commendable. But I have to wonder, how did you come by such a vessel?”
“Quite simple enough. Up until about a year and a half ago, my men and I were bandits in Manchuria. Because of a foolish mistake, we were captured by the Chinese government. They wanted to put us to death, of course, but somehow a Japanese businessman friendly with the officials learned who I was. He had us released, and in thanks, we were obliged to listen to his plan.”
“Which was?”
“Taking control of Hokkaido before the Meiji government can do so. Yukishiro-san didn’t care much for the way things have changed, I fear. He had it in mind to create, in Hokkaido, a land returned to the way of the samurai, a land under the code of Bushido. You know, a place where men like us can be proud to live. So, he gave us the ships and a general outline of the plan, and we’ve been seeing it through to fruition. Don’t you think that would be good, Saitou-kun? A place where samurai can live as samurai, where the Shinsengumi are reinstated to keep the peace? And the damn corruption of the Meiji government can stay where it is, in the south. We’ll watch as they destroy themselves, imploding under the pressure of their own vices, until the day they come begging for our help.”
With the sake warming his gut, Saitou had to admit, the plan did have its appeal. Harada didn’t have power or revenge in mind, and he certainly wasn’t betraying any ideal upon which Saitou could immediately lay a finger. The man just wanted to create a land where he could live, peacefully and honorably.
His plan was upright, honorable, courageous, and loyal to the ideals to which he had vowed his soul so many years ago.
And yet, there was something that just felt unsettling about the whole thing.
Tokio. Her face seemed to be reflected in the ripples of his sake. The moonlight of that night, the night they had parted, played in her hair, creating flashes of ever-moving light as it floated in the breeze. Her graceful fingers curled around the edge of the shoji … Breathless, she waited for the words, for his promise. He shouldn’t have turned around. He shouldn’t have … How he hated when she cried, but keen hearing honed through years of training had brought her sobs to his ears, even after she closed the shoji. And he could still hear it, long after he’d turned off Taito Street and even as he climbed the steps of police headquarters. Even now.
He never should have turned around.
He hated crying.
“So, Saitou-kun, what do you think? Will you join up? Your monk friend too, if he wants. I’m sure the men could use some moral guidance, since all they have right now is a degenerate captain, drunk on sake and nostalgia.”
What other choice was there?
“Aa. I’ll join.” The sake cup hit the table. “Now, pour.”
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
July 7, 1880, Tokyo
Naoya stomped one foot on the engawa in an attempt to get her husband’s attention. “You keep beating on that bamboo pole like that, and you’re either going to break it or that damn rusty sword. Then where’ll you be, eh?”
“Why ya always gotta nag me, huh? Shut yer trap. The whole point ta usin’ the rusty sword is that I don’t care if it breaks,” Chou replied, looking over his shoulder.
“Yeah, but the tip could fly off and accidentally kill someone.”
“I wish it would kill you,” Chou said, turning back to his task. “’Cause then at least you’d shut the fuck up for once.”
“Sawagejou Chou! How dare you say something like that to your wife?” Naoya jumped off the engawa, flames in her eyes, flying through the backyard like a rampaging bull.
Marriage had not particularly softened Chou or Naoya. On the contrary, they seemed to fight now more than ever.
But as Naoya approached, Chou thrust the old sword into the thick bamboo stalk and spun around, catching her hand before she could slap him. His left eye squinting at Naoya’s surprised struggle, Chou pulled the rat-girl against his chest and said, “Gimmie a kiss, you saucy wench.”
“Rogue.”
“Nag.”
“Idiot.”
“Mule.”
“A nag is the same thing as a mule, moron.”
“A moron is the same thing as an idiot, woman.” Chou released his wife’s hand but not before placing it against his lips to kiss it lightly. “A’right, I’m sorry. Jus’ let me do what I’m doin’. There’s too many kids in that damn house, Mama.”
There were, in fact, a lot of children in the Fujita home. In addition to Tsutomu and Tsuyoshi, the Narajirous had arrived earlier in the week, bringing their two daughters, three-year-old Fujiko and two-year-old Ichimi. Then, of course, there was also Naoya and Chou’s daughter, Eiko, born earlier in the year. The house was practically bursting with babies and toddlers.
“Okay, but just … don’t make wishes like that, especially not on Tanabata.”
“Aha,” Chou drawled. “She’s superspicous and saucy.”
“Superstitious.”
“Exactly what I said.”
Inside the Fujita home, Captain Okita Souji was under intense investigation by Narajirou Fujiko.
“You a boy or girl?”
“Boy.”
Fujiko spun around, her arms outstretched. “I’m a girl.”
“Yes, yes, you are,” Okita reached out to steady Fujiko as she came to a stop, helping to keep her from toppling over from dizziness.
“Do you have any brothers or sisters? I have a sister. Chi-chan is my sister.”
“Oi, fa la la, sorry ’bout that, Okita-san,” Kume chirped, scooping the toddler up under her arm. “She’s a curious one. Last week, she asked our old blind neighbor if his eyes fell out because he didn’t eat enough carrots. And the week before that, she asked Kozue who thought up feet!”
“Who thinked up feet, Mama? Who did?” Fujiko reiterated.
“Tra la la!” Kume said, looking exasperated for the first time Okita had ever seen. “I don’t know, Fujiko-chan. But it’s a good thing we have them, ne? Else we’d have to walk on our hands.”
“Ooooo.” Fujiko cooed, her arms and legs flailing about as she attempted to squirm away from her mother. “Can you walk on your hands, Mama? Show Fujiko!”
“No, ’fraid I can’t.”
The child’s face contorted and began to become tinged with a bit of redness. She was a little girl in desperate need of a nap. As Fujiko rubbed at her eyes, trying not to cry, like a big girl, a voice from the corner of the room spoke up.
“This one can walk on her hands.” Jikiri was already pulling an unfinished yukata belt from Tokio’s sewing basket. She tied off the long navy skirt of her school uniform with an ounce of flare as the little girl and her mother watched in awe. This was the first time the sour young woman had spoken since they had arrived the previous week. Jikiri then reached out one hand to the floor and, pushing off with her legs, ended up doing a handstand. “See?” Jikiri walked forward and backward on her hands, much to the delight of both the child and the mother.
And Okita.
“Teach me! Teach me, Jikiri-neesan!”
“All right, come to Jikiri, midgetling. She will show you special ninja upside-down techniques. Good for if your feet fall off.”
Fujiko finally succeeded in escaping her mother’s grasp and toddled over to Jikiri. Kume, flabbergasted, plopped down next to Okita and fanned her face. She leaned in close to the smiling man and asked, “Oi, Okita-san, do you think it will be all right?”
“Yes, Narajirou-san,” Okita replied, beaming brightly as his ward instructed the child in the ancient art of the handstand, “It will be just fine.”
Beyond them, in the kitchen, Tokio, Eiji, and Kozue busied themselves in preparing the afternoon’s picnic. Well, Tokio and Eiji prepared the picnic; Kozue endeavored to stay away from anything breakable. So far, he had been quite successful.
“It was so good of you to come and visit, Kozue. But won’t your students miss you?”
“Ah, ano, I’ll just have to work them extra hard when I return, hmm?” Kozue dodged as Eiji spun around, holding a box of food. “Anyway, uh, Bunny-chan has always wanted to see Tanabata in Tokyo.”
Tokio’s smile, lined with sadness, remained hidden from the other occupants of the room. Kozue had never been good at lying. She suspected that either Okita or Naoya had written the Narajirous the previous month, telling them that Saitou had been gone for over a year. It was as if Kozue had long ago made a silent vow to show up and provide solace whenever Tokio’s husband disappeared.
And while she did find mild comfort in her friends’ concern over the situation, their presence only made Hajime’s absence more apparent.
Everyone was here—her entire extended family, their children, their friends. Everyone except him.
Where was he now? Even though she tried desperately not to think of it, everything reminded her of him. When men would pass in the marketplace, smoking, she was reminded. When Tsutomu looked at her with brown eyes already becoming flecked with gold, it reminded her. Whenever she saw the moon, she was reminded.
It reminded her of that look in his eyes when he turned around.
And that one look had made this time harder than all the others. Tokio had understood before the significance of his never looking back when leaving. But she’d never guessed how cruel, how completely devastating, a simple meeting of gazes could be.
Last week, after the children had gone to sleep, she’d sat in their room, brushing out her hair. A summer storm had come that evening, bringing with it the electricity of a nervous sky.
He dreamed of lightning, he had said, of lightning and of storms.
Of all the things they’d never said to one another, “Good-bye” was the most important.
Her hair stuck in her brush. Or perhaps her arm just faltered. This too reminded her of the way he would grab her hair, pulling it firmly to heighten her anticipation of his kiss. Even in this, he made her wait—wait for the touch of his lips, wait for him to acquiesce to their mutual desires.
Wait to hear him growl her name, knowing that he had already calculated her every sigh.
Her brush dropped beside her hip. She’d pulled herself across the room, racing on hands and knees to the nearest cabinet. With fumbling fingers, she threw it open, greedily exhuming the contents into her lap. Just a few old undershirts and a uniform that had been battered beyond repair during his trip to Kyoto. Tokio buried her face in the cloth, biting the fabric to stifle a sob. The faint smell of cigarettes coated her cheeks, the residue burning as it mingled with the tears in her eyes.
He was here. He was here. She could imagine, just for a moment, that he was right here.
“Auntie Tokio?” Eiji tugged on her sleeve gently. She’d been getting like this more and more often. He’d find her just suddenly staring into space. The food she’d prepare would have more and more burned spots. She’d never talk about it, though. Neither of the Fujitas were the sort to just randomly divulge their emotions. Nonetheless, he’d do whatever it took to get her through this, to get them all through this. They were, after all, his responsibility. Fujita-san had said so in his letter.
“Oh. Yes. My apologies. I was just trying to figure out what would go best with these yams.”
“The best thing for yams is a ham and some jam,” Okita called from the next room.
Jikiri groaned in response.
Quite frightening how well the man’s hearing worked. Tokio put her fingers to her lips and gave Eiji a sad but knowing look. Yes. They were, indeed, an odd group.
“Well, nonetheless, I think everything is in order. Shall we gather everyone and head out? Chou should be finished setting up the sasaki in the backyard by now.”
“All right, Auntie Tokio,” Eiji replied. “A picnic it is.”
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
If you ask a roomful of people, “What is the meaning of Tanabata?” every person is likely to give you a different answer. The tradition is said to have begun in China and migrated to Japan around the late eighth century. During the festival, streamers made from colored paper, along with other decorations, are placed upon sasaki trees or on bamboo poles, symbolizing various wishes.
But the true story of Tanabata, the Festival of Stars, begins in the sky. Orihime, the weaver of the clothes of the Emperor of Heaven, had become so overcome by her task of sewing for the emperor and his children, that she had no time for herself. The emperor saw her despair and being kind, married her off to the Herdsman who lived on the other side of the Celestial River.
Orihime became so taken by her new husband that she neglected her weaving. Well, a proper emperor cannot go about naked, can he? So he was forced to forbid Orihime from seeing her husband ever again.
Orihime cried so vehemently and mourned the loss of her love so sincerely that the emperor had a change of heart and promised the pair that they could meet once a year, on the seventh day of the seventh month. During this time, the constellation of the Herdsman and Orihime’s star, Vega, mingle in the night sky.
And it is celebrated in the land below as Tanabata.
It was through such a scene of celebration that the group walked, pointing out decorations, reveling in the shared happiness of passersby, chatting among themselves as to the nature of wishes they might make. Naoya said she’d wish that her daughter would grow up to be graceful, dignified, and very tall (the last of these causing Jikiri to scowl frightfully). Eiji said he’d wish that his parents and brother were now in a peaceful and beautiful place and that Jikiri would wear her school uniform more often. In response, Jikiri said she wished men had never been invented. Okita wished his school would become a success but secretly whispered to Tokio that he really wished Jikiri would find happiness in her life. Chou, predictably, wished for more swords. And Kume wished to see a panda bear.
“Well, I’ve never seen one, tra la la,” she replied as everyone stared at her. “And I already have everything else I’ve ever wanted. Isn’t that right, Fujiko-chan?”
Fujiko, suddenly shy, buried her face in her mother’s kimono.
“Narajirou-san should wish for a smarter wife,” Chou mumbled under his breath.
Naoya opened her mouth to chastise him, but upon realizing that he’d just implied that he didn’t have an imbecile for a spouse, decided against it. Instead, she adjusted Eiko in her arms and attempt to avoid running into Jikiri, who had been walking in front of her. “Oi, what’s your wish, Tokio-san?”
As soon as she said it, Naoya winced. The entire group fell silent, even Tsutomu, who had been riding on Eiji’s shoulders. Aw, damn my tongue, Naoya thought. Of course, she wishes for Fujita-san to come home. What a stupid thing to ask. Stupid, stupid, stupid, Naoya.
“I wish …” Tokio’s face literally hurt as she turned to smile at her friends. “I wish that all of your wishes will come true.”
Okita placed his hand gently on Tokio’s arm, attempting to reassure her through his touch.
“All of your wishes,” Tokio said, “except for yours, Jikiri-chan. I apologize.”
They came to a small city park, already filled with celebrants. Children ran with colorful kites, mixing the sky into a whirling kaleidoscope of shades. Paper ribbons fluttered from every stalk of bamboo, and origami cranes sat passively in bushes, waiting for the proper moment to come to life and take flight.
It was a beautiful day, exactly the kind of day Hajime would hate, Tokio knew.
They found a nice spot to lay out a blanket and have their picnic, a gradually sloping hill overlooking a brook. Conversation was lively, and smiles flowed as freely as Tokio’s special cherry tea. They spoke of the past, of the present, and of their hopes for the future. They touched on things both trivial and important, uttered words of kindness, and snickered at mild insults behind their hands. They told old jokes and made up new ones.
It broke Tokio’s heart.
“How long will you follow me?” he had asked her that very question in a park just like this one.
“Until you stop,” she had replied.
The smallest children were sleeping by the time the stars began to peek through the lightly graying sky. Naoya and Chou wandered off to sit under a large tree, and Jikiri, Eiji, and the Narajirous had taken Tsutomu and Fujiko to the stream to dip their toes in the running water.
Tokio loosened her scarf a bit as she busied herself with putting what remained of dinner into the baskets. The evening air felt nice against her neck. Okita sat near the sleeping children, Tsuyoshi, Eiko, and Ichimi, lightly rubbing their stomachs as he watched their friends in the distance.
“Tokio?”
“Mmm? Yes, Souji?”
“Do you remember when I showed you how I could imagine springtime in the middle of winter?”
Did she? Tokio wracked her mind. Yes. They had gone on a picnic in the middle of winter, and Souji, then known to her as Seichii, had …
He had spoken of this.
He had seen a pair of lovers sitting under a tree, exchanging vows. Tokio turned to see Naoya and Chou, curled together beneath a sakura tree. As Naoya bent to whisper in Chou’s ear the man blushed. Katana-gari Chou was actually blushing.
And Souji had spoken of children playing in the water. Tokio’s gaze turned toward her friends by the creek. Eiji tied up the legs of his hakama and waded into the sun-warmed brook in an attempt to catch one of the fish for an excited Fujiko. But his effort was botched, and he ended up splashing the onlookers at the shore. Finding this amusing, he dipped his hand into the water and unleashed a miniature tidal wave at Jikiri.
She screamed, declaring, “Revenge shall belong to this Jikiri, man-child!”
“I see a woman,” Souji said, recalling his words as if he had spoken them only yesterday, “who has been scarred by the world, who has lived through tragedy and learned to smile meekly through pain. A woman with brilliant honey-colored eyes that portray no malice toward any creature. She dances in that field there, dances among the flowers, having thrown off the shackles on her heart. She dances until her scarf flies away in the breeze, to be returned by her children. They join hands and dance in a circle as she raises her lustrous voice toward the heavens and teaches them her favorite song.”
“I don’t feel much like dancing, Souji,” Tokio said, moving to sit by her friend. “And the children here are yet too young to understand my songs.”
Okita’s brown eyes closed as he laid his hand upon his friend’s knee. “I’m sorry, Tokio. If things had been different … if only I had foreseen …” Okita sighed, pensively patting Tokio’s leg. “If only I had been two men, as my birth fated, instead of one, I could be protecting you both right now. I did something wrong. Somewhere along the line, I must have made a wrong choice. I just don’t know where. I felt so certain—”
“Please, Souji, stop. There is nothing you could have done. Nothing you can do.”
Okita forced himself to smile. He didn’t want to tell her, not now, not on Tanabata. She should have hope. She should always have her hope, at least. But for a long time now, it had been as if he were unable to sense Saitou. It was like a star had been extinguished, like his light had gone from the world. Was he dead? Was he truly gone?
Tokio wiped a stray tear from the corner of her eye, quickly turning her face away from her friend in an attempt to hide the action. She pressed her lips together grimly, watching Jikiri chase Eiji around the park.
Souji reached up and brushed his thumb across his friend’s cheek. She was trying so hard not to cry, he knew. She had been for a long time. Tokio always put on a brave face, always … except in front of Hajime and in front of him.
“Do you know, Tokio, why he hates to see you cry?”
“Because it means I am weak and selfish.”
A bark of a laugh escaped Souji’s lips, a throaty sound that pushed through the sob forming beyond his tongue. Was that what she really thought? “No, my friend. He hates it because it makes him confront the fact that he would do anything for your happiness. Every tear you cry is like acid to his soul, bringing him to the realization that everything he has done for Japan is nothing compared to what he would do for you.”
“Souji …” Tokio caught her friend’s hand at her face and squeezed it tight within her own.
“You shouldn’t cry. Think of Orihime-sama.” Souji looked at the sky above. His wispy bangs cascaded around his youthfully round cheeks as his eyes reflected shards of the moonlight. “She only gets one day of the year to be with her beloved. Such an exceptionally cruel fate, and yet she weathers it without complaint. Her entire life is spent waiting for that day, over and over. We could think of her as a tragic figure, as a sad and perpetually lonely creature. But I prefer to think of her as happy. Yes, we must think of her as happy. Happy to know that she’ll see her husband again.”
Tokio nodded and looked up at the sky. “Do you really think he’ll come back, Souji?”
“Of course. I’d never forgive him if he didn’t.”
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
The next day, Okita Souji disappeared from Tokyo. Jikiri found all of his things in place, except for his famous sword and one of his thick coats.
There were two letters and a covered basket left on his desk. The first letter asked his top assistant to take care of the university and Jikiri in his absence.
The second read:
Jikiri-chan,
Please look after my fish. And please do enjoy the snake jam in the basket. It is very tasty.
Okita S.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
The Sea of Othotsk, Late October
How he detested the sea.
And yet, for months now, the sea had been home. The Shikiko and her sister ships traveled the span of the Hokkaido shoreline. They “captured” more Ainu villages, building the upon the growing legend of the Black Ships.
This was Harada’s plan. Legends could never be defeated. The ships could come and go as they pleased, strike where they pleased. And by the time the central government mobilized there would be nothing except whispers and awe. The news of the ships’ almost ethereal appearances and disappearances would slowly permeate first the island’s conversational streams, then come to rest in the inhabitants hearts and minds. The men of the Tonhen-hei would slowly start to realize that they could join with Harada, that they had a chance to no longer be in servitude to the Meiji government. They could be samurai once again and not warrior-farmers in the employ of a system that despised them.
And slowly but surely, it was working. Every time they stopped at another one of their “captured” Ainu towns, more and more Tonhen-hei would be there, waiting to join up.
Slowly but surely, Harada Sanosuke was building an army.
And yet, something still irked Saitou about the situation. No matter how much sake he drank, no matter how long he stared at the mystery of the never-ending ocean, he couldn’t lay his finger on what troubled his mind.
In addition, this battle was taking too long. The sea and the sake put Saitou into an irascible stupor. The contingent of men Harada had assigned to Saitou lived in constant fear of his rage. No. This was not a happy journey. This was a grim war. The last war.
Damn the sea …
The sake …
And the monk.
Anji’s immense shadow fell on the deck, draping across Saitou’s hip. Not fully understanding the monk’s utility, Harada had put him to work in the kitchen. Anji didn’t seem to mind. Peeling potatoes proved much easier work than building a seemingly never-ending road to Sapporo.
“You’re drinking again,” Anji observed, putting a bucket of thick radishes down and moving to stand at the railing beside Saitou.
“Do you have a problem with it, monk?”
“Only if you do.”
Riddles, as always, from the monk. Anji looked out over the sea, absently sliding his prayer beads over his powerful knuckles. They stood in silence for some time, before Anji’s quiet voice began anew. “I was the fourth son. Always too timid, too frightened of the world. My brothers were so glad when I entered the monastery. They hoped that I’d be spared the suffering of the world at large, that I would be protected from the cruelty of the streets by those temple gates. But suffering will persist. Every living creature suffers. Without it, how could we cherish anything?”
Saitou had stopped really listening. Buddhist dogma, no matter how wise, often proved impractical. “If you have a point, come to it or go cook your radishes.”
Anji closed his eyes as he pressed one of the beads between his thumb and forefinger. “My point is this, Fujita-dono. Things don’t always turn out how we plan them. If you had told me when I joined the monastery of all the things that would come to pass in my life—the orphanage, the Juppon Gatana, Abashiri Prison—I would have laughed and thought you mad. But, despite all this, despite my regrets and my pain, I realize that regret is futile. You can’t change the past.”
“That’s it?” Saitou asked, scowling miserably. He’d gone all the way to Abashiri Prison to get Anji released, and that was the extent of the moral guidance the man could give?
Saitou was sorely tempted to throw Anji overboard.
“That is it, Fujita-dono. Like I said, I’m a monk, but I’m also just a man. And no man can free another man from his prison. It is always your choice, Fujita-dono, to free yourself.”
Yes. Be free of the monk. Throw him into the ocean. Definitely.
“Captain Saitou!”
Looking up from his jug of alcohol, Saitou watched as Sake Subake, Harada’s first mate, weaved his way across the length of the deck toward the pair. Something about the man’s eyes caused the hair on the back of Saitou’s neck to stand on end. His ki set Hajime’s senses on alert. And why did he always wear that handkerchief around his face? Saitou made a mental note to ask Harada more about Subake.
As Subake came to a stop in front of Saitou, he nodded politely to the monk before beginning. “Captain Harada wants to see you in his quarters.”
“Hn.”
Saitou walked off without further conversation and definitely without thanking the monk. Arriving at Harada’s quarters, he entered without knocking to find Harada poring over maps.
“Eh! Saitou-kun. Subake found you. Good. I was hoping we could look over these maps, have a drink, and make plans for tomorrow.”
Saitou sat in the offered chair and passed his jug of sake to Harada. They’d long since given up on the formality of cups. Harada sat up straight, held the jug up to the picture of the woman hanging on his wall, and gulped down several mouthfuls.
“My wife,” Harada explained, noting Saitou’s raised eyebrow. “She is the woman who fuels my fight. The good woman who rekindles my flame when it is in danger of burning itself out.”
Nagakura’s words coming out of Harada’s mouth.
“Eh, don’t look at me that way, Saitou-kun. I’m no poet. One of my men said that once. His wife died years ago. I found him working in a prison here in Hokkaido, practically waiting to die. All it took was the offer of a way to end his life valiantly, the invitation to one last good battle, and he joined up.”
Saitou’s eyes narrowed as he scrutinized the picture on the wall. Now he knew why she looked so familiar. Without the expensive robes and paint on her face, she looked a much simpler, much plainer woman. “The oiran you liked.”
“Mikiko,” Harada said, passing the jug back, “I haven’t seen her for over eleven years. My daughter is probably fifteen now. Fifteen and no recollection of her father. But what could I do? I can’t return to Japan. And I certainly couldn’t bring them to the wilds of Manchuria. The only choice …”
“Is to make a new place entirely, here in Hokkaido.” Saitou finished the man’s sentence for him. Things were finally beginning to make sense. Weren’t they? Beyond the bite of the sake and the constant rolling of the sea, Saitou wasn’t even certain he could tell up from down anymore.
“Aa.” Harada stroked his stubble of a beard as he looked at the picture. Kami-sama, he looked so lost, not like a warrior at all—more like a soulless zombie, one struck with a sickness so long lasting that even the forgetful medicine of sake could provide no hope. Is that what I look like when I see Tokio? No. Certainly not. Saitou winced at being present for the man’s momentary weakness and allowed himself more sake for cover. Harada finally shook himself from his reverie and spoke. “What a man wouldn’t do for a woman’s smile, ne, Saitou-kun?”
Saitou didn’t like the subject at all, so he changed it. “We won’t be able to keep the ships out much longer. Winter is fast approaching. Where do you plan to dock, Harada?”
The two men discussed their plans over the nearby maps, searching for the best place to get supplies to hold them through the Hokkaido winter. But it wasn’t ten minutes later when a commotion could be heard on the deck. Subake burst through the doors as Harada and Saitou stood, a panicked look evident in his eyes.
“Captain Harada. An Ainu scout reports that Meiji forces have taken Idjilisk and are marching west toward Blue Cove.”
Meiji forces?
“Taken Idjilisk?” Harada’s ki flared, almost enough to make Saitou drop the bottle of sake. “But we had Tonhen-hei stationed there.”
“Killed. Everyone in the town was slaughtered, down to the last woman and child. They were deemed traitors and summarily executed.”
Harada was floored. He never expected the Meiji government to act preemptively—not so quickly, not here in the remoteness of Northern Hokkaido. Damn. Damn. He had underestimated how desperately the Meiji officials wanted Hokkaido.
“We’ve got to go to Blue Cove,” Anji’s voice said, as the monk appeared in the doorway behind Subake. “And we’ve got to get there before the army. Those people will be slaughtered.”
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
They arrived at Blue Cove just as twilight began to settle on the small town. The four men—Anji, Subake, Harada, and Saitou—all stood on deck, taking turns looking through a spyglass at the town.
“I never expected the army,” Harada confessed. “It wasn’t in Yukishiro-san’s plans.”
“Tactics were never your strong point, eh, Captain?” Subake said, peering nonchalantly at his superior, as if not worried about reprimand.
Anji’s hands gripped the railing so hard that it splintered. “What do you think will happen?”
“When the army gets here, the Ainu and Tonhen-hei will try to fight them with the guns we left behind,” Saitou replied, grabbing the spyglass from Harada. “They will be outnumbered. And they will definitely suffer the same fate as Idjilisk.”
“We could attempt to cut them off. Fire our cannons at into the Meiji ranks.”
“Yes. We could possibly defeat them that way.” Saitou was beginning to understand what had caused him to have mixed feelings about this battle. It involved too many innocent people. Harada had used the Ainu, and the Ainu would end up paying in blood for a battle into which they had been forced. “But the army will just regroup and begin anew.”
“It is too soon. We don’t have enough Tonhen-hei gathered,” Harada confessed, turning his back on the town to look at the sailors gathered on the Shikiko’s deck.
“You never intended to win.”
All three men just stared at Anji. The monk dipped his head, closing his eyes in deep thought. “None of you intended on winning. You all just wanted one last glorious battle, one more glimpse into the past. You wanted to die as the same men you once were, before time came and swept you into oblivion. But you’ve put people in danger because your own hearts were in pain. You can’t change the past, but neither can you bring it back. The days of the Shinsengumi are over. Do you think your dead comrades will be more proud of you just because you’ve sacrificed yourself to your ideals? Do you think your wife will welcome you with more open arms in the afterlife, just because you died on another man’s sword, instead of falling on your own … Nagakura-dono?”
Sake Subake’s eyes seemed to tremble as he looked away from Anji. “You knew the whole time …” He removed the handkerchief covering his face and shoved it into his pocket.
“Aa. You only worked at Abashiri for a few weeks after I arrived, but I always remember a man’s eyes.”
Saitou made a mental note never to underestimate the monk’s perceptiveness again. Nagakura. Well, the man must have had his own reasons for keeping his identity a secret, just as Saitou did.
Strange how things always seem to come full circle. Once they had all fought together against the coming of the Meiji era, and now they fought again to keep the memory of a lost time alive. But maybe Anji was right. Maybe their epoch was meant to come to a close. Did it mean that their lives had to end, as well? Were they now little more than useless relics of a time that had fallen by the wayside, of a frame of mind and idealism that no longer had any place in the world?
They never meant to create a new nation in Hokkaido. They had meant to die in the process—die with their code of loyalty, honor, and courage intact.
He didn’t want Tokio to see him grow old and feeble or his son to see him slowly become nothing more than a ghost, a footnote in history beside the words losing side. Saitou Hajime was not such a man. He was unwaveringly strong. He would fight until the very end, without doubt, regret, or shame. And that was how people would remember him, not as a man who faded away into oblivion.
He had come to Hokkaido to finish becoming a legend.
His motive was assuredly self-serving, and selfishness definitely went against the code of the Shinsengumi. Selfishness had put the kind Ainu, who had sheltered him and Anji through the winter, in peril. And selfishness would leave Tokio alone and crying for the husband who never returned.
“Yare, yare, I have a plan,” Saitou said, looking from Harada to Nagakura. “It is dangerous, and it means the end of our designs on Hokkaido. But, in the end, everyone should survive.”
“I thought you would, Saitou-kun,” Harada replied, clasping a large hand on both of his comrades’ shoulders. “You sullen old goat. That’s the main reason we keep you around.”
“Kill him, Nagakura,” Saitou commanded the ex-captain of the Shinsengumi’s Second Troop.
“But, Saitou-kun, he’s my commanding officer. That would be mutiny.”
“Hn.” Saitou lifted his right arm to bring his jug of sake up to the railing. “Better to be a mutineer than led by an idiot.”
Nagakura’s mouth hung open as he looked from Saitou to Harada, completely taken aback.
“Eh, Nagakura,” Harada drawled. “Don’t think about it too hard. He’s just joking. At least, I hope he’s joking. He says everything exactly the same when he’s drinking.”
“Aa. I’m joking.” And with that, Saitou pushed the bottle of sake, letting it fall with a splash into the sea below. “Now. Let’s go.”
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
“She’s such a beautiful ship. This is going to break my heart, you know?”
Saitou merely grunted in reply. The three men stood on the cliff overlooking Blue Cove, watching the toil in the town below. Anji, who had learned the most of the native Ainu language during their winter stay, was directing the villagers to produce every gun in town and place them in a covered cart parked in the town square. The Tonhen-hei were assembling there as well, packed for their journey.
Saitou went over the plan again. “Nagakura, you and three men steer the Shikiko east until you are in sight of the Meiji forces. As soon as you see them, coat the decks with anything flammable you can find. That ship may seem impenetrable, but I assure you, one cannon shot from the army, and she’ll go up in flames. Get on the lifeboat as soon as possible. Harada, you put all the Tonhen-hei on the Mikiko and the Makoto and after you pick up Nagakura, head west.”
“I know, I know. We’ve been over this, Saitou-kun. I’ll sink the Mikiko somewhere north of Sapporo after sending the Tonhen-hei home. The rest of the men can return to Manchuria on the Makoto. And the three of us will meet up in Hakodate at the Osaka Inn in one month. But what about you? What about the monk?”
“Anji and I will travel west by horseback, to warn the other Ainu villages and the Tonhen-hei stationed there.”
“Right.”
Nagakura shifted his weight from his right foot to his left. “I don’t like this ending. It’s like we’re giving up without a fight.”
“Ack, Nagakura-kun,” Harada said, starting down the hill. “The only way to save the Ainu and Tonhen-hei from slaughter is to make it look like they never betrayed the Meiji government. And the only way that the Meiji army will leave is if they think they’ve defeated us by sinking the Shikiko.”
“I suppose. But I still don’t like it.”
They met Anji halfway down the hill. The monk looked … well, extremely happy, for once. In fact, he was grinning from ear to ear. “Everything is ready. The Tonhen-hei and the guns are aboard the Mikiko and the Makoto.”
“Then, let’s go, Anji,” Saitou said, brushing past the giant man. “Get the horses.”
“I’m not going, Fujita-dono.”
Saitou stopped walking. What did the monk say? Through the night’s darkness, the Wolf of Mibu could just barely make out another figure at the bottom of the hill, standing alone beside a tree. Ah. So that was why Anji had been chanting so furiously all winter. “So ka?”
“I’m a monk, Fujita-dono, but I’m also just a man. I will stay and protect the people of Blue Cove as long as I am able. Blue Cove … and my … and Mei.” At hearing her name, the young woman whose hut they had stayed in the previous winter moved away from the tree and walked up the hill to stand beside Anji.
“Naruhodo. Good riddance to you,” Saitou grumbled as Nagakura and Harada joined him in traveling down the hill. “I should have known that anyone who could be beaten by Sagara would have less sense than a rock. If I ever see you again, Yuukyujan Anji …”
“Don’t worry, Fujita-dono.” Anji swept Mei into his arms. The Ainu woman laughed fiercely, saying something in her native tongue that no one present could understand. “You’ll never see me again.”
The three ex-Shinsengumi captains left Anji there, making their way quickly to the road below the hill where the Ainu-provided horses had been tethered.
“Well, Saitou-kun,” Harada said, handing his comrade a pack of supplies, “Until Hakodate and the Osaka Inn. I look forward to a drink over soba with you.”
“Aa.” Saitou lit a cigarette, patting the horse’s mane to get a feel for the beast.
“Yes, Good-bye, Saitou-kun,” Nagakura added.
“Ahou. Don’t say good-bye.”
Nagakura scratched his head as Saitou turned the horse. “Why not?”
“Bad luck,” Harada answered.
Nagakura threw up his hands in exasperation. “Fine. Have a good journey then.”
Saitou dug his foot into the horse’s side and sped off through the village. The deep October wind swept his gray cape into the air, giving the man the appearance of a terrifying specter intent on laying waste to everything in his path. The Ainu instinctively moved out of his way, Saitou’s piercing ki like a beacon of warning to even the least trained among them. Harada and Nagakura watched him until he disappeared from sight.
“Never has there been a man more worthy of the title ‘Miburo,’ Nagakura-kun,” Harada said, shaking himself from his awe-induced stupor.
“Or the title ‘complete asshole,’” Nagakura added, grabbing Harada’s arm. “Come on, Captain. It is time for the last ride of the Wolves of Mibu.”
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Saitou rode along the coastline, keeping his horse just far enough inland to reduce the chill rolling off the sea. The crescent moon that night lay low and orange upon the water, like a ship set ablaze upon the sea. Strangely, the air smelled like salt and … like soba. The latter, he knew, was just a trick of the senses. The sea didn’t smell at all like soba. More likely, some weed or fungus or rotting kelp growing nearby replicated the familiar scent.
Nonetheless, the concept of the sea smelling like soba made him not hate the ocean quite as much as usual.
The horse beneath him was a reasonably decent steed—definitely a sacrifice on the part of the Ainu, who had so little. On the other hand, they had Anji now, and the man’s strength could more than make up for a horse or two.
Saitou couldn’t tell how far he had ridden, only that the night felt as if it had been getting colder with every passing minute. The sound of the shore changed abruptly, becoming muted as if cut off by a curtain of heavy damask. Suddenly, the snow swept over rider and horse, falling first in sugary light flakes and then turning within minutes to stinging drifts that burned the cold into Saitou’s hands and face.
“Damnable capricious Hokkaido weather,” Saitou muttered. This had definitely not been in his plans. Who plans for snow in October? Even the meticulous Saitou Hajime couldn’t predict everything.
He kept his horse going at a brisk pace. No need for the beast to slow down enough to let the cold overtake him.
The snow continued to fall, faster and more heavily than before. It obscured Saitou’s view, as well as his hearing. He couldn’t even discern the waves of the sea anymore.
The sound of snow—Tokio was right. You never remembered how snow sounded until you were right in the middle of it.
Everything was turning white. Even the horse’s mane had become crusted with ice. Though he wore gloves, his hands felt sorely numb.
This land was truly hell.
Saitou found himself on the ground, looking up at the stars between drifts of snow. As his consciousness drifted in and out, he realized that his horse lay next to him, rivulets of blood marring the snow as the animal whimpered in pain. He tried pulling himself up, only to find a shooting sensation piercing the numbness of the cold. His right arm was broken and possibly one of his legs too.
Had he been thrown? What had happened? The snow seemed to obscure everything, blocking out thought, erasing time. At least the pain was minimized by the cold.
Damn.
He’d thought he’d die in Hokkaido but not like this. This wasn’t anything. Being defeated by the weather? How humiliating.
“The snow obscured my view of you for a moment, Hajime.”
Tokio?
Saitou opened one eye and turned his head in the direction of her voice. There she was, as plain as day, kneeling in the snow, her sewing basket by her side. Her thick haori, lined with white rabbit fur, lay over her shoulders. She removed the coat and placed it over his torso, gently tucking in the corners at his shoulders. “I do not mean to make a fuss, but you looked cold.”
“Tokio …”
“I’ll go now. I apologize for interrupting your mission. Please forgive me.”
“Tokio!” Her name caught in his throat as she stood, turning to walk back into the snow. “Tokio!”
She stopped, motionless in the snow for only a moment before she turned around. Those eyes. Those haunting honey-colored eyes, devastating his soul with one look. She wasn’t … She was … She was saying good-bye with her eyes.
“See, Hajime. You aren’t supposed to turn around.”
The snow that fell between them slowly removed the apparition from view, dissolving Tokio into a blur of white nothingness. Saitou’s eyes rolled back into his head as he struggled against the cold to stay awake. He fought against the necessity for sleep by attempting to remember every detail he could about his wife, about their home—the way she smelled of honey, the way her lips tasted, the way she scowled when Naoya cursed, the way her hair fell in her face when in the throes of passion, the way she held their child.
“The snow obscured my view of you for a few minutes.”
Tokio? Wait. She’d already said that.
Saitou gathered his last ounce of energy to push his eyes open. Flakes of snow and ice had become caught in the crevices of his face, adhered to his eyelashes, and crystallized inside his nose. He blinked, trying to focus on the dark-colored shape standing over him.
The apparition leaned in close and appeared to have a head and shoulders.
The face … the face seemed familiar, but something was wrong with it.
“You alive still, Saitou-kun?”
That voice. “Souji?” Saitou mumbled his friend’s name hoarsely through snow-numbed lips.
Okita’s nonsmiling face nodded, the corners of his mouth falling farther into a frightful frown. Saitou felt the man’s hand connect forcibly with the left side of his face. Okita had slapped him.
“That’s for not telling me where you were going, you arrogant bastard,” Okita growled, his round eyes alight with furious anger. His hand balled into a fist, slamming into Saitou’s jaw.
“And that’s for making Tokio cry.”
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Warmth. The sound of a fire crackling. The delicious smell of food. Soba. And miso. The hazy lilt of cheerful humming.
And pain in his right leg.
Saitou opened his eyes carefully, trying to discern his location, and with it, the amount of danger he might be facing. Gray morning light streamed into a window above the futon where he lay, illuminating a black-and-white-hued view of the room. Nothing more than two chairs, a table, two futons, wet clothes hanging from a line drawn between the walls, and a fireplace currently being used as a stove.
Saitou closed his eyes again upon hearing footsteps from the other side of the shoji. Someone entered, bringing with him or her the humming that had plagued Saitou’s recent sleep.
“Mmmmm. I like soba, and I like tea. I like turtles, and I like bees.”
Saitou opened his left eye a crack and finding his suspicion confirmed, decided the danger was probably minimal.
It was only Souji singing to himself, after all.
“You’re awake,” Okita chirped gleefully without turning around. “Don’t try to get up. Your leg is broken. Your arm is all right, though. Just a sprain.”
“You punched me, Okita.”
“Hai, hai. Had to knock you out, you know. Was easier to carry you without you complaining that you were strong enough to walk.”
“You punched me twice.”
“Oh?” Okita’s shoulders trembled a bit as he attempted to suppress his laughter. “I didn’t think you’d remember that.”
Saitou ground his teeth in unimaginable fury. Damn it. Okita was not supposed to be here. And where was here anyway?
“We’re in Hakodate,” Okita explained, as if reading his friend’s mind. “We’ve been here for two weeks. You’ve been in and out of consciousness since I found you. Miso?”
“No. Sake.” Saitou curled his left hand into a fist. Punching Okita was on the top of his list of things to do. Right above a stiff drink and a cigarette. And then perhaps strangling the other man until he found out what had possessed him to come to Hokkaido.
“Sake?” Okita shook his head sadly and leaned forward to stir the miso. “No, I do not think Tokio-san would be very happy with me if I gave you that. You can have miso, or you can have soba. Nothing else. Because, frankly, we don’t have anything else. And you might as well give up thoughts of attacking me when I get close to you. You’ll just hurt yourself.”
Goddamn Okita. For the first time in his life, Saitou wished he had a gun.
“Why are you here, Okita?”
Okita’s shoulders became rigid, and he stopped stirring. The small man took a deep breath and exhaled slowly before answering. “Just tell me this, Saitou-kun, are you glad that I am here? Or would you have rather died in the snow?”
“Don’t ask idiotic questions, Okita.”
The insult slipped off Okita’s shoulders, like rain on a turtle’s shell. “I came to find out what happened to you, of course. To bring you back to Tokio-san. And when I found out where you went, to knock some sense into you, if necessary.”
“How did you find me?” Saitou tested his strength and found he could push himself up somewhat on his right elbow, though his left arm had been bandaged into a sling. “I told no one.”
“I beat up Commissioner Kawaji. And then I tortured him for information with my secret Shinsengumi techniques.” Even without turning around, Okita could feel the death glare directed at the back of his head. “All right, all right. I just asked Kawaji-san where you were and volunteered to come find you. It wasn’t hard to track you. In Hakodate, you threw some aide out of a carriage. He remembered you pretty well and directed me to Abashiri. I learned about the ships there and figured you’d gone to find Harada-kun. So I traveled along the coast, looking for the ships. When I saw the Meiji army marching, I knew I had to be close. I arrived in Blue Cove only a few minutes after you left. Harada-kun and Nagakura-kun told me what was going on, so I borrowed a horse and came after you. Thankfully, I’m a much better rider than you are. Mother Nature was never your forte, ne, Saitou-kun? Anyway, I told the Ainu in the next village to send riders to the other towns, warning them of the army’s approach. The Ainu were grateful and helped us get back to Hakodate. We’ve been here ever since.”
Okita dipped a bowl into the pot and brought it over to Saitou. The scowling invalid did, in fact, not punch his friend. Instead he took the miso and sipped at it gingerly, appreciating the nourishment more than he thought he would. After a few sips, he asked, “What of Harada? Nagakura?”
Okita’s head bowed slightly as he studied his hands in his lap. His voice became wispy, imbued with a soft quality that Saitou had heretofore only attributed to women.
“Ah. Nagakura didn’t make it. When the Meiji army fired on the Shikiko, it didn’t catch on fire. Nagakura climbed back on board and set the fires by hand. Unfortunately, the Meiji army fired again before Nagakura could get off the ship. The blast blew him into the water. And they found him, but he was in bad shape. Before he died, he said that he was glad to have died in battle, but he was even more glad that his wife wouldn’t have to wait to see him any longer.”
“And Harada?”
“I … uh …” Okita scratched the back of his head as his mourning dissolved into embarrassment. “He did just fine. He arrived in Hakodate a week ago. I gave him all the money I brought with me and put him on a ship to Yokohama Harbor. And I sent a telegraph to his wife and daughter to meet him there. They’re all on their way to the Americas, as we speak.”
“Naruhodo,” Saitou said, breathing an inaudible sigh of relief. “So, the plan worked.”
“Aa. It worked. The Tonhen-hei returned to their jobs on the farms, and the Meiji government seems to have forgotten all about the incident. They’d rather the Tonhen-hei continue protecting Hokkaido than try to track down all the offenders. And the army withdrew after finding no more traitorous Ainu towns.”
So.
That was it.
The last war of Mibu’s Wolves.
A war that never even took place.
Saitou looked down into his soup bowl. It wasn’t the ending he had planned when he started on this trip a year and a half ago.
And yet, regret, as Anji had said, was futile. You couldn’t change the past. The days of the Shinsengumi were over. And the future? Who knew? His task, from then on, was just to protect Japan’s history, to keep alive the fire of that era so that future generations would know of the brave men who fought so valiantly for their ideals. Even if they had lost, it didn’t matter. All that mattered was that they never betrayed their sacred code.
Just like the forty-seven samurai of Harima.
Except you didn’t have to die to be a good man, a warrior unwavering in your ideals. Courage shone in the manner of a man’s death, true, but it also could be apparent in the way he lived his life.
“We’ll leave for home after the ice breaks, and as soon as I can raise enough money,” Okita said, standing to reposition some of the wet clothes hanging in the room. Souji’s knee popped as he stretched himself to his minimal height. “Eh, guess I’m getting old.”
“Hn.” Saitou set the soup bowl down beside his futon, a strange sleepiness overtaking his system with each breath, dragging his thoughts into a mire of sluggishness. Okita probably drugged the broth, but really, right now, Saitou didn’t care. Besides, he’d have it out with the man when he felt stronger. “How’s Tokio?”
“She’s fine, Saitou-kun. And she’s waiting, as ever she does, for your return.”
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~