My heart was pounding. I heard it so loudly, I was wondering if I was the only one who did. I kept my movements steady, walked down the long corridor as if I did so every day. The geisha kimono lied heavily on my body, heating me up additionally to the anxiety that had been controlling my entire mind.
I passed by several rooms, hearing the people inside cheering and celebrating their drunk minds, chattering and living a sparkled life, even if just for the moment. Only a few more rooms until I would reach my target.
As I came closer to the room I would have to enter, a tall man with black spiky hair stumbled across me, pushed me by accident and immediately helped me to find back to my form.
"Ah! Excuse me, miss! I hope I did not hurt you. Here, come." His voice was gentle but I didn't have the nerves to realize that now as his hand was reaching out to mine. I shook my head in a calm manner and waved him off. "It's fine." Did my voice tremble? As he wanted to lend me his arm, I took a step back, leaned against the wall, holding onto myself. "Is that so?" He watched me, seemed to be nervous to be talking to me and yet still remained friendly and delightful. "Well then." He smiled, bowed and continued to stumble his way down the corridor. I felt as if my heart was about to explode as if my soul would soon leave my body. I fast checked the outfit that hid the katana underneath it so well. I pressed my hands around the grip of the sword as if it could suddenly have vanished. I exhaled, tried to pull myself back together and continued my way onto the last room of this floor.
I had to do this. I told myself over and over again just so that I would not suddenly turn back and run away from this. I also knew that I would never again find the courage to get into the fighting clothes and put the heavy kimono on top to disguise my intention. It had to be now. Now or never.
My eyes stared at the door as if only my look would be able to open it. The voices behind it were loud but had a joyful sound. Maybe this could work. Maybe this could really work.
I closed my eyes just for a brief moment, collected all the will and strength that had been lingering somewhere down inside of me and took a deep breath.
I knocked at the door. Only once. Way too short to leave the people inside time to react. I slit it open with all the strength I had, so hard that it shook in its fixture and stormed in.
"Kondou Isami! I am here to end your life!" I screamed from the bottom of my lungs as I stood in the room, clinging onto the katana in my hands. I didn't even have enough time to face my opponents as the shining blade of a katakana was surring through the air, landing in front of my face. Everyone in the room had already been standing and stared at me as I was the prey and they had only been waiting for me.
"Who are you?" A man with black hair and violet eyes drew my attention. He was not asking, he was demanding and the tone of his voice shook my body, made me tremble inside. I didn't dare to answer.
"Let's net waste our time, Hijikata-san." The man whose katana was still grinning into my face now started to talk. He had not been looking at me, started to turn his face towards me only now as his words were meant to be heard by me. "I kill you fast. Don't worry." As he grinned my heart stopped a beat. His green eyes were sparkling like fire – a green fire, that reached out to my blood, leaving it frozen in my veins.
"Ah, Souji. Hold back only for once, would you?" The green eyed nodded to the words of whom he had called Hijikata-San, the person with the black hair and violet eyes.
"I ask you again, girl. Who are you?" I forbade myself to answer. I had to stay strong.
"If you are not Kondou Izami then I have no business with you! Tell me where he is and I spare your lives!" Silence struck the room as the men around me were surprised by the tough tone of my voice and, I guess, the words itself I dared to speak.
A loud outburst of laughter suddenly stroke my ears. The green eyed person now again pointed his sword at me. "Come. Show me how you'd like to kill me." In this very moment, I heard nothing else than my breath. This man stood in front of me, the silver light of the moon shining through the window into the room from behind him as the city lamps formed a dance of blurred silhouettes. My vision was caught in a tunnel in which end was nothing but these green eyes that stared at me without remorse. It reminded me of the sun's pale light when it got caught in the forest and dances with the shadows now and then. The snowflakes the wind was chasing were falling like sakura blossoms, underlining the macabre and morbid beauty of this moment.
Was this the last picture I'd see before I died?
I didn't see the sign Hijikata-San was giving one of his men, only felt the sudden pain on my head before I lost my consciousness.
~
I woke up to a sharp pain in the back of my head and the sun shining through a gap in the wood of the wall into my face. I slowly got up to sit on the tatami, hold onto my head, groaning of the tiredness in my body and the pain that started to hit me like an echo. Dull and fading.
"Oh! You woke up, huh?" A young man entered the room. A green headband was around his forehead and his brown spiky hair shone red in the warm light of the sun. "My, my. You got yourself in some trouble, Haven't ya?" He talked in a friendly tone, almost amused and smiled into my face.
"Why am I not chained?" I asked him without hesitation as soon as I had realized it.
"Well." He leaned over the wall and put one leg on the wall behind him, folding his arms. "We thought guarding you would be enough." Why was he so relaxed?
"I am Nagakura Shimpachi. Nice to meet you!" He reached a hand out to me, waiting for me to shake it even though' I highly doubted, that he really expected me to do so. I just kept staring at him, not being able to understand the situation. My mouth formed an "o" as my confusion was speaking mutely for itself.
"Shimpachi, what are you doing there again." Another man entered the room. His long brown hair rested in a tail on his back and two strands framed his face like red curtains. He also smiled as he entered the room, before he sat down beside me, keeping a respectful distance.
"We don't share the company of pretty women so often, you know? We just wanted to enjoy this moment a little longer while it lasts." His smile was warm, charming and I did bet he had a good hand with women.
"I am Harada Sanosuke." He bowed. "Very delighted to meet you."
What was with these men? I had stormed into their room at Shimabara, trying to kill their leader and all they knew was to smile at me and throw their charm right onto me? I opened my mouth, estimating to speak but then remained quiet anyways.
"Come on." Shinpachi now smiled with his mouth wide open and something about this grin made me feel a bit more comfortable.
"I am Ayaka. Nice to meet you." I bowed down, symbolizing respect.
Maybe the certainty that in a few moments from now I would be a dead woman made me tougher but I started to raise my voice. "Where am I and what are you planning to do with me now?"
Shimpachi whistled sharply. "You demand in such a soft voice." He grinned before he actually answered me. "You are at the shinsengumi headquarters." I was there.
A voice I had heard before reached to me through the gap in the door, as its owner stepped in. "And your future is yet uncertain." It was the one they had been calling Hijikata-San. Neither Harada nor Shimpachi dared to speak another word. They left the room and only the violet eyes of Hijikata-San remained inside of this room, glimmering in a dark, foreshadowing light.
_________________________________________________
hope you like it so far <3
YOU ARE READING
Hakuouki - A Butterfly in Your Sky ( Okita Souji x OC )
Fiksi PenggemarHakuouki Fanfiction He promised to marry her. She promised to wait for him to return. But as fate plays, the vision of a happy ending becomes blurry and their ways part, seemingly forever. She loses her memory of him and he thinks she is dead. All...
