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The Courtship of Lady Tokio

by Misaki Toyodome

Chapter 16 - An Explosion of Emotions and Other Things

As the horse approached the Fushimi town area, Saitou slowed its hurtling pace. What next? He scanned the immediate vicinity. Nothing more than a few houses, a few streets, and then, towards the centre of town, a number of stores, a number of inns. On the outskirts of town, there were some farmsteads. The streets were deserted in the dead of night, though it would probably be busy during the daylight hours. The horse continued into the town at a brisk trot. Fleetingly, he wondered whether horses could see in the dim light. He saw a lantern being lit some way off, and someone step out onto the street. He tensed slightly. A girl? A girl, and it struck him as odd that she would be up at this hour, when everyone else seemed dead to the world until dawn. She waved him over, and called out to him in a hushed voice,

"I've been expecting you, Okina told me. I got his owl just a while ago." Saitou dismounted, and bowed slightly. "Here, here's the address, and the directions."

"The Shinsengumi and Aizu are most obliged, Miss-"

"Aki, my name is Aki, but now go. It won't do to waste any more time, and it won't do for me to be seen talking to you."

She handed him the lantern as well, and then bowed, and headed back into one of the buildings. Saitou didn't bother watching where she went as he opened the note and held it to the light. He tied his horse to a nearby fence: this would require stealth, and he didn't have anything to muffle his horse's hooves. He also put out the lantern – he could see well enough in the dark. Swiftly, he disappeared silently into the shadows of the town, and made his way to the location.

It was so dark, that the explosion flashed and blinded him momentarily. Saitou was not a man to be caught off guard easily, but nothing prepared him for the blast that lit up the night sky as the warehouse came into view. It blew out the front part of the structure, and the shattered wood caught flame. The noise made him wince, before he fully grasped what had just happened. He blanched, and shouted out, nearly screamed,

"Tokio! TOKIO!"

In that instant, he felt all his carefully constructed walls come tumbling down. Saitou may not have been a man susceptible to grief, but there was great grief crashing into his soul, and there was fear, there was dread, there was anguish, there was desperation. He stood there for a few seconds, paralysed by the sight of the collapsing building. It remained teetering unstably, some cinders starting to burn more brightly. His soul stood teetering, threatening to cave into itself as he watched. Just then, tiles came sliding off the roof with a dreadful clatter – the noise spurred him into action. Shielding his face, he plunged into the dust and fire.

"TOKIO!"

"Hajime!" A weak voice called out to him. He whirled around, his brow furrowed in clammy anxiety. "Hajime, please, over here!"

Her voice, from the back of the building, from behind a mound of bricks. He ran over, cast a cursory glance over her, and grabbed her shaking body and hauled her up. She winced as he dragged her out of the building, obviously in some pain. It was over in a matter of seconds. Not even a minute had passed since he had ducked to avoid part of the door frame flying through the air towards him, thrown by the force of the explosion. Yet it could have been all the eternities of the world, it felt to them at that moment– all the lives that had flashed through their minds and all their deaths, all the paths that led winding, all the choices they could have chosen. How many lives could one live and die in the space of a few moments?

When they had cleared the immediate area around the warehouse, Tokio's body went limp as though she were ready to slump to the ground in sheer exhaustion. Saitou, instead of letting her down, grabbed her, held her tight, held her with so much force that she nearly cried out in pain. But she didn't. She let him crush the breath out of her as he tried to reassure himself that it was alright, that she was alright, that she was real, that she was alive. His hand on the back of her neck, he buried her face against his chest, and there, with her ear pressed to his heart, his heart had the audience that it never imagined it would have. She in turn wound her arms around his waist, leaned into him, letting his strength hold both of them up. She felt faint with both fatigue and terror and relief. They stayed like that for as long as they could, for so long as nobody was around. But people started waking up, the noise and the brightness and the smell of burning alarming them out of their sleep, and as they raised their voices in warning and action and started to emerge from their houses. Then did the two slip away back into the shadows, Saitou helping Tokio onto his horse, and then leading it back to Kyoto through the dark nights, the road ahead made darker by the blaze of the fire behind them.

They didn't speak to each other for a while, both of them slightly overwhelmed by the events of the night. As Saitou walked alongside the horse and its rider, he let Tokio grasp his hand tightly, tightly with no intention of letting go. Apart from the clenched fingers entwined around his hand, and the collapsed hairstyle, and a slightly singed kimono, Tokio looked very much poised and in control of herself. Saitou looked at her appraisingly as he also started to regain his characteristic demeanour, and his over-stimulated senses began to give way to the cool rationalism that he would usually be associated with. It was not that Saitou was a dispassionate man – no one who had seen him wield a sword or drink sake would say that about him – but he was not a sentimental man rather. Sentimentalism or not, it was true that he had never felt such cutting despair and terror as those few moments when he thought that she had been lost to him. If she had been lost, every aspect of his life it seemed would have become insufficient and undeserving.

He turned her hands over in his. Bleeding nails, cuts on the fingers, the snakey bruises of ropes having cut into her flesh. He halted. His mind raced as he lifted her down from the saddle and helped her sit down on the verge of grass by the road, and lifted her kimono to above her calves. She let him touch the raw skin around her ankles, and winced as he tried to move her bruised left foot. She met his gaze unflinchingly as he then reached to examine the back of her head, and did not shy away as he parted the hair to look at the ugly gash left there, and the blood clotted around it. His hand clenched, and he looked away, pale fury eating him inside, but he was in control now, he had recovered his mental discipline.

"Thank you very much." Her voice, as always in the night, was quiet and clear, the magnitude of her gratitude and her feeling for him causing it to quaver a small bit.

"... You're welcome." She was safe again, battered, bruised, but still unbeaten. She lowered her eyes, humbled and overcome by the intensity of his searching gaze.

"Thank you for my life..." And he knew that she did not just mean for coming to find her that night, but for her whole life.

"Why the explosion?" He asked, trying to determine the sequence of events.

"It was a weapons' store, with crates of gunpowder. They left a candle burning, but that wasn't why it exploded. In fact, I set it off, trying to blow out the door." He raised an eyebrow. "I think I might have used a bit too much gunpowder."

"Only a bit too much?" She smiled ruefully.

"How did you get out of your bonds?" She had not been bound at the time of the explosion, though clearly the ropes had been tight enough to scar.

"I cut myself out." She held up her bloodied hands. "The fruits of my labour." She paused, and then continued. "A clever old acquaintance had hidden a kunai against the sole of my geta. Once I was out of my bonds, I took the candle, lined the ropes up as a fuse, piled some of the gunpowder against the door, and hid in the furthest corner away, and set fire to it. Well, it worked a little too well, and I underestimated my ability to move quickly with the condition that my feet are in... And then you happened along, conveniently." She smiled apologetically. "I am so sorry that I always cause you so much inconvenience."

"Hmph." Saitou snorted disdainfully, though in truth he was impressed. But what he said was, "If you'd just waited patiently like a proper lady, I would have found you in a matter of minutes."

"Well, I know that now, but hindsight is a wonderful thing, is it not?"

He noticed some papers sticking out from underneath her crooked obi. He narrowed his eyes, and before she could stop him, pulled them out and unfolded them. Letters. Or nearly letters, rather. His writing, he had dated them, he had written her name, but had not found the words to say anything else. He fixed her with a stern look, as though to admonish her, asking why she was carrying such things around with her. She tossed her head defiantly.

"They were given to me, and they are mine to do with as I wish."

Saitou pulled out the inrou he had tucked into his own robes.

"This belongs to you." She cocked her head to the side – so that was how he had found her.

"Where did you get this?"

"From your correspondence box."

She bit her lips slightly. That would mean he had found the letter too. No doubt guessing what was on her mind, Saitou raised an eyebrow, and remarked,

"You have too many last words, Tokio-san."

"I know, I am sorry." She looked slightly flustered, as she lowered her gaze to the ground by her feet, her long lashes casting shadows onto her high cheeks.

"It's a habit you should break." She looked up at him, a touch uneasy. His eyes met hers, so coolly, so collectedly. "No more last words."

She held her breath, but her heart beat more forcefully than ever.

"I mean it, Tokio-san, no more last words... Not between us. Not again."

She bowed her head, and nodded in acquiescence.

"No more last words."

Her abduction having driven thoughts of her marriage out of their minds for nearly one night, they came creeping back now. They both knew what the other was thinking, for the same thing was on their minds. How much longer did they have? How much longer before she would have to leave, with her last say or not?

"... You know I can't be with you." Saitou exhaled shortly. She smiled.

"Then I'll have to be your never-wife."

He looked at her. Her face showing pale in the moonlight, her hair nearly melting into the black night. Her eyes shining, in pain, in anticipation, in hope, in despair. Of all the things that were so close, and yet so far away. Of everything that was possible, but forbidden.

She changed the topic, going back to the subject of her escape.

"It was clever of you to find Okina. I must ask you though to keep that information to yourself. It would not do to have their position in Kyoto compromised because of my little mishap."

"Little mishap?" He raised his eyebrow again.

"Little mishap." She reiterated firmly. "After all, I was not abused or tortured, as could easily have happened, and I am alive, and Aizu has not been compromised."

He balked slightly. It had been a question that he had been reluctant to ask. And who would blame him – who didn't dread asking such questions.

"I'm alright." She assured him. "I'm going to be fine." Was it strange that she should be the one to reassure him? Thinking about the whole situation, the fury that erupted within the confines of his coolness, it was nearly unbearable for him to stand still. He wanted to rage, shout, flail his hands in fury. Of course, Saitou being Saitou, did none of these things, but merely nodded.

"... I won't take you back to Koumyouji right away. You'll head back to the Shinsengumi headquarters in Mibu, under guard. You're not safe yet, not until the perpetrators have been apprehended." Steady, sharp voice. It was obvious, nonetheless, that the perpetrators would not live to see the dawn of day. "I expect we'll meet Okita and Hijikata some time along the way – one of them will escort you back, until we've managed to complete our mission... And speak of the devil." He smirked as he heard light footballs come quickly down the road towards.

"Aah! Saitou-san! Tokio-san!" Okita exclaimed softly. "Tokio-san, thank goodness you're safe! ... You are, aren't you?" He was genuinely worried, taking note of her condition.

"Thank you very much, Okita-sama. I was just reassuring Saitou-sama that besides a bump on the head and sore wrists and ankles, I'll be just fine." Tokio was, even in her disheveled state, the model of decorum. Okita did not look altogether convinced. Tokio stood up, with some effort, and straightened her kimono, and bowed low to Hijikata.

"Hijikata-sama, I thank you very much for all the trouble I have put you to, and I apologise sincerely for the inconvenience."

"At your service, Lady Tokio, and much relieved to see you." Hijikata maintained his stern expression though, and it would be hard to tell from his face just how relieved he was. Turning to Saitou, he asked, "Did you get the men?"

Saitou shook his head curtly.

"I'm going back. I'll take Okita."

"Actually, Saitou-san, I'll take you, and that should be 'Okita-senpai'."

Saitou pretended not to hear, and continued,

"It might be safer to let her stay at Mibu until we return."

"Aah." Hijikata agreed. "So, Takagi-san, if you please, you'll come with me." She bowed, and started to walk. "No, you'll take the horse."

"But Sir, it is not proper for you to walk..." She demurred.

"You're injured, and for so long as you're under Shinsengumi guard, you'll follow my orders please."

Hijikata watched as Saitou helped her to get up on the steed, in his offhanded manner. Try as he might to hide it, those who knew how to look could tell that there was an intimacy between them, an understanding, a mutual feeling of sorts. He frowned, but held his tongue. As it were, he would have plenty of time to grill Tokio back at the compound. It should be interesting at the very least.

Saitou handed the reins to Hijikata, looking down at him with a challenging stare. Hijikata nodded, and started to walk. Okita and Saitou turned in the other direction, back to Fushimi, and their forms melted into the darkness. Tokio glanced behind just once, and just in time to see Saitou, his back towards them, raise a hand in casual greeting. That simple gesture made her smile. There would be no more last words.