CHAPTER SIX

“Kato-san, we have yet to determine where Lady Cairde will stay,” Harada pointed out. All the others looked confused, making him sigh in exasperation. “We can’t have the guys trying to catch glimpses of her in the shower or changing clothes,” he pointed out. “I apologize for being indelicate, Lady Cairde, but” – she interrupted.

“Not at all, it’s just that I hadn’t even considered staying here – my plan was to rent something in the neighborhood of whatever job I ended up finding,” she explained, blushing.

Harada negated this at once. “None of us do that, Lady Cairde, not even those of our men with families. We make space for everyone on the property, even if it’s not that much. I won’t consider you safe unless you’re within these walls,” he said. “Once people know you work with us, you’ll become a target if you’re seen as a weak link – which you will be if you’re separated out from the rest of us.”

Thalia had to admit this made sense, although it seemed very strange to her that she would be the only single woman living with over a hundred men, most of whom were unmarried. She would also be the only one working with them; the wives of the others would not see her as one of them, and they would be right.

In her former world, it was not uncommon for women and men to cohabit in groups, but she knew enough about the culture here to be surprised at this progressive attitude.

“There’s the old cottage toward the southern wall,” Okada suggested. “It’s not in great shape, but it might work.”

“Perfect idea, Seizo!” Kato agreed, clapping him on the shoulder. “Tetsu, why don’t you take her to see it before lunch?” he suggested with an over-casual air.

Harada blushed. Might as well just sit her on a plate and shove her at me across a table, he thought irritably. Kato was a hopeless romantic at heart, and he had made no secret of his opinion that it was past time for the Vice-Chief to be settling down, but he had never tried to throw him together with a woman before. Thalia Cairde must have impressed him.

Not that the Commander was the only one, Tetsuya thought. They were all rather smitten with her. He had no intention of settling down, however – not with Thalia, not with anyone. When you took away the uniform and the polite veneer of society, he was neither more nor less than a gifted killer; he tried to keep that in check by paying strict attention to his conscience and serving justice as well as he could, but when people said that no one as strong, quick and volatile as he was could be fully human, he pretty much agreed with them. He did not trust himself with anything as fragile and beautiful as a family.

Even if this had not been the case, he was at imminent risk of death himself every day. He was not fit for life with a family. He wasn’t sure he would know how to be part of one anyway, apart from the Shinsengumi, and had long been convinced that his childhood family was taken from him so early in life because he was fundamentally too flawed to deserve one. These were not just maudlin thoughts he indulged when depressed; they were beliefs he considered fact.

His resolve did not prevent him from being more attracted to Thalia than he had ever been to anyone before, nor did it lift the strange weight of almost-memory that hung over him in her presence; and now she would be in close proximity. He had mixed feelings about that, although he was the one making it happen.

He could be satisfied with her friendship – or, if not that much, her nearness. He could look at her all he wished, and that was enough. It would have to be enough.

Seizo intervened, surprising everyone. “Harada-san has too much to do before lunch,” he said, “and it was my idea. Why don’t I take Lady Cairde over there instead?”

Kato looked nonplussed; Harada was annoyed, but could not very well protest without making himself ridiculous. What the hell, was Seizo pursuing her already? He told himself it shouldn’t matter, since it did not involve him, but it rankled nonetheless.

“Ah – of course, Seizo, if your schedule is clear,” Kato said at last.

“We’ll be in for lunch, then,” Seizo said, and led Thalia toward what was going to be her new home.

“I think this is fantastic, Tetsu!” Kato said when they had departed. “She’s going to be great for all of us.”

“I hope so,” Harada said. It was not a lack of trust in her that bothered him, although it should have been, since he had met her so recently. Somehow, though, he was irrationally certain he had known her very well for a very long time. That was what bothered him.

***

Meanwhile, as he and the new Lady Lieutenant walked across the grounds, Seizo was trying to understand himself. He was quite as confused as his superiors by his own actions. Why on earth was it that he didn’t want to let Harada be alone with Lady Thalia?

It was not as if he wanted her for himself. He felt a deeper connection with her than he wanted to, and he could see as well as anyone she was gorgeous; but it was not a sexual connection. Thinking of her being ogled by the other guys annoyed Seizo; not in a possessive, jealous-lover way, but in a family way. He shook himself out of his thoughts.

“Here it is, Lady Cairde,” he said, indicating a compact cottage set apart from the main complex on the southern side.

“What is it being used for at the moment?” she asked.

“Nothing important – just storage, I think,” he replied, stepping up onto the wooden porch and sliding open the shoji screen to enter. Sure enough, it was dim and thick with dust inside, and there were a few piles of things that didn’t seem to have any purpose stacked here and there.

She came in and looked around. She already loved the fact that the front of the cottage faced south, and would get the most sunlight. She might be a wild creature, but there was a domestic part of her as well, and this place awoke that side of her nature.

“There’s no kitchen, but it has its own bathroom, at least,” Seizo said with a note of apology in his voice. He did not see what she saw about its potential.

“This is perfect!” she exclaimed, clasping her hands in delight. “I’m so glad you thought of this, Sei – Okada-san,” she said, correcting her near-familiarity and blushing.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

“Please do call me Seizo,” he said. “You’re part of the Shinsengumi family now, after all.” He was mystified at how much it simultaneously hurt and pleased him to look at her, as if there were some great wound in the past that had not been deep enough to destroy an even deeper love.

“Then you must call me Thalia, Seizo,” she said; her eyes were brilliant, as if she was about to cry. This horrified him. But she moved inside and changed the subject, as if she knew how uncomfortable he was. “I’m very grateful to have a place to stay and a job to do already; it’s miraculous.”

“I suppose that’s one way to look at it,” he said, “though I’m not much of a miracle believer, myself.”

“No, I know that,” she said, forgetting herself for a moment. He stared at her, wondering if he should ask what she meant. The moment passed, and she covered it smoothly. “If not miraculous, then damned lucky,” she said, giving him a wink.

“I can go with that,” he agreed. “It needs cleaning up before it’s fit to move into, though.”

“Nothing that will take very long,” she said, waving the objection away.

“We can go and gather supplies as soon as you want.”

“Let’s do it now, unless you need to be somewhere else, of course – I have no problem taking care of it myself, once I know where everything is. And to be honest, I don’t think the hotel will let me stay there another night,” she laughed, blushing a little in embarrassment.

“Their loss, our gain,” Seizo said. “And you’d better let us play host while you can,” he admonished. “Before you know it we’ll all take you for granted and behave in our usual horrifying ways.”

She laughed. “Well, before you know it, you’ll be groaning about how annoying it is to have a mother hen around the place, so I guess we’ll be even.”

Seizo was surprised at the vague longing he felt, as if some long-buried need in him was rising from its grave to haunt him.

“Thalia-san,” he said, “whatever creatures you may resemble, a hen is not among them.”

“Thank the gods for that!” she said, shuddering. “Vicious creatures.”

Seizo nodded, remembering the chickens he and his grandparents had kept in the country before Kato moved them all to Edo to seek their collective fortune. They had been vicious, even eating their own eggs and chicks, or pecking unpopular hens to death. He had been afraid of them as a small child.

“They’re good on a plate, however,” Thalia added.

“There is that,” he agreed. He was still trying to grasp the elusive memory, or thought, that was so near he could almost feel it. Something about Thalia, and chickens scratching in a garden, and himself as a baby…? The more of these details he thought he grasped, the more idiotic it seemed. He pushed it away.

“What’s happening with the hijackers, by the way?” Thalia asked. “Shouldn’t you be helping interrogate and so forth?”

“I was in there this morning. The Vice-Commander is putting in an hour or so now – he should be about finished, unless something changed. I think the Chief is considering whether to ask you to give it a try. We can’t get much sense out of them, although usually between myself and Harada-san, we can break anyone. We still aren’t convinced we know what their real goal was or if they were working with someone, and where they got their weapons is still a mystery.”

Thalia looked thoughtful. “I’ve never tried to mitigate the damage I do, but it may be possible for me to do something with them.”

Seizo stopped, putting a hand on her arm. When he had her full attention, he asked, “Are you what’s called a Fury?”

She looked startled. “I didn’t know your world shared those myths with us,” she said. “What do you mean by Fury? I can’t answer unless I know that first.”

“I mean an avenging spirit; a goddess of justice with the power to drive the guilty insane, even to the point of suicide, if reparations are not made.”

“I think ‘goddess’ is a pretentious term, but otherwise that does fit half of my functionality, yes.”

“Half?”

“Have you heard of the Graces?” she asked.

“Opposites of Furies,” he replied. “They give inspiration and joy, don’t they?”

“Only to those who deserve it,” she agreed.

His eyes widened. “The Furies and the Graces are the same entities,” he said. “That makes a lot of sense, all of a sudden.” His thoughts returned to the moment. “And you are one?” he asked, his tone respectful.

She looked rather guarded. “So to speak, or more like a kind of … descendant … of the originals; I’m not a goddess. I’m an eternal soul in a mortal form, same as anyone else.”

“I don’t believe I have a soul,” Seizo replied.

“You don’t have to believe it,” she answered with a smile. “I still do.”

For some reason, this made him angry. “Wouldn’t you have to know me before deciding something like that?” he snapped.

“Yes, I would,” she replied, giving him a significant look before going inside the main building in search of cleaning supplies. He followed, his mind in turmoil.

***

Thalia spent several hours cleaning before she was satisfied, then rewarded herself with a hot shower in her new bathroom. It was unfortunate she had not brought extra clothing, but she had taken off her kimono and obi before she began working, so she could still wear them. It was the shift underneath that was filthy. The kimono was rather rough, especially at the seams, but she could stand it for an hour or so, until she got back to her suitcase and could change clothes.

The Vice-Chief knocked just as she finished wrapping the sash and was knotting it. She had practiced traditional Japanese dress before the journey, in the hope of avoiding embarrassment.

“Come in,” she called, and he did. He looked around and stopped. He was not surprised that she’d managed to clean it up, but that wasn’t all; she had somehow partially furnished the place as well.

“How did you clean and get furniture in so little time?” he asked.

“The stuff was already here in piles. I just picked through and cleaned some of it up,” she explained. “Whatever I didn’t want is outside in another pile, so that’ll be an eyesore until someone tells me where to put it.”

He realized her hair was wet, hanging past her waist in dark red dripping streamers. This made him blush, though she was perfectly decent.

“I’m heading back to the hotel to pick up that suitcase you hate so much,” she was saying, “and then my life will almost be complete. I do need a futon and some blankets, so I’ll probably stop somewhere on the way back. If anyone can be spared, I could use an extra pair of arms, but if not I’ll manage.”

“Think you could put it off a little?” he asked. “I’m here to see if you’d take a turn with the hijackers, since we haven’t gotten much more out of them. Seizo said you and he discussed it already, and you think you may be able to get somewhere.”

“I might, yes,” she said. “I don’t feel suitably dressed to go in there like this, however,” she said, blushing.

He was mystified at first, then realized she was not wearing anything underneath her kimono. He considered the problem. She was small, but they had old uniforms from when some of the officers-in-training had been younger that could approximate her size. It would be better than nothing, at any rate, until she could get her own uniform made.

He averted his face and mentioned it with some hesitation. She might be insulted at the suggestion that she wear a man’s old uniform, but it was the only immediate solution he could think of.

“Perfect,” she said, already more at ease. “They might not associate me with yesterday’s trauma so much if I manage to look like the rest of you, and I’d feel much more … covered.”

Fat chance she’d look like the rest of them in a thousand years, he thought, but refrained from saying. “I’ll have Yamamoto bring over his old uniforms at once,” Harada said. “When you’re dressed, come meet me in my office. It won’t take you more than an hour to see if you can get anywhere with those guys. Afterward I’ll go with you to get your things, and we’ll stop at a store on the way back.”

“Sounds fine, thanks,” she agreed, although she was surprised he was going with her himself instead of relegating it to someone else. He was also somewhat surprised at that, but he had already planned to go to the store anyway, he told himself. Which, while not untrue, was certainly hedging the full truth.