To Not Give In

Six || Part 1: No Biting--Oops

I coughed as my lungs filled with smoke. My eyes burned and my vision blurred. The heat of the overwhelmingly flames scorched my skin and sweat poured from every inch of me.

Barely making out of the inn I was staying at, I wandered the streets carrying a sack containing the few possessions I'd managed to save. I stumbled around, barely making sense of my surrounding. All I saw was fire, fire, and more fire.

Suddenly, my foot met something hard. I cried out as I found the distance between my body and the ground rapidly closing. I hit the ground with a painful thump and gasped. A sharp burn had sparked in my knee and I knew that I'd scraped it. My fingers pressed against the gravelly ground as I pushed myself up.

I gritted my teeth and bent the leg which was smarting and pushed the hem of my kimono up to see a bloodied knee. Grimacing at the sight, I swallowed and shoved my kimono back over the wound.

I got back onto my feet--shakily, but still managing--I started making my way down the burning road, step by step, bit by bit, the crackling and roar of the fire filling the air around me.

"It was...horrible," I murmured. I looked back at Sen, whose lips were pursed as she gazed back sorrowfully at me. "The restaurant burned down. Lots of people died or were left homeless."

Sen inclined her head, closing her eyes momentarily.

In an attempt to revert her back to her former cheerful mood, I beamed and leaned back. "Well, the capital rebuilt itself nicely. Look! Business is booming right now!"

I spread my arms wide. Sen smiled, and with her chopsticks, took a piece of tatami iwashi. She bit down onto it and chewed happily.

"Mm!" She swallowed and nodded. "That's right!"

"But," I started as I watched her eat. She looked up, listening. I wove my fingers together and rested my chin on them. "It's kind of hard to not be mad at the Shinsengumi for it, right? I mean, I don't really blame them for the entire thing but...it's their job to protect the capital. And look at how many people burned to death, lost their homes, and all the buildings that were destroyed."

I looked out at the window. "A woman I know, I helped find her lost daughter a while ago...Yukiji, I remember the girl's name was. The mother died. I attended her burial. The girl is motherless now."

For a moment, neither of us talked. It was Sen that broke the silence after a while.

"The Shinsengumi...many of the people that live in the capital dislike them. I suppose I can't exactly blame them. That group doesn't exactly have the brightest reputation. However," I turned to look at Sen, and saw that her eyes had a determined and grounded look in them, "the Shinsengumi do protect the capital and its citizens in the best way they can. They're good men on the inside, I can see that. Yes, they may be ruthless, they may be forceful...but they still fight to defend this city and its citizens with all they have."

"O' Sen-chan..." I looked at her. In a way, I understood what she was getting at. I suppose it was unreasonable for me to hold the grudge of the fire towards them, and Sen's words about them was able to lessen that grudge towards the Shinsengumi a bit.

She leaned forward, holding a hand to her mouth and sudden I noticed that her eyes were twinkling excitedly.

"You won't believe what happened several days ago!" she exclaimed in a hush whisper. Ah, here was the juicy gossip of the day. I leaned forward.

"I was a walking down the street the other day, when this horrible samurai started taunting a child. Naturally, I went to defend the boy, but then he wouldn't stop pestering us! Then all of a sudden, this girl showed up out of nowhere. She stood up to the samurai." Sen shook her head, though not in a disapproving manner. "She was so brave! Just as the samurai was about to attack us though, one of the Shinsengumi's captains interfered...Saito-san, I remember his name is. Now that I think about it, he's the one that approached us when you first appeared in the capital! Anyway, he gave each of those samurai a well-deserved whack on the head!"