Chapter Text
“Do you know the feeling… of a dream?”
“… what kind of dream?”
“A long dream. A very long dream.”
“A nightmare? One that never seems to end? Or a blissful sleep, one that makes you regret waking?”
“Ah, both. A very long nightmare, where you are dying slowly, alone, as the world leaves you by. A very long dream of bliss, where everything is perfect and whole. I feel like I am haunted by one while I live out the other. I cannot tell which is real.”
The cherry blossoms fall in a lazy spiral. Her hair used to be that colour. Ah, no. What is she talking about? Her hair has always been the colour of day-old ash.
“What are you on about Okita?”
The gruff voice emerges from the room. She does not need to turn to picture the man leaning against the wall, his uniform clean and prim, a sheathed katana resting nearby. It was a Tachi he had commissioned at Kondo’s request, an elegant blade to match their growing prestige.
“Just a mood.”
“A nonsensical one,” he huffs, and Okita’s companion at the balcony laughs.
“I could remind you of your waxing poetries from your youth, Toshizo.”
Kondo Isami is a shadow in the sun, hazy in her vision. She cannot see his face clearly through the sleepy haze, but the memory of a smile is enough. The content warmth of spring breaking into summer makes Okita feel soft and unmoored- a paper boat idling down a stream.
It feels like a dream, and she’s never been more terrified.
The nightmare begins like this;
Okita Souji is 25 years old and the captain of the first unit of the esteemed Shinsengumi. Every soul in Edo either sings praises for the captain or spit curses at the manslayer who’s skill is nigh unchallenged across the land.
Okita Souji is 25 years old and with every breath she takes blood gurgles in the back of her throat. Every night she coughs wrack her body and her bedsheets come away stained red. When the men she captained station themselves in the Tohoku region, Okita lies dying over hundreds of kilometres away, too weak even lift her sword.
The scent of blood from those she’d cut down used to haunt her- the remnants of ghosts she couldn’t fully stamp out with words like ‘duty’ and ‘patriotism’. Now it is her blood haunting her, weighing down her lungs and crawling up her throat. Sometimes she wishes she could cut herself open and bleed out her sickness, letting it run until it was all gone so she could stitch herself back up and be as good as new.
But then she wakes up, or falls asleep, and perhaps here is the greater nightmare.
Okita Souji is 27, a captain of the Shinsengumi and she’s never gotten sick in her entire life.
The Bakufu reign strong, the might and glory of the great Shinsengumi perfectly executing their will across Edo. Under their commander Kondo Isami, whom Okita notes to be 34 years old, their forces flourish. When they walk the streets the people of Edo cheer purely, casting a light without shadow. They praise the commander, who brought the great criminal Sakamoto Ryouma to justice and ended the era of anti-Bakufu terrorism. Everything simple- childishly so. When Okita walks the street with her Haori on her shoulders the people cheer.
Praise be, praise be, praise be unto you.
They were the heroes, they had vanquished their enemies, and good and evil stood at opposite ends of a spectrum divided by thick walls.
Kondo Isami was a good person, and the good were rewarded, not killed and put on display.
Thusly, Okita Souji had never been sick a day in her life. She was good. Of course. She had been rewarded with a near-perfect life without want, decorated and rich. Her family is well-fed, her friends are all alive and her Shinsengumi stands strong.
Everything is perfect, except for the fact that everything is a lie.