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ladyshiranui · 4 years

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shiranui x chizuru iii

psst~ link to A03 - https://archiveofourown.org/works/26677699

Upon arrival, the devastated Goryokaku leaves Chizuru Yukimura all alone and questioning her future. Lucky for her, 'a fellow demon at her disposal' means she doesn't have to come to terms with the woes of grief by herself.

words: 2272

༶•⛧┈♛ ♛┈⛧•༶

It was among the most havoc-wrecked sights of the war. Splinters of wood scattered across the soil like seeds of devastation. Canon fire had ceased, yet the deafening blasts still throbbed in her eardrums. The sky was blue, a cruel irony for a day that called for grey clouds. Lingering smoke of gunpowder and battle filled her lungs, gripping her heart in grief.

The flag of Makoto in her fingertips, tattered and smeared in the blood of the fallen, decidedly marked the end of an era. The faces of her comrades from the last number of years, their kindness and hospitality, their undying loyalty and unwavering conviction— It all came to her in a flooding nostalgia. She was overwhelmed, trying to surface the tides of sorrow to replace her stolen breath.

It was no thanks to Lord Kazama who’d made his departure as soon as the shores of Hamamatsu had been reached that the demon girl was left alone. Typical of the entitled egoist to have an icy heart until the journey’s end. If not for Shiranui’s inquisitiveness, and unshakable doubt of Kazama’s supposed altruism, he wouldn’t have followed.

After seeing Kazama refuse to disembark the docked boat while Chizuru ran ahead, he’d revealed himself. With his hands on his hips, he asked, “What, you’re not going after her? After all this time you’re gonna let her go? Just like that?”

Chizuru had long disappeared among the trees, the then active canons shaking the earth with their mighty bellows, but Kazama’s gaze stood fixed on her fleeting trail. “She is no longer of my concern. It’s clear she’s more vainly focussed on those shogunate dogs than saving her own bloodline. She would not make a suitable wife.”

Shiranui scoffed. “Can’t blame the girl for not being that into you. I wouldn’t be if I was stalked and kidnapped by some pretentious demon lord.”

Kazama’s absence of rebuttal was dissatisfying. “The Yukimura clan is dead. She has decided her own end and I will not associate myself with it any longer,” he averred.

“So what do you call travelling halfway across the country for her?”

“Pity, if you must label it. Not whatever silly selfless ambition you’ve conjured in that head of yours. I am not without dignity.”

The rolling of his eyes implied the second demon lord felt otherwise. “After all that’s happened and you’re still as egotistical as you ever were. You’ll never change, Kazama.”

“For what reason would I need to? I live for no-one but myself. It’s the half-witted female demon who needs to change. Her mind has been poisoned living as an equal among the humans.”

“Cut her some slack, will you? It’s not like she had much of a choice.” Kazama’s having an answer to everything was boiling Shiranui’s blood. The heat of his rising rage trickled into his tone, a low growl in the back of his throat when he opened his mouth. “Dignity, my ass-- You only care about yourself. She could have already been blown to bits and you’d feel nothing.”

A reaction was finally elicited with the chieftain’s sharp turn and piercing gaze. Shiranui met his challenge, standing convicted by his words and refusing to look away. Frantic shouts of warning as gunfire and cannonballs flew overhead had the lingering passengers scrambling for safety and collapsing to the ground, yet the demons were unfazed by the waging war of man. The deafening chaos underpinned the last spoken sentence.

“You...” Kazama snarled. His hand hovered above the hilt of his sword, his opposer watching him warily with his own hand close to his gun, but the former relaxed. Instead of hurling every threat under the sun, Shiranui questioned his look of amusement. “It seems Chizuru Yukimura is not the only foolish one here,” he smirked with a tilted chin.

“What the hell are you going on about?”

“First that spear-wielding red-head, and now--” he tauntingly laughed-- “You’ve gone soft, Shiranui. I expected more from the chief of your own clan. You’re a walking mockery of a demon.”

The pistol was drawn and fired in impromptu haste. A tuft of blonde hair bounced as a silver bullet flew directly beneath it, leaving no injury but an already fading red mark of heat on Kazama’s cheekbone. Shiranui’s nostrils flared with a sudden breathlessness, the derogatory mention of the Shinsengumi’s 10th Division captain igniting his anger.

His tightening grip dusted his knuckles white. While there was almost always a snarky response with Shiranui, his mouth stayed a thin line with his jaw clenched.

Kazama’s brow twitched. “As I thought,” he hummed. Sailors loudly declared their departure, rowboats retreating back into the ocean. The demon retook his place, turning his back to Shiranui with a dismissive wave. “Do what you want with that wench. The end of the Yukimura line should have an audience, after all.”

It took everything in Shiranui to not place a bullet in the back of Kazama’s head. Such an easy target; one pull of the trigger is all it would take. Looking at him alone made his stomach churn with a dangerous, deadly vexation. The wish to be as far away from him as possible propelled him to turn around and trudge through the sandy shores. He didn’t know where he was going, only the faint tug of an unseen thread luring him through the trees and turmoil.

And then, he reached Goryokaku.

Centre to the battered shelter, crumpled in the dirt, was her. Shiranui knew she was close to the men of the Shinsengumi, but not so close to mourn so greatly. He’d never fancied himself getting close to humans for this very reason, but he couldn’t deny how leaden his heart had become at Harada’s own fall. Sitting by his side, the sparkle of heroism that never left his eyes dissipating into a glassy haze, the last heave of breath leaving his body, his last words an unfinished sentence-- as the sole witness it had done more to him than he would have liked to admit. In a way that escaped even him, seeing Chizuru in her state lifted an inkling of the weighty sorrow in his chest. It was as though she cried not only for the two of them, but all others who believed in whom had met their end.

Shiranui was glad his arm’s length relationship with humans spared him from a pain he didn’t want to know what felt like. He didn’t have the heart to go up to her right away. Her grief was personal, something that no-one could ever understand. An audience, Kazama said. His inference reeked of voyeurism, and seeing her express the rawest form of emotional vulnerability angered him all over again. The churning of his stomach made him ill, and he couldn’t stand by anymore.

One foot after the other, fallen leaves and burnt wood crunching beneath his boots, Shiranui approached her. He didn’t know what he was doing, or what he should do. He couldn’t say he’d been confronted with such grief before and was left in the unknown how to handle the delicate situation. His feet didn’t stop, though. They knew where he needed to be, so he let them carry him to her side.

His shadow cast across her racking body, her sobs muffled in the tattered flag of truth she gripped so desperately. Her cries sounded strangled, like a bird in a cage desperate to be set free. Even in a moment so emotionally unbearable, she held onto the smallest inkling of composure she had left. An odd feeling extending to his hand arose, and stretched it out toward her. Slowly it lowered, resting atop of Chizuru’s head. The violent force of her anguish travelled through to him, resurfacing feelings he’d buried what seemed so long ago.

The flood gates opened, the bird was free. Sobs turned to a wailing lament, its echo carried through the leaves of the trees that shielded them from prying eyes. She doubled over, her head resting against the soil, and Shiranui compensated by lowering himself to his knees. The churning in his stomach morphed into the twisting of his heart. His pride begged him to stand back up, to keep himself in check, but he too bowed his head in dolour.

“They put up one hell of a fight, that’s for sure…” he murmured, the right words difficult to muster.

Chizuru’s cries gradually softened. Deep breaths swayed her frame under the demon lord’s gentle touch. Shiranui pulled himself away and stood to his feet, surprised by how heavy he’d suddenly felt.

“You can’t stay here forever.” He scrutinised the scene before them. Looking at her while speaking truthfully felt too guilting. Funny; he’d never felt like that before. “There’s bound to be imperialists still hanging around somewhere, and I wouldn’t count on their mercy towards you and your affiliation with the Shinsengumi.”

He waited for a response, but no such words left Chizuru’s lips. Side-eyeing her, her face lifted from the flag, revealing only her red, drenched and tired eyes. She looked so frail. He would’ve thought her to be otherwise sickly. There was no life in her, as though her spirit died with the fallen captains across the country. The look in her eyes was the very same he’d left behind in Ueno.

“So? What’ll you do?” he spoke again. “I can guarantee Kazama won’t come after you anymore and, well…” he hesitated, “you don’t have a place to go back to. You’re free.”

Sniffles escaped her while her back straightened upright. Her muffled, feeble voice eked out the reply, “It never felt like I wasn’t. I just wanted to be with them… always… They made me feel like I was human, like I was allowed to have a place with them.” She brought the flag to her running eyes, wiping her tears where no strong, gentle hand ever would again.

“You say that like being a demon means the end of the world. I can tell you-- It’s not.” Shiranui cast his gaze to the blue sky. The sun was lowering by then, a golden blush blanketing the remnant chaos in an ironic beauty. Everything made him think of him, from the red of the maple to the hue of the sunset matching his irises. He’d thought he’d let it go already, but perhaps he was wrong. “I can also say that Harada never thought bad of you for being one, either. It was almost closer to praise whenever he would talk about it. It got kind of annoying.”

“Harada did?”

He sighed, her oblivion to these things truly astounding him. “I’m pretty sure he would’ve told you a bunch of times himself, but yeah… He did.”

“Then--” she turned herself towards Shiranui, her eyes pleading for all the answers to her questions-- “why did they never make me feel like I was a demon? Why did it feel like I was always one of them?”

“Because you were. You spent five years of your life with them. It goes without saying you’d feel like a human being among humans.” He folded his arms, wrestling her doubts. “I don’t think it was that they pretended you were a human, but more like they accepted you for you; a demon. Maybe you should try it, too.”

Chizuru’s shoulders were weighed by defeat and sunk. “I wouldn’t know how to do that.”

“Well, consider yourself lucky to have a fellow demon at your disposal.”

“Who?”

Shiranui stared at her dubiously, cocking his brow with his mouth slack-jawed. “I’m going to pretend you didn’t ask that.”

With a spin on his heel he turned away from the wreckage, his scarf dancing in the breeze. It was elegant, rising and falling like suspended ocean waves. Chizuru couldn’t help but stare, its tattered edges sparking curiosity. She found herself looking between it and the similarly affected flag in her hands. Her thoughts meandered, wondering if that green scarf in any way shared the devastation the flag of truth represented. A question begged to be asked, but she held her tongue. She would save it for another day.

“You coming or what?” Shiranui beckoned with a look over his shoulder.

Startled by her own daze she turned away. The feeling in her legs had returned to her and she sluggishly picked herself up. The uniform generously granted to her by the captains was smeared with all kinds of blemishes but her appearance couldn’t be a further concern. Her legs wobbled underneath her, clutching the flag tightly in her hands. This sacred keepsake, this sole memento she had of the fiercest group of men she’d ever come to know-- she swore she would never part with it.

Shiranui’s back grew further the longer she waited, so she jogged to his side. She said nothing, her eyes cast upon the ground while her feet dragged through the earth.

“Boats should arrive at Hamamatsu before long to retrieve the left-over soldiers. We’ll wait around until we can board one back to Edo.”

“What will you do?” Chizuru asked.

“Well, what are you going to do?”

“I’m not sure… I hadn’t thought about it very much.”

“Guess that goes for me too, then.”

His confusing response willed her to look at him questioningly. Seeing her greatly confused expression, Shiranui smirked. So oblivious. He’d never know what Harada saw in her, yet a deeply rooted curiosity fancied him to find out.

“But--” she croaked before his hand ruffled her hair.

“Relax, won’t you?” He smirked as they walked away from the wreckage side by side. “We’ll figure it out. I promise.”

༶•⛧┈♛ ♛┈⛧•༶ part i | part ii | part iii

#I haven't written anything in a while #but felt a sudden spark of inspo today #writing #shiranui kyo #shiranui x chizuru #hakuoki #hakuouki #hurt/comfort

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