The next morning, the heavy snow stopped and Kyoto was bathed in warm sunshine. The temple-like camp was covered with pure white snow. Houses in the camp were clean and of primitive simplicity.
Jiziru Yukimura lay on a tatami in a room, with a piece of cloth stuffed in her mouth, her limbs tied. She woke up and tried to sit up but couldn"t move because she was tied up tightly. Jiziru composed herself and looked around the room which was very clean and simple. The morning sun slanted through the half-open sliding door, bathing the room in warmth. There were only one bed and one table in the room.
"Where am I?"
Jiziru Yukimura wore a puzzled look.
Suddenly, the sliding door was totally opened and a middle-aged man in a light-yellow samurai suit walked in, his hair tied back, revealing his broad forehead. He looked kind in face.
"You are awake."
He walked up to Jiziru Yukimura, squatted down and said in a concerned voice, "I"m sorry we have treated you so roughly..." With that he reached out to untie the ropes binding Jiziru Yukimura"s limbs.
"I will untie the ropes straight away. Wait a minute... Why did Souji tie your hands and feet so tightly? You must feel pain. Now you"re all right. Can you get up from the tatami?" He helped Jiziru Yukimura up and pulled out the cloth from her mouth. "Now you can talk to me."
With the ropes binding her limbs untied, Jiziru Yukimura felt relaxed. She coughed and asked, "May I ask where I am and who you are?"
The middle-aged man smiled, "My name is Genzaburou Inoue. This is the camp of Shinsengumi."
T/N note:
Shinsengumi: an organization of samurai who supported the shogunate.
"Shinsengumi?!" Jiziru Yukimura was wide-eyed with astonishment.
Inoue smiled, "Please calm down and follow me." With that he led Jiziru Yukimura out of the room. The glorious sunshine shone on her face and hair. Jiziru felt as if she had been cut off from the outside world for ages but now, she once more saw the light of day.
Before long, Genzaburou Inoue took her to another big house and then reached out to open the sliding door.
As soon as the door was opened, Jiziru heard a familiar voice--"Good morning! Did you sleep well last night?"
The speaker knelt in the middle of the room. He was the mauve-haired man, Saitou whom Jiziru had seen last night. Jiziru Yukimura was a bit surprised. Just then, the brown-haired man sitting on the far left smiled, "He must have had a sound sleep. Look at his face. The tatami has left a mark on his cheeks." Obviously, he mistakenly believed that Jiziru Yukimura was a boy.
Jiziru Yukimura blushed with shame and covered her delicate and pretty face with both hands.
"Stop kidding, Souji. He takes it seriously..." Hajime Saitou said lightly, "In fact, there is no mark on his face."
Souji burst into laughter, "Haha... How could you expose my trick? Hajime..."
Jiziru Yukimura gawked at Souji Okita and Hajime Saitou. Just then, a voice said, "You guys, cut the c.r.a.p!"
Jiziru raised her head and looked at the direction of the voice-- It was the man called Hijikata who had black hair and clear purple eyes.
"Hijikata..." Jiziru Yukimura whispered his name silently in her heart.
Souji curled his upper lip and said, "Okay, Vice Minister Hijikata."
A teenager with green eyes sitting aside suddenly asked, "This little guy is the eyewitness?"
Jiziru Yukimura looked at the teenager. He was roughly the same age as Jiziru, with light brown hair tied back highly, wild and unyielding. But he had a mild exterior.
The teenager continued, "He"s a total kid, short and thin..."
A short-haired man with a green headband wrapped round his skull raised his hand to rub the teenager"s hair as he smiled, "Heisuke, don"t call him "kid"..."
"You are the same age as him. In the eyes of others, you are also a kid..." a man in a white garment that was open in the breast part, said with a smile.
The teenager called Heisuke felt embarra.s.sed. He shook off the short-haired man"s hand and roared, "You two middle-aged men, shut up!"
The short-haired man pressed Heisuke"s head down and asked with interest, "You little devil, could you repeat what you have just said?"
The man in the white garment corrected Heisuke, "Although I"m older than you, I"m too young to be called a middle-aged man. So, don"t call me that. As for Shinpachi, you can call him anything you like."
The short-haired man called Shinpachi instantly shot back, "Sanosuke, are you vilifying me?"