"Snow ......"

The man deftly dodged into the house, but did not approach him, still vigilantly guarding the door.

"Shhh The visitor lowered his voice, "Please be quiet!"

Kondo panicked and rolled over from the tatami mat and sat up.

"Oh oh ......" He responded a little ashamedly, but he felt that the acting leader of the group who was supposed to be with Ah Sui at this moment suddenly appeared here, it was too weird, and he couldn't help but ask: "But...... What are you doing here?!"

The person by the door turned out to be a woman, dressed strangely - she was wearing a women's blouse, but the hem was tied in a man's horse hakama, and the last time Kondo saw her, there was a world of difference from the light and crisp men's dress, and for some reason it always made people feel a little wolf, so Kondo couldn't help but ask with concern.

Hearing Kondo's question, the woman hid in the shadows by the door without looking back, peeking out, and replied succinctly and in a low voice, "This is my uncle's house." The deputy chief tried his best and no one was willing to help intercede and rescue you, so in the end, I had to-"

Kondo:!?

“…… I see. So, did Ah Sui let you come? Kondo, who seemed to quickly calm down from the shock at the beginning and made his own judgment, said calmly.

"And yet it's here dressed like this...... You snuck out of here in the first place, right...... I'm embarrassed, isn't it? ”

Willow Springs: ...... The Director's Reasoning Contest is high!

However, the kind words still have to be said a little. Suing the deputy chief in front of the director is not what an independent woman should do.

"No, it's nothing...... Me, uh...... My uncle's family has been serving Choshu from the very beginning, and the deputy governor asked me to come back and see if I can contribute......"

The words of the ghost beast Nissan seemed to echo in her mind again.

[Isn't that earthwork still suspicious of you? Otherwise, he won't force you to come back here. 】

A sentence subconsciously slipped out of her mouth.

"Even if the deputy chief suspects that I have an ulterior purpose all along, that is a matter of course!"

Kondo looked at her in surprise.

"Really...... So you don't think Ah Sui really trusts you......" He said with a sigh, looked down and thought about it, then raised his head again, staring at her seriously.

"But I think it's because I believe what you say that I've let you come here......" He continued, a little in the way, a less obvious flush of shame on his face.

"Although I can't agree with him why he would force a girl to go to such a place alone...... Of course, I can understand his feelings, but for my Isamu Kondo, I have to sacrifice a girl, which is too ...... ......He stammered, as if he had a belly full of words but didn't know how to express them.

Liu Quan also felt embarrassed. So she quickly interrupted Kondo.

"We can talk about these things after we get away. Director, I don't have the power to convince them to release you, so we'd better get away now. ”

Kondo:!!!

But of course, he won't be entangled in what the success rate of this escape operation is, and whether it will affect Liu Quan. Now that this girl has arrived with the consciousness of mortality, he must also respond to her sacrifice and expectations. If the escape fails, he will try his best to block those enemy soldiers as he did in Liushan, and let her escape alone.

The two men quietly slipped out of the room where Kondo had been under house arrest for many days. Maybe it's because Kiyohara Yukiye put down the guards outside the door on the way when he came, and he didn't meet anyone quietly along the way.

Kondo followed the head of the Ichiban group, who had taken the position of the head office, and the two of them came to a small hidden door one after the other.

However, to Kondo's surprise, Kiyohara Yukiha did not open the door, but began to climb a large tree that grew luxuriantly by the wall.

Kondo watched a little dumbfounded, and then she nimbly climbed up the branch, and then she found a safe place to sit down for a while, bowing her head to greet him.

"There's no problem walking from here, Director. Hurry up and climb up!"

I can only trust her now. Thinking so, Kondo hurriedly began to climb up the tree.

His agility wasn't that high, of course, and his movements were dangerous and clumsy, both when he climbed a tree and when he leaped from the treetops to a nearby wall, though it wasn't really that far. All in all, though, he jumped from the wall to a street behind the mansion. Then the two of them began to run wildly.

Although Edo was already on the eve of a stormy situation, there were many people patrolling the vicinity of the mansion. Maybe it was their bad luck, maybe it was because the guards who had been eliminated by Kiyohara Yukiha were quickly discovered and revealed to be missing, but they didn't have to go far before they heard shouts and footsteps behind them—it sounded like they were chasing them.

Ryuzumi ran ahead and Kondo followed, but players who had never purchased the [Edo Castle Map] item quickly discovered the huge disadvantage of being unfamiliar with the roads and directions in the city.

Tonight she finally found an opportunity to escape from the secret private residence of the Kujo family, but she was not a prophet either, and she did not know any safe place in Edo Castle to rush to the castle immediately.

The Plantation House Mansion, which takes in the Director-General to recuperate, may be an option, but it is far from quenching the thirst of the near. The question of where exactly Hijikata and the rest of the Shinsengumi are now is also difficult to figure out after being detained by Kujo Michiyo for so many days and completely cut off from the outside world. On the eve of the bloodless opening of Edo, hiding in a small inn or somewhere is not a good choice.

Willow Springs was ready to hide in Yoshiwara Flower Street. According to what little she knew about similar Hanajie Shimabara in Kyoto, it is now a place like Hanajie that has its own set of rules of survival and behavior, and the act of betraying customers will never be forgiven.

But now they have to escape safely before they can talk about anything else.

The shouting behind him seemed to be getting closer.

Liu Quan's feet were running non-stop, but due to Kondo's limited movement speed, her [Advanced Light Skill] plug-in was completely useless.

In order to get rid of their pursuers, they curved through narrow alleys one bend to the left and one bend to the right, trying not to stay in a straight alley for too long.

However, after turning a corner, Liu Quan was stunned.

…… Dead Alley!!

Liu Quan didn't react for a while, and subconsciously rushed forward for a distance, and then braked urgently in amazement when he approached the end of the alley.

The pursuers have not yet arrived, but they must continue to flee as soon as possible. Stay here for a second longer, and you will be more dangerous!

The emergency situation didn't allow her to think too much, she immediately made a decision, raised her hand and pulled out the [Mass-produced Longquan Sword] from her waist to re-exchange it with the new system fungus, and raised her sword to cut the door lock of the door next to her.

Kondo also reacted quickly and stopped her as soon as he raised his hand.

"Xueye-kun, what are you going to do here?!"

Liu Quan said without looking back: "Break in, pass through this house, and escape from the other side." ”

Kondo paused.

“…… What if the townspeople don't cooperate?"

Liu Quan was stunned.

"Then—"

She subconsciously wanted to say "cut them down", the word Okita likes to use, but when the words came to her lips, she couldn't say anything.

At such a critical moment, Kondo smiled slightly.

"Xue Ye-kun," he suddenly called her name again, "I, in the past few days of house arrest, I have nothing to do, and I have listened to some facts revealed when others gossip. ”

Willow Springs: ???

"I thought that the people of the capital and Edo were still sympathetic and loyal to the shogun...... However, I heard that after the shogunate withdrew from the capital, the people actually went to the mezzanine to welcome the army of the chief...... I didn't understand it at first. Satsuma is okay, aren't those Changzhou people who burned down the capital and brought great suffering to everyone during the change of the forbidden gate?!"

Kondo's gaze drifted away for a moment, as if he was thinking and distracted.

"However, I heard different people talking about what happened at that time, saying that some of the people bowed together and thanked each other, and some simply went to the battlefield to bring food, boiled water, and wine to the soldiers of the Sachang people...... But what about us? In addition to the enthusiastic cheers and support we have received in our hometown of Tama, from Seocho, Fushimi, Yodojo, Kofu, all the way to Edo, not to mention the common people, even the big names of the shogunate seem to have abandoned us—"

Kondo said as if talking to himself. Then, without waiting for Liu Quan to answer him, he raised his head again, showing a refreshing smile that was exactly the same as when he was separated from the earthwork in the flowing mountain that day, as if he had made a final decision.

"Let's go, Yukiba-kun. "I know you can jump on the roof over here—in the past, when you were at Ikedaya, you and Ah Sui rushed to help...... That's how you jumped straight into the room on the second floor, didn't you......?

Kondo's words instantly brought Yanagizumi back to the golden age of Shinsengumi a few years ago.

Now that I think about it, even if it was so hard at that time, not only did I have to fight like a man, but I also had to face Okita's hostility, Hijikata's doubts, everyone's coldness and defense, and I had to fight against a powerful opponent like Kazama, who was born with a plug-in, and the future of the strategy was not bright;

…… No, now is not the time to move and reminisce about the past.

Liu Quan: "...... You're not going to stay on your own, are you...... In that case, what's the point of the deputy chief asking me to come back here......?!"

"Yukiba-kun!!" Kondo shouted in a deep voice, and for a moment, his face, which was always as loyal as a good old man, actually showed a bit of a fierce expression.

However, his expression quickly softened again.

"When I was at the Golden Mansion, I was already conscious. He said.

"The Shinsengumi is where Yukiba-kun belongs, right?...... That's what I thought. So, I think there must be a need for Yukiba-kun to stay. Since then, you've lived up to my expectations and been a great part of the Shinsengumi...... My trust was not in vain. I think it's Ah Sui, or other cadres...... Like me, they will never regret the decision to trust you and let you stay. ”

A look of consternation appeared on Liu Quan's face, and the next moment, her eyes moistened.