Feeling that his topic was in a tendency to be led by her again, he coughed heavily and forcibly led the topic back to the right path (?).

"Ahem...... Is the Kujou family doing this to regain His Majesty's reuse?" he casually asked a question with a clear answer, with a look of "Seriously, let's talk about business here!".

Kiyohara Yukiha, who was on the other side of the table, clearly saw his intentions, so he winked at him and didn't answer the question directly.

Goro Fujita: "...... Then, according to my investigation, Kujo Michikiyo passed away for unknown reasons in the early years of the Meiji era——"

When he said this, the corner of his eye suddenly swept to the expression on her face, and he couldn't help but be slightly stunned.

As he recounted the results of his investigation, she kept smiling slightly, holding her cheeks and half-tilting her head, looking at him seemingly mischievously and lazily, her eyes clear and smart. However, when he heard him say this fact, that soft and pleasant gaze suddenly disappeared.

The smile on her face was still there, but the perfunctory meaning was much more obvious. Her gaze seemed to turn a little colder, as if she was suddenly full of disgust for the person and the name of Kujo Daoqing, and even the end of this person's death could not make her give him a little more mercy.

An inference flashed through his mind.

"Kujo Daoqing, he ...... Have you done anything bad to you, Yukiba-kun?" he blurted out.

Sure enough, the smile on her face slowly froze.

She put down her teacup, her expression suddenly hollow and cold. Her left hand was still holding her head, but her free right hand tapped her small, beautifully curved chin with her index finger—a movement that seemed to speak of some kind of anger, unhappiness, and uneasy feeling of being provoked—and replied in an equally hollow and indifferent tone, "...... What would you think if I said, 'Yes,' Ichi-kun?"

Goro Fujita: ?!

He asked such a question only because he thought of what the retired former owner of the grocery store had said about "useful people adopt adopted sons and adopted daughters" and "the Chinese young master used his feelings and charm to control ignorant girls to do things for him".

Although he felt that Kiyohara Yukiha didn't fit the definition of an ignorant girl, she would do crazy things if she was blackmailed, just as she hated her uncle's house close to the Choshu domain so much, but she still returned to the home that she had betrayed and fled from for the plea of the deputy chief, and risked great danger to rescue Director Kondo-

He felt as if he hadn't thought about the deputy chief for a long time. He forced himself to forget for a moment that he had been one of the sharpest swords of the Shinsengumi, that he had been Saito Ichi, that he had been the leader of the Shinsengumi's third team, that he had been so glamorous in the era of the sword—all of which had brought him glory with the sword, but now it had been buried with the old era.

It's like the deputy chief who seemed to be wise and powerful and omnipotent back then, but he was also taken away by the sunset when the old era passed.

He knew that his subconscious was confused, anxious and dazed, and he was dumbfounded by her sudden appearance and approach, not knowing how she had spent all these years, not knowing how she had escaped from the crisis of near death, not knowing when she had been separated from the deputy chief, and not even knowing if the position of the deputy chief in her heart was still the same as before, and how it was compared to him.

...... It's all because of my unquenchable greed, which gives rise to these dark thoughts. He thought.

It seems that after being kissed by her, those dark feelings and bad thoughts that have been hidden deep in his heart and have been firmly suppressed by his reason have broken free from the layers of shackles with a bang, and they are all out of the cage.

I want to know if I am not as good as the deputy chief, and whether I am also qualified to hug her. I want to know if I have left traces in her heart in the years when they all looked up to the glorious image of the deputy chief. I want to know if this time she will stay, stand in front of him forever, every time he thinks of her, every night he thinks of her, he can hug her, smell the faint fresh fragrance from her, kiss her soft and moist lips, and soothe his heart that has become aching because of longing in the darkness of those days and nights.

He felt a pang of danger.

For for him, the dark emotions called affection and longing, which had been buried for many years, were now free from the shackles of reason, and had become a devouring beast running around in his breast, forcing him to face these things for the first time.

In retrospect, when she appeared in a gorgeous kimono in a corner house that had just ended a fierce battle, when she rushed through the blood-soaked streets of the oil-covered road with her sword in hand, when she rushed up to Momoyama on the outskirts of Fushimi under fierce artillery fire and interrupted his confrontation with the mighty oni clan, when she came out of the forest on the slopes of Kannonzaka in Katsunuma and said with a smile that she had come to pick him up...... Even when she was smiling goodbye to him outside the door of the golden mansion in Naruyama, or crying and shouting in the falling Aizu Castle that wanted him to come back to look for her after he had fulfilled his duty-

In so many unforgettable moments, when she appeared, the heart in her chest pounded and almost flew out of her throat, and she felt a blank feeling of bewilderment......

Ah, that's the heartbeat sound.

It doesn't matter where she comes from, no matter what she's done, or even if it's herself in her eyes...... The inevitable wavering feeling that swelled in his chest was the reason why he had been waiting until now.

"Although I don't know exactly how he died......" he replied earnestly, after a moment's thought.

However, if he intends to act according to his own ideas and does something that harms others, all the consequences will be self-inflicted. ”

He stared into her eyes, his upper body leaning forward slightly, his jaw taut in an angular line, as if to show how firm his thoughts were, and the determination he was about to convey to her without reservation.

"We ......," he paused, silently mouthing the word "Shinsengumi," and then added, "I can't forgive an enemy who hurts my fellow soldiers." It must be crusaded. He had died of his own life before that...... It's a pity. ”

His last words "I'm really sorry" were particularly heavy, as if he felt deep anger and regret because he thought of something that had happened and he didn't stop it or avenge her with his own hands.

His mood was conveyed unreservedly, and she looked back fixedly at the dark blue eyes that were staring at her, and after a long time, the index finger that tapped her chin suddenly paused, and then, the corners of her lips slowly hooked, and she smiled.

The author has something to say: March 8:

In the absence of an outline and a manuscript, I was thinking about the plot while coding words.,I felt a struggle.。。。

After returning from a business trip, the computer broke down, and I had to move, and there were many other things, so the update was a little unstable recently, so I'm very sorry.

Writing about the inner world of the little one is often afraid that it will be OOC, so I always finish writing and overturn it again, and I am distressed.

Write less today and try to write more tomorrow. In addition, I will strive to have a god's brain hole tomorrow.

I'm going to appear in three days and moons.,I've been wanting to write about his delicious plot lately.,So。。。 Everyone asked me to think about how to write hhh

Finally, thank you CS bacteria for feeding the mines!(づ ̄3 ̄)づ╭~