AN: Epilogue? Epilogue!

The girl took a deep breath, preparing herself for what lied beyond these doors. The imposing wooden gate towered over her, making her feel small and meaningless.

"You can do this, you can do this, you can do this…" She silently whispered to herself, anxiously tugging at her black uniform and adjusting her collar.

"I CAN'T DO THIS!" She mentally screamed to herself a few seconds later, ready to turn tail and run back home. They'd understand if she showed up in front of their doorstep, ready to give up on her silly dream. They'd definitely understand. They'd def-

"Excuse me, miss, do you need something?" A male voice dragged her out of her thoughts. She whipped her head around and looked at the black-haired man wearing an identical uniform to hers. Her eyes drifted to the shopping basket in his left hand, full of single-wrapped buns. Anpan, to be precise.

"Well, you see, I, erm, I…" She hopelessly stuttered while awkwardly scratching the back of her head.

The man took in her appearance, especially her outfit, and seemed to recall something. "Oh, you're that special new member, right?" He asked her while making a face of enlightenment.

"Yeah, I guess you could put it that way." She smiled apologetically while mentally slapping herself for the pitiful display. This was not the first impression she wanted to leave.

"Why didn't you just say so in the first place?" He offered her a kind smile. "My name is Sagaru Yamazaki, an inspector here." He introduced himself.

He seemed nice enough.

"I'm Minami Fujiwara, nice to meet you." She tentatively took his outstretched hand and gave it a firm shake.

"Why didn't you go in yet? I'm sure that the Vice-Chief is waiting for you." Yamazaki asked her while opening the door that was separating her from her unforeseeable future.

"You see, I…" She lamely started, breaking off her speech mid-sentence before she could embarrass herself any further. "I'm sorry."

"Ah, first day jitters, happened to all of us. You should have seen me in my first days at the Shinsengumi, I was an absolute wreck!" He chuckled at her while thinking back to images of Mountain Zaki. "Those sure were days…" he sighed nostalgically.

She gathered her wits, not really listening to what he was telling her as she stepped into the compound. This was her life from now on.

She took in the smell of her new home and wrinkled her nose immediately afterwards. The stench of sweat and old socks was stale in the air, and rows of men after men who were training outside, adding their sweat to the mixture, weren't exactly helping.

She hadn't been too sure what to expect, but then again, this wasn't her first time here. Back when many hopeful young men streamed to the Shinsengumi grounds, she had been amongst them, proving herself against her male colleagues. She wanted to show them that women weren't weak, and that they should also have the right to protect what they believe in. She wanted to prove that she could wield a sword like no other.

And yet here she was, letting her nerves get the better of her. She gulped as she strode next to Yamazaki, trying her best to look like the proud Fujiwara heiress she was, something which was unfortunately easier said than done. Her grip on the travel bag in her right hand tightened significantly as she felt the first stares in her direction, including the first few comments.

"Oi, oi, say one more thing about Miss Fujiwara and you're committing seppuku." A deep voice threatened. "She'll be living by the same bushido you do from now on."

Minami gulped as the tall black-haired man towering over her put a cigarette in his mouth and glanced down at her. "You're late."

"I'm sorry, there was just… stuff!" She quickly squealed an apology under his imploring gaze.

He furrowed his eyebrows between his parted bangs. "The last time I heard that excuse, the city sent us a bill for reparation money. It wasn't pretty." He grumbled as he lit his cigarette with an oddly-shaped lighter. Was that a mayonnaise bottle?

She held her breath as his gaze swept over her, cursing whatever was making her so fucking tense. If only she could loosen up and drop the nervousness, then everything would be fine.

"Well, I guess I'll show you to your assigned room and inform you about your position and your duties.

"Y-Yes, sir!" She answered without hesitation, hoping it wouldn't make things awkward again. She really wouldn't be able to deal with another pregnant pause like that…

She followed him in silence as he and Yamazaki lead her down the hallway and slid open the door on the far end. "This'll be your room. I can't promise anything, since you're the first female member we have, but you can come to me if you have any requests." He listed off monotonously. In other words, she shouldn't bother him with anything that isn't life-threatening.

"Of course, sir." She replied carefully while setting her bags down on the floor.

"You can get settled in later, but for now I'll show you where you'll be working from now on." He led her back down the hallway in the direction they came from. "As you are aware, newbies usually get the jobs nobody wants. We're no different." He threw a glance over his shoulder to see her reaction.

"I guessed that much." She confirmed, already regretting her life decisions.

He came to a stop in front of one of the rooms and knocked against the screen door. No answer. He let out an exasperated sigh and knocked again. Still no answer.

"You seem like a pretty headstrong person, so don't let him get to you, okay? If you do, you're committing seppuku." He stated gruffly as he forcefully slid open the door to the room.

Minami looked around, deducing that this was an office of sorts. There was a low table on one end of the room, multiple shelves with books and files and the other. Sheets of paper were scattered all over the floor, probably once part of the growing stack on the table.

But papers weren't the only thing on the table. A mop of long sandy hair in a long ponytail rested on the surface, face-down and snoozing away.

"Oi, Sougo, wake up!" The Vice-Chief of the Shinsengumi walked over to the sleeping figure and nudged it with his foot.

The figure groaned and slowly lifted its head, messy blond bangs falling over a red sleeping mask.

"Is it finally time for your funeral? Don't worry, I'll shoot your coffin into the sky with lots of fireworks…" He sleep-mumbled, letting his face fall flat on the surface once more.

Hijikata remained still for a second as a shadow cast itself over his face before he practically leapt over the table and pulled the sleeping blonde up by the collar of his uniform. "If you don't wake up right now, I'm sending you to Umibouzo drugged and gift-wrapped, got that?"

The blonde guy sighed and picked the Vice-Chief's hands off of his collar. "Can I arrest you for threatening my life?" He drawled lifelessly before letting out a long, exaggerated yawn. He glanced at the sun falling into the courtyard and shook his head. "Hijikata, you don't just wake people up that early in the morning, it's rude, you know?"

Hijikata took a deep, long breath. "If you want to sleep that long, spend the rest of the day with your buddy Kamui. I'm sure he'll be thrilled." He calmly pressed out between his teeth. "Now, back on topic," he pointed at Minami, "this is Minami Fujiwara. She'll be your new personal alarm clock and make sure you don't doze off when you're supposed to be working, as well as make sure that you stay on your patrol routes and don't pick fights with certain aliens long the way."

Minami frowned at her job description. That sounded an awful lot like…

"What is she, my baby-sitter?" The guy in question yawned.

Ignoring him, Hijikata turned back to face her. "This bastard here is Sougo Okita, our first Squad Captain. He has some weird perks, but is somewhat tolerable as long as you aren't me."

"Oh that reminds me, Happy Deathday, Hijikata!" Okita dug out a big round cake from under the table and throwing it in their direction.

The Vice-Chief muttered a few curse words under his breath before pushing Minami aside and saving himself as well. Yamazaki was already hiding behind the screen door, having predicted the trouble from afar.

Minami needed a few seconds to recover, but when she did, she saw the cake batter start eating its way through the wooden floorboards.

"Goddamnit, Sougo, what the hell did you put in there?!" A furious demon roared across the room.

Captain Okita rubbed the back of his head with an innocent smile on his face. "Milk from the planet Sowa. China asked me to test it and see whether humans could eat it."

"And you chose me to do that?!"

Minami was dumbfounded. This wasn't what she had expected.

"Yeah, I heard Umibouzo's coming tomorrow." One of the officers said while standing in front of the message board. "That's like, the fifth time this year already?"

The officer next him shrugged with his shoulders. "Well, that's just how it is. He's ju-"

"Umibouzo?! THE Umibouzo?!" Minami interrupted the two officers. At the name of the legendary alien hunter, she just couldn't keep quiet.

"Well, yeah, I mean, it's not really that exciting." The first of the two answered her in a bored tone.

She let her jaw drop into an offended expression. "The Umibouzo is quite special, of course we should be excited!" She retorted in disbelief.

"I forgot you've only been here for three weeks." The second guy sighed and rubbed the back of his neck. "Well, you're Captain Okita's assistant, right?"

She nodded in confirmation, even if 'assistant' was a euphemism of epic proportions.

"Then you'll be seeing a lot of him in the future. Don't worry, you'll understand tomorrow." He waved with one hand as the two of them left her behind in the hallway.

Minami tilted her head to the side in confusion. Was Captain Okita working together with Umibouzo?

The next day rolled in, and sure enough a mysterious man with a strong aura entered the compound, meeting with Chief Kondou in private. The rest of the officers didn't seem interested, merely continuing their daily routine all while Minami couldn't contain her excitement.

Umibouzo was a legend, the strongest fighter in the universe, and yet, he looked so normal. She knew he was a member of the Yato, a humanoid warrior race from far away, but him even walking past her just now was beyond her comprehension.

Her captain walked up behind her and yawned into his palm, half of his hair still messy from probably just waking up. "What're you doing here?" He grumbled out. "We have work to do."

"But Umibouzo is here." She spilled out without much thought, even though she knew that was hardly a valid excuse.

In contrary to her expectations, namely that Captain Okita would react the same way as everybody else, he tensed up and slipped his sleeping mask off his face in a practised manner.

"Fujiwara." He spoke up seriously. "We're leaving on patrol, NOW."

"Wh-" Before she could even question his actions and remind him that they weren't on patrol duty today, he had begun pushing her in front of himself towards the exit.

The sliding door behind them opened with force, revealing a battle-ready Umibouzo.

"You!" His voice thundered as he lifted a mechanical finger at Okita. "You are going to die today!"

Umibouzo hoisted his umbrella up, pointing the tip at the blonde man.

Minami looked at her captain, not able to comprehend the situation she had been caught up in, but failed to notice the moment he had spun her around and was holding her out in front of him like a shield.

"You wouldn't hurt an innocent bystander, would you?" She heard her captain sneer at the alien hunter, whose face twisted into a grimace beneath the bandages covering his face. "Collateral damage might be considered a crime in some people's eyes."

Umibouzo grunted. "Isn't endangering an innocent bystander also a crime?"

"She's only endangered if you pull that trigger."

Minami went wide-eyed recalling reading about the Yato's weapon, a machine gun umbrella. But that didn't explain their feud.

"I'm willing to walk over corpses to keep your scummy hands off her!" The Yato shouted in cold seriousness.

Minami blinked. Her? This whole ordeal… was about a woman?

"I think she walks over enough corpses on her own, don't you think?" Okita taunted, something Minami was beginning to think was a bad idea. He was up against Umibouzo, of all people!

"I don't care about that! The only thing I care about is my little girl! And I will tell you again: PAPI DOESN'T APPROVE!" The alien hunter yelled as he stormed towards the two of them.

Her captain muttered a few curse words under his breath before forcefully shoving her aside, pulling out his sword to intercept Umibouzo's large green umbrella.

Minami nearly fell to the ground after getting a taste of the captain's raw strength, but was caught by two hands, belonging to Chief Kondou.

"Umibouzo." He interrupted the two of them. The Yato looked up at him, Okita also pausing his movements to look at his superior.

Kondou gave them both a stern look, and Minami could feel his presence as a leader oozing out. He was going to be the mature one here and break this fight up, just like a Chief should.

"Please don't fight within the compound. We have training grounds for that."

What?

Umibouzo nodded in an apologetic manner. "Yes, terribly sorry."

With a well-aimed hit with his umbrella, Umibouzo shot Okita through the hallway, right through the screen doors that happened to open in that exact moment, before rushing after the now airborne Shinsengumi Captain.

"W-What?" Was all Minami could stutter out in confusion as Kondou steadied her on her own feet again.

Hijikata appeared behind them and motioned her to follow him as he headed in the direction that Umibouzo and Okita disappeared into.

Once they exited the building, they could see the two in question battling away in the distance, the Yato clearly having the upper hand.

To add to all the confusion, there was a red-haired young man standing outside of the entrance, accompanied by a large, white dog-like alien.

"Ah, Mayora." He greeted the Vice-Chief in a rather disrespectful fashion, but before Minami could interject Hijikata acknowledged the kid with a grunt and a nod.

"What're you doing here?" He asked while putting a cigarette between his lips and lighting it.

The redhead gestured towards the fighting duo. "I thought the baldy was going to show up here before coming over to our place, so I decided to drop by before things got too out of hand."

"Don't call me baldy! Call me your cool-headed dad!" Umibouzo's form stilled in the distance as he shouted across the training ground.

"I'll call you whatever I want to, good-for-nothing old man!" The redhead shouted back.

Then he shook his head and redirected his attention towards Hijikata and Minami, only now noticing the young female.

"Oh, so you decided to let a girl join your all-men's club?" He asked, his voice laced with surprise.

Hijikata nodded. "Yeah, it's time for some reformation amongst us. If you haven't realized yet, all the women in this series are awfully powerful."

"Mhm." The redhead complied, before introducing himself to Minami. "By the way, I'm Kamui, the King of the Kabuki District. You may refer to me as Your Majesty." He flashed her a smile that somehow glistened in the sunlight.

"No, you don't. Don't go along with his nonsense, Fujiwara, that's an order." Her Vice-Chief interjected.

"Erm, Minami Fujiwara." She awkwardly replied, not quite having the grasp on the situation yet. "So, er, Vice-Chief, what's going on?" She turned towards her superior in search of answers.

He exhaled some smoke. "I would've thought you'd have already met China Boy here on your patrols with Sougo." He explained. "But apparently that's not the case."

"Oh, so you assigned her to the Sadist. That's kind of cruel, isn't it?" Kamui asked.

"Well, newbies get the job nobody else wants." Hijikata said before continuing his explanation. "Anyway, China Boy here is Umibouzo's son and the brother of Sougo's girlfriend."

The wheels in Minami's mind started turning and turning, until everything fell into place. Umibouzo had referred to himself as 'papi' and 'dad' just now, disapproving of Okita's relationship with 'her'.

That made sense now, he was just a father who was after his daughter's boyfriend. But there was still one problem here…

"Captain Okita has a girlfriend?" She blurted out in disbelief.

He may be good-looking, but honestly, that was all he had going for himself. He was awfully lazy and unreliable, not to mention his obvious disrespect to others, all-in-all he was pretty crappy personality-wise. To top that off, he had some pretty unconventional hobbies…

"Hahahaha, well, we were also surprised at first, but he grew up so quickly, and she's actually a really nice girl, right Toshi?" The Chief, who had magically appeared behind them, chuckled while nudging Hijikata.

The Vice-Chief merely narrowed his eyes at his superior and mumbled "Why am I the mom again?" Then he sighed and continued in normal volume. "Nice girl? You forgot to mention the part where she created an alliance with two of the greatest terrorists on this planet, took control of a space syndicate and practically levelled the Shinsengumi compound."

Minami let her jaw drop open, she didn't care anymore. "That sounds like some sort of monster."

"Well, we're Yato, what do you expect?" Kamui added lazily.

It hadn't quite sunk in that this guy was, in fact, Umibouzo's son. He looked so inconspicuous, save his rather bright hair colour, even slightly feminine with his long hair and facial features.

"Wait wait wait wait wait!" She suddenly jumbled. "Space syndicate? She took control of a space syndicate?! What?! Isn't that illegal?"

"Oh, maybe I shouldn't have said that." Hijikata mumbled in realization, but figured it was too late to take back his words since nobody seemed to correct him.

He awkwardly scratched the back of his head. "How do I put this?"

The question was never answered due to a certain captain crashing into the ground between them.

When she asked her captain what the whole fiasco was about, he had shrugged it off and said a dismissive "Nothing."

But that sure as hell didn't look like nothing.

And, to top it all off, she really wanted to meet this girl now. The daughter of Umibouzo should be an entity recognized throughout the universe, but if his son was lounging around in an area like Kabuki, who knows what his daughter was up to?

She was also very surprised by how… humane the legend was. He bickered with his son, told him to eat veggies and Kamui shot back comments about Umibouzo's non-existent hair.

That was also quite the revelation, when the cap came off and his bald head glittered in the daylight.

But back on topic, curiosity began eating away at her. Would she ever meet this mysterious woman?

"Captain Okita, you told me we had an important mission to attend to. You even woke up early because of it." Minami bit back her yawn, desperately trying to keep her eyes open. The sun wasn't even up yet, for heaven's sake.

"Mhm, I did." Her superior answered lazily, his eyes skimming over the display in front of him in full concentration.

Minami rubbed her eyes tiredly. "A mission of life and death, you said."

"Yes." He replied again, tapping his finger against his chin in thought.

"So…" She glanced around warily. "…why are we in a cake shop at this ungodly hour?"

"My girlfriend is coming back today. I was hoping to surprise her with her favourite cake, but I can't decide now that we're here. Do you think she'd prefer the chocolate or the strawberry cream? Or maybe the vanilla custard one?" He let out a deep sigh. "Maybe I should just get some of each?" He turned to her unexpectedly. "What do you think, Fujiwara?"

"I think I want to go back to bed." She mumbled grumpily. If her captain was going to drag her out of bed this early for such mundane reasons, she might as well ignore him. Vice-Chief Hijikata would surely understand her decision, probably even support it.

Captain Okita, who had clearly ignored her, continued humming pensively, a thoughtful frown on his face. "Although, it has been some time since I've seen her, maybe a tabasco cake?"

The woman behind the counter gave the two of them a patient, knowing smile, even giving Minami a cup of coffee on the house.

"It's always like this when she comes back to visit." The old lady sighed wistfully. "She must be such a lucky girl."

Minami, in her sleepy haze, briefly remembered the horror stories surrounding said girl, but didn't have the heart to correct the old lady.

Besides, Captain Okita was sporting a grin that was up to no good.

"Can I go back to bed now?" She yawned, covering her mouth with her free hand. The other one was currently occupied carrying an overabundant amount of cakes.

No wonder the old lady didn't say anything else, her captain seemed like the source of half her income.

"No." He replied curtly. "We still have a mission ahead of us."

Minami shot him a glare. "I thought our mission was buying cakes."

He looked at her as if she was crazy. "Do you really think we get paid for doing mundane things like that?"

She felt her eyebrow twitch in annoyance, sucking in a deep breath to keep herself from exploding. "Honestly, with the way you behave, I just might believe that." She grumbled under her breath.

"Well, that aside, we'll be meeting up with them at the terminal, then we need to fill out some reports and other unimportant paperwork, check their cargo…" He began listing their tasks for the day on his hand, pausing towards the end. "I haven't actually told you what we are doing yet, have I?"

"No, but I don't care as long as I can go back to sleep once we're done." She could hardly keep her eyelids up anymore, and the sun still hadn't risen.

"If you say so." He shrugged, leading the way to the terminal.

"You say you love me," The pretty girl rose a sceptical brow. "Yet the first thing you do when you see me is give me paperwork. Can't help but see something wrong in that pattern."

"The carrot and the stick, China. Just sign it already." Her captain passed the clipboard and a pen to the red-haired girl.

They were in a large cargo bay in the Edo terminal, other members of the first division who arrived shortly after them already inspecting crates of god-knows-what.

"Fujiwara, are you taking notes?" Her superior inquired, to which she nodded and jutted something down on her own clipboard.

Out of the corner of her eye, she watched the vermillion-haired girl frown at something on the import form she was filling out. The girl was pretty, really pretty. She definitely shared many traits with her brother.

"Why do I have to fill this out every time? You know I don't like paperwork." The redhead grumbled darkly.

"Maybe I just like watching you suffe-" Before Captain Okita even had the chance to finish his ridiculous sentence, the girl had hit him on the head with the clipboard in her hand.

Rubbing his head, no doubt heavily injured, her captain glowered at the girl who was supposedly his girlfriend. Minami took a few more notes and sighed.

How insane did you have to be in the first place to even consider dating a Yato, anyways?

She shook her head. The same could be said for the girl, after all, who would willingly date somebody like Captain Okita?

"Fujiwara! Can you come over here please!" Akabane, one of the men called out to her, and she complied without a second thought.

"We have all the items in the crates listed here, as well as the registration numbers. You just need to bundle these with your report and give them to Chief Kondou later." He explained, handing a few papers to her at the same time.

She furrowed his eyebrows. "I should give them straight to the Chief? Are you sure I shouldn't run them past Captain Okita first?"

Akabane chuckled nervously at that. "Yeah, protocol says so, but we make an exception in this case. It'd be a miracle if Captain Okita pays attention to any of us for the next few days."

Minami followed his line of sight, watching the redhead and her captain interact. She was currently eyeing a piece of cake suspiciously, holding it out to one of her subordinates. The subordinate made a move to refuse, but a glare later he was gobbling the piece of cake down like a champ.

His entire face immediately turned blue, and the girl stemmed her hand on her hips, giving Captain Okita a hard look, which lead to him grinning back at her.

"You get used to it." Akabane shrugged. "Chief Kondou doesn't say anything either. Besides, as long as she is around, he's less irritable, hell, even borderline tolerant."

"Why doesn't he just marry her in that case?" Minami asked, a hopeful imagination of a more tolerable superior blooming in her mind.

"Well, it might have something to do with the fact that she's a pirate."

Minami blinked. "Huh?"

"What do you mean 'huh'? Didn't Captain Okita explain this to you?"

"Uhh…" Minami glanced to the side, a shameful blush spreading on her cheeks. "I kind of ignored it."

He glowered at her. "You do know what we are doing here, right?"

Her eyes wandered to her clipboard. "Honestly, I just want to go back to sleep."

"Fine, I'll explain," He sighed. "In short, she used to be one of the Harusame captains, the Lightning Spear of the seventh division, to be exact."

"The Harusame? Aren't they, like, really old history?"

"It's only been five years, don't devalue them like that. That aside," He cleared his throat. "A lot of stuff happened and she ended up taking over the Harusame and ended up dissolving it for some reason. At the same time she made a deal with Director Matsudeira and Chief Kondou, but the details are top-secret. All we know is that she gets to import all this stuff for free in exchange for information."

Minami narrowed her eyes at him. "Somehow, that explains so little and so much at the same time."

True to Akabane's words, she hardly saw anything of Captain Okita over the next week. Chief Kondou wordlessly accepted her report and everybody continued their daily lives, a little livelier in the absence of a certain sadistic captain.

The most notable benefactor of the situation was definitely Vice-Chief Hijikata, who was currently humming an upbeat tune of what sounded vaguely similar to that one anime opening.

He took lit his cigarette with a small smile on his face. "Life is a wonderful thing, Fujiwara. Never forget that."

She glanced at him warily. "I never noticed how much Captain Okita… effected the overall mood at the compound."

He held up his hand. "Let's not talk about 'that', Fujiwara. We wouldn't want to disrupt the peace, would we?"

"Ah, of course not." She answered hesitantly.

Silence sat in the air between them. "Is this really okay, though?" She questioned after a while.

"Is what okay?" He exhaled a large cloud of smoke.

"The influence their relationship has on our lives. I mean, how are things going to be if they were to break up?"

Vice-Chief Hijikata looked out into the distance. "Trust me, that's not going to happen. He's not going to let her go."

Minami frowned. "She's a space pirate. She could disappear off to some corner of the universe and never come back easily."

"And Sougo would follow her all the way there just to drag her back. He'd probably even take paid vacation, that little dipshit." Hijikata's mood dimmed at the subject of his least favourite subordinate.

Minami laughed at that. "He would, wouldn't he?"

"I don't think you need to worry about that, Fujiwara." Another voice spoke up.

"Chief Kondou…good afternoon." She greeted him as he sat down on the porch next to them.

The man had a wistful smile on his face. "Love is something wonderful that you should believe in. And I believe that their love is unbreakable."

The Vice-Chief scoffed loudly. "No, they just break everything else in the process."

"Don't think about the details, Toshi. Don't think about the details."

Two years passed, the same pattern of Captain Kagura visiting and a few peaceful days passing in the Shinsengumi compound repeating itself over and over countless times.

Minami was happy to note the increase in female co-workers, to the point that they got a department of their own.

Those peaceful moments, however, came to an end quite soon.

"I'm having this awful sense of déjà vu." She groaned as the moon greeted her after she was rudely woken by Captain Okita in the early morning hours.

"Nonsense, Fujiwara. Besides, I need your help with something." He was being too nice to her, she noted suspiciously.

"If you stepped on a pile of poop again, I'm not cleaning your shoes." She grimaced at the memory of the last time that happened.

"No, not that. You come from a family of contractors, right?"

She raised her eyebrow. "Um, yes. Why?"

"I've been thinking about investing in a house. I was hoping you could give me a few tips?"

She frowned. "Why would you need a house? Don't you already have a large room at the compound?"

"Ah, well, you see…"

Minami felt the life drain out of her slowly, but surely.

A young girl with sandy twintails slid underneath the table, having the nerve to blow a raspberry at her, her bright blue eyes dancing with mischief.

"Come back here!" She called out to the little girl, but she just ran out from the other side and giggled while disappearing around the corner.

A pained cry echoed from the direction the girl disappeared into, and after scrambling after her, Minami let out a long sigh at the sight that greeted her. One of the recruits was clutching his leg, tears streaming down his face while a confused little girl was standing next to him and prodding his cheek.

Another figure stepped into the picture, picking up the little girl with ease. "Now now, sweetheart. You should be more careful with your toys."

"Grandpa!" The blonde girl exclaimed happily, tugging at the man's toupee until it came off.

"Sorry about that." Minami said tiredly, approaching Umibouzo. "I'll keep a better eye on her next time."

"Please do. Also thank you for babysitting her."

The legendary alien cawed at the girl who squealed in delight and began reaching for his thinning moustache.

Minami's mood dimmed as his sentence rang in her mind, one word in particular.

Babysitting, babysitting, babysitting…

After working herself up the food chain, all these years, she was reduced to what she was when she initially came here.

A babysitter.

"Are you alright? You look really pale?" Umibouzo asked her suddenly. "I can take over looking after her, if you want."

"I was just hit by the realization of my crippling insignificance in this world." She mumbled.

"Influenza?" The little girl mimicked, tilting her head to the side in confusion. Her attention span was short, however, and soon she began chasing after the gorilla that appeared at the other end of the hallway.

Umibouzo laughed loudly and followed her, leaving behind a both mentally and physically exhausted Minami.

A loud crash sounded through the compound, and she knew that the little girl broke something again. With a groan, she followed the source of the commotion, just in time to see Captain Okita and his wife praising their daughter, who was grinning back at them with a million-dollar smile, in complete disregard of the injured men behind them.

Umibouzo patted the little girl on the head approvingly, to which she smiled even brighter.

Screw my dreams, Minami thought. I should just go home. They'd definitely understand.

AN: Honestly, I'm not sure what this is either, but after reading the latest chapter I decided to abandon my attempts at studying and finish this up instead.

That aside, I can finally mark this story as complete. Thank you to everybody who followed, faved, and especially those who reviewed!

I hope you'll stop by one of my future works as well and that you enjoyed reading this story.

Adios,

~Emi