Author's Note:

Without further ado, here is the conclusion to my particular musings on Hijikata, Chizuru, the Ainu, and the Oni.

I swear this was just intended to be a gift fic for my Hijikata- and HijiChi-loving friends. I'm still not sure what happened.

With sincere affection and respect:

~ ImpracticalOni

Prices to Pay—Part IV

"A long time ago, before the battle at the Magistrate's Office, Osen-chan—Sen-hime—told me that the most important thing was who I was truly, um, in love with." Sensing an amused kind of wariness from her audience—mostly from Hijikata—she hurried on. "Before we had to flee Edo, I saw her again. She said that the Oni have legends relating to her ancestor, the famous demoness Suzuka Gozen. This demoness fell in love with and married a human prince after he defeated her in battle. While many Oni simply assume that the descendants of Suzuka Gozen have some degree of human ancestry, Osen-chan told me that her family doesn't accept this. According to their family legend, the strength of the feelings between the couple, and his unusual strength and endurance, allowed the prince to become an Oni."

Hijikata restrained his initial disbelief, and considered the story and what Chizuru was implying. Finally, he shook his head. "You think I'm becoming an Oni for real? Permanently? With all due respect—and I do respect your opinion, Chizuru—it doesn't seem very likely. I'm not an Oni." He winced, as pain blossomed in his head again.

"Stop it! You're just hurting yourself! You don't want to be an Oni. The Oni have been responsible for the deaths of so many friends and comrades, directly or indirectly. Kazama-san turned his anger at me—at my refusal—on the Shinsengumi, and you know how sorry I am about that. But you chose to protect me, to keep me with you. And you were all so kind to me." Hijikata's mouth quirked a little, and she added, "Well eventually! Even Okita-san let me help him you know, and Sannan-san, remember?"

"Konkani-san, you're the expert in ancient Oni customs, I believe. Do you agree with Chizuru?"

The man stared down at Hijikata's sword for some time, and then said quietly, "Yes, I agree, insofar as the legends of the ancient Oni go. The descendants of Suzuka Gozen were as strong as or stronger than any so-called pureblood demon. At least, that's what we were told."

"There's something else, too," Chizuru continued. "Oni blood is forbidden to humans, for many reasons. Originally, it was forbidden because it might be used to create humans with Oni strength and speed, but no understanding of the Oni way of life." Chizuru held Hijikata's eyes for a moment before going on. "However, among the more tolerant Oni clans, it was also forbidden because it was simply too strong for humans to ingest. Put simply, it would kill them. And yes, I'm afraid that the amnesia and some of the other difficulties are probably because you've had too much of my blood. But it hasn't killed you, and it usually makes you clear-headed instead of the reverse."

Hijikata nodded, partly to indicate his comprehension and partly to acknowledge her warning: she'd never told Konkani about the Water of Life. Even as he had the thought, Konkani sighed.

"I have long suspected that Hijikata-san's strange condition might be related to the previous use of some vile concoction of Oni blood," he told them flatly. "So there is no need to be so cautious around the subject. All I can say is that if such suffering—for both the taker and those around him—is the result, then the Oni were wise to ban such a thing."

Chizuru looked stunned, but Hijikata laughed. "Good to know! Makes this whole conversation that much easier."

Konkani gave Chizuru a long-suffering look. "My people were here long before the—the Japanese. The entire Tokugawa era is recent history, by our standards. The first Shogun of the Tokugawa dynasty—Tokugawa Ieyasu—is variously said to have either used, or covertly opposed the use of some kind of 'demonic' potion that granted extra strength and speed. However you look at it, that means something of the kind has been around for a long time."

"Oh—yes, I do see that. But you didn't mention any of this before, Konkani-san." Chizuru seemed a little hurt.

"I must safeguard my people first and foremost, hime-sama. It was quite clear—despite my hopes—that you were completely bound up in your husband. From my perspective, Hijikata-san was and is a dangerous man. In the first place, he was the key field general for the loyalist army. This is Ezo; few grown men on this island are unaware of Hijikata-san's reputation as a warrior and a strategist. Second, he defeated an Oni lord, a prince among his people. And he did it while near-mortally wounded, as he just pointed out to us. My scouts do not exaggerate—it's not in their nature. Finally, he is a man simultaneously burning with the power of Oni blood, and frozen by the despair of a soldier adrift after a brutal war. Nothing I have seen today has changed my opinion that he is a danger to those around him."

"He hasn't hurt me," Chizuru repeated stubbornly. "And I think that he's an Oni now, or just about. I truly wish you hadn't shown up this morning, Konkani-san."

Hijikata tried to interject. "Chizuru—"

Chizuru didn't let Hijikata continue, and he accepted her interruption without demur. He still agreed with the Ainu man's assessment of the situation, but Chizuru was entitled—more than entitled—to be heard. Also, underneath all the fear of hurting Chizuru, he didn't really want to die. He wanted Chizuru. He had waited so long to become her lover—too long, according to various critics over the years—and if there were a way to stay with her then he needed to listen.

"You've both assumed that my influence—or my blood—is the major factor contributing to Hijikata-san's apparently precarious condition," she told her listeners. "Personally, I believe my husband's condition to be less unstable than you think, and the result of an unconscious attempt on his part to overcome the limiting effects of the—the serum he took previously. However, regardless of exactly what is going on, you are forgetting that a second, and very powerful Oni has also been involved in Hijikata-san's life for many years."

"… Please tell me you don't mean the blond bas—I mean, not Kazama Chikage, Chizuru, please…"

Was he whining? He was. Chizuru's stern expression told him as much.

"Kazama Chikage followed you to the very edge of Japan, abandoning his own people in the process and risking being exiled from those people forever. You frustrated him, infuriated him, puzzled him, and refused to do either as he predicted or wanted."

"You are not saying that he was in lo—no, I can't even say it, don't make me. Besides, he wanted you as his bride, that was perfectly clear. You were going to make beautiful pureblood Oni children together."

Hijikata saw Chizuru flush and regretted his last remark. Apparently, he was still jealous of Kazama's time with her while he suffered alone in a fortress on Ezo—even if that entire fiasco was his own fault. However, before he could find a way to mitigate what he'd said, Chizuru nodded in acknowledgment.

"He did want all that, you're right. When we arrived on Ezo he asked me not to go looking for you. Partly, he feared for my safety. But he also just… wanted me to stay with him. That's not the point. The point is that you were important to him. As an unfinished project, a hated or beloved rival, a thorn in his side, an irritant to his mind, whatever. His actions went well beyond hunting down a man who'd taken a forbidden medicine, wouldn't you say?"

"Sounds like it." That was Konkani-san, but his emotions were well-contained, and Hijikata couldn't tell if he was serious, or just being a pain. Or both.

Hijikata stared wordlessly at Chizuru. He couldn't bring himself to say anything. Not about Kazama having changed him as a result of some kind of profound emotion that linked them together. Not without a lot of swearing and maybe not even then. The Kazama curse just couldn't be real—he had to repress an urge to tell the gods that he really hadn't meant it.

"Toshi-san, I travelled with Kazama-san for weeks. I was there when you fought him. He couldn't accept that a human and a fake could behave as you had, or get to him as you had, or that such a creature could have your indisputable strength. On top of all that, he couldn't understand how I could choose you over him. So he decided that you must be an Oni, and named you as such. It didn't matter much to you—or so you said at the time—but it mattered a great deal to him. And somehow—I saw it happen—you changed. A fury doesn't have golden eyes."

"That makes no sense, Chizuru! Sen-hime filled your head with legends, and the rest is wishful thinking." It wasn't true. He remembered every moment of that fight—including the unsettling feeling that he and his opponent were no longer… quite… enemies. He'd hated it then, and apparently something had been wrong with him ever since. He was a danger to Chizuru, and—

"Konkani-san. I know you won't leave, so please close your eyes." Chizuru's voice conveyed the terrifying calm of a person goaded beyond endurance.

"Ah… that wouldn't be very prudent, princess. You can't really know—"

"Fine, I don't care. Not right now, anyway. Hijikata-san doesn't want to die, and you don't really want him dead—well, mostly. But you're both still missing the point: I won't let him die."

Hijikata felt his eyes widen perceptibly as Chizuru stood up, smoothed her kimono, unpinned her hair, and then sat down in his lap. She wrapped her arms around his neck, pulling his head down to hers and then tangling one hand in his hair. Before he could do more than open his mouth to protest, she had pressed her lips to his, and then stolen his breath along with all of his attention. Her tongue traced his lips, and moved teasingly along the inside of his mouth; her free hand stroked the edge of his ear and caressed the line of his jaw, before sliding down his neck and under his collar.

He felt as though she'd set his nerves alight, and heat radiated from each place that their bodies touched. He gripped the back of her head with one hand, and roughly dragged her even closer to his chest with the other. It was not a kiss to promote self-restraint, nor an embrace destined to encourage moderation. When Chizuru bit down on his lower lip with small, pointed teeth, he hummed aloud and staggered to his feet, still holding her close.

"You win, princess!" Konkani's voice impinged on Hijikata's consciousness, and not in a good way. "I'll just leave this oversized bit of ironmongery over here. I wish you all the best, and I hope not to find one or both of you dead in the morning."

Hijikata wrenched his mouth from Chizuru's, panting. Propriety and courtesy were meaningless at this point, and there was something he needed to say.

"You're a dead man if you show up here tomorrow morning." He had seldom been more sincere.

Konkani-san's expression instantly switched from embarrassed concern to something more complicated and a lot less friendly. The aura of power that Hijikata had sensed before was suddenly palpable.

"It's been a very long time since anybody's been a threat to my life, Hijikata-san," the Ainu man said softly, grey eyes as bright and hard as steel.

"Don't kid yourself." For a heartbeat, nobody moved. Then Hijikata smiled in a way that his former subordinates had known all too well. "Thank you for your help. Thank you for looking after Chizuru. Goodbye."

He kept his eyes on Konkani just long enough to ensure that the other man set down the katana before he left. He suspected that the polite bow he received before the door clicked shut was mostly ironic and almost certainly challenging. It was irrelevant.

"I hope you know what you're doing, Chizuru," he told the woman in his arms, restraint vanishing as quickly as it had come. "I hope you're right. I hope this is right. " He felt as though he were being torn apart by lust and fear—fear for Chizuru, for his sanity, for his honour. I'm done running, I swear. But I don't want to hurt you. He closed his eyes and pushed away the fear, allowing passion to claim him in its place. The flames rushed in to consume him, and he abandoned all caution.

It wasn't far to their bed, but the sensation of her hands in his hair, and on his ears and neck, drove away reason. Her lips were on his, open and inviting, and their tongues touched and twined, suspending all considerations but immediate pleasure. Hijikata's knees hit the floor as he pulled open Chizuru's kimono and wrenched at her obi, heedless now of such irrelevancies as comfort. Chizuru arched under him, and he bent to find her breast with his mouth, nipping and then sucking hard on the taut nipple. She moaned, first writhing and then pushing her nearly-naked body up to his. Her fingers alternately caressed him and tugged at his clothing, and he ground himself against her to relieve the aching pressure in his groin.

There was little tenderness in this frenzied encounter. Hijikata didn't notice or care that his teeth pierced her skin, or that his strong, calloused hands were leaving bruises and scratches in their wake. Her cries resonated with desire, not pain, and she matched him without reservation, her own sharp fangs and nails giving back as much as she took. Her golden eyes were wild, and her breath was warm in his ear, as she whispered, "You won't hurt me; not now, not ever."

He didn't bother to reply. Her clothing was finally gone, and his. Their bodies were hot with desire, and slick with sweat. The sight and scent of her was dizzying. Without words, he stroked the wet, quivering folds between her legs until she was desperate for him, her wordless, hungry cries more than enough to overwhelm all control. Without warning, he shoved her thighs further apart and buried his hard length within her, eliciting a sharp gasp and the longed-for sensation of her tight inner walls clenching around him.

Her teeth drew blood from his neck and shoulder as he claimed her, moving faster and harder with each thrust. Or maybe she was claiming him? The thought crossed his mind and made him laugh, for no apparent reason. There was no denying that this was her decision, and the voice that alternately coaxed and cried out to him was thick with passion. His own panting cries were formless, his climax upon him almost too quickly. It didn't matter. Nothing mattered but finding his release and hers. He knew that his eyes were golden, knew that he'd changed form long before this final storm of sensation; even that was unimportant just now.

When he finally came, hot and hard and deep within her quivering, demanding body, he could barely hear his own voice for the rushing of the blood in his ears. He might have called her name, but he was incoherent and overwhelmed and couldn't be sure. He found that he was clinging to Chizuru, and shaking with more than physical release. Later, he would find it ridiculous—though not funny—that what had jolted him back to awareness was the sudden, awful thought that it would be humiliating to cry at such a moment. Nevertheless, that was the truth, and if there were tears then he prevented them from falling.

At the time, awareness reminded him that they'd made love—could it still be called making love? He hoped so—on the floor, and Chizuru lay beneath him. A quick look at her flushed face reassured him that she was in no way unhappy or disappointed with what had happened. In fact, she wore a rare expression of heavy-lidded self-satisfaction that made him want to laugh again.

He cleared his throat, and her eyes drifted up to his. He tried to speak, but she reached up and covered his mouth with her hand.

"No apologies. No apologies, and no guilt, and no more self-destructive comments. I'm not interested. No saying that you were too rough, or unkind, or unfair. Nod if you understand." Her eyes glimmered with both laughter and her own unshed tears.

Hijikata paused to consider her list, and then nodded. Her small fingers deliberately brushed the curves of his lower lip as she withdrew her hand.

"Thank you for bringing me back." He paused, and then added, "Again."

"You keep wanting to throw your life away. It's selfish, and shows an insulting lack of trust in my judgment."

"Ouch." Why did her criticism make him want to smile? And not just that. He wanted to take her to bed and not let her get any sleep for several hours. Or days. Their situation was fraught with complications, but he was still incredibly turned on.

"You are more important to me than anyone and anything else in the world."

"Give a man a break—I was trying to find enough breath to tell you the same thing."

Hijikata managed to pry himself away from Chizuru and prop himself up on one elbow. Chizuru sighed, stretched, and sat up. He could still see red marks and faint bruises on her body, and he frowned.

"Why—"

"I've been giving you too much of my blood without eating well enough to replace it. It's been a long time since I've been able to heal properly. I don't care."

"Chizuru." Hijikata had no inclination to laugh anymore. "In what way is that not as self-destructive as—as you accuse me of being?"

Chizuru sighed. "I understand, Hiji—Toshi-san. But I will get better with time and rest and food. You were dying. You hated the thought of being an Oni. That wasn't"—she glanced shyly at him, unperturbed at being unclothed, but embarrassed by her feelings—"well, it hurt, a little."

"I was an idiot. But since you don't want me to indulge in self-pity, you'll have to forgive me."

"I've already forgiven you."

"You really are too easy on me, you know."

She blushed, the rosy tint showing up clearly against her pale skin and white hair.

"I can't help it."

"Well, I guess that's life. At some point I'll just have to grow up and accept how unbelievably lucky I am."

"That's—um, that's going a little far. Toshi-san."

"You don't plan to run away with Mr. Tense-and-Charismatic, do you?"

"You just described yourself."

"I'm just a drunken poet."

"You're the only lover I've ever wanted."

Hijikata groaned. "I can't win."

Chizuru moistened her lips with her tongue. She was blushing again. "It's very cold in here. And the floor's hard."

"We'll get the clothes later." Hijikata rose, gathering Chizuru back into his arms. "We aren't going to need them, are we?"

A passionate kiss from his wife suggested that this was correct. As he settled her under the heavy blankets and slipped in beside her, Hijikata asked one of the questions still bothering him.

"Do you really think that I'm an Oni, Chizuru?" His hand started to run along Chizuru's side and hip.

"I—mmm—I think so. The ochimizu really complicated things, though. I don't think anyone can be both fury and Oni for long—although you tried."

"You know that none of this really makes sense, right?" Relieved to be more aware and more in control this time, Hijikata started to re-familiarize himself with his wife's body. She grew warm very quickly under his touch, and started nuzzling his chest and shoulder. A little to his surprise, she eventually responded to his largely rhetorical question.

"You—mmm—you always told me that nothing—mmm—about the Oni makes sense."

"That was very wise of me." He considered putting the questions on hold while he made up for over two months of missed opportunities, but knew he'd be happier sooner if he just asked. "Chizuru… I understand that Konkani's skill and knowledge were probably of great help to you—and reassuring—but why in the name of all the gods did the two of you subject me to such a lecture on the history of the Oni and the Ainu, instead of just telling me what I'd done and what was wrong with me."

"… I'm a little distracted just now, Toshi-san."

"Look, how about just 'Toshi'? I still don't know why I didn't think of it sooner." He stopped stroking her inner thigh. She wasn't the only one becoming too distracted. "Chizuru?"

His inquiry was met with a sigh. "Mostly, I was trying to delay. You needed time to get over what happened this morning before hearing the truth about the past year. But… it wasn't just that. I owed it to you and to Konkani-san to make sure you understood both the plight of the Ainu and why they would be so fixated on finding an Oni to champion their cause."

"You know I'll turn them down."

"Probably. But I wanted you to have the space to at least consider what we might do."

"We shouldn't get involved."

"At some point you'll want to be more than a farmer and a drunk poet, Toshi."

"You're dangerous." He was delighted to hear his plain, unornamented name on her lips. "Let's move on to other things."

Such as feeling Chizuru's naked body against his. Without being unsure whether it was her or her blood that he craved. Without being so scared of hurting her that he couldn't bring himself to touch her at all. He leaned over and gave his wife a bruising kiss, while one hand returned to teasing the sensitive skin of her lower belly and inner thigh, ghosting lightly over the damp curls in between. Chizuru squirmed against him and began licking the fingers of his other hand in response—or retaliation.

It was time to shelve the doubt—as much as possible for a justifiably paranoid ex-soldier—and trust Chizuru's instincts. If being an Oni was what it took to quench the bloodlust, then so be it. The gods knew that he'd paid enough for the so-called privilege. He still hated even the possibility of being somehow beholden to Kazama, but that worry could wait. So could any decisions about getting involved—again—with a doomed cause rife with mystical, Oni-related complications.

Mind made up—or too distracted to care—Hijikata bent his attention, and tongue, to Chizuru's breasts. She gasped, and managed a breathless laugh.

"I've missed you so much, Toshi."

"It's not a bad name…"

"No…"

[END]

A/Note: My other writing is so behind that I can't promise an epilogue. But you never know. I hope you've enjoyed the roller coaster.

Historical Note: The Japanese government, or at least the warlords who ruled northern Japan prior to unification, were most likely in contact with the Ainu by the late 12th or early 13th century. By the Muromachi Period (1336-1573), there was trade between the two peoples, but also active conflict. The Tokugawa bakufu (1601-1868) encouraged and regulated trade between northern, Ainu-controlled Ezo and Japanese holdings in the south, but there was significant conflict during this period as well. Moreover, the Ainu were in crisis, partially as a result of the spread of epidemic diseases such as small-pox and a developing dependence on foreign (Japanese) goods. There were major revolts in 1669 and 1789. The Meiji government actively campaigned to assimilate the Ainu, and both the culture and the people virtually disappeared during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It wasn't until 2008 that the Japanese government formally recognized the Ainu as a distinct, indigenous people, and admitted as "historical fact" that the Ainu people had been marginalized and forced into poverty.