Hakuoki (c) Otomate (Idea Factory)

Impeccable
Chapter V

Previously:

"Oi, oi. What are you trying to tell her?" Okita sighed. "You're already a burden, so you could at least be a little useful around here. Why should we let you stay if you're just going to get in the way all the time? Kinda silly if you ask me."

Chizuru had nothing to say back. Chiaki shook her head.

"If I remember correctly, you guys want us to be useful in searching for our father, yet we have had no chance at all...so...please, don't take it out on Chizuru like that." Chiaki said, avoiding eye contact with Chizuru and Okita.

"Onee-san!"

Okita rolled his eyes and got up. "I'm heading to the kitchen ahead of you then, Chizuru. So hurry up and get ready. Let's go." Okita said.

Chiaki got up, but not before a hug from Chizuru, and left.

Damn. If Okita had to put his two cents about Chiaki, he had to say, she was a bit more on the emotional side. He kept feeling his heart beating fast at some points. And he didn't hate it, per se, but he didn't have a fond liking to it either.

The two entered the kitchen to see Saito already preparing breakfast. Saito looked to see Okita and Chiaki.

"Souji, what are you doing here?" Saito asked.

Okita smiled. "Just here to help you out. I even brought an assistant."

"Good morning, Saito-san." Chiaki greeted.

"...good morning."

"So, do you need any help?" Souji asked.

"No, I have everything under control."

"What are you making? I can help you if you'd like." Chiaki offered.

Saito looked at her. "I'm making miso soup. But, I need to make the rice first."

Chiaki nodded. "Then let me help you with the rice, you can continue making the miso soup." Chiaki immediately set off to making rice.

Saito simply nodded and started to cut the vegetables, he looked up at Okita. "Souji, what are you doing? Hurry and help."

Okita sighed. "I really wasn't planning on doing anything today...but...alright."

A few minutes later, Chizuru entered the kitchen.

"I'm sorry for being late!" She yelled, catching everyone's attention.

"Chizuru, quiet down." Chiaki said softly. "It's still morning."

"Oh, sorry..." Chizuru said in a quieter voice.

"There is no need for you to apologize. It would be best if you were more careful in the future, but there was no trouble." Saito said.

"But...it was my job to prepare breakfast this morning, and I overslept..."

"You appear to be mistaken. Your actions this morning make no difference to us."

"Huh...?" Chizuru was obviously confused.

"Did you believe we'd be unable to make the meal without your assistance? That is incorrect. Warriors must be skilled in preparing their own food. The only thing we require from you is your help in finding your father, Kodo-san." Saito said.

"I-" Chizuru was about to speak, but was cut off by her sister.

"Wait. Are you saying that Chizuru had no reason to be here?" Chiaki asked. "If that is so then..." She looked directly at Okita, who simply smiled.

Saito also looked over at Okita. When he saw his smile, Saito let out a sigh.

"Souji…don't feed her lies. We need her to find Yukimura Kodo. We can't kill her for oversleeping." Saito said.

Chiaki glared at the lying man.

"Well, I know that. I mean, if we could kill her for sleeping in when the rest of us can't, I would have killed her already. I just figured if she was going to mooch off of us, she might as well do something for it. Make her useful to us at least." Okita said, completely ignoring Chiaki's glare.

"It is not your position to determine these things. Go add wood to the fire." Saito said.

"Yeah, yeah." Souji said, a bit unamused by the outcome.

The two went straight back to work, along with Chiaki.

"U-uh, um, so…Is there something I can help you with here?"

"Could you finish preparing the soup? You know where the miso is stored, correct?" Saito asked.

"Yes!" Chizuru quickly went off to get the miso.

"Mmm…I think it's ready." Chizuru said, looking back into the boiling pot.

"All right. We don't need to do anything else for breakfast. As soon as you finish arranging the trays, take them over to the others in the hall." Saito said.

"Right!" Chizuru said enthusiastically.

Chiaki came in with the trays. "I found them." She told Saito.

"You should also help in arranging the trays and bringing them in the hall with the others." Saito told her.

Chiaki nodded before looking over at Chizuru with a small smile.

When they started to bring the trays over to the hall, Chizuru had decided to take the lead. Chiaki didn't mind, because Chizuru seemed to be in a good mood. Well…that was, before she ran into Harada Sanosuke. Chiaki nearly had a heart attack as it all happened in slow motion in front of her. She was so thankful to the gods for not letting Chizuru fall down and get hurt as Harada caught her just in the nick of time.

Chiaki quickly walked next to Chizuru as she spoke with Nagakura Shinpachi.

"I will clean this mess up." Chiaki offered.

"No, I'll clean this mess up. Besides, I'm going to have to head over to the well and clean myself off before I start smelling like miso soup. May as well rinse out the cloth while I'm there and clean the floor, right? I could do it with my eyes closed."

"No, I believe I should at least help out on behalf of my sister." Chiaki said. "I've nothing else to do other than clean otherwise."

Nagakura gave a sigh at Chiaki's insistency. "Ah, well…if you really do want to help clean, I guess I can't refuse you…but just this once."

Chiaki nodded before moving into the hall and placing the tray in her hands down. She let Chizuru finish the job as she walked to the well, greeting Nagakura once more and going back to clean the mess that Chizuru and Harada had both made.

When Chiaki finished cleaning the mess up, with the help of Nagakura and Harada, she was tasked to go back into the kitchen to find out what was taking Saito and Okita so long while Chizuru was tasked to go and see Heisuke and Hijikata.

Chiaki looked into the kitchen, scanning the room until she found Saito cleaning.

"Excuse me, Saito-san. But the others are waiting for you in the main hall for breakfast. If you'd like, I can finish cleaning for you." Chiaki proffered.

Saito gave Chiaki a quick glance before continuing what he was doing. "I am almost done with cleaning. You need not worry about me. But, Souji left somewhere, so you'd best be getting him in the hall." Saito said.

Chiaki simply nodded as she turned around searching for Okita. Turning another hall, she saw Okita sitting on the edge where training took place.

"Okita-san." She called.

Okita turned to look at her. "Hm?"

"Everyone is waiting patiently for you in the hall." Chiaki informed.

"Ah…I see. I got it." He said as he got up. "Then let's go." He said, briskly walking pass Chiaki, who followed him.

All that was left was Kondou Isami, Hijikata Toshizo, and Chizuru.

"Ah, finally. What took you so long, Kondou? What, did you walk to the other end of Kyoto and back?" Nagakura said as he took notice of the three of them.

"Eh, sorry about that. I didn't go very far, but on my walk I spotted a dandelion growing by the street." Kondou answered. "I got so caught up in the fact I had seen proof that spring has come that I lost track of time!" He finished as he chuckled.

"Somehow I'm not surprised…You can make it up to us by leading everyone in for breakfast before the food gets cold." Sanosuke suggested.

"Of course!" Kondou said energetically. "All right everyone, enjoy this delicious food and put your all into working hard for another day!"

From there, small conversations piped up as everyone ate breakfast. But one in particular had caught Chiaki's interest.

"…The body cannot process an excess of salt." Saito explained.

Chiaki raised a brow. Who in their right mind would put excess soy sauce on vegetables? Okita obviously.

She quickly ignored it as everyone finished and cleaned the room up with Chizuru's help. That is, until Sanan called for them.

"…The Watch…?" Chizuru questioned Inoue.

"Yes. The members of the Watch will be the ones who'll be actually out looking for information about Kodo." Inoue said. "Before we put all our resources and men into the search, we need to introduce you to them."

"O-Oh, I see! Thank you very much!" Chizuru smiled at the fact that the search for her father was starting to go somewhere.

Chiaki nodded. "I see."

"I'm still completely against this. It'll cause more trouble than it's worth." Okita objected. "Like the medicine. We'd have to explain the whole mess, and why we kept that information from the other men."

"Souji. The commander trusts both Yamazaki and Shimada with the Shinsengumi's secrets." Saito defended. "Even if we didn't inform them about her now, if we continue searching for Kodo we'll have to tell them at some point. We can't keep prolonging it."

Okita turned his head away, still unconvinced.

"Well, we shouldn't waste a good opportunity. No sense in drawing it out." Sanosuke said, attempting to diffuse the tension. "I mean, they've both been here at the headquarters for three months right? It's time to make a move."

"Hey, you're making it sound like all we did was slack off until now." Heisuke complained before looking at Chizuru and Chiaki. "Just so you both know, us captains have been investigating places around Kyoto for Kodo too. We haven't been sitting on our asses this whole time." Heisuke cleared.

"Y-You have…?" Chizuru responded.

"Finding Kodo sooner rather than later wouldn't just be for your benefit; for the Shinsengumi, it'd help us out a lot if we located him quickly." Sanosuke stated.

"U-Um! Thank you, all of you, for looking for my father…!" Chizuru thanked them.

"You shouldn't be thanking us. After all, we want to find him for our own reasons, too." Heisuke said casually.

Chiaki was quickly alerted from his words, but hid that alertness. She was well aware of Saito's keen observations. For their own reasons…they were looking for her father for their own reasons…something had definitely happened in the time that her father stopped writing letters to Chizuru and herself. But with how strict the Shinsengumi was, she most likely would never figure it out…unless they found their father.

Chiaki swallowed some saliva from being so tense so suddenly.

"I'm with Souji on this one. Why should we tell more people about a girl when we don't even know when we're going to get rid of her." Nagakura said, siding with Okita. "'We have no choice but to bring her to headquarters after she found out about our secret, but we had to kill her because she got in the way-' Say something like that to our men and morale would drop like a stone. Bunch of the guys are soft on women. We'd have to say she 'went back home' even if circumstances forced us to finish her off."

Chizuru winced at his words. Chiaki still sat there, analyzing all she knew up until now. As she recalled the first night in coming to Kyoto, she and her sister were met with…well, rebels to say. But she had this inkling feeling that said otherwise…one that she knew all too well. The Shinsengumi definitely had a secret. They killed their own men that night. And now, it was revealed that they weren't looking for her father just for safety, but for something else.

Chiaki looked back at Chizuru before turning her focus back to Nagakura.

"But…we did all agree that we'd have to deal with that situation down the road. So why bitch and moan about it now? It's a done deal." He said.

"I guess you're right. I understand why we're doing it, but that doesn't mean I'm happy about it." Okita said in defeat.

"Excuse me." A voice called from one end of the room. "Shimada and Yamazaki reporting as requested."

"Enter." Hijikata said.

"I am Shimada Kai, member of the Watch. Nice to meet you." A rather large man said.

"I am Yamazaki Susumu." The smaller man said.

Kondou explained to them the details of their newest mission.

Chiaki took in all the information that they had told. If their father really was in hiding…why would he not come back home? Chiaki feared the worst…

Sanan then had the two sisters introduce themselves.

"Hello…Um, my name is Yukimura Chizuru. My father is Yukimura Kodo." Chizuru started.

"My name Yukimura Chiaki, the older sister to Chizuru. Yukimura Kodo is also my father." Chiaki finished.

"This is top secret, but the Shinsengumi is searching for Kodo in connection to some confidential orders we received from the government." Kondou said.

Chiaki's eyes slowly widened. The government was looking for Kodo…did that mean…? Chiaki's mind quickly fell into distress, but had held a calm surface. She…No, Chizuru needed to get out of here. But how…? Her ability was not nearly powerful enough to bust out.

"They aren't one of us, nor do they work for the shogunate. They don't need to know." Hijikata said, pulling Chiaki out of her thoughts.

"Meeting is over. Everyone get the hell out. You two from the Watch, stay. I need to debrief you on what you should expect." Hijikata ordered.

AN - I am so sorry for leaving everyone hanging like this, but I finally got back in my groove to write this Hakuoki fanfiction. Things will certainly pick up its pace from here, and this is the cut off point for the official storyline of the game. Of course, I will still have them leaving their original housing to move into the temple and bits and pieces from the original storyline.

It's also been a while since I played the game, so bear with me if I get location names wrong. Also, can someone provide me a list of the locations that they moved their headquarters to? As well as the battles that were involved in the game in chronological order? I have the game, but I broke my console…thank you very much.

This chapter also leaves me unsatisfied…because I re-read this story and I tried to work with it. It seems really bumpy, but hopefully, after this, things will go smoothly.