Shinsenvember 17 - Tenchu!

Dusk. A lonely beach along the Shimonoseki Strait. A small group of armed men slowly made their way across the pebbles and sand to where a lone figure was standing, watching the tide come in. It was not a quiet advance – their quarry had certainly heard them. But he paid them no heed. He was a brave man, and a proud one.

"Takasugi Shinsaku!" one of them called out.

At last, the man turned to face his pursuers. "Yes?"

Their leader took a step forward. "You must know why we are here."

Takasugi's mouth curved into an ugly smile. "I have a good idea."

"You have deceived your lord, betrayed your fellow warriors, and at last given over this country to the barbarians. No punishment on earth can wipe away the stain of your sins." The man spoke slowly and solemnly, delivering what was clearly a heavily-rehearsed speech. "We true loyalists to the Chrysanthemum Throne shall now exact Divine Punish-"

There was a flash of silver. A tall dark figure with flowing long hair had moved in so quickly he appeared to have materialized out of thin air, and the true loyalist was discovering the impossibility of speaking with the barrel of a pistol in his mouth.

"I'm here to exact Hell's Punishment!" the newcomer announced. His victim had frozen still. The other men fell back a few steps.

"Shiranui Kyou!" one of them gasped.

"Hey, I saved your sorry ass in Kyoto!" Shiranui called out to the man who'd spoken. "Guess I won't make that mistake again. Well, Takasugi-kun, is there any reason I shouldn't blow this coward's brains out?" He gestured to the man at the other end of his gun.

"We've already lost enough fighters," Takasugi replied. "Let him live. If hechooses to."

Shiranui shrugged, then withdrawing his pistol from the man's bleeding mouth, picked him up by the collar of his kimono and held him dangling above the sand. "What do you choose?"

"D-don't – ack – LIFE!"

Shiranui threw the man to the ground. "How about the rest of you?" he asked. "Anyone want to go a round against my gun?"

"YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO FIGHT THE BARBARIANS, NOT SURRENDER TO THEM!" one of the men cried out.

Takasugi began to laugh. "Do you think I don't know that?" he asked. "We bought this war, we bound ourselves to fight it."

"But you-"

"Who are you to order me around?" Takasugi demanded. "Most of you aren't even Choshu men. You came running to us with your tails between your legs, and this is how you treat an official envoy of the House of Mori? You know I was carrying out my lord's orders to make peace. And if you weren't idiots, you'd also know we need more guns, ships, and trained troops to fight off the barbarians."

There was a long silence. Some of the men glared at Takasugi, but most eyes were on Shiranui's gun. They weren't actually cowards. With an ordinary opponent, they would have fought back. But they'd seen Shiranui in action before.

"I'm letting you go," Takasugi said at last. "You have ten seconds to get out of here."

The men scrambled up the beach as fast as their legs could take them. Shiranui left off counting the seconds at seven and began shooting.

"Stop wasting our bullets," said Takasugi when Shiranui paused a second to reload his pistol. Shiranui's shots had all "missed" the fleeing men by very narrow margins.

"Stop complaining, shrimp. You don't get to tell me how to save your life."

"I did tell you how to save my life. Have you already forgotten this was my plan?"

"You can see I improved it."

Takasugi grinned. "You'd better wash the slobber off my poor pistol."

"Don't doubt me. This gun's the love of my life."

"Well if you can't get the girls …"

They settled into their usual comfortable banter as they began their long walk back towards the town.

Author's Notes: This one wasn't about the Shinsengumi at all, though it is Hakuouki with Shiranui in the picture. I actually meant to write about the Shinsengumi's pov on something else, got completely sucked down the research rabbit hole, and at last realized I had to put the idea aside until I learnt more. The original idea may one day be a full-length fic.

So, Tenchu = "divine punishment". It was the word used by the Sonnou Joui patriots for their assassinations. In a weird twist of fate, some of the Choshu shishi went from planning/supporting tenchu killings to having to evade them.

The specific context of this ficlet. In 1863, Choshu domain fired on foreign ships using the Shimonoseki strait. In 1864, a French-British-Dutch-American navy coalition easily destroyed and dismantled Choshu's coastal fortifications and batteries, and Choshu had no choice but to sue for peace. The domain appointed Takasugi Shinsaku to lead the peace negotiations. As a military commander, he wasn't happy about the job. He complained that although they'd been stupid to start such an unwinnable war, they were now committed to it, and should continue to fight. The Choshu domain elders ignored his opinion, and at last he agreed to obey his orders. (You can read all about the hilarious negotiations on my history blog: hakuouki-history. Google "Takasugi the peacemaker".)

As a result, he and his companions were immediately targeted for assassination by radical members of the Choshu militia. As mentioned in the fic, a lot of the militia members were ronin from other domains, whom the Choshu officials struggled to control. Takasugi escaped a threatened attack. However, the negotiators' English-Japanese interpreter, Inoue Kaoru, was ambushed and nearly cut to pieces by angry samurai. Unexpectedly, Inoue survived his wounds, became an influential Meiji statesman and lived till 1915.

In real life, Takasugi bought a pair of Smith and Wesson pistols in Shanghai, one of which he gave to Sakamoto Ryoma as a present. In Hakuouki, it can be guessed that Takasugi is the source of Shiranui's pistol. (Completely incidentally, but I've just always found this interesting: in fiction, Sakamoto is usually portrayed with his pistol years before Takasugi actually gave it to him. Takasugi gave Sakamoto the pistol mid 1866 during the Second Choshu Expedition/Summer War ie. The year before they both died.)