A Doctrine of Dealing Death

​The infiltration progress so far: 

--> 1st Floor of the Underground Basement --> Fourth Tier - Rookies of the Organization --> Winner: Saru.

--> 2nd Floor of the Underground Basement --> Third Tier - Specialists of the Organization --> Winner: Shida.

--> 3rd Floor of the Underground Basement --> Second Tier - Four Arms of the Organization --> Currently Harbouring: Toshio.

--> 4th Floor of the Underground Basement --> First Tier - The Three Executives --> Currently Headed: Ichirō, Kenichi & Tsuyoshi.

---

The air on the third floor was notably less choked with dust and blood than the chaotic levels above it.

​“The floor seems pretty empty, compared to the others we just passed by.” Toshio spoke, his voice measured, cutting through the silence of the large chamber. With Saru hysterically surviving the Fourth Tier ruckus and Shida having just carved his name into the Third Tier, Toshio now found himself alone, responsible for neutralizing the Second.

​His eyes scanned the layout, cool and professionally detached.

​“And it seems there’s only.. one of you here.”

​Standing perfectly still on the far side of the room, near a carved wooden pillar, was a lone warrior. He was lean, clad in dark, high-quality robes, and his posture was one of relaxed readiness—the quiet confidence of command.

​“Hijikata Toshio, I’ve heard things.” The warrior acknowledged, his voice possessing a smooth, confident tenor.

​“I was informed this floor harbors the Second Tier warriors of your measly mafia: the Shatei-gashira, the Rengō-toryō, the Kage Musha, and the Kurayami-gumi.” Toshio recited the names like a shopping list.

​“Well informed you infiltrators are,” the man conceded, unsheathing his sword with slow, deliberate care, the steel singing softly as it emerged. “However.. Only I am present here at the moment. Because if you’d recall, every other unit of this tier specializes in the outside work—operations, logistics, intimidation, and finance.”

​“Hm, you’re not wrong,” Toshio replied, adjusting his own grip on his hilt. “I guess that means everyone else is currently dealing their business rotting the world outside, huh?”

​“If that’s what you’d like to think, then that is so.” The man threw his empty scabbard away, letting it clatter across the floor—a definitive act of commitment.

​“Well, that just means, the second I drop you to the floor, everyone else is kind of futile,” Toshio said, his own blade sliding free, reflecting the cold, dim light.

​“Maybe, maybe not,” the man said, an amused smirk playing on his lips.

​“Right then, warrior of the sword, tell me your name.” Toshio requested, his voice tranquil, almost ceremonial.

The man closes his eyes with sincere calmness, in a low tone he utters,

"Ookii.. Chichi." (Big Breasts).

A gust of wind goes by.. although the base is heavily sealed so where could that be from?

"THAT'S NOT A REAL NAME GET REAL HERE YOU HALF HOOVED BUFFOON!!" Toshio shouts.

"My my.. Thought I almost had you there." The man sighs.

"Yeah my apologies I really almo-- AS IF!!" Toshio shouts.

The man changes his stance to a more serious one, groping the sword's hilt with only one hand, "My name is..

Chiisai Chichi." (Small Breasts).

Another gust of wind goes by.. Seriously where's these gusts of wind coming from?

"ARE YOU GONNA BE SERIOUS FOR EVEN A SECOND WITH ME?!" Toshio shouts.

"My my.. Thought I-" The man was interrupted.

"AS IF!!" Toshio shouts again.

​“Right then.. My name.. Warrior of the Sword, if you wish to learn, you must defeat me in battle.” The man proclaimed, the humor finally gone.

​“I was planning to anyway. I only asked because I have a little bit of an idea who you might be.. Also it’s fitting for my school of samurai for me to learn who I’m going to best in this battle,” Toshio muttered, already taking his form.

​“So you may know me by name I presume? And with your outbursts, I’d like to assume you’re Jigen-ryu, a brute like the one above,” the man announced.

​“Then…” Toshio took his stance, his body relaxing until it looked almost fragile. “Come and find out.”

---

​Meanwhile, back on the floor above Toshio's, where Shida had just finished his fight, he sat cross-legged amidst the carnage, his face streaked with blood and sweat, his eyes closed. He seemed to be intensely meditating, ignoring the stench of iron and death.

​“Uhm.. Mister, aren’t you going to join your comrades downstairs?” The only man alive in the room, the one who had surrendered, stammered with genuine cowardice and confusion.

​“No.” Shida offered no explanation, his chest rising and falling in controlled, deep breaths.

​“But.. our senior brothers only reduce in number but increase in skill! They all will definitely need you down there..!” The man pleaded, seeing Shida as his only path to survival if the others were defeated.

​“Hah. It seems you don’t have any idea about us, do you, brat?” Shida laughed mockingly, the sound dry and rough in his throat, his eyes still sealed.

​“Well, of course I am! You all are the Kodokuna Sona—”

​“WRONG!” Shida shouted, his voice a sudden, metallic lash that made the survivor jump.

​“Huh?!”

​“While it may be true that we're the Kodokuna Sonae, rumored to be able to take on hundreds of men individually.. That’s not where my belief in them lies!” Shida proclaimed, his eyes remaining closed, allowing his conviction to speak alone.

​“Huh?!” The man’s confusion was audible.

​“It’s what we’ve all been through, all that we’ve endured, all that we’ve had to come across and made it worthwhile to have each other’s backs despite all that... That makes me believe in them!”

​“Ngh..?” The man questioned, listening intently despite himself.

​“It’s true that I can just leave and aid the next person in the next floor, and then go down and fight the next Tier and the one after that…” Shida admitted, the truth of his strategic value hanging heavy in the air.

​“Then why don—” The man tried to interrupt, but Shida cut him off with a powerful surge of voice.

​“However! We are proud samurais, we are warriors of blades, and there’s nothing more important to us than our own individual fights!"

"Every fight to us is something we greet while hugging death. Being robbed off it because I merely partnered up, is a stain to what I am!"

"For that’d mean I did not give it my all in that fight, and it would mean I doubt myself greatly! If I was truly a warrior capable of dealing with a sword, I would trust my own abilities and push forward.."

"WITHOUT ANY HELP! And that is because WE HUMANS ARE BORN TO BELIEVE IN OURSELVES FIRST!”

​“Agh...!” The man was left astounded, his fear momentarily replaced by awe.

​“The only thing stopping us in this world.. is ourselves.” Shida continued, his voice softer now, but carrying the weight of experience. 

"We hear it all too much from old people about this, but who really lead the examples? Kids get depressed quick as they grow up because they have no one to look up to. They can't imagine there ever being someone who actually says they believed in themselves first and pushed forward and they ended up actually achieving what they dreamt of.”

​He paused, gathering breath. “This means.. KIDS NEED STRONG WILLED PEOPLE LIKE US TO LOOK UPTO MORE! And if I go down and help my friends right now.."

"WHAT WILL BECOME OF THAT STRONG WILL?! WHAT WILL BECOME OF SELF BELIEF?!"

"I believe in them... but that's because THEY BELIEVE IN THEMSELVES FIRST! And they’d be damned if I questioned that!” Shida shouted, ending his sermon, the final words echoing off the blood-splattered walls.

​“I.. I never..” The man spoke with flabbergast. “I never thought of it that way..”

​Shida closed his eyes yet again, settling his breathing, returning to the internal war.

---

Back on the Third Floor with Toshio.

​Toshio raised his blade, point steady, body loose, eyes unreadable.

​“Chūdan no Kamae.”

​The lone man, the Shatei-gashira, grinned, lifted his sword high above his head, and adopted a wide, aggressive stance, commanding space.

​“Then let’s make this worth the stories,” he said. “Jōdan no Kamae.”

​The lamps in the room seemed to tremble as he came down the floor in a sudden charge, the tatami snapping under his furious footsteps.

​“Shōmen-giri!”

​The cut fell like a plummeting judgment.

​Toshio stepped into it, not away.

​“Suriage.”

​Steel rang once—a clean, high-pitched kling. The massive downward strike was lifted, redirected, its killing line erased. The Shatei-gashira felt his arms jolt violently as Toshio slipped inside his reach, impossibly close, his presence like a shadow cast from within the man’s own body.

​He snarled and slashed across the body, vicious and fast.

​“Kesa-giri!”

​Toshio turned with the cut, his feet gliding, his blade flowing as if poured from liquid water.

​“Nagashi.”

​The Shatei-gashira’s sword passed through empty air.

​They separated in a blink, circling now, the space shrinking with every breath.

​The Shatei-gashira’s smile faded, replaced not by fear, but intense, troubled focus.

​“...You’re not pressing,” he muttered, his eyes narrowing. “You’re containing.”

​He lunged again, feinting high, snapping dangerously low.

​“Gyaku-kesa!”

​Toshio stepped off the line by no more than a finger’s width. His blade flicked out, a movement so minimal it was nearly invisible.

​“Kote-nuki.”

​Steel kissed the man’s wrist. It was not deep. Just enough to draw a thin line of blood, enough to damage the tendons.

​The Shatei-gashira hissed and instantly leapt back, staring at the thin red line seeping through his sleeve.

​Then, understanding struck him harder than the cut itself.

​“...That calm,” he said slowly, his voice laced with sudden recognition. “That almost clinical mercy.”

​A choked laugh escaped him, sharp and breathless. “Yagyū,” he breathed, realizing the gravity of his opponent’s identity. “Yagyū Shinkage-ryū.”

​Toshio did not confirm it. He shifted instead, lowering his sword slightly, his posture emptying, his deadly intent settling like still, dark water.

​“Seigan no Kamae.”

​The Shatei-gashira exhaled and raised his blade again—no longer careless, but consumed by the fatalistic pride of the samurai.

​“So you're from that school of samurai huh? That’s the sword that decides,” he said, his voice quiet. “Whether a man lives… or not.”

​He charged anyway. His pride would allow nothing else.

​Cuts came in a storm, fast and desperate. “Shōmen!” “Kesa!” “Dō-giri!”

​Toshio answered each, his breath calm, his movements unreal—it was as if the room bent around him, allowing him to be nowhere and everywhere.

​“Ukenagashi.” “Suriotoshi.” “Irimi.”

​Steel traced the air with silver light. Distance vanished and reappeared. The Shatei-gashira felt himself being guided, led—inexorably—into the single worst possible place.

​He overcommitted.

​Just once.

​Toshio stepped in, disappearing behind the massive arc of the missed strike.

​“Sen-sen no sen.”

​The cut was short. Straight. Absolute. A single, clean line.

​The Shatei-gashira froze, eyes wide, sword slipping from his fingers to clatter on the mat. He touched his throat, confused by how little pain there was, how clean the line felt, how strangely light he suddenly became.

​“...So that’s it,” he whispered, a final, fading realization. “The life-giving sword… choosing not to give life.”

​His knees buckled. The tatami accepted him without a sound.

​Hijikata Toshio stood alone beneath the lamps, blade already lowering, his face pale, his expression unchanged. He was exhausted—but not physically.

​“Warrior.. Tell me your name then..” Toshio requested again, looking down at the dying man, his voice a strained whisper, stripped of all ego.

​----- A Flashback Starts -------

​The air was thick and tasted of choking dust and the raw flavor of despair in the small, forgotten village.

​“Stop, Mama! Please, stop!”

​Nine-year-old Toshio stumbled backward, his small hands uselessly batting away the glinting blade that his mother wielded with a terrifying, fractured strength. Her eyes, once the softest, warmest brown he knew, were now wide and feral, fixed on him with a desperate, hunted terror.

​“Don’t, Mama, don’t! Everyday you're doing this to me!! Why Mama?! Why are you doing this?!”

​Tears streamed down his cheeks, hot and mixing with the snot he couldn't wipe away fast enough. He scrambled back until his spine pressed against the cold, packed earth. His high-pitched sobs tore the silence. The knife flashed again, closer this time, and he shut his eyes tight, bracing for the sting, utterly lost in a private terror that had become the unbearable rhythm of his life.

​“My life… it’s been bad,” he choked out, his voice reedy, punctuated by ragged breaths. “Before, my Papa… he was strong, but always drunk. He hit Mama. He hit me too. Lots of times. Mama would always pull me close and hide me behind her back. She’d take the hits for me." He paused.

"She was so pretty then, like the moon.”

​He paused again, a tiny, ragged sigh escaping him, recalling the moment of false peace.

​“Then, one night, Papa left. He was drunk like always, and he just went out and never came back."

"We were sad at first, but also… quiet."

"But soon after, Mama got strange. She was always scared. When Papa was hitting us, she would protect me with her body. Later… she started protecting me in weird ways. She wouldn't let me out the house, she'd close windows at odd times and hold me in her arms when there was nobody there.. This all went on.. until..

"Until she became completely provocative and started to attack me with a knife all the time.. I never understood. I.. I still don't."

"She’s my Mama isn't she? She loved me, didn't she?”

​Toshio was a shadow in the village, his stomach a constant, aching emptiness. He often spent his days scurrying through the narrow alleys, clutching his small, tattered sack. He lived off scraps, his hunger a sharp, physical pain.

​One afternoon, the hunger was a sharp cramp in his belly. He saw a discarded half-cabbage, bruised and wilted, near the back entrance of the general store. As he reached for it, a loud, guttural shout made him jump, fear overriding the hunger.

​“Thief! Get away from that, you dirty little wretch!”

​The shopkeeper, a monstrous man with flour dusting his apron, was chasing him. Toshio ran, his spindly legs pumping wildly on the rutted path, the cabbage forgotten. He wasn't fast enough. His foot caught a loose stone, and he pitched forward.

​THWACK.

​He hit the ground hard. A searing pain shot up his left leg. He looked down and saw his knee was scraped open, blooming a dark, crimson red. He lay there, tasting the metallic dust, silent tears pooling beside his eyes. He cried not just from the pain, but because there was nowhere to go. No one to clean his wound, no soft voice to tell him it would be okay. Only the distant memory of his mother’s beautiful, kind face, which now only lived in his tormented mind.

"Why.."

"Why."

"Am I the son of the devil..?"

"Why is my soul burdened Kami-sama?"

"Why."

"I'm not even treated as a human anymore, not even worth a bruised and wilted half-cabbage.."

"What am I worth.."

"What am I.."

"Mama.."

"I miss.. everything about the warmth you gave me."

​As dusk fell, he limped back to their shack. The door was ajar. He crept in and found his mother sleeping soundly on their straw mat, the knife tucked carelessly beside her hand. She looked peaceful, almost like the ‘moon-Mama’ of his cherished memories.

​The next day, the sun rose, and so did the terror. She was chasing him again, knife in hand, screaming incoherently.

 This cycle of terror and temporary reprieve had become the unbearable rhythm of his existence.

After a few weeks,

​The tranquility of the tragic village was shattered by the sharp, authoritative sound of boots on the road. Three figures in dark, distinctive uniforms—Shinsengumi officers—marched into the center of the hamlet, arriving for a tax survey or perhaps to root out some unseen disorder.

​Just as they were speaking to the village elder, Toshio’s mother burst from their shack, the knife held high, her eyes fixed on her son.

​“Toshio! Come here! Y-You there! You must be killed!”

​Toshio ran, his heart hammering against his ribs, but this time, fate intervened with a cruelty of its own. He veered around a stack of dry wood and ran straight into the leg of the commanding Shinsengumi officer.

​He fell, the pain in his old, bruised knee excruciating. This pain, coupled with the relentless, cumulative terror, snapped something inside him. He lay on the ground, sobbing uncontrollably, his small body racked with tremors.

​“I can’t! I can’t take it anymore! Please!” he screamed tearfully up at the stern, bewildered face of the officer.

​The officer, seeing the hysterical boy and the madwoman with a blade, commanded his men: “Restrain her! Carefully!”

​They moved swiftly, disarming and binding the woman. As they locked her arms, pulling her outside, she fought fiercely, the terror and confusion radiating from her.

​“Toshio! Toshio! Come here! I will kill… I will kill!” she wailed, her voice cracking with tears, a desperate, broken sound of maternal anguish.

​The officer was flabbergasted, shaking his head. “She is clearly mentally unfit with murderous intent for her own son. Restrain her tighter. We must take her to the authorities.”

​As they started to lead her away, Toshio, trembling and confused, could only watch. He wanted to shout, to call her back, but his voice was trapped, choked by fear.

​Suddenly, with a surge of impossible, final strength, she tore free, the knife still somehow clutched in her hand. She lunged straight for Toshio.

​“M-MAMA.."

​Toshio's life flashed before his eyes—a terrifying, chaotic kaleidoscope of memories, beautiful and cruel.

​“Toshio! Looks like your Papa won't come today, come let's make your favorite meal!”

“Yes Mama!! Hehehe!!”

---

​“Toshio.. Here, have your milk, you need to grow up strong, don’t you?”

“Mama.. This milk tastes thin..”

“Aye Toshio, it must be because you haven't had one in a long time!”

"Hmm, you sure we aren't so poor that you just added water to it and are pretending we have milk?!"

"Huh? When did my son get so smart?! Must be the milk making you more intelligent!"

"Eheh!!"

---

​“Mama! Look! I am growing taller than before! I surpassed the mark I left 2 months ago on the wall!”

“That's my Toshio! Be strong and tall and protect me, okay?”

---

​The kaleido of memories ended, all that played with it.. was a scream.

Toshio screamed, a pure, heart-shattering sound.

​Toshio’s scream was cut short by the draw of steel. The Shinsengumi, having no choice, drew their swords to intercept the charge.

​Flick. Flick. Thud.

​Toshio closed his eyes, bracing for the blade. The impact came—but it was heavy, wet, and crushing, not sharp.

​He opened his eyes. His mother was slumped over him, coughing violently. He saw the dark, wet patch blooming on the ground beside his head, soaking into the dirt. Her knife had plunged into the earth, inches from his face.

​Then, he noticed the three sword hilts sticking out of her back, driven deep. The Shinsengumi officers stood frozen, their faces horrified and pale with grim realization.

​She coughed again, a spray of dark blood escaping her lips. But then, slowly, agonizingly, she turned her head and smiled down at him. A beautiful, pure, heart-wrenching smile, just like the one he remembered.

​“I did it… Toshio…” her voice was a ragged, failing whisper. “I was seeing your dad… He was right behind you this entire time… I finally stabbed him… Now he won’t disturb you anymore…”

​Toshio’s world tilted and broke. The screams of the officers, the overwhelming smell of fresh blood, the agonizing pain in his knee—it all faded into a roaring numbness.

​The commanding officer knelt down, his expression one of profound sorrow and grim realization. “She was seeing some sort of figure of her husband she conjured in her head… a complete break from reality. From the sound of the abuse, the only thing that kept her tethered was the desperate, final instinct to protect her son, even from shadows in her own mind.”

​Toshio stared up, his small chest heaving, his mother’s blood warm and sticky on his face, lost in the incomprehensible horror of her last, broken act of love. She had been hallucinating his father behind him all this time, intending to stand up against him for her son, mistaking the boy’s terrified confusion for the father’s cruel threat.

​Toshio screamed, he cried. He couldn't stop crying. He looked up to the merciless sky, and he screamed and cried for the love that had been weaponized by madness.

---

The flashback faded into the present—the roar of the inner storm now constrained and mastered, the essence of the Yagyū Shinkage-ryū.

“Tell me.. your name, Shatei-gashira of the Second Tier.” Toshio requested again, his voice echoing the ego and resolve that was necessary for his mission, but with a new, quiet strain of exhaustion.

The man, bleeding onto the mat, managed a weak whisper. “Keisuke.. Masunaga..”

“I see.. You’re the son of a Shinsengumi officer, aren’t you?” Toshio asked, his eyes suddenly sharp and focused.

“Huh?! How did—”

“Tragic. Your father was deemed high in the officials, a symbol of order, and here you are, illegally going about your own life, rotting the world outside,” Toshio interrupted, stepping over the corpse.

“How did you know my father's name?!” Masunaga demanded, eyes wide, lying helpless in his own blood.

“I requested to be on this floor, mainly because I knew you were the Shatei-gashira,” Toshio said, his voice flat, devoid of satisfaction. “I just had to confirm it.”

Toshio walked away from the silent chamber, leaving the man to his fate, the truth a weight he alone bore, moving toward the next descent.