I assembled the strongest swordsman group.

Qingdeng will now drift off to sleep again, to have a nice long nap—that's how it should be...

……

……

...Huh? What's this?

Qingdeng looked around in disbelief.

What should have been a dark world suddenly became colorful and bright.

Before Qingdeng could react, these suddenly appearing colors and lights automatically combined to form a familiar scene.

A cave filled with dust, a bloodied man lying on his back.

It's Onodera.

To be more precise, it was Onodera on his deathbed.

Covered in blood, he lay supine on the cold rock, a bitter, resentful smile slowly tugging at the corners of his mouth.

(As expected... I'm still so unwilling to accept this... I really want to... witness the demise of the cursed drug with my own eyes...)

Qingdeng: "..."

……

Suddenly, the scene before my eyes began to change.

The scene that appeared occurred just over an hour ago.

Hosojiro Nishino knelt on the ground in the most perfect posture, head held high and chest out.

(Niou...makes his move...)

Qingdeng: "..."

……

……

……

……

"...Sashige, stop the car."

In the driver's seat, both Sae and Yae were startled.

"Stop the car? Why?"

As Yae spoke, she turned her head and cast a puzzled look at Qing Deng.

Qingdeng sat up without saying a word, twisted open the medicine bottle in his hand with a blank expression, poured out 4 pills, and threw them into his mouth.

"parking."

He repeated it again.

Saeshige stared intently at Aoto's face, seemingly lost in thought.

After a moment, as if she understood something, she revealed an expression that was both shocked and saddened, quite charming.

"……I see."

Sae pulled the reins tighter and brought the carriage to a stop.

"Thank you for the medicine, senior."

With that, Qingdeng tossed the medicine bottle in his hand to Yae.

"Uh, huh? Ah?"

Yae hurriedly took the medicine bottle.

"Junior, this medicine..."

Before she could finish speaking, Qing Deng interrupted her:

"Please keep this for me, and I'll ask you for it back when I have the chance."

At that moment, the carriage came to a smooth stop.

Aoto took off his haori and gently covered Sanako and Souji with it, then got off the carriage without the slightest hesitation.

……

"Waaah...!"

Sanako let out a soft moan and slowly opened her beautiful eyes.

For some reason, her heart suddenly started beating very fast... which caused her to wake up involuntarily.

In the not-too-big-not-too-small carriage, she first smelled Qingdeng's scent.

"This is... Tachibana-kun's haori...?"

Sanako blinked, staring in surprise at the black haori covering her.

After taking Aoto back to the Moon Palace Shrine to heal his wounds, the new Oniwaban soldiers took the opportunity to change Aoto into a clean and refreshing set of clothes.

How did Tachibana-kun's clothes end up on me? The instant this thought crossed Sanako's mind, she was shocked to find that the place beside her, where she should have been able to see Aoto, was now empty.

"Tachibana-kun...?"

Sanako was stunned.

Of course, this only happened in an instant.

A moment later, she hurriedly sat up and scrambled out of the carriage.

Her panicked behavior was completely unlike that of a well-bred young lady.

The icy air that hit her face made Sanako shiver involuntarily.

After her eyes adjusted to the night breeze outside the car, she was shocked to see Qing Deng leading a fine horse, striding briskly northwards, towards Edo.

Not far away, Sae and Yae stood side by side.

Their expressions were solemn, as if they were seeing off fallen soldiers heading to the battlefield.

"Tachibana-kun! Where are you going?"

As soon as Sanako shouted, Qing Deng stopped and turned his head to the side.

"Miss Sanako?"

Qingdeng was taken aback at first, then a bitter look appeared on his face.

“Miss Sanako, you really woke up at the worst possible time…”

As he said those words, the bitterness on his face transformed into a poignant sense of helplessness.

Seeing this scene and hearing these words... a sense of foreboding suddenly rose in Sanako's heart.

Ignoring the fact that she wasn't wearing shoes, her pair of jade-like feet, clad in white socks, stepped onto the smooth ground and rushed to Qingdeng, using her body as a wall to block his path.

Where are you going?

She asked again.

Qing Deng smiled slightly.

“Miss Sanako, I still have things to do… After I finish everything, I will come to Yokohama to find you and Okita.”

Although Qing Deng didn't explicitly say where he was going or what he was going to do, strangely enough, when he said, "I still have things to do," Sanako instantly understood everything.

"Stop joking!"

Sanako shouted in a fit of rage.

"You barely escaped with your life, are you going to go and die again?"

Perhaps realizing he couldn't hide it any longer, Qingdeng lowered his eyebrows in a troubled manner.

“Miss Sanako, I am not going to my death. I will return safely.”

"Returning safely? Do you think I'd believe that? Even when you were in perfect physical and mental condition, you couldn't defeat Rakshasa, could you? In your current battered state, what can you possibly accomplish?"

“Miss Sanako, I don’t know if you want to believe it… Just now, I thought of a way to defeat Rasetsu. This time, I will definitely not lose again.”

"This isn't about whether you can defeat Rakshasa! Even if we take a step back and assume you really do have the method to defeat Rakshasa, so what? Right now, there are hundreds of Yakuza gathered inside the Shimizu Mansion! And there are experts like Shimizu Eiichi guarding it! Are you planning to just go and storm the Shimizu Mansion all alone? How many lives do you have?"

The roar emanating from deep within his throat sounded like the wailing of shattering glass.

As Sanako roared, she glared at Aoto with sharp eyes.

"..."

Qing Deng stopped talking and silently took a step to the left, preparing to go around Sanako.

With lightning speed, Sanako took a step forward, her delicate body once again blocking Aoto's path.

“…Miss Sanako, please step aside. I want to fight, let me fight.”

"You're not allowed to go!"

"..."

Qingdeng moved again.

This time, Sanako gritted her teeth—and with a whoosh, she drew the wakizashi from her waist.

"I told you not to go! Didn't you hear me?!"

Sanako shouted loudly, like boiling water suddenly overflowing.

The sharp tip of the knife was pointed directly at Qing Deng's chest.

"Step back! I'm serious! Rather than watching you fight a battle you can't win... rather than letting you be humiliated and tortured by the enemy... I'd rather kill you now! At least that way you'll die a quick death!"

Her eyes were bloodshot, her gaze fierce, her tone impassioned, and her tough attitude carried a chilling edge, making one involuntarily believe that her knife would truly pierce Qingdeng's chest...

The two sisters, who were not far away, looked worried upon seeing this.

From their expressions, it's easy to see that they desperately wanted to rush forward and mediate the conflict between Aoto and Sanako.

However, despite their burning anxiety, they still managed to control their bodies with astonishing willpower.