harada "the REAL responsible adult" sanosuke (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
speariting) wrote2023-03-06 01:18 am
speariting) wrote2023-03-06 01:18 am
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History
Harada Sanosuke was born into a lower-class samurai family, so while he had status, it was still pretty low. At one point, a retainer to the clan he was a part of mocked Harada and said he probably had no idea how to even commit seppuku (ritual suicide), to which Harada immediately acted to prove the retainer wrong. However, the wound was shallow and he survived, though he later boasted to his friends in the Shinsengumi of it.
After the incident he left his home and ended up in Edo (now known as Tokyo), staying and training at Kondou Isami's dojo, Shieikan. There he met many of his closest friends, Nagakura Shinpachi and Toudou Heisuke in particular. In 1863, he and the others from Shieikan traveled to Kyoto and became part of the Roushigumi, which later became the Shinsengumi, a special police force loyal to the Tokugawa shogunate and used to keep the peace in Kyoto. Harada was appointed as captain of the 10th Unit.
But their group was not only used for an honorable reason. The shogunate, wanting to have the upper hand in the broiling chaos that would lead to a civil war, ordered the Shinsengumi to help with experiments on a secret “medicine” that would make their troops into even stronger soldiers. This was called the ochimizu, or Water of Life. Only there was a problem. The ochimizu wasn’t foolproof. While the men who took it and became rasetsu (Furies) became faster and stronger and able to regenerate wounds (unless stabbed through the heart), they ultimately lost their minds, particularly at the sight of blood.
And the man who was in charge of working out the kinks in the ochimizu, Yukimura Koudou, had recently disappeared, leaving the Shinsengumi hanging.
February of 1864 is where the main story begins when Yukimura Chizuru, Koudou’s daughter, came to Kyoto, dressed as a boy for her own protection, to look for her father since he had stopped writing. She witnessed a couple rasetsu get taken down by a few Shinsengumi captains, and was apprehended just to make sure she didn’t run off and tell what she had seen, even though she didn’t understand fully what had happened. Eventually, they all learned that she was a girl and looking for Koudou, so they kept her around since the Shinsengumi were looking for Koudou, too. Harada treated her well enough during her stay, oftentimes encouraging her to cheer up if she looked sad or something bad had happened.
While the Shinsengumi’s reputation had never really been great in Kyoto, they stayed pretty stable and able to keep themselves afloat for about four years. In this time Harada took part in normal patrols and a few exciting incidents (usually against the Choushuu clan). In 1867, however, the Shinsengumi became retainers of the shogun, which was all well and good, except Harada and Shinpachi, in particular, weren’t too thrilled with being forced to work directly for someone whereas before they had a little more freedom to fight for what they personally believed in. It was at this point that the two began to view the Shinsengumi’s commander, Kondou, a little more skeptically.
One night, it was revealed to the Shinsengumi that Chizuru was actually a demon, which probably should have been a big deal, but then they also dealt with rasetsu, whose powers are based on those of demons. Also during this span of time, Sannan Keisuke, one of the vice-commanders along with Hijikata Toshizou, had taken over ochimizu research and had become a rasetsu himself, due to an arm injury that left him unable to fight and because he felt he had improved the concoction enough that he wouldn’t go insane. It worked, for the most part. Heisuke also became a rasetsu after he was fatally wounded at the Aburano-koji Incident, in which the Shinsengumi took out a group of men who had left the Shinsengumi, led by Itou Kashitarou. Itou had intended to expose the rasetsu and have Kondou assassinated. Clearly that was not a bright idea.
Even with these less-than-happy incidents, Harada still viewed the rasetsu as people and wanted them to enjoy life as much as they could, even in their inhuman state. At the same time, he wondered if they were really alive at all.
Near the end of 1867, Emperor Meiji had ascended to the throne, and rule was returned to him, though the shogunate still existed, just without as much power as they had had for hundreds of years before. The Shinsengumi still worked for the shogunate, but there was still a war going on and at the end of January 1868, the Shinsengumi really started its downhill slide. The Battle of Toba-fushimi pitted the shogunate’s forces against the Imperial army and if sheer numbers counted the shogunate should have won, but the Imperial forces had Western firepower and training, easily overcoming the samurai who mostly fought with swords or spears. During the battle, Harada tried to protect Chizuru from Shiranui Kyou, a demon working with the Choushuu clan, but Shiranui was too strong. This bothered Harada deeply since he believed women shouldn’t be on the battlefield, but there he was, unable to protect a woman.
The battle ended with the Shinsengumi retreating first to Osaka, then all the way back to Edo when it became apparent that the shogun had retreated as well, abandoning his own soldiers. Morale was low in the ranks. While they stayed at Kama Inn, waiting to get their metaphorical breath back and figure out what to do next, Harada began to distance himself from Chizuru because he didn’t know how to face her after being humiliated and defeated by Shiranui, which only confused her and made her think he didn’t want anything to do with her. Chizuru tried to leave, to keep from causing trouble by existing and also because Sannan was pressuring her to help with the ochimizu research, of which she wanted to be no part, but Harada happened to be around to stop her and as she tried to explain herself and why she was upset, she started crying, to which Harada tried to calm her down, but when that didn’t work, he fell back on his old standby: kissing girls to get them to stop crying. It was super effective, surprisingly, and they were able to explain why they had acted the way they had.
Not long after, Kondou ordered the Shinsengumi to march to Koufu Castle, but when they arrived, they received word that the enemy had already taken it. Kondou wanted to attack anyway since it was the shogunate’s orders, but Harada and Shinpachi tried to dissuade him, pointing out that their numbers weren’t nearly enough to take an entire castle. Kondou refused to retreat and the next day when fighting broke out, they were hopelessly overwhelmed. After losing a good amount of men, Kondou finally ordered the retreat.
During the retreat, the Shinsengumi were attacked by Imperial soldiers, only they were different. They were rasetsu (who could fight in the sunlight without repercussions, unlike the rasetsu of the Shinsengumi), and who led them? None other than Yukimura Koudou, which was understandably quite a shock for Chizuru. The Shinsengumi couldn’t fight off the rasetsu, however, and Shiranui, who had arrived at the scene, as well, called a truce with Harada and distracted the army so everyone else could get away.
That March, Harada and Shinpachi left the Shinsengumi, mostly due to the fact that they couldn’t serve under Kondou anymore, after his bad choices, and also because one of the only choices left to make the Shinsengumi powerful again was to use Chizuru to improve the Shinsengumi’s rasetsu, something Harada would not allow. So they left and took Chizuru with them, effectively getting out before they sank with the ship, so to speak.
Things were easier once they left, not nearly as tense, but Chizuru knew she couldn’t just let her father be, so she tried to leave a second time, not wanting to get Harada and Shinpachi involved. Harada stopped her again and confessed that he loved her and wouldn’t sit by and watch as she went off to die. This calmed her. Not long after, Harada and Shinpachi became lieutenants in a new group, the Seiheitai. The group traveled to Utsunomiya, but Harada and Chizuru stayed behind in Edo to keep an eye on things there.
Edo Castle was surrendered peacefully soon after and the imperial army moved out of the city since they no longer need to be there. However, Harada and Chizuru learned from Shiranui (who was no longer with the Choushuu) that Koudou planned on turning the entire country into rasetsu to protect it from foreign forces who would undoubtedly try to take over, but in order to support his rasetsu, they needed blood, and thus Edo was an easy target. Harada and Chizuru made a plan to go to Utsunomiya and tell Shinpachi what had happened then immediately head back to Edo to stop Koudou.
When they got back to Shinpachi, though, he never gave Harada a chance to really talk, so their plan was delayed. Chizuru, having heard Shinpachi talk so highly of Harada and how he was happy to have someone he could trust wholeheartedly fighting at his back, felt terrible for how she would end up tearing apart a beautiful friendship and tried to tell Harada that she would go back to Edo alone, but he stopped her once more, explaining that he had chosen her and he would probably have to give up more things he truly cared for if he wanted to keep her, but he would choose her every time. They made love that night.
The next day Harada was finally able to talk to Shinpachi, who couldn’t figure out why he’d choose a woman over everything, so they fought, sword versus spear. Harada won, only because he was so talented with the spear, but Shinpachi was a good sport about it, even if he was hurt. Harada and Chizuru then returned to Edo in time to intercept Koudou. Shiranui was also there, and he fought off the rasetsu while Harada faced off against Koudou, whom Harada killed. The rasetsu were defeated, as well, and Harada and Chizuru were finally able to start a life together.
They had left the country to settle somewhere peaceful and away from war, where they could just be together. A few years later, Chizuru gave birth to a son.
After the incident he left his home and ended up in Edo (now known as Tokyo), staying and training at Kondou Isami's dojo, Shieikan. There he met many of his closest friends, Nagakura Shinpachi and Toudou Heisuke in particular. In 1863, he and the others from Shieikan traveled to Kyoto and became part of the Roushigumi, which later became the Shinsengumi, a special police force loyal to the Tokugawa shogunate and used to keep the peace in Kyoto. Harada was appointed as captain of the 10th Unit.
But their group was not only used for an honorable reason. The shogunate, wanting to have the upper hand in the broiling chaos that would lead to a civil war, ordered the Shinsengumi to help with experiments on a secret “medicine” that would make their troops into even stronger soldiers. This was called the ochimizu, or Water of Life. Only there was a problem. The ochimizu wasn’t foolproof. While the men who took it and became rasetsu (Furies) became faster and stronger and able to regenerate wounds (unless stabbed through the heart), they ultimately lost their minds, particularly at the sight of blood.
And the man who was in charge of working out the kinks in the ochimizu, Yukimura Koudou, had recently disappeared, leaving the Shinsengumi hanging.
February of 1864 is where the main story begins when Yukimura Chizuru, Koudou’s daughter, came to Kyoto, dressed as a boy for her own protection, to look for her father since he had stopped writing. She witnessed a couple rasetsu get taken down by a few Shinsengumi captains, and was apprehended just to make sure she didn’t run off and tell what she had seen, even though she didn’t understand fully what had happened. Eventually, they all learned that she was a girl and looking for Koudou, so they kept her around since the Shinsengumi were looking for Koudou, too. Harada treated her well enough during her stay, oftentimes encouraging her to cheer up if she looked sad or something bad had happened.
While the Shinsengumi’s reputation had never really been great in Kyoto, they stayed pretty stable and able to keep themselves afloat for about four years. In this time Harada took part in normal patrols and a few exciting incidents (usually against the Choushuu clan). In 1867, however, the Shinsengumi became retainers of the shogun, which was all well and good, except Harada and Shinpachi, in particular, weren’t too thrilled with being forced to work directly for someone whereas before they had a little more freedom to fight for what they personally believed in. It was at this point that the two began to view the Shinsengumi’s commander, Kondou, a little more skeptically.
One night, it was revealed to the Shinsengumi that Chizuru was actually a demon, which probably should have been a big deal, but then they also dealt with rasetsu, whose powers are based on those of demons. Also during this span of time, Sannan Keisuke, one of the vice-commanders along with Hijikata Toshizou, had taken over ochimizu research and had become a rasetsu himself, due to an arm injury that left him unable to fight and because he felt he had improved the concoction enough that he wouldn’t go insane. It worked, for the most part. Heisuke also became a rasetsu after he was fatally wounded at the Aburano-koji Incident, in which the Shinsengumi took out a group of men who had left the Shinsengumi, led by Itou Kashitarou. Itou had intended to expose the rasetsu and have Kondou assassinated. Clearly that was not a bright idea.
Even with these less-than-happy incidents, Harada still viewed the rasetsu as people and wanted them to enjoy life as much as they could, even in their inhuman state. At the same time, he wondered if they were really alive at all.
Near the end of 1867, Emperor Meiji had ascended to the throne, and rule was returned to him, though the shogunate still existed, just without as much power as they had had for hundreds of years before. The Shinsengumi still worked for the shogunate, but there was still a war going on and at the end of January 1868, the Shinsengumi really started its downhill slide. The Battle of Toba-fushimi pitted the shogunate’s forces against the Imperial army and if sheer numbers counted the shogunate should have won, but the Imperial forces had Western firepower and training, easily overcoming the samurai who mostly fought with swords or spears. During the battle, Harada tried to protect Chizuru from Shiranui Kyou, a demon working with the Choushuu clan, but Shiranui was too strong. This bothered Harada deeply since he believed women shouldn’t be on the battlefield, but there he was, unable to protect a woman.
The battle ended with the Shinsengumi retreating first to Osaka, then all the way back to Edo when it became apparent that the shogun had retreated as well, abandoning his own soldiers. Morale was low in the ranks. While they stayed at Kama Inn, waiting to get their metaphorical breath back and figure out what to do next, Harada began to distance himself from Chizuru because he didn’t know how to face her after being humiliated and defeated by Shiranui, which only confused her and made her think he didn’t want anything to do with her. Chizuru tried to leave, to keep from causing trouble by existing and also because Sannan was pressuring her to help with the ochimizu research, of which she wanted to be no part, but Harada happened to be around to stop her and as she tried to explain herself and why she was upset, she started crying, to which Harada tried to calm her down, but when that didn’t work, he fell back on his old standby: kissing girls to get them to stop crying. It was super effective, surprisingly, and they were able to explain why they had acted the way they had.
Not long after, Kondou ordered the Shinsengumi to march to Koufu Castle, but when they arrived, they received word that the enemy had already taken it. Kondou wanted to attack anyway since it was the shogunate’s orders, but Harada and Shinpachi tried to dissuade him, pointing out that their numbers weren’t nearly enough to take an entire castle. Kondou refused to retreat and the next day when fighting broke out, they were hopelessly overwhelmed. After losing a good amount of men, Kondou finally ordered the retreat.
During the retreat, the Shinsengumi were attacked by Imperial soldiers, only they were different. They were rasetsu (who could fight in the sunlight without repercussions, unlike the rasetsu of the Shinsengumi), and who led them? None other than Yukimura Koudou, which was understandably quite a shock for Chizuru. The Shinsengumi couldn’t fight off the rasetsu, however, and Shiranui, who had arrived at the scene, as well, called a truce with Harada and distracted the army so everyone else could get away.
That March, Harada and Shinpachi left the Shinsengumi, mostly due to the fact that they couldn’t serve under Kondou anymore, after his bad choices, and also because one of the only choices left to make the Shinsengumi powerful again was to use Chizuru to improve the Shinsengumi’s rasetsu, something Harada would not allow. So they left and took Chizuru with them, effectively getting out before they sank with the ship, so to speak.
Things were easier once they left, not nearly as tense, but Chizuru knew she couldn’t just let her father be, so she tried to leave a second time, not wanting to get Harada and Shinpachi involved. Harada stopped her again and confessed that he loved her and wouldn’t sit by and watch as she went off to die. This calmed her. Not long after, Harada and Shinpachi became lieutenants in a new group, the Seiheitai. The group traveled to Utsunomiya, but Harada and Chizuru stayed behind in Edo to keep an eye on things there.
Edo Castle was surrendered peacefully soon after and the imperial army moved out of the city since they no longer need to be there. However, Harada and Chizuru learned from Shiranui (who was no longer with the Choushuu) that Koudou planned on turning the entire country into rasetsu to protect it from foreign forces who would undoubtedly try to take over, but in order to support his rasetsu, they needed blood, and thus Edo was an easy target. Harada and Chizuru made a plan to go to Utsunomiya and tell Shinpachi what had happened then immediately head back to Edo to stop Koudou.
When they got back to Shinpachi, though, he never gave Harada a chance to really talk, so their plan was delayed. Chizuru, having heard Shinpachi talk so highly of Harada and how he was happy to have someone he could trust wholeheartedly fighting at his back, felt terrible for how she would end up tearing apart a beautiful friendship and tried to tell Harada that she would go back to Edo alone, but he stopped her once more, explaining that he had chosen her and he would probably have to give up more things he truly cared for if he wanted to keep her, but he would choose her every time. They made love that night.
The next day Harada was finally able to talk to Shinpachi, who couldn’t figure out why he’d choose a woman over everything, so they fought, sword versus spear. Harada won, only because he was so talented with the spear, but Shinpachi was a good sport about it, even if he was hurt. Harada and Chizuru then returned to Edo in time to intercept Koudou. Shiranui was also there, and he fought off the rasetsu while Harada faced off against Koudou, whom Harada killed. The rasetsu were defeated, as well, and Harada and Chizuru were finally able to start a life together.
They had left the country to settle somewhere peaceful and away from war, where they could just be together. A few years later, Chizuru gave birth to a son.