A Meiji-Era Aunt in the Bakumatsu

-- In the narrow space between flashing blades and history, I met you, whose disappearance was inevitable.

[The author is trying for a happy ending. It will probably be sweet at first, then bitter, then sweet again in the extras.]

I'll write it after the university entrance exams.

[Blurb]

Kamiya Nozomi is an ordinary girl from the Meiji era.

After her father dies, she and her older sister depend on each other at their dojo.

Later, she goes to a boarding school in Kyoto.

And somehow... becomes a Saniwa?

Once she finally accepts this strange, completely unscientific reality,

after a whole year of training under the Temporal Administration, she is finally about to take up her post at a Honmaru, bearing the heavy responsibility of protecting history... when she transmigrates?

That's right, somehow...

she transmigrates...

*

On her first day at work, Kamiya Nozomi travels from the Meiji era to the Bakumatsu.

--The good news: The jump through time isn't very large, only about a dozen years.

--The bad news: This is Kyoto just before the Ikedaya Incident, and she's an undocumented person.

"Konnosuke, if you don't show up soon, I'm really going to starve to death here!"

To stay alive, she hides out at the Ikedaya, serving tea and doing odd jobs, nervously keeping her head down.

Until one day, she sees a familiar Tsukumogami: Kashuu Kiyomitsu.

Worse, when she follows Kiyomitsu, his master catches her red-handed.

"Hm? Isn't this the Ikedaya's waitress? Why are you following me?"

Okita Soji raises an eyebrow at her, smiling brightly, though his eyes are full of scrutiny.

Kamiya Nozomi: "...If I say I'm looking for a cat, will you believe me?"

(Cat: ?)

--She knows how his story ends, but cannot tell him.

--He senses her secret, but never manages to see through it.

In the turbulent Bakumatsu, she cautiously draws close to him, yet has no choice but to keep her distance.

Until the glint of blades at Ikedaya stains the long night red, until his cough grows heavier and heavier...

"Soji, if I disappeared one day, would you remember me?"

"Hm? Where are you going?"

She smiles but doesn't answer.

Reading Guide:

1. Rurouni Kenshin + Touken Ranbu. (There is no Rurouni Kenshin main-story plot, so it won't affect your reading.) The heroine transmigrates to the Bakumatsu. She can see Tsukumogami, but cannot change the main course of history.

2. CP: Okita Soji (Rurouni Kenshin version). A gentle knife, bittersweet sweetness, and a bad-ending warning (historical).

3. The heroine surviving is her golden finger.

"Even if I can't change how it ends, I still want to stay with you through this journey."

Theme: Writing fueled by love.