"Captain! We have to fall back!"

"They're too strong for us!" We'd lost so many men with this attack. At the request of my comrades, I gave the order to retreat. As we made our escape, I lost a few more and had nearly gotten myself killed.

"Damn it!" I punched a nearby tree out of frustration once we were finally a safe enough distance away. My division was twenty men when we'd launched our attack, now there were only five of us including myself. "We should have had them! Those... grr!"

"It's like they knew we were going to attack," one of my men said, saying what none of us wanted to believe.

All of us were injured, some more than others. The one that was the least injured volunteered to scout ahead for a place where we could properly tend to our wounds. He barely had more than a few scratches, so there was little arguing against it. As the rest of us waited, I tended to the more severe injuries as best as I could. But I was no healer, so the best I could do was use some scraps of cloth to slow the bleeding until we could find someone to take care of it.

"If you require medical attention, perhaps you should seek help from the Shinsengumi's healer," a voice said, seemingly coming from nowhere. I spun around, aggravating my injuries as I prepared to defend myself and my comrades from this mysterious voice.

Standing there was a man dressed in a ninja's clothing. Normally I'd be hesitant to trust a stranger, but right now my men's lives were depending on it. "How far is it to reach the Shinsengumi?"

The man stayed emotionless as he answered. "It's not far from here. If you are still able to walk, we can be there in as little as ten minutes."

After arriving, my men were taken away to have their wounds treated. While I should have been dealing with my own, I instead had been busy explaining the situation to their commander. All the while though, I made sure to cover up my own injuries, as there was no way of telling if they were really allies or enemies.

Once the talking was over with, I wandered off to check on my men. When I arrived, I was met with a surprise: the healer that was treating my comrades' wounds was the very same ninja who had led us here.

"You know, it would have saved time if you'd just done this when you found us," I pointed out. The ninja shook his head.

"That would not have been possible," he explained calmly. "Your wounds were much too severe and the materials necessary for such treatment were not with me."

The was little room to argue that, as he didn't seem to have anything with him and I clearly had nothing but the clothing on my back and the sword on my him. "You have a point... um... you got a name, Ninja?"

"Susumu Yamazaki."

"Well, Yamazaki, it's nice to meet you. The name's Teruko Nanase, Captain of the 2nd Division of Kaito's Fang." I extended my hand for him to shake it, but in doing so I'd exposed the part of my clothing where the blood had soaked through.

Yamazaki quickly noticed. "Your injuries seem almost as bad as your companions' were," he said.

As the man set about tending to my injuries, we spoke. "It is rare to see a female samurai. Even more so to see one with such a high rank."

"The Fang may be a small and unknown group, but we've been around a long time," I explained. Yamazaki was now bandaging some of the less severe wounds. "My father was one of the best commanders we've ever had and taught me everything he knew. So it's no surprise that I was made captain."

He nodded. "Coming from a family of warriors certainly would give someone an advantage." As he finished his work, I stood and thanked him. However, my companions and I wouldn't be leaving just yet, since two of them were too injured to make the trip back to our headquarters.

Over the next few days, Yamazaki would check on our injuries to make sure they were healing properly. One of those times, I stood next to him and watched. "Could you teach me?"

"You mean you don't know how to treat simple wounds?" he asked, somewhat surprised.

I only shook my head. "My skills don't extend any further than the battlefield." In fact, I could do very little besides fighting and thinking of battle strategies. Guess that comes from being the only child of a samurai. "You can thank my father for that. Never knew my mother."

Yamazaki nodded. "I see no harm in teaching you the basics." As he showed me everything he could, I found myself smiling. Even though he was still just a stranger, there was something about Yamazaki, something different than anyone else. And that something different, was something I started to fall in love with.