Death of Okita Soji by dirtylittleronin on DeviantArt (original) (raw)

“Forget killing a cat, I can’t even shoo one away anymore,” Okita thought to himself as he lay in the garden, too weak to get back up. The cat, utterly unbothered by a sword that presented no threat, settled against his arm, paws tucked under its warm little body, and began to purr.

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I got this idea from a passage in Hillsborough’s Shinsengumi -

“According to an old woman who nursed him, three days before his death he did feel well enough to get out of bed. He went outside to the garden, where he saw a cat. He tried to kill the cat with his sword, but he was too weak. The next day he tried again, with the same result. “I can’t even kill a cat,” he screamed in agony, then collapsed.”

After I originally shared that quote on this post, my brain decided not to leave well enough alone and suggested that if Okita collapsed in the garden with nobody else there to help him, the cat would have probably sat on him since that’s such a cat-like thing to do.

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I went back three times to fix various things on this picture and I’m still not completely happy with it. ╥﹏╥