[I hope he deserves your loyalty... isn't the right thing to say to someone who feels that way about the god/shinki bond, is it? Hakkai smiles politely, instead, and scrubs at a darkly blooming stain where the wine has seeped through the wood on his side of the spill.

He still hopes that this Hijikata's worthy. Or that, if not, Okita finds himself reassigned to someone who is.

It's unpleasant, doubting your god.

(And it's not even really Elsa's fault; it's just that he'd felt so terribly helpless....)]

Perhaps so! But I hope you take a little time to enjoy yourself, too. A shinki's life doesn't have to be all work and no play.