[It's unfair, isn't it? He thinks it but doesn't say it aloud, how unfair it is that those people are the ones who die. Hijikata should be sitting here now instead of him. He doesn't have the skill set necessary to serve anyone well in this castle, but Hijikata did, and Gi-gan likely did, and they're the ones who are gone.]

Mm.

[A quiet "me, too".]

The people like that are the most important ones. [...] I didn't really understand everything that he did, but all I had to do was listen and trust him to lead me well.

[Hijikata may find fault in himself, but Souji had never found fault in him. Even this one, familiar as he had been strange and new, was very much the same.]