Episode 3:
A Sheep in Wolf’s Clothing;
Meeting Battousai (and Friends)
Aneko awoke to the sensation of a
cool, wet cloth being pressed to her eyes, the murmur of soft voices in the
background…and the mother of all migraines pounding in the back of her skull,
painful enough to make her slightly queasy.
She swallowed around her tongue, which felt like clay and stuck nastily
to the roof of her mouth. She
grimaced. “So this is what it feels like to be hung over,” she mumbled thickly.
The funny thing was, she didn’t
remember having anything to drink.
She rolled onto her side, attempting
to relieve the throbbing pressure in her head, and the cloth slipped from her
eyes, which she had involuntarily opened.
Light struck her full in the face, nearly blinding her. “Ack!” she yelped,
jerking away from the bright stream and slamming her lids together again. A sharp pain in her skull protested the
stupidity of that movement, and she groaned.
“It appears as though our guest has
finally awakened.”
The voice came from beside her head
and made her jump in surprise, her eyes flying open again, only to be struck
with more light and instantly squeezed shut.
“This could really get annoying,” Aneko growled, squinching
one eye open to better see her surroundings.
As they adjusted, her gaze fell upon the speaker who knelt beside her
head, calmly dipping the wet cloth into a bowl of water. Aneko started in recognition; it was the same
woman she’d seen at the restaurant, the one who had been arguing with the tall
man. Was she the owner of the dojo?
Oh,
crap!
That’s right! I broke into
somebody’s home and…and I fell off the porch?!
Aneko recalled the sight of a slight, wild-haired man with gorgeous
eyes and a very pointy sword aimed right at her, and nearly moaned again. I am such
a bonehead. So…am I gonna be
executed before or after this lady’s
done fixing me up? Or maybe they’ll whip
me, first. Cut off my fingers and
toes? Feed my eyeballs to the
crows? I wonder if they use the Chinese
water torture in
“Well, you’re very lucky, you know,” the
woman was saying wryly. “You don’t have
much of a concussion, but I suggest you take it easy for a day or two, just in
case. You did bruise your side, but your
odd travel pack took most of the impact from your fall, so none of your ribs
are broken. How did you burn your hand? I bandaged it for you, but I’ll need to check
on it to make sure it doesn’t become infected.”
Aneko opened her mouth to thank the
woman, but another voice—this one loud and a bit obnoxious and definitely
male—cut in before she could get a word in edgewise.
“I don’t know why you’re talkin’ to her like she can understand you, Kitsune-san. You heard her muttering in English. She’s a gaijin, and a really strange one, at
that. Che. Probably doesn’t understand a word you said.”
Aneko felt her temper flare as she
peered over the woman’s shoulder in order to see the other speaker. It hardly surprised her to see the same man
who had been with the woman the night before.
He wore the same outfit, and he was still chewing on a fishbone. She scowled at him. I hope
he chokes on it, she thought sulkily.
For good measure, she stuck her nose in the air and crossed her arms
over her chest. “For your information,” she proclaimed in the haughtiest voice she
could manage, “I happen to be a
quarter Japanese on my mother’s side, and my grandmother has versed me in the
language practically since I was old enough to talk. My
suggestion is that you stop to think
about what you’re saying before you decide to jump to conclusions about us ‘gaijins’.”
She had the barest trace of an accent in her
words, but it was obvious that every one of them came through loud and clear,
and she was quite satisfied to see the sharp brown eyes widen and his chin drop
in shock. The fishtail hung limply from
his open lips for a moment before dropping to the wooden floor with a light
pat. “Kitsune-san” was grinning, a sly
chuckle escaping her lips as she gazed at the befuddled man. “Perhaps instead of standing there flapping
your mouth, you might go to alert someone that the girl is awake,” she
suggested drolly.
The man’s mouth closed with an audible snap,
and he shot Aneko a befuddled look. “Che,” he muttered again, shaking his head as he turned to
stalk out of the room.
Now the woman turned her attention back to
Aneko, who was suddenly squirming under the sharp-eyed gaze. This woman was one crafty character, she
could tell that much. “So, perhaps you
might tell me your name,” she suggested politely.
“Aneko Johnson,” she blurted without
hesitation. Then, remembering the
correct way of giving one’s name in
“Ah.
Western, you mean.”
“Yeah…that, too…” Aneko was beginning to feel uncomfortable
under the woman’s intelligent scrutiny.
“So…um…what do I call you?
Doctor? Doc? Kitsune-san?”
The woman blinked at her. “My name is not ‘Fox’,” she sniffed.
“That’s merely a…title given to me by that insufferable rooster-head. And no,” she added quickly, with a slight
smile, “Rooster Head isn’t his name,
either. He is called Saraga
Sanosuke.”
Aneko nodded.
“And my name is Takani
Megumi.”
Aneko nodded again, struggling to recall
anything her grandmother had drilled into her about Japanese society. Manners were important and first names were
not typically used freely among strangers.
A lot of times they weren’t even used among friends. “Thank you, Takani-san,
for helping me,” she finally said, and Megumi smiled and nodded.
“Perhaps, in exchange for my services, you
might tell me what you were doing sneaking around Ken-san’s
dojo in the middle of the night, ne?” she questioned
innocently.
Aneko blinked at her. “You mean…you don’t own it?” she asked
weakly.
Megumi let loose a loud laugh. “Good heavens, no!” she exclaimed in great
amusement. “Me, own a dojo? I’m no tanuki-girl!” She laughed again.
Aneko wasn’t sure, but she thought that
maybe a tanuki-girl was something like a tomboy. Either that, or a raccoon. She wasn’t sure which. “Oh.
Well…um…it’s really difficult to explain…” she muttered, scratching the
un-sore (or rather, the slightly-less-sore)
side of her head. “There was this storm,
see, and…um…I kind of got stuck out in the middle of it, and I somehow ended up
here, and I have no idea how to get
home again, and I was just looking for some shelter. I thought the dojo would be empty, so I
thought I’d just crash there for the night to wait out the storm, and then
leave in the morning. I really didn’t
mean any harm. Honest!”
“All right, calm down. It isn’t me
you need to explain it to,” Megumi replied impatiently.
“Well, you’re the one who asked,” Aneko
replied grumpily.
“Yes.
I did, didn’t I?” Megumi looked
amused as she regarded her young charge curiously. “You know, you remind me a great deal of
someone I used to know,” she stated unexpectedly. Aneko blinked in surprise as Megumi’s expression
became more considering. “You even look
like her, a little bit,” she added, her voice soft and wistful. “In your eyes…”
Said eyes widened a little as Aneko gazed at
the doctor curiously, but before she had a chance to question, the door slid
open to admit three people, along with a burst of sunlight. Aneko winced and looked away, blinking the
stars from her eyes before turning back again to examine the newest arrivals.
The rooster head—Sanosuke—was back, and with
him were three strangers. One was a boy
with a mop of tangled brown hair and impish eyes, who stared at her with
unabashed curiosity. He was at least
fourteen years old, perhaps fifteen. For
some reason, he reminded Aneko a great deal of her brother, although Jonah was
only nine years old. She had a feeling
he’d caused his share of trouble growing up.
The other two were mere children, little
girls who peeked shyly out from behind the boy’s legs at her and grinned
gap-toothed smiles that were so engaging that Aneko couldn’t help but smile
back. She liked kids, especially little
ones. These two looked like they could
be sisters; she wondered briefly who they belonged to. Was the boy their older brother?
“So this is the girl who was caught sneaking
around the dojo?” the boy was saying as he stepped to Aneko’s side and gazed
down at her critically. “She doesn’t look
like much, does she?”
Sanosuke gave a snort of laughter as Aneko’s
eyes widened at the rude remark, then narrowed and honed in on the teenager as
she pursed her lips. Yup. This boy definitely had younger brother
potential. “Well excuse me for trying to get away from the creep
who was following me around last night!” she huffed, glaring sulkily at the
blanket covering her lap. “It wasn’t
like I was trying to rob you or anything.
I was just trying to get out of the storm, is all. I didn’t know anyone would be here.”
“Of course people would be here,” the boy
snorted skeptically. “This is a
dojo. People do live in dojos, you know.”
“They don’t where I come from!” she
retorted, her eyes snapping up to lock onto his challengingly. To her surprise, his eyes widened slightly
and he exchanged a startled glance with Sanosuke, then turned to Megumi and
opened his mouth to speak.
“Yahiko-kun, why don’t you go find Ken-san
and tell him that his guest is awake now, ne?” the
doctor interrupted smoothly, all the while cleaning up her equipment. “Rooster head, don’t you have your own home to go to? Ayame-chan, Suzume-chan, perhaps you might check on the little
one. He should be waking up
momentarily.”
“Haaaiii!” the
little girls exclaimed, darting out of the room. Yahiko and Sanosuke followed more slowly,
muttering to themselves and leaving Megumi alone with the patient. Aneko wasn’t sure, but she thought she heard
Yahiko muttering something about “Kaoru-san” as he disappeared around the
door. Her brow furrowed; now that was
odd. Why did that name seem so strangely
familiar…? She closed her eyes and shook
her head (carefully), to rid it of that thought. She was beginning to get that feeling again. How irritating. That’d never happened before when Chase
wasn’t around…
“So you snuck into the dojo to get away
from…” Megumi prompted serenely as she carefully packed her belongings back
into a small bag.
“Oh!
Um…” Aneko blinked, coming back to
the present with a snap, and the feeling fled back to whatever part of her
brain it came from. “Well, the storm, of
course, and there was somebody following me around last night. I didn’t know where else to go so I guess I
panicked and…well…yeah…” She trailed off
uneasily, not certain where this conversation was going to be headed. The way she saw it, she had two options. Stay here and take her punishment like a man…er…girl, or knock the woman out as soon as her back was
turned and make a mad dash to the nearest…where exactly would she go,
anyhow?” She sighed. Option number two was obviously out, but she
wasn’t exactly fond of number one, either.
“Ken-san will be back shortly, I’m
sure. He’s the man you met last night,”
Megumi was saying.
A thrill of alarm shot through her. “Y-you mean…the one that tried to skewer me?”
Aneko squeaked. Her mind’s eye filled
with images of the rather short (yet highly intimidating) man with the
blood-red hair and amber-flamed, violet eyes, holding a flashing sword to her
chest. She swallowed. Hard.
This just kept getting better and better, didn’t it? Exactly how bad could one person’s luck get
before they ended up dead? She wasn’t
looking forward to finding out, but it certainly seemed like something was having a heyday playing
with her life at the moment. She
frowned. Maybe there was something to
this fate thing Chase kept telling her about, after all. Too bad he’d failed to mention that Destiny
had a perverted sense of humor…
“Skewer you?” Megumi was looking at her with obvious
surprise. “Is that what happened?” She smiled fondly and shook her head. “No wonder he’s been acting so guilty. He’s been making a pest of himself all
morning asking after you, so I sent him to buy some food. He must believe it’s his fault that you fell
off the porch.”
“It is
his fault that I fell off the porch,” Aneko grumbled. “He scared the heebie-jeebies out of me!”
Megumi blinked at her. “H-heebie…jeebies?” she replied uncertainly.
“It’s a…um…never mind,” Aneko mumbled. She was really going to have to watch what
she said around these people, or else she’d wind up having everyone in a state
of perpetual confusion. Well, at least I wouldn’t be alone in that anymore…
“Might I suggest that you rest a while
longer now, Johnson-san?” Megumi stated firmly.
“You’re still suffering from exhaustion and you have a slight fever on
top of your injuries, most likely due to being soaked to the bone for hours.” Here she gave Aneko a disapproving
glance. “There’s no sense in making
yourself worse,” she finished with certainty.
“Oh.
Um…right,” Aneko stammered, sliding back down under the covers in the
futon. “Uh…thanks. For, you know, taking care of me, and all that. And for not handing me to the cops, even
though I broke into the dojo and all…”
Megumi tilted her head to one side
curiously. “Cops?”
“Uh…the police?”
“Ah, I see.
Well, it is not my dojo so it isn’t my place to turn you in,” she
replied easily. “I am merely the
doctor. My job is to heal you, and
that’s all. But don’t worry; I’m certain
that when Ken-san comes back he’ll have decided by then what to do with
you. Until then, please sleep, and drink
that tea I set beside you. It will help
with the pain.”
“Gee, you’re so kind,” Aneko muttered,
sliding further down into the thin mattress and pulling the covers over her
head. The woman was just a load of
comfort, wasn’t she? Well, at least that
was familiar. Yeesh. Doctors.
They obviously hadn’t changed much over the centuries…
Aneko had barely finished the cynical
thought before sleep found her and took her to oblivion once again.
~~~{~@ ~~~{~@
~~~{~@
She woke a little while later to the
aroma of freshly-cooked food and an uneasy sensation that she was being
watched. She forced her eyes open, looking
blearily around for the intruder, and almost instantly her gaze fell upon wide,
amethyst eyes regarding her from beneath a mop of flame-bright hair.
She was instantly awake and sitting
bolt-upright with a startled squawk, heart pounding in her ears. The pain in her bruised side and head barely
registered as, in her haste to escape the sword-wielding psychopath, she
managed to fall off the bed in the process of scrambling away from him. How one actually falls off a futon of all
things is quite the mystery, but then again this was Aneko, who could make dancing hippos look graceful when given
the right motivation.
“Please, calm down, Johnson-dono. Do not be
alarmed. Sessha
will not harm you,” the man hastily soothed her, his eyes regretful. His voice was soft and husky and strangely
comforting, and Aneko found herself relaxing slowly, although she was rather
annoyed with herself for freaking like that.
So she took it out on him.
“Jiminy Crickets! Don’t do
that to me!” she yelled, one hand rising to clutch at her heart. “You seem determined to give me permanent
heart failure before I hit eighteen!”
The man looked properly
sheepish. “Gomen
nasai,” he apologized. “Sessha did not
mean to startle you so badly.”
She nodded, relaxing more. “It’s okay,” she replied. Then, remembering that this man literally
held her fate in his hands, she added a bit grudgingly, “and I’m sorry for
yelling at you just then. And…um…freaking
out like that. I’m a little mixed up
right now…”
She’d spoken lightly, trying to get into a
more comfortable mood, but was surprised to see a flash of guilt in those
remarkable eyes before his head lowered until soft red bangs shaded his face,
kneeling before her with his hands resting on his knees. He was the very picture of humility. “Sessha would ask
for your forgiveness for the injuries he caused you to sustain last night. Please accept his humblest apologies.” And he bowed low to her, his hair falling
over his shoulder to pool softly on the floor.
Aneko’s jaw dropped as she gawked at him,
stunned at his behavior. Here she was,
recuperating in the home she’d broken into, probably scaring the guy to death
in the process thinking he was being robbed or something…and he was apologizing to her?
There was something a little wrong about this picture…
He was still waiting for her reply, and she
hastily stammered, “No, it’s okay, really!
It wasn’t your fault I fell
off the porch.” Despite what she’d told
Megumi earlier. “I’m a klutz by nature,
you know, so it isn’t like I’ve never fallen off a porch before.” She laughed nervously and ran a hand through
her tangled mop of hair. She wondered
what his name was. How should she
address him?
“All the same, if Sessha
had not frightened you so badly…”
“You were just protecting your dojo,” Aneko
hastily cut in. “I mean, I’m the one who broke in without a
second thought that there might be people living here—normally dojos where I live are locked up and empty at night—and of
course you had the right to be suspicious.
I guess it’s my fault more than it’s anyone else’s.”
Kenshin seemed determined not to
listen. “But, Sessha
should have approached you more gently.
He should not have…”
Her patience was slipping, as it always
tended to do when people were being stubborn.
“Oh, good grief. If it’s that important to you, then I’ll accept
your apologies if you’ll accept mine, okay?
I forgive you. Completely. A hundred percent!” she cut in determinedly;
though she tried to sound stern, she was unable to keep the small grin from her
face at his sweet insistence on shouldering the entire blame for her
accident. This man was something else,
she decided. His habit of referring to
himself in the third person was strange, to say the least, but it was also
endearing. He seemed completely
different from the scary man that she’d met the night before, and she found
herself wondering how in the world she could have ever been afraid of him. “Can you stop with the martyrism
now? Please?” she added pleadingly. “You’re starting to make me feel guilty for making you
feel guilty.”
“Oro?” He blinked at her in surprise, then smiled a
bit sheepishly. “Very well,” he agreed
amiably, and then, “I’ve prepared some food for you, that I have, to help you
regain your strength.”
Right on cue, Aneko’s stomach released a
loud rumble. She blushed bright red and
crossed her arms over her offending belly.
“Um…yeah. Food sounds good,” she
muttered sheepishly, eliciting a soft chuckle in response.
She studied him as he quietly poured hot tea
into a cup for her. His every movement
was graceful and precise. He didn’t
waste a motion. He was such a small man,
she realized. Standing up, she doubted
he’d reach much past her head, and she
was no giant, herself. And there was, of
course, his extremely handsome appearance.
Or perhaps “pretty” was a better description for him. His features were fine-boned and almost
delicate, despite the large, cross-shaped scar that covered the left side of
his face. She studied the scar
discreetly, wondering where he got such a thing. She wasn’t rude enough to ask about it, of
course, no matter how curious she was.
But she decided that the scar didn’t make him look ugly. It had just the opposite effect, in fact; she
couldn’t help but think that it actually made him look kind of…sexy.
Quickly derailing that particular train of thought, she continued to silently study
him, attempting to ignore the slight burning in her cheeks.
His eyes were large and innocent; framed
with long, soft lashes which gave him an almost delicate appearance. If it was not for what she could glimpse of
the very flat (though finely muscled) chest that showed beneath the deep V of
his red gi, one could almost mistake him for a woman, at first. The hands that prepared her food, however,
were not a woman’s hands. They were too
large, although they were slender, and they bore calluses that bespoke of many
years of labor, or sword-wielding.
Her gaze then wandered to the sheathed
katana that even now hung ready at his side.
She remembered the dangerous gleam in those remarkable eyes as that
sword was pointed at her heart, and knew without a doubt that despite outward
appearances, this small, seemingly-gentle man was an adept and deadly
swordsman. To think, a genuine Samurai, she thought. Boy,
wouldn’t Chase be thrilled to meet him.
He’d be asking questions out the wazoo!
“Is it making you nervous?”
Aneko’s eyes snapped up in embarrassment
when she realized that she’d been caught staring. “Of course not,” she lied. Then, catching his skeptical glance, she
added a bit sheepishly, “Or, well…maybe a little. You did
try to skewer me with it.”
Kenshin silently handed her a bowl filled
with miso soup, which looked and smelled
heavenly. “Thanks,” she breathed,
inhaling the fragrant steam before taking a cautious sip of the hot broth. “Oh, delicious,” she sighed, closing her
eyes. “I feel like I haven’t eaten in a
year!”
Or
a couple hundred of them,
her mind added wickedly.
Shut
up. I’m eating, she commanded silently, and took the
chopsticks he offered her to pick out a chunk of vegetable and eat it.
Kenshin regarded her for a long moment,
before abruptly reaching for his sword and smoothly unsheathing it. Aneko was so startled by this unexpected
movement that she nearly dropped her bowl.
Kenshin, having anticipated this, easily caught it before it overturned
itself and helped her to steady it with a smile. Some of the hot soup splashed over the side
onto his hand. “Oh…I’m sorry! Your hand…” she began worriedly.
“Don’t worry,” he reassured her. “Just look.”
He held the naked blade out to her, resting in the palms of his hands.
Aneko glanced down at it, then back up at
him, a blank expression on her face.
“Yes. It’s a sword.” She stated the obvious.
Kenshin seemed surprised. “Don’t you see?” he questioned.
She looked even more perplexed. “I can see just fine. It’s a very nice sword…um…I’m sorry, I don’t
think anyone told me your name. I’m assuming
it isn’t ‘Ken-san’…”
He smiled a little. “Himura Kenshin,” he supplied.
“Yes.
Thank you. It’s a very nice
sword, Himura-san. Can you please put it
away now?”
He tilted his head to one side, like a
curious puppy. “You do not realize. This is different from other swords, that it
is,” he clarified. “It’s called a sakabatou.”
Aneko bit her lip, trying to put a
translation to the title. Unfortunately,
Naming Japanese Swords 101 had never been a part of her grandmother’s lesson
plans. She had the odd feeling, however,
that this sword was somehow…unique.
Kenshin seemed to realize this, for he held the blade with one hand and
pointed to the sharpened edge. “The
blade is on the reverse side of this sword,” he explained patiently. “Normally, a blade is forged on this edge.” He pointed to the other edge. “A katana is held like this…” Here he demonstrated a stance as best he
could while sitting down.
Aneko pursed her lips. “I’m by far not an expert on weapons of any
kind, but I’d imagine that a backwards blade isn’t very efficient in any kind
of a sword fight,” she stated.
Kenshin smiled slightly. “Actually, this is very efficient if one
knows how to wield it properly, that it is,” he replied softly.
“And I’m guessing you do, huh?”
He nodded.
“What I mean to say is that this is not meant to be a killing sword, and
I have never used it as such. This is
the sword that protects, that it is. It
is meant merely to disable an opponent in battle. Granted, it can inflict great physical damage
to a body, but it won’t kill.”
She thought it over. “So…what happens if you flip the blade?” she
finally asked.
Kenshin’s purple gaze was serious. “I never flip the blade, that I do not,” he
replied with quiet finality, absently stroking the cross-shaped scar that
graced his cheek. Aneko hardly knew what
to say to that, sensing that there was a somewhat dark story behind those
softly-spoken words. There
was…something…niggling at her mind…
She shook her head abruptly, winced at the
sharp pain the sudden movement caused, and continued to sip her soup
quietly. “Thank you for the soup. You’re a really good cook,” she said, trying
to change the subject. Kenshin smiled at
her and sheathed his sword expertly, before bowing to her once more.
“If you’ll please excuse me, there are chores
that must be attended to now, that there are.”
“Um…Himura-san…” She bit her lip and fidgeted. “I-I’m really, really sorry for all this trouble I caused you,” she said softly,
bowing to him as best she could from her sitting position. “I didn’t mean to just barge in on you like
this. I was kind of…desperate to get
away from the weather and…I was lost and confused and I just…I wasn’t really
thinking about what I was doing…” She
shook her head and sat up straighter, looking up at him worriedly. “A-are you going to turn me into the
cops…um…I mean the police?”
“You’ve caused no harm, so I don’t see the
point of doing something like that,” he replied amiably; his smile was meant to
reassure, and it worked. She slowly
relaxed and smiled hesitantly back.
“Thank you for your hospitality. I don’t know how I’d be able to pay you back,
but if there’s anything I can do to help out or anything, please let me know,
okay?”
He smiled his innocent smile at her. “All you need do right now is to heal your
wounds, that you do,” he replied. “We
shall then see after a few days.”
She nodded and turned back to her food,
allowing her thoughts to drift over her once again. She hardly noticed when, after studying her
silently for a few more moments, her host rose silently to his feet and drifted
out of the room to leave her in peace.