DISCLAIMER: We all know that the Kenshin-gumi and all their creepy foes are the demented brainchildren of Nobuhiro Watsuki-sama. I'm not writing this for any profit; in fact, if I weren't so obsessed with writing stuff like this, I could go out and get a job, so I'm actually losing money in the process. :-) I do this strictly for my own satisfaction, and hopefully, yours as well. I hope you enjoy reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it. If not ... chikushou, aku baka!
That reminds me ... my Japanese is next to nonexistent. Don't fault me for it. At least I'm trying.
Happy reading!
ANTI-DISCLAIMER (would that be just a "claimer?"): Some of these characters ARE my own creation, as well as many elements of the setting. Use your head. If it never appeared in anywhere in the Kenshin series, then it's probably mine. Not that anyone cares but me.
SPOILERS/BACKGROUND: To Kenshin TV ep 62; also through "Rurouni Soujiro" by yours truly, posted a LONG time ago on ff.net. Note to readers: if you already know what I'm talking about without having to go back and search for it, congratulations! You're officially a ff.net oldtimer. :-)
* * * * *
THE GRAVITY OF LOVE
PROLOGUE:
SOMETHING MISSING
The crescent moon was riding high above the clouds, though none of the few people awake in the city of Tokyo below could appreciate it. It was not raining yet, but the clouds were pregnant with storm, and the wind held the promise of watery whips in it. Stragglers on the streets of Tokyo were few and far between, and those that were there moved quickly, avoiding looking at the sky, as though they might accidentally breathe too hard and rupture the clouds.
The Kamiya Dojo was still, save for the gentle sighs of the wind and of Yahiko snoring in his sleep. Not all of its occupants were asleep, however, despite the time being well after three in the morning. If any moonlight had been able to penetrate the clouds, it would have reflected off a single sharp pair of violet eyes gazingly fearlessly, though concernedly, into the night sky. Those eyes belonged to a slim red-haired figure sitting on the edge of the covered walkway outside his room, resting Indian-style and half leaning on a sheathed sword at his side. They were lost in thought.
*How long ago now?* Kenshin wondered to himself. *Three months? Four months?* Time had a way of slipping away before he knew where it went, even after he had regained consciousness in Kyoto and returned to Tokyo. Summer was already getting late, and the first of the Autumn storms were beginning to make it known that they would be paying visits soon. It seemed like just last week, or like it had never happened at all. He might have dismissed it as a dream at times, if it weren't for the nagging pain in his ribs and chest, memories of the Guren Kaina and of using the Ama-Kakeru, Ryu-no-Hirameki three times without so much as a nap in between. He generally healed quickly, but the wounds he had suffered that day had drained him in almost every way it was possible for a man to be drained.
A change in the air alerted him that something was different in the courtyard. He brought his eyes down from the sky, and saw a slender, familiar silhouette slipping off into the dark.
* * *
*It's going to rain again,* Kaoru sighed to herself as she forced herself out of bed. She sat cross-legged at the edge of her bedroll for several moments before rising fully to her feet, lulled into reverie by the gentle rush of the wind outside. There was not another sound in the house. Kaoru stretched idly as she roused herself, staring out the window at the overcast sky. It was an interesting perspective, because she was doing a straddle stretch and looking at the window between her legs and upside down, so it looked like she was staring down into a floor of clouds far below where she stood. She lost herself for another minute in her own personal world.
*Focus, Kaoru!* she chided herself after a minute, shaking her head. For some reason, she had had a great deal of trouble keeping her mind in one place since they all returned from Kyoto. It could have been any number of reasons, actually. Kenshin's condition was constantly in and out of her awareness. There was also the simple fact that, aside from Kenshin's condition, it seemed that almost nothing had changed since they left for Kyoto so long ago. She had figured that everything would be different somehow; after all, they had saved the country. The problem was that almost no one knew about it. The government had completely covered up ShiShiO's death, even more so than they had his life. Life went on.
No matter how she focused her mind, however, her thoughts always drifted back to the red-haired wanderer that now slept soundly once again down the hall. Before they had left Kyoto, he had claimed that he was fully healed, and he always managed to put on a fantastic show of it in front of her, but she somehow knew better. Without even consciously realizing it, she had formed a kind of empathic link with the wandering samurai. She knew that he was trying to be strong for her, to let her slide back into her life that she had neglected for so long during his convalescence, but it wasn't working at all. It was tearing her apart.
She grabbed her bokken from its resting place against the wall of her bedroom and walked out into the gathering gloom. Unconcerned, and doing a much better job of holding her head upright under the oppressive clouds than most of those she passed, Kaoru headed immediately for the outskirts of Tokyo. There was a field just outside the city where she had always loved to play as a child, set high on an outcropping with a breathtaking view of the sunrise. Since she had come of age, if she could even be said to have done so, being still well shy of her twentieth birthday, she had also found that it made a fantastic place to come to train. It was quieter than the dojo, generally, and it was also safer from eyes that she didn't want watching her.
She stopped just as she was about to exit the last row of trees at the edge of the field and looked back. There was something tugging at the edge of her awareness, but she couldn't lock her mind on it, nor could she see anything moving except a few nocturnal birds. After a moment, she shrugged and moved back out into the field.
She had a particular place she liked to begin warming up, between two high boulders halfway to the center. The rocks stretched half again as high as she was, and had flat surfaces at their top. She had climbed them often as a child. As she matured as a student, and since returning from Kyoto, she had used them for training, timing herself to see how fast she could scale them. The whole field had been a playground for her, as well as a training center and a refuge.
Slinging her bokken off her shoulder, she strode out to her favorite starting place between the boulders.
* * *
Kenshin stood silently several rows back into the trees, just close enough to the edge of the woods that he could see into the clearing. He kept low to the ground and stayed in the deepest patches of shadow he could, despite the darkness and the clouds. He didn't like shadowing Kaoru without her knowing, but the streets of Tokyo weren't all safe after dark, especially this long after dark, and his protective instincts were fierce. Once he had discovered that she was leaving the city, he had become even more apprehensive. It was unlike her to leave the city without telling him, much less at this time of night.
Kaoru had slowed to a halt out in the field, adopting a fighting stance and bringing her bokken to the ready. Kenshin's eyes narrowed, then widened again. *Is she training?!* he thought to himself. *At three in the morning?!*
* * * * *
CHAPTER 1:
ARRIVAL
Soujiro stood on the deck of the ship, watching the harbor of Tokyo in the distance slowly grow on the horizon. The rain that had clouded the sky for most of the day had abated, and the seagulls were out and about, trying to snag a few fish before dark. A brisk salt breeze ruffled the young samurai's clothing, carrying the scent of the distant city on it.
A nearly imperceptible eddy in the breeze behind alerted him to a familiar presence. He turned just as the slender Korean teenager he had rescued from the Yakuza came alongside him, placing her hands on the railing. His smile compressed for just a fraction of a second. He trusted her more than he had ever trusted anyone, save perhaps ShiShiO and Yumi, but it still annoyed a tiny corner of his mind that he had such difficulty sensing her approach. He was much better at it than he had been when he had first met her at the Red House, when she had startled him completely, but she still usually managed to get within a few strides of him before he realized she was there. He didn't even think she did it intentionally. It was just the way she moved, and the way her mind instinctively restrained itself.
"Konnichiwa, Soujiro-kun," she said, looking at him only briefly before turning her attention to the approaching shoreline.
"Young-eun-chan."
"Is that Tokyo?" Her voice betrayed her anticipation, even if the rest of her body was relaxed. She had never gotten to go more than a few miles from Ichibou for as long as she could remember, though she had been born in Korea before her parents had fled to Japan for some reason long since forgotten.
"Hai," Soujiro replied. "We'll probably be there just before dark."
She smiled. "I can't believe it. I never thought I'd even get to see Kyoto."
"I can imagine," Soujiro replied absently, the image of a haggard child with a rice bale on his back flashing into his mind for a brief moment. Young-eun looked at him questioningly, but he didn't answer, and she let it pass after a moment. Soujiro was glad she never pressed him too hard about his past; he had told her more than he had told anyone else, during that one magical night when they had both dropped their barriers for each other, but he it was still too big a scar to be the subject of casual conversation.
Uncomfortably, Young-eun changed the subject. "So ... where are we staying tonight?" she asked.
"We'll find somewhere," Soujiro assured her. "I know a couple people with spare bedrooms that should be happy to put us up." Whether they were happy to or not was not Soujiro's concern; there were several people in the government who owed ShiShiO their livelihoods, and since almost no one knew that ShiShiO was dead, they'd be more than happy that room and board were all Soujiro intended to ask of them. ShiShiO had demanded much more costly things and risky acts from them in the past, in exchange for his silence about their secrets.
"Someplace nice?"
Soujiro only smiled at her in response. It was good enough for her, as she turned her attention fully back to the approaching shoreline.
Sure enough, the ocean liner pulled up to the docks in Tokyo Harbor just as the sun was halfway behind the mountains to the west. Young-eun's excitement had been growing the whole time, and Soujiro wondered if she were going to wait for the gangplank or jump straight from the ship to the dock as soon as it came within range.
In the end, she settled for the less dramatic approach, and filed off the ship with the rest of the passengers. They ducked out of the milling crowd on the dock quickly, as Soujiro had left the blacksmith's horse in Nagoya with arrangements for it to be returned to Ichibou if possible, and he and Young-eun were traveling with no more than they could carry.
Young-eun was in no hurry to go much farther than the wharf, however. Just beyond the pier lay Tokyo's port market district. Her eyes were sparkling, and Soujiro realized that she had probably never seen anything of the kind for as long as she could remember.
"Anou ... we should probably go ..." he began hesitantly. It was getting dark. Then, suddenly, he thought better of it. Events in Tokyo might have changed since he had last been here, and even more since the last time he had actually kept track of them; the last time he had been here, he had simply been spying on the Kamiya Dojo before he left to shadow Shinomori Aoshi.
"Can you believe this place?" Young-eun asked in wonder, either not hearing him or pretending not to hear. Soujiro guessed that she really hadn't heard him; she really seemed to be interested in just about everything in sight, and trying to take in as much of it as possible before the light failed.
"Young-eun-chan?" he said a little louder. This time, he got her attention.
He continued, "Do you think you'll be all right by yourself for a while? I can go check and see if I can get us a place to stay by myself."
Young-eun looked at him quizzically for a moment; they were hardly what anyone could call possessive of each other, but they had not been apart very often since he had rescued her. Then she patted the wakizashi that still hung by her side, signaling that she could still take care of herself, even if she was not half the fighter she had been when her inner darkness had taken over at Heron's Ward all those weeks ago now. "I'll be all right," she said. "Where do you want to meet up?"
"There's a restaurant called the Seigyokukaze (1) at the north side of the harbor market, I thought it might be a good place to get a little dinner. It ought to be about that time when I get back."
"Sounds great."
"All right. I'll be there in an hour."
There was an awkward silence, as neither one of them moved immediately; then, with another questioning look into Soujiro's eyes, Young-eun moved off into the crowd of evening shoppers. Soujiro watched her from behind until she vanished into the milling mass of people, disappearing into the crowd like a ghost. He was even able to sense her presence for a few moments after that; her excitement was getting the better of her, apparently, even more so than on the ship, though her movements still didn't betray it.
When he could no longer make her out, Soujiro ghosted off into the crowd himself, in another direction.
Once he cleared the crowds of the market district, Soujiro set off at a brisk pace towards the trendy Shibuya neighborhood, home to many of the political and cultural elite of the Japanese capital. The homes on either side gradually faded from the flimsy single-story residences that comprised most of the city, being replaced with more ostentatious and permanent structures, often behind guarded iron fences twice as high as Soujiro himself. Soujiro smiled mockingly at them, remembering one of the last times he had been to this neighborhood with his former mentor.
*See these?* ShiShiO had said, tapping the bars of one of the fences. *What do they tell you?*
Soujiro had looked at the fence, and shrugged.
*Would you count on a fence to keep you safe?* ShiShiO had pressed.
*Iie,* Soujiro had answered immediately.
*Why not?*
*I'm strong by myself,* Soujiro had answered.
*Very good. But what about whoever is on the far side of this fence?*
*They're weak?*
ShiShiO had nodded, though he plainly did not mean that to be the end of the lesson. *There are exceptions,* he said. *However, as with snails, most of the time a hard outside hides only something soft and slow inside. And, as with snails, most of the predators that would feed on them have ways to break their shell. Would this fence keep you out, if you wanted to get in?*
*Iie,* Soujiro had answered again.
*Of course not,* ShiShiO had agreed. *So why build the fence?*
*They think it will keep me out?* Soujiro had wondered.
*Of course not!* ShiShiO had snapped. *These people are not completely stupid, even if they're complete cowards. If they thought the fence alone would do it, they wouldn't hire guards as well.*
*Then why the fence?*
ShiShiO had pointed to several of the peasants walking by some distance up the street. *See them?*
*Of course,* Soujiro had answered.
*Those poor people have no idea what we're capable of. We know it, and the people inside these fences know it. The rest of the people have no idea. Therefore, they assume that the fence is strong enough to keep people like us out. After all, who would build a fence for no reason?*
*So they want to appear strong ... but not be strong?*
*Oh, they want to be strong,* ShiShiO had answered contemptuously. *But they don't have the discipline for it, not anymore. They're not willing to make the sacrifices. However, they were stronger at one time--never truly strong, but stronger--when they brought down the dynasty. That is what people remember.*
*So they assume that because people remember that they were strong, and they still look strong, that people will think they're strong?*
ShiShiO had given him one of his most malicious and triumphant grins, one he normally reserved for when his apprentice had mastered a exceptionally difficult new fighting technique. *Always remember that, whenever you deal with these people,* he had said. *They care more about appearances than reality. The appearance of power is the only power they have left. Most of them will do absolutely anything to preserve it.*
Soujiro returned from his woolgathering as he approached the gate of the very same high-fenced residence that he and ShiShiO had been on their way to visit that night almost four years previously. He realized that he probably looked foolish, a small child whose sword seemed almost out-of-place at his waist, knocking on the bars of a forbidding black iron grille almost three times his height. And yet, as ShiShiO had reminded him, to people living a lie, the truth was a deadly weapon. He was no more afraid of the gate than it was of him.
Plodding footsteps soon echoed from within, and a watchman carrying a lantern on a pole emerged into view some distance back from the gate.
"Who goes there?" a voice rang out.
"Is Kotaru Takao in, please?" Soujiro called back.
"Who the hell is this?"
"The Tenken," Soujiro responded. "Please tell Mr. Kotaru that I'm here."
"The what?!"
"Please just tell him," Soujiro responded.
The watchman had been approaching slowly during this time, and the light of the lantern now fell on Soujiro's face. Soujiro put on his most innocent, unthreatening expression.
Eventually, the watchman made an incomprehensible mumble of assent, and turned back towards the house, signaling to two other guards that had emerged some distance behind him, close to where he himself had first come into view, that he had everything under control. The others made gestures of assent, and vanished from view again.
Soujiro did not move until the man was halfway back to the mansion, and the radius of the lantern's light had long since left the gate. Then he grinned, backed up several steps, drove forward, and drove himself into the sky. He alighted atop the stone pillar that formed the left side of the gate, then hopped down lightly to the ground. It was a good twenty feet, but he had been landing from much higher distances on much rougher surfaces since before he turned nine.
Even avoiding the lantern-light of the scattered patrolling guards and with the watchman having less than half the distance to cover that Soujiro did, the blue-clad assassin reached the mansion before the watchman. The most any of the other guards heard or saw of him was a breeze passing through the gardens on the front lawn.
By the time the watchman was approaching the door of Kotaru's second-floor office, Soujiro was already positioned just outside the large, open window. There was more than enough shadow to conceal him; he had always wondered why people who hid from the eyes of the world often surrounded themselves with enough darkness so that whatever they were hiding from could get right on top of them without them seeing.
Kotaru Takao was a heavyset man in his mid-forties, with a forehead that was beginning to show more than he might like. Soujiro supposed that he probably felt important with his posh office, mahogany furniture, expensive suit, and imported cigars, but Soujiro had never been overly impressed by them. His posture was confident and domineering at the moment, but Soujiro doubted that would last long.
The sentry's knock sounded on the door.
"What is it?" Kotaru's voice rang out.
The guard opened the door, and took a step into the room. He looked nervous. Soujiro wrinkled his nose at the thought of the overdressed bureaucrat behind the desk making a guard nervous; guards were supposed to be fighters, and no self-respecting fighter should be afraid of a forty-something-year-old man armed with nothing but a swanky stogey, regardless of the size of the man's wallet.
"Sir?" the guard asked uncertainly.
"Come on, Gakusha, out with it!" Kotaru snapped.
"There's a boy out front asking to see you. Doesn't look like a beggar, asked for you by name."
Kotaru cast a scornful gaze at the guard. "I see ... did this boy say who he works for?"
"No, sir ... called himself the Tenken, didn't say anything more than that."
Soujiro always enjoyed watching the effect that name had on people. He had never been really careful about dropping his true name, even among the people who were only under ShiShiO's thumb, but his seldom-used alias always seemed to elicit a stronger reaction. The man's face lightened a shade, and he seemed to shrink by an inch. It was though someone had removed a support for his back. When he spoke, his voice was perceptibly quieter than it had been before. Overall, however, he took the news better than most of the people he had visited over the years as ShiShiO's messenger.
"He did, did he?" Kotaru wondered aloud. "All right, I'll see him. I'll have someone else send for him, though. Return to your post."
"Yes, sir," the guard said as he left.
Kotaru waited a moment after the door closed, then stood up, facing away from the window. "Though I suppose that won't really be necessary," he said, conspicuously louder.
"True enough," Soujiro answered, alighting on the windowsill, "but I thought it would be polite to let you know I was in the area."
"Which wouldn't be important if you didn't want something from me," Kotaru sighed.
"Aw, you figured it out," Soujiro replied innocently.
"Hasn't he gotten rich enough off of me already?"
Soujiro gave him an innocent look.
"Oh, never mind," the man said at length, tapping the end of his cigar on the rim of the ashtray at one corner of his desk. "I know the drill. What do you need?"
Soujiro's smile brightened. "Nothing much, really. I'm traveling with a friend, and we're trying to stay out of sight. I was hoping we could impose on your hospitality for a few nights ... and that no one else would need to find out about it."
"That's it?"
"Just two guest rooms, a bath, and a little fresh food."
"I guess that's an offer I can't refuse."
"Good guess."
Kotaru shrugged resignedly. "So where is this friend of yours?" he asked after a moment.
"She's around," Soujiro responded.
The older man's eyes widened momentarily. "It's a girl?"
Soujiro gave the man a puzzled look, innocently daring the man to keep asking questions. After another moment, Kotaru flicked another dash of ash off the end of his cigar, and made a noncommittal murmur. Then he straightened.
"I'll have the Blue Rooms prepared for you. They haven't been used in a while, but it shouldn't take that long to get them in shape again. How long will it be before you need them?"
"Oh ... three, maybe four hours."
"And how long will you be staying?"
Soujiro suddenly realized that he had never given any real thought to that question, and it had caught him off guard, even though it was a perfectly natural question to ask. He and Young-eun had never even really talked about it, it had just sort of been understood that they would stay until they felt like moving on. However, Soujiro was not about to say that; that was not ShiShiO's style. ShiShiO always had an agenda and a tight schedule.
"A week. Maybe a little more." That ought to be at least enough time to find another place to stay, if staying longer were to become necessary, Soujiro realized, and it was better that Kotaru believed that the Tenken was only in town on a mission.
"Very well."
* * *
Young-eun flitted through the market. She hated to call it that, but she was definitely flitting. It was not that she couldn't afford to buy anything, or that she had no interest in shopping. It was just that there was so much to see, and it was getting near the time when all the shops would close for the night, and she wanted to see as much as possible before they did. Everything here was more than she had ever seen in one place in Ichibou, save for the rare merchant's caravan that happened to be carrying finer wares than normal.
One store carried spices and other foodstuffs all the way from India. Another carried jewelry and accessories from America. A merchant was attempting to sell tickets for a steamship cruise to Hawai'i. There were clothiers specializing in fabrics and styles from almost every country she had ever heard of. There were grocers hawking foods from all over Japan. There were several promising restaurants, with ethnic fares from all over Asia, and one or two serving Western cuisine as well.
Eventually, she found herself drawn to one of the more opulent jewelers along the waterfront. She was certainly not alone in this; the store was crowded both inside and out, as such places went. There were still no more than a dozen or so men and women there, but she remembered that the only jeweler in Ichibou often saw fewer than that in an entire day, and even fewer who actually bought anything.
Scanning the crowd as she entered, she realized that she probably looked highly out of place here in her sturdy brown peasant's kimono. Most of the other customers in here sported outfits that probably had cost at least twenty times what hers had, and some of the women were wearing imported finery that had probably cost several times that. The only other customer that was wearing anything else as simple as her was a slender girl near the back, wearing an unassuming beige do-gi.
Young-eun's eyes passed by the girl for a moment, then snapped back, narrowing slightly. There was something about her that told Young-eun to take a closer look. Trying to act casual, she strolled towards the rear of the store.
"Ohayo," Young-eun said as she drew alongside the girl.
The girl turned, and Young-eun caught a brief, alert gleam in her eyes before they suddenly, much to Young-eun's surprise, became flushed with embarrassment. "Um, I'm fine, I don't really think I'm going to be buying anything," she said quickly.
Young-eun was confused, and replied that she had no real intention of buying anything here either.
"Oh, I thought ... that is ..."
Young-eun suddenly realized that the girl had thought that she worked here, and it was her own turn to be embarrassed. *I've got to get some better clothes,* she thought to herself. *This isn't the wilderness anymore.* She quickly replied that she didn't work here at all and had just come in to look.
It was the other girl's turn to look embarrassed. "Ah, gomennasai, I didn't mean ..."
"It's OK," laughed Young-eun.
"So are you just in here to look, too?"
"I'm looking at everything. This is my first time in Tokyo."
"Really? Where are you from?"
"Anou ... a really small town. Sort of near Kyoto, but not really near anything."
"Kyoto?" the girl put an unexpected emphasis on it.
"Have you been there?" Young-eun asked.
"Actually ... we just got back from Kyoto a few days ago."
"Seriously? What was it like?" Young-eun asked, genuinely interested. She and Soujiro had moved southeast from Ichibou towards the port at Nagoya, so she had never actually gotten to see the city closest to where she had spent her childhood. Soujiro had not been particularly keen on going back there, either.
"Well ... we got caught up in all the looting and fighting a few months ago, so it wasn't really a vacation." Young-eun detected a slight hitch in the girl's voice as she said that, and a kind of emotional flatness that was different than the way she had been speaking a moment ago. More than a slight hitch, actually. The girl was a terrible liar, or terrible at concealing information, which Young-eun considered more likely.
"Wait a minute ..." Young-eun pressed, "wasn't that more than six months ago now?"
"Anou ... hai," the other girl answered. "A good friend of ours got pretty badly hurt in the fighting, so we stayed there until he was ready to travel."
"I'm sorry to hear that," Young-eun said. "Is he all right now?"
Young-eun thought she saw a momentary flash of hesitation cross the other girl's face, as if she herself wasn't quite sure of the truth of the matter, but she got no time to pursue it. There was a sudden disturbance at the front of the store, and the two of them turned in unison to see what was happening.
Suddenly, the crowd at the front of the store backed up and scattered, several of the women in the crowd screaming as they did so. A trio of men burst into the store, dressed in dark brown and wearing hoods and scarves that completely hid their faces apart from their eyes. They carried long knives in their hands. It didn't take anyone in the jeweler's long to realize what was happening.
"Get down!" the first of the men shouted as he continued moving towards the counter where the petrified jeweler was still standing.
Young-eun didn't exactly need the reminder. She had not come here to start a fight; it briefly entered her mind to intervene, but she didn't want to risk getting into too much trouble less than an hour after arriving in the city. She quickly slipped into a little space behind the case where she had been standing. The other girl was already there as well. That wasn't a surprise. What was a surprise was what the girl she had been speaking to moments earlier held in her hand. It was unmistakably a wooden katana, and there was a fierce and stubborn look in her eyes that looked almost comically out of place on her young and innocent visage.
"You aren't possibly thinking ..." Young-eun began.
"Why not? There's only three of them," the older girl cut her off.
"Are you CRAZY?" Young-eun hissed back.
The older girl did not respond, her eyes already fixed on the trio in front of the counter. The jeweler had apparently not yet made any moves towards surrendering his cash box to the three men, though his resolve was plainly crumbling as the leader looked increasingly preparing to leap over the counter with his daggers. Strangely, Young-eun noted, neither of the leader's henchmen were clearing out any of the jewelry cases, despite the fact that there seemed to be nothing else for them to do; they were just standing around, waiting for the jeweler to hand over the cash. Her eyes narrowed. *Who robs a jewelry store and leaves all the jewels?* she wondered.
She didn't have long to wonder, however, because she suddenly realized by the empty feeling in the air to her right that the mysterious girl with the wooden katana was no longer there. She cursed herself momentarily; she had planned on trying to hold the girl back behind the case and out of sight. She didn't know the girl, but she didn't want to see the first person she had talked to in Tokyo get killed in front of her. That would definitely be a bad omen for the rest of the trip.
After a moment of searching, she spotted the girl. She had flitted two cases away, so she was now crouching behind the case closest to the nearest of the robbers. The store had emptied a bit by this point, though it was still fairly noisy, although in a hushed kind of way, as people attempted to slip to the exit as quickly as possible, before the robbers could get any ideas about lifting valuables off of customers as well. The area around the robbers themselves was clear of bystanders.
Young-eun still had not given up on the thought of getting out of the store without a fight, and tried one last time to signal the other girl to get back into hiding, but the girl ignored her. A moment later, the other girl stood up and revealed herself, which caused Young-eun to mutter another curse. The girl had been standing less than six feet from the nearest of the bandits and the man had had his back turned. It wouldn't have been too hard, had the girl any skill with the katana whatsoever, to have crushed one or both of the man's knees from behind, and then only have had to deal with two men who would have obstacles in their way to get to her, rather than a much larger man at close range in addition to the other two.
"Hold it," the girl said as she came into view of the bandits.
Predictably, the three men, especially the one right by the case where the girl had been hiding, turned their attention away from the terrified jeweler, who immediately bolted out the back. Young-eun's eyes narrowed again. The leader didn't seem overly surprised, and the farther bandit recovered control of himself quickly; the nearest one seemed more surprised at the fact that the girl with the wooden katana had gotten so close unnoticed than at the fact that she was there at all. In addition, the leader let the store owner go without so much as a backward glance, much less attempting to prevent the man from fleeing.
"Oh, darn," the leader drawled. "There goes our sport of the day."
"Boss?" the farthest of the robbers asked.
"I guess we'll have to make do with some other sport," the leader drawled on. "Haitoh! Grab her, and let's get out of here before the police come."
"No problem," the closest of the three responded, having recovered his composure somewhat. "You'd better put that stick down, girl," he said as he moved around the jewelry case to grab the defiant girl, who still had not said a word since she had first revealed herself, and indeed had not even moved. "You'll hurt a lot less if you do."
"Maybe," the girl responded, "but you'll hurt a lot more if I don't."
With a roar, the man lunged at her. The roar suddenly changed to a sharp, muffled grunt, however, as the wooden katana in the girl's hands blurred. She spun in under the thug's knife and brought what would have been the blade of her katana had it had a blade across the man's stomach, then spun back into a fierce thrust that caught the man right in the solar plexus. The man toppled over the case behind him and there was a thud as he reached the floor. Young-eun's eyes widened. The girl had some real skill.
The other two were now closing on the mystery girl, the leader from the front, the other circling around to take her from the far side. Young-eun's eyes narrowed again. They were showing a remarkable amount of discipline for common thugs; they were making a clear effort to stay out of each other's way so that she would have to take both of them on at once, and neither one was lunging straight for her, a mistake often made amateurs convinced that they needed to prove something. In addition, the first thug, Haitoh, whom the mysterious girl had sent sprawling, was leveraging himself back to his feet and didn't seem about to run, a common criminals generally did when up against someone who presented a challenge.
The girl in the tan do-gi seemed to sense it, too. A shade of hesitancy darkened her eyes, and she retreated into a more defensive stance.
"Game's up, girl," the leader snapped as he darted in. The second man was only a second behind him.
The girl twisted to one side and leveled an unbalancing blow at the first thug, and succeeded in forcing the two to collide into one another. However, as good as her move was, it was not quite enough, as the leader twisted and threw his own friend tumbling straight at the girl; she reacted quickly, knocking the body aside with the flat of her katana, but that tied her up long enough for the leader to level a staggering blow at her with the hilt of his long dagger. He wasn't wasting any words; he aimed straight at the girl's face.
The blow struck, but it was the leader who suddenly gave out a cry of pain. Before Young-eun had even realized what she was doing, she had leapt from her hiding place, her wakizashi springing into play. As the leader extended his arm, Young-eun had stabbed him in the right bicep. The momentum of the strike carried the man's arm forward, so he still ended up striking the distracted girl, but all the force behind the blow evaporated. What would probably have at least knocked the girl unconscious instead only threw her back a few feet, and she was able to absorb most of the impact by wrenching backwards with the blow.
The leader sprang backwards, and somehow managed to keep a grip on his weapon, shifting it into his left hand. "Not bad, girl," he snarled.
"Actually, it was," Young-eun replied grimly, turning and leveling a kick into the stomach of the man the leader had thrown at the girl with the wooden katana before the henchman could get up. Soujiro had taught her a lot in the several weeks since they had fled Ichibou, and she had absorbed it like a sponge, but that didn't mean she enjoyed the prospect of a three-on-one. "I was aiming for your neck." That wasn't true, but she had no intention of letting these people get the impression she was soft.
The man's eyes narrowed, and his snarl deepened, but it was the girl next to her that gave a startled gasp. "No, don't!" she called. For some reason, Young-eun found that irritating, even though she didn't have any intention of actually killing anyone.
"Out the back," Young-eun directed the girl, not taking her eyes away from the man in front of her. "Follow the jeweler. Go."
"No killing," the other girl said, though she did move towards the back door. The thieves made no move to stop her.
"That won't be necessary," Young-eun replied, nodding over the thieves' shoulder towards the door. "The police are here anyway."
Young-eun breathed a sigh of relief when all three turned for a brief moment to look. Apparently they were better than normal street thugs, but not *that* good. Had they stopped to think about it, they would have realized that there had been no police whistles or shouting. There was no one there. However, the momentary delay gave Young-eun all the head start she needed, and the first girl had already moved to the door.
"Move!" Young-eun barked heatedly as she saw that the older girl was not seizing the opportunity to keep moving. She grabbed the girl's right arm as she passed, practically pulling her off her feet. The incensed bellows of the three thieves followed them out the back door, and there was a clamber of footsteps behind them, but in a matter of seconds, Young-eun and the other girl were out into the crowd and were as safe as could be expected. Young-eun could see police beginning to come into view across the marketplace from two directions, converging on the jeweler's shop. She quickly sheathed her sword and concealed it as best she could in the folds of her robe and motioned for her new friend to get her weapon back on its belt instead of holding it up in the air like a sign saying "come investigate me."
Together they slipped off into the crowd, Young-eun keeping her eyes down and doing her best to avoid notice. It was difficult, though, as the sight of two armed women in the marketplace was hardly an everyday occurrence. Young-eun felt like a thousand unwelcome eyes were on her, and while she had never been one to feel much emotion, she was a little flustered and embarrassed by some of the looks she was getting.
If there was one person in the midst of the crowd who might have been taking more cautious or appraising notice of her, she would never have known it.
* * *
They stopped a few streets away from the harbor market. "Why did you pull me out of there?" the girl asked, finally shrugging aside Young-eun's arm. "I could've handled them."
Young-eun's more characteristic shyness was reasserting itself, so she merely shrugged.
Surprisingly, it seemed to have the desired effect on the older girl. She calmed down, and all but the faintest light of battle faded from her eyes. "Oh well, it's over now, and no one got hurt."
Young-eun thought this was an interesting thing to say, considering the girl still had a bruise on her temple from the thief leader's aborted strike, and all three of the thieves had definitely been "hurt." She couldn't think of any way to word that thought, however, so she changed the subject. "I wasn't really going to kill that man," she noted. The girl seemed to care about that for some reason.
The girl's eyes brightened. "Really? That's good to hear. I'd have hated it if you really were. You seem like such a nice girl."
For some reason, that brought a smile to Young-eun's lips, even though she had found the girl's sanctimonious attitude in the middle of a melee a little irritating earlier. "I did just stab someone, you know."
"Well, true, but ... oh, never mind."
Young-eun grinned. "Anyway, I want to keep moving. I'm meeting someone for dinner and I think I might have to shake off a few fans before then." She made a subtle motion with her head to a few people that were trying--and failing--to watch the two of them inconspicuously.
The other girl suddenly flushed, as though she hadn't noticed that what they had done would have attracted any attention. "Aah ... good idea," she murmured. She suddenly seemed anxious to get away herself.
"I hope I see you again sometime," Young-eun said as she began to back away.
"Yes, you too. Later."
Despite the amicable parting, Young-eun was in a sour mood as she headed off towards the Seigyokukaze restaurant. She had not wanted to attract attention like that so soon after arriving, and she doubted Soujiro would be happy about it, either, even if he would hide it well. She was getting better at reading him. No one had gotten a really good look at her, or at least, she didn't think anyone had; everyone had been out of the shop by the time she had shown herself. Nonetheless, any number of people could have gotten a good enough look at her as she had fled the scene to recognize her as someone who had been at the scene, if they were to see her again, and would have seen her leaving the scene with the girl with the wooden katana. With a start, she realized she had not even asked the older girl's name. Nevertheless, she considered that the least of her worries at the moment.
*Welcome to Tokyo, Young-eun,* she said to herself as she trudged down the back streets to the restaurant.
* * * * *
(1) Sapphire Wind
COMING SOON: Chapter 2, "Changes of Plans." Soujiro and Young-eun alter their plans a little to let peoples' memories of Young-eun die down a little. Soujiro decides to go try finding out what the police know about the heist and the two women who foiled it, and runs into everyone's favorite Tokyo cop.
NOTE!! It may be a while before I can update this again. I'm just throwing this out there for feedback and suggestions. I have outlines of a few subplots I'm going to try putting characters through, and another couple of original characters I'm going to introduce, but I'm not entirely sure where I'm going with this yet. In addition, college has gotten tougher as the years have gone on and I have more extracurricular commitments now as well. I will do what I can, as I truly love this stuff, but I'm not sure how much time I'm going to have over the next few months. I promise I'll take it up again in the summer, if not before.
That reminds me ... my Japanese is next to nonexistent. Don't fault me for it. At least I'm trying.
Happy reading!
ANTI-DISCLAIMER (would that be just a "claimer?"): Some of these characters ARE my own creation, as well as many elements of the setting. Use your head. If it never appeared in anywhere in the Kenshin series, then it's probably mine. Not that anyone cares but me.
SPOILERS/BACKGROUND: To Kenshin TV ep 62; also through "Rurouni Soujiro" by yours truly, posted a LONG time ago on ff.net. Note to readers: if you already know what I'm talking about without having to go back and search for it, congratulations! You're officially a ff.net oldtimer. :-)
* * * * *
THE GRAVITY OF LOVE
PROLOGUE:
SOMETHING MISSING
The crescent moon was riding high above the clouds, though none of the few people awake in the city of Tokyo below could appreciate it. It was not raining yet, but the clouds were pregnant with storm, and the wind held the promise of watery whips in it. Stragglers on the streets of Tokyo were few and far between, and those that were there moved quickly, avoiding looking at the sky, as though they might accidentally breathe too hard and rupture the clouds.
The Kamiya Dojo was still, save for the gentle sighs of the wind and of Yahiko snoring in his sleep. Not all of its occupants were asleep, however, despite the time being well after three in the morning. If any moonlight had been able to penetrate the clouds, it would have reflected off a single sharp pair of violet eyes gazingly fearlessly, though concernedly, into the night sky. Those eyes belonged to a slim red-haired figure sitting on the edge of the covered walkway outside his room, resting Indian-style and half leaning on a sheathed sword at his side. They were lost in thought.
*How long ago now?* Kenshin wondered to himself. *Three months? Four months?* Time had a way of slipping away before he knew where it went, even after he had regained consciousness in Kyoto and returned to Tokyo. Summer was already getting late, and the first of the Autumn storms were beginning to make it known that they would be paying visits soon. It seemed like just last week, or like it had never happened at all. He might have dismissed it as a dream at times, if it weren't for the nagging pain in his ribs and chest, memories of the Guren Kaina and of using the Ama-Kakeru, Ryu-no-Hirameki three times without so much as a nap in between. He generally healed quickly, but the wounds he had suffered that day had drained him in almost every way it was possible for a man to be drained.
A change in the air alerted him that something was different in the courtyard. He brought his eyes down from the sky, and saw a slender, familiar silhouette slipping off into the dark.
* * *
*It's going to rain again,* Kaoru sighed to herself as she forced herself out of bed. She sat cross-legged at the edge of her bedroll for several moments before rising fully to her feet, lulled into reverie by the gentle rush of the wind outside. There was not another sound in the house. Kaoru stretched idly as she roused herself, staring out the window at the overcast sky. It was an interesting perspective, because she was doing a straddle stretch and looking at the window between her legs and upside down, so it looked like she was staring down into a floor of clouds far below where she stood. She lost herself for another minute in her own personal world.
*Focus, Kaoru!* she chided herself after a minute, shaking her head. For some reason, she had had a great deal of trouble keeping her mind in one place since they all returned from Kyoto. It could have been any number of reasons, actually. Kenshin's condition was constantly in and out of her awareness. There was also the simple fact that, aside from Kenshin's condition, it seemed that almost nothing had changed since they left for Kyoto so long ago. She had figured that everything would be different somehow; after all, they had saved the country. The problem was that almost no one knew about it. The government had completely covered up ShiShiO's death, even more so than they had his life. Life went on.
No matter how she focused her mind, however, her thoughts always drifted back to the red-haired wanderer that now slept soundly once again down the hall. Before they had left Kyoto, he had claimed that he was fully healed, and he always managed to put on a fantastic show of it in front of her, but she somehow knew better. Without even consciously realizing it, she had formed a kind of empathic link with the wandering samurai. She knew that he was trying to be strong for her, to let her slide back into her life that she had neglected for so long during his convalescence, but it wasn't working at all. It was tearing her apart.
She grabbed her bokken from its resting place against the wall of her bedroom and walked out into the gathering gloom. Unconcerned, and doing a much better job of holding her head upright under the oppressive clouds than most of those she passed, Kaoru headed immediately for the outskirts of Tokyo. There was a field just outside the city where she had always loved to play as a child, set high on an outcropping with a breathtaking view of the sunrise. Since she had come of age, if she could even be said to have done so, being still well shy of her twentieth birthday, she had also found that it made a fantastic place to come to train. It was quieter than the dojo, generally, and it was also safer from eyes that she didn't want watching her.
She stopped just as she was about to exit the last row of trees at the edge of the field and looked back. There was something tugging at the edge of her awareness, but she couldn't lock her mind on it, nor could she see anything moving except a few nocturnal birds. After a moment, she shrugged and moved back out into the field.
She had a particular place she liked to begin warming up, between two high boulders halfway to the center. The rocks stretched half again as high as she was, and had flat surfaces at their top. She had climbed them often as a child. As she matured as a student, and since returning from Kyoto, she had used them for training, timing herself to see how fast she could scale them. The whole field had been a playground for her, as well as a training center and a refuge.
Slinging her bokken off her shoulder, she strode out to her favorite starting place between the boulders.
* * *
Kenshin stood silently several rows back into the trees, just close enough to the edge of the woods that he could see into the clearing. He kept low to the ground and stayed in the deepest patches of shadow he could, despite the darkness and the clouds. He didn't like shadowing Kaoru without her knowing, but the streets of Tokyo weren't all safe after dark, especially this long after dark, and his protective instincts were fierce. Once he had discovered that she was leaving the city, he had become even more apprehensive. It was unlike her to leave the city without telling him, much less at this time of night.
Kaoru had slowed to a halt out in the field, adopting a fighting stance and bringing her bokken to the ready. Kenshin's eyes narrowed, then widened again. *Is she training?!* he thought to himself. *At three in the morning?!*
* * * * *
CHAPTER 1:
ARRIVAL
Soujiro stood on the deck of the ship, watching the harbor of Tokyo in the distance slowly grow on the horizon. The rain that had clouded the sky for most of the day had abated, and the seagulls were out and about, trying to snag a few fish before dark. A brisk salt breeze ruffled the young samurai's clothing, carrying the scent of the distant city on it.
A nearly imperceptible eddy in the breeze behind alerted him to a familiar presence. He turned just as the slender Korean teenager he had rescued from the Yakuza came alongside him, placing her hands on the railing. His smile compressed for just a fraction of a second. He trusted her more than he had ever trusted anyone, save perhaps ShiShiO and Yumi, but it still annoyed a tiny corner of his mind that he had such difficulty sensing her approach. He was much better at it than he had been when he had first met her at the Red House, when she had startled him completely, but she still usually managed to get within a few strides of him before he realized she was there. He didn't even think she did it intentionally. It was just the way she moved, and the way her mind instinctively restrained itself.
"Konnichiwa, Soujiro-kun," she said, looking at him only briefly before turning her attention to the approaching shoreline.
"Young-eun-chan."
"Is that Tokyo?" Her voice betrayed her anticipation, even if the rest of her body was relaxed. She had never gotten to go more than a few miles from Ichibou for as long as she could remember, though she had been born in Korea before her parents had fled to Japan for some reason long since forgotten.
"Hai," Soujiro replied. "We'll probably be there just before dark."
She smiled. "I can't believe it. I never thought I'd even get to see Kyoto."
"I can imagine," Soujiro replied absently, the image of a haggard child with a rice bale on his back flashing into his mind for a brief moment. Young-eun looked at him questioningly, but he didn't answer, and she let it pass after a moment. Soujiro was glad she never pressed him too hard about his past; he had told her more than he had told anyone else, during that one magical night when they had both dropped their barriers for each other, but he it was still too big a scar to be the subject of casual conversation.
Uncomfortably, Young-eun changed the subject. "So ... where are we staying tonight?" she asked.
"We'll find somewhere," Soujiro assured her. "I know a couple people with spare bedrooms that should be happy to put us up." Whether they were happy to or not was not Soujiro's concern; there were several people in the government who owed ShiShiO their livelihoods, and since almost no one knew that ShiShiO was dead, they'd be more than happy that room and board were all Soujiro intended to ask of them. ShiShiO had demanded much more costly things and risky acts from them in the past, in exchange for his silence about their secrets.
"Someplace nice?"
Soujiro only smiled at her in response. It was good enough for her, as she turned her attention fully back to the approaching shoreline.
Sure enough, the ocean liner pulled up to the docks in Tokyo Harbor just as the sun was halfway behind the mountains to the west. Young-eun's excitement had been growing the whole time, and Soujiro wondered if she were going to wait for the gangplank or jump straight from the ship to the dock as soon as it came within range.
In the end, she settled for the less dramatic approach, and filed off the ship with the rest of the passengers. They ducked out of the milling crowd on the dock quickly, as Soujiro had left the blacksmith's horse in Nagoya with arrangements for it to be returned to Ichibou if possible, and he and Young-eun were traveling with no more than they could carry.
Young-eun was in no hurry to go much farther than the wharf, however. Just beyond the pier lay Tokyo's port market district. Her eyes were sparkling, and Soujiro realized that she had probably never seen anything of the kind for as long as she could remember.
"Anou ... we should probably go ..." he began hesitantly. It was getting dark. Then, suddenly, he thought better of it. Events in Tokyo might have changed since he had last been here, and even more since the last time he had actually kept track of them; the last time he had been here, he had simply been spying on the Kamiya Dojo before he left to shadow Shinomori Aoshi.
"Can you believe this place?" Young-eun asked in wonder, either not hearing him or pretending not to hear. Soujiro guessed that she really hadn't heard him; she really seemed to be interested in just about everything in sight, and trying to take in as much of it as possible before the light failed.
"Young-eun-chan?" he said a little louder. This time, he got her attention.
He continued, "Do you think you'll be all right by yourself for a while? I can go check and see if I can get us a place to stay by myself."
Young-eun looked at him quizzically for a moment; they were hardly what anyone could call possessive of each other, but they had not been apart very often since he had rescued her. Then she patted the wakizashi that still hung by her side, signaling that she could still take care of herself, even if she was not half the fighter she had been when her inner darkness had taken over at Heron's Ward all those weeks ago now. "I'll be all right," she said. "Where do you want to meet up?"
"There's a restaurant called the Seigyokukaze (1) at the north side of the harbor market, I thought it might be a good place to get a little dinner. It ought to be about that time when I get back."
"Sounds great."
"All right. I'll be there in an hour."
There was an awkward silence, as neither one of them moved immediately; then, with another questioning look into Soujiro's eyes, Young-eun moved off into the crowd of evening shoppers. Soujiro watched her from behind until she vanished into the milling mass of people, disappearing into the crowd like a ghost. He was even able to sense her presence for a few moments after that; her excitement was getting the better of her, apparently, even more so than on the ship, though her movements still didn't betray it.
When he could no longer make her out, Soujiro ghosted off into the crowd himself, in another direction.
Once he cleared the crowds of the market district, Soujiro set off at a brisk pace towards the trendy Shibuya neighborhood, home to many of the political and cultural elite of the Japanese capital. The homes on either side gradually faded from the flimsy single-story residences that comprised most of the city, being replaced with more ostentatious and permanent structures, often behind guarded iron fences twice as high as Soujiro himself. Soujiro smiled mockingly at them, remembering one of the last times he had been to this neighborhood with his former mentor.
*See these?* ShiShiO had said, tapping the bars of one of the fences. *What do they tell you?*
Soujiro had looked at the fence, and shrugged.
*Would you count on a fence to keep you safe?* ShiShiO had pressed.
*Iie,* Soujiro had answered immediately.
*Why not?*
*I'm strong by myself,* Soujiro had answered.
*Very good. But what about whoever is on the far side of this fence?*
*They're weak?*
ShiShiO had nodded, though he plainly did not mean that to be the end of the lesson. *There are exceptions,* he said. *However, as with snails, most of the time a hard outside hides only something soft and slow inside. And, as with snails, most of the predators that would feed on them have ways to break their shell. Would this fence keep you out, if you wanted to get in?*
*Iie,* Soujiro had answered again.
*Of course not,* ShiShiO had agreed. *So why build the fence?*
*They think it will keep me out?* Soujiro had wondered.
*Of course not!* ShiShiO had snapped. *These people are not completely stupid, even if they're complete cowards. If they thought the fence alone would do it, they wouldn't hire guards as well.*
*Then why the fence?*
ShiShiO had pointed to several of the peasants walking by some distance up the street. *See them?*
*Of course,* Soujiro had answered.
*Those poor people have no idea what we're capable of. We know it, and the people inside these fences know it. The rest of the people have no idea. Therefore, they assume that the fence is strong enough to keep people like us out. After all, who would build a fence for no reason?*
*So they want to appear strong ... but not be strong?*
*Oh, they want to be strong,* ShiShiO had answered contemptuously. *But they don't have the discipline for it, not anymore. They're not willing to make the sacrifices. However, they were stronger at one time--never truly strong, but stronger--when they brought down the dynasty. That is what people remember.*
*So they assume that because people remember that they were strong, and they still look strong, that people will think they're strong?*
ShiShiO had given him one of his most malicious and triumphant grins, one he normally reserved for when his apprentice had mastered a exceptionally difficult new fighting technique. *Always remember that, whenever you deal with these people,* he had said. *They care more about appearances than reality. The appearance of power is the only power they have left. Most of them will do absolutely anything to preserve it.*
Soujiro returned from his woolgathering as he approached the gate of the very same high-fenced residence that he and ShiShiO had been on their way to visit that night almost four years previously. He realized that he probably looked foolish, a small child whose sword seemed almost out-of-place at his waist, knocking on the bars of a forbidding black iron grille almost three times his height. And yet, as ShiShiO had reminded him, to people living a lie, the truth was a deadly weapon. He was no more afraid of the gate than it was of him.
Plodding footsteps soon echoed from within, and a watchman carrying a lantern on a pole emerged into view some distance back from the gate.
"Who goes there?" a voice rang out.
"Is Kotaru Takao in, please?" Soujiro called back.
"Who the hell is this?"
"The Tenken," Soujiro responded. "Please tell Mr. Kotaru that I'm here."
"The what?!"
"Please just tell him," Soujiro responded.
The watchman had been approaching slowly during this time, and the light of the lantern now fell on Soujiro's face. Soujiro put on his most innocent, unthreatening expression.
Eventually, the watchman made an incomprehensible mumble of assent, and turned back towards the house, signaling to two other guards that had emerged some distance behind him, close to where he himself had first come into view, that he had everything under control. The others made gestures of assent, and vanished from view again.
Soujiro did not move until the man was halfway back to the mansion, and the radius of the lantern's light had long since left the gate. Then he grinned, backed up several steps, drove forward, and drove himself into the sky. He alighted atop the stone pillar that formed the left side of the gate, then hopped down lightly to the ground. It was a good twenty feet, but he had been landing from much higher distances on much rougher surfaces since before he turned nine.
Even avoiding the lantern-light of the scattered patrolling guards and with the watchman having less than half the distance to cover that Soujiro did, the blue-clad assassin reached the mansion before the watchman. The most any of the other guards heard or saw of him was a breeze passing through the gardens on the front lawn.
By the time the watchman was approaching the door of Kotaru's second-floor office, Soujiro was already positioned just outside the large, open window. There was more than enough shadow to conceal him; he had always wondered why people who hid from the eyes of the world often surrounded themselves with enough darkness so that whatever they were hiding from could get right on top of them without them seeing.
Kotaru Takao was a heavyset man in his mid-forties, with a forehead that was beginning to show more than he might like. Soujiro supposed that he probably felt important with his posh office, mahogany furniture, expensive suit, and imported cigars, but Soujiro had never been overly impressed by them. His posture was confident and domineering at the moment, but Soujiro doubted that would last long.
The sentry's knock sounded on the door.
"What is it?" Kotaru's voice rang out.
The guard opened the door, and took a step into the room. He looked nervous. Soujiro wrinkled his nose at the thought of the overdressed bureaucrat behind the desk making a guard nervous; guards were supposed to be fighters, and no self-respecting fighter should be afraid of a forty-something-year-old man armed with nothing but a swanky stogey, regardless of the size of the man's wallet.
"Sir?" the guard asked uncertainly.
"Come on, Gakusha, out with it!" Kotaru snapped.
"There's a boy out front asking to see you. Doesn't look like a beggar, asked for you by name."
Kotaru cast a scornful gaze at the guard. "I see ... did this boy say who he works for?"
"No, sir ... called himself the Tenken, didn't say anything more than that."
Soujiro always enjoyed watching the effect that name had on people. He had never been really careful about dropping his true name, even among the people who were only under ShiShiO's thumb, but his seldom-used alias always seemed to elicit a stronger reaction. The man's face lightened a shade, and he seemed to shrink by an inch. It was though someone had removed a support for his back. When he spoke, his voice was perceptibly quieter than it had been before. Overall, however, he took the news better than most of the people he had visited over the years as ShiShiO's messenger.
"He did, did he?" Kotaru wondered aloud. "All right, I'll see him. I'll have someone else send for him, though. Return to your post."
"Yes, sir," the guard said as he left.
Kotaru waited a moment after the door closed, then stood up, facing away from the window. "Though I suppose that won't really be necessary," he said, conspicuously louder.
"True enough," Soujiro answered, alighting on the windowsill, "but I thought it would be polite to let you know I was in the area."
"Which wouldn't be important if you didn't want something from me," Kotaru sighed.
"Aw, you figured it out," Soujiro replied innocently.
"Hasn't he gotten rich enough off of me already?"
Soujiro gave him an innocent look.
"Oh, never mind," the man said at length, tapping the end of his cigar on the rim of the ashtray at one corner of his desk. "I know the drill. What do you need?"
Soujiro's smile brightened. "Nothing much, really. I'm traveling with a friend, and we're trying to stay out of sight. I was hoping we could impose on your hospitality for a few nights ... and that no one else would need to find out about it."
"That's it?"
"Just two guest rooms, a bath, and a little fresh food."
"I guess that's an offer I can't refuse."
"Good guess."
Kotaru shrugged resignedly. "So where is this friend of yours?" he asked after a moment.
"She's around," Soujiro responded.
The older man's eyes widened momentarily. "It's a girl?"
Soujiro gave the man a puzzled look, innocently daring the man to keep asking questions. After another moment, Kotaru flicked another dash of ash off the end of his cigar, and made a noncommittal murmur. Then he straightened.
"I'll have the Blue Rooms prepared for you. They haven't been used in a while, but it shouldn't take that long to get them in shape again. How long will it be before you need them?"
"Oh ... three, maybe four hours."
"And how long will you be staying?"
Soujiro suddenly realized that he had never given any real thought to that question, and it had caught him off guard, even though it was a perfectly natural question to ask. He and Young-eun had never even really talked about it, it had just sort of been understood that they would stay until they felt like moving on. However, Soujiro was not about to say that; that was not ShiShiO's style. ShiShiO always had an agenda and a tight schedule.
"A week. Maybe a little more." That ought to be at least enough time to find another place to stay, if staying longer were to become necessary, Soujiro realized, and it was better that Kotaru believed that the Tenken was only in town on a mission.
"Very well."
* * *
Young-eun flitted through the market. She hated to call it that, but she was definitely flitting. It was not that she couldn't afford to buy anything, or that she had no interest in shopping. It was just that there was so much to see, and it was getting near the time when all the shops would close for the night, and she wanted to see as much as possible before they did. Everything here was more than she had ever seen in one place in Ichibou, save for the rare merchant's caravan that happened to be carrying finer wares than normal.
One store carried spices and other foodstuffs all the way from India. Another carried jewelry and accessories from America. A merchant was attempting to sell tickets for a steamship cruise to Hawai'i. There were clothiers specializing in fabrics and styles from almost every country she had ever heard of. There were grocers hawking foods from all over Japan. There were several promising restaurants, with ethnic fares from all over Asia, and one or two serving Western cuisine as well.
Eventually, she found herself drawn to one of the more opulent jewelers along the waterfront. She was certainly not alone in this; the store was crowded both inside and out, as such places went. There were still no more than a dozen or so men and women there, but she remembered that the only jeweler in Ichibou often saw fewer than that in an entire day, and even fewer who actually bought anything.
Scanning the crowd as she entered, she realized that she probably looked highly out of place here in her sturdy brown peasant's kimono. Most of the other customers in here sported outfits that probably had cost at least twenty times what hers had, and some of the women were wearing imported finery that had probably cost several times that. The only other customer that was wearing anything else as simple as her was a slender girl near the back, wearing an unassuming beige do-gi.
Young-eun's eyes passed by the girl for a moment, then snapped back, narrowing slightly. There was something about her that told Young-eun to take a closer look. Trying to act casual, she strolled towards the rear of the store.
"Ohayo," Young-eun said as she drew alongside the girl.
The girl turned, and Young-eun caught a brief, alert gleam in her eyes before they suddenly, much to Young-eun's surprise, became flushed with embarrassment. "Um, I'm fine, I don't really think I'm going to be buying anything," she said quickly.
Young-eun was confused, and replied that she had no real intention of buying anything here either.
"Oh, I thought ... that is ..."
Young-eun suddenly realized that the girl had thought that she worked here, and it was her own turn to be embarrassed. *I've got to get some better clothes,* she thought to herself. *This isn't the wilderness anymore.* She quickly replied that she didn't work here at all and had just come in to look.
It was the other girl's turn to look embarrassed. "Ah, gomennasai, I didn't mean ..."
"It's OK," laughed Young-eun.
"So are you just in here to look, too?"
"I'm looking at everything. This is my first time in Tokyo."
"Really? Where are you from?"
"Anou ... a really small town. Sort of near Kyoto, but not really near anything."
"Kyoto?" the girl put an unexpected emphasis on it.
"Have you been there?" Young-eun asked.
"Actually ... we just got back from Kyoto a few days ago."
"Seriously? What was it like?" Young-eun asked, genuinely interested. She and Soujiro had moved southeast from Ichibou towards the port at Nagoya, so she had never actually gotten to see the city closest to where she had spent her childhood. Soujiro had not been particularly keen on going back there, either.
"Well ... we got caught up in all the looting and fighting a few months ago, so it wasn't really a vacation." Young-eun detected a slight hitch in the girl's voice as she said that, and a kind of emotional flatness that was different than the way she had been speaking a moment ago. More than a slight hitch, actually. The girl was a terrible liar, or terrible at concealing information, which Young-eun considered more likely.
"Wait a minute ..." Young-eun pressed, "wasn't that more than six months ago now?"
"Anou ... hai," the other girl answered. "A good friend of ours got pretty badly hurt in the fighting, so we stayed there until he was ready to travel."
"I'm sorry to hear that," Young-eun said. "Is he all right now?"
Young-eun thought she saw a momentary flash of hesitation cross the other girl's face, as if she herself wasn't quite sure of the truth of the matter, but she got no time to pursue it. There was a sudden disturbance at the front of the store, and the two of them turned in unison to see what was happening.
Suddenly, the crowd at the front of the store backed up and scattered, several of the women in the crowd screaming as they did so. A trio of men burst into the store, dressed in dark brown and wearing hoods and scarves that completely hid their faces apart from their eyes. They carried long knives in their hands. It didn't take anyone in the jeweler's long to realize what was happening.
"Get down!" the first of the men shouted as he continued moving towards the counter where the petrified jeweler was still standing.
Young-eun didn't exactly need the reminder. She had not come here to start a fight; it briefly entered her mind to intervene, but she didn't want to risk getting into too much trouble less than an hour after arriving in the city. She quickly slipped into a little space behind the case where she had been standing. The other girl was already there as well. That wasn't a surprise. What was a surprise was what the girl she had been speaking to moments earlier held in her hand. It was unmistakably a wooden katana, and there was a fierce and stubborn look in her eyes that looked almost comically out of place on her young and innocent visage.
"You aren't possibly thinking ..." Young-eun began.
"Why not? There's only three of them," the older girl cut her off.
"Are you CRAZY?" Young-eun hissed back.
The older girl did not respond, her eyes already fixed on the trio in front of the counter. The jeweler had apparently not yet made any moves towards surrendering his cash box to the three men, though his resolve was plainly crumbling as the leader looked increasingly preparing to leap over the counter with his daggers. Strangely, Young-eun noted, neither of the leader's henchmen were clearing out any of the jewelry cases, despite the fact that there seemed to be nothing else for them to do; they were just standing around, waiting for the jeweler to hand over the cash. Her eyes narrowed. *Who robs a jewelry store and leaves all the jewels?* she wondered.
She didn't have long to wonder, however, because she suddenly realized by the empty feeling in the air to her right that the mysterious girl with the wooden katana was no longer there. She cursed herself momentarily; she had planned on trying to hold the girl back behind the case and out of sight. She didn't know the girl, but she didn't want to see the first person she had talked to in Tokyo get killed in front of her. That would definitely be a bad omen for the rest of the trip.
After a moment of searching, she spotted the girl. She had flitted two cases away, so she was now crouching behind the case closest to the nearest of the robbers. The store had emptied a bit by this point, though it was still fairly noisy, although in a hushed kind of way, as people attempted to slip to the exit as quickly as possible, before the robbers could get any ideas about lifting valuables off of customers as well. The area around the robbers themselves was clear of bystanders.
Young-eun still had not given up on the thought of getting out of the store without a fight, and tried one last time to signal the other girl to get back into hiding, but the girl ignored her. A moment later, the other girl stood up and revealed herself, which caused Young-eun to mutter another curse. The girl had been standing less than six feet from the nearest of the bandits and the man had had his back turned. It wouldn't have been too hard, had the girl any skill with the katana whatsoever, to have crushed one or both of the man's knees from behind, and then only have had to deal with two men who would have obstacles in their way to get to her, rather than a much larger man at close range in addition to the other two.
"Hold it," the girl said as she came into view of the bandits.
Predictably, the three men, especially the one right by the case where the girl had been hiding, turned their attention away from the terrified jeweler, who immediately bolted out the back. Young-eun's eyes narrowed again. The leader didn't seem overly surprised, and the farther bandit recovered control of himself quickly; the nearest one seemed more surprised at the fact that the girl with the wooden katana had gotten so close unnoticed than at the fact that she was there at all. In addition, the leader let the store owner go without so much as a backward glance, much less attempting to prevent the man from fleeing.
"Oh, darn," the leader drawled. "There goes our sport of the day."
"Boss?" the farthest of the robbers asked.
"I guess we'll have to make do with some other sport," the leader drawled on. "Haitoh! Grab her, and let's get out of here before the police come."
"No problem," the closest of the three responded, having recovered his composure somewhat. "You'd better put that stick down, girl," he said as he moved around the jewelry case to grab the defiant girl, who still had not said a word since she had first revealed herself, and indeed had not even moved. "You'll hurt a lot less if you do."
"Maybe," the girl responded, "but you'll hurt a lot more if I don't."
With a roar, the man lunged at her. The roar suddenly changed to a sharp, muffled grunt, however, as the wooden katana in the girl's hands blurred. She spun in under the thug's knife and brought what would have been the blade of her katana had it had a blade across the man's stomach, then spun back into a fierce thrust that caught the man right in the solar plexus. The man toppled over the case behind him and there was a thud as he reached the floor. Young-eun's eyes widened. The girl had some real skill.
The other two were now closing on the mystery girl, the leader from the front, the other circling around to take her from the far side. Young-eun's eyes narrowed again. They were showing a remarkable amount of discipline for common thugs; they were making a clear effort to stay out of each other's way so that she would have to take both of them on at once, and neither one was lunging straight for her, a mistake often made amateurs convinced that they needed to prove something. In addition, the first thug, Haitoh, whom the mysterious girl had sent sprawling, was leveraging himself back to his feet and didn't seem about to run, a common criminals generally did when up against someone who presented a challenge.
The girl in the tan do-gi seemed to sense it, too. A shade of hesitancy darkened her eyes, and she retreated into a more defensive stance.
"Game's up, girl," the leader snapped as he darted in. The second man was only a second behind him.
The girl twisted to one side and leveled an unbalancing blow at the first thug, and succeeded in forcing the two to collide into one another. However, as good as her move was, it was not quite enough, as the leader twisted and threw his own friend tumbling straight at the girl; she reacted quickly, knocking the body aside with the flat of her katana, but that tied her up long enough for the leader to level a staggering blow at her with the hilt of his long dagger. He wasn't wasting any words; he aimed straight at the girl's face.
The blow struck, but it was the leader who suddenly gave out a cry of pain. Before Young-eun had even realized what she was doing, she had leapt from her hiding place, her wakizashi springing into play. As the leader extended his arm, Young-eun had stabbed him in the right bicep. The momentum of the strike carried the man's arm forward, so he still ended up striking the distracted girl, but all the force behind the blow evaporated. What would probably have at least knocked the girl unconscious instead only threw her back a few feet, and she was able to absorb most of the impact by wrenching backwards with the blow.
The leader sprang backwards, and somehow managed to keep a grip on his weapon, shifting it into his left hand. "Not bad, girl," he snarled.
"Actually, it was," Young-eun replied grimly, turning and leveling a kick into the stomach of the man the leader had thrown at the girl with the wooden katana before the henchman could get up. Soujiro had taught her a lot in the several weeks since they had fled Ichibou, and she had absorbed it like a sponge, but that didn't mean she enjoyed the prospect of a three-on-one. "I was aiming for your neck." That wasn't true, but she had no intention of letting these people get the impression she was soft.
The man's eyes narrowed, and his snarl deepened, but it was the girl next to her that gave a startled gasp. "No, don't!" she called. For some reason, Young-eun found that irritating, even though she didn't have any intention of actually killing anyone.
"Out the back," Young-eun directed the girl, not taking her eyes away from the man in front of her. "Follow the jeweler. Go."
"No killing," the other girl said, though she did move towards the back door. The thieves made no move to stop her.
"That won't be necessary," Young-eun replied, nodding over the thieves' shoulder towards the door. "The police are here anyway."
Young-eun breathed a sigh of relief when all three turned for a brief moment to look. Apparently they were better than normal street thugs, but not *that* good. Had they stopped to think about it, they would have realized that there had been no police whistles or shouting. There was no one there. However, the momentary delay gave Young-eun all the head start she needed, and the first girl had already moved to the door.
"Move!" Young-eun barked heatedly as she saw that the older girl was not seizing the opportunity to keep moving. She grabbed the girl's right arm as she passed, practically pulling her off her feet. The incensed bellows of the three thieves followed them out the back door, and there was a clamber of footsteps behind them, but in a matter of seconds, Young-eun and the other girl were out into the crowd and were as safe as could be expected. Young-eun could see police beginning to come into view across the marketplace from two directions, converging on the jeweler's shop. She quickly sheathed her sword and concealed it as best she could in the folds of her robe and motioned for her new friend to get her weapon back on its belt instead of holding it up in the air like a sign saying "come investigate me."
Together they slipped off into the crowd, Young-eun keeping her eyes down and doing her best to avoid notice. It was difficult, though, as the sight of two armed women in the marketplace was hardly an everyday occurrence. Young-eun felt like a thousand unwelcome eyes were on her, and while she had never been one to feel much emotion, she was a little flustered and embarrassed by some of the looks she was getting.
If there was one person in the midst of the crowd who might have been taking more cautious or appraising notice of her, she would never have known it.
* * *
They stopped a few streets away from the harbor market. "Why did you pull me out of there?" the girl asked, finally shrugging aside Young-eun's arm. "I could've handled them."
Young-eun's more characteristic shyness was reasserting itself, so she merely shrugged.
Surprisingly, it seemed to have the desired effect on the older girl. She calmed down, and all but the faintest light of battle faded from her eyes. "Oh well, it's over now, and no one got hurt."
Young-eun thought this was an interesting thing to say, considering the girl still had a bruise on her temple from the thief leader's aborted strike, and all three of the thieves had definitely been "hurt." She couldn't think of any way to word that thought, however, so she changed the subject. "I wasn't really going to kill that man," she noted. The girl seemed to care about that for some reason.
The girl's eyes brightened. "Really? That's good to hear. I'd have hated it if you really were. You seem like such a nice girl."
For some reason, that brought a smile to Young-eun's lips, even though she had found the girl's sanctimonious attitude in the middle of a melee a little irritating earlier. "I did just stab someone, you know."
"Well, true, but ... oh, never mind."
Young-eun grinned. "Anyway, I want to keep moving. I'm meeting someone for dinner and I think I might have to shake off a few fans before then." She made a subtle motion with her head to a few people that were trying--and failing--to watch the two of them inconspicuously.
The other girl suddenly flushed, as though she hadn't noticed that what they had done would have attracted any attention. "Aah ... good idea," she murmured. She suddenly seemed anxious to get away herself.
"I hope I see you again sometime," Young-eun said as she began to back away.
"Yes, you too. Later."
Despite the amicable parting, Young-eun was in a sour mood as she headed off towards the Seigyokukaze restaurant. She had not wanted to attract attention like that so soon after arriving, and she doubted Soujiro would be happy about it, either, even if he would hide it well. She was getting better at reading him. No one had gotten a really good look at her, or at least, she didn't think anyone had; everyone had been out of the shop by the time she had shown herself. Nonetheless, any number of people could have gotten a good enough look at her as she had fled the scene to recognize her as someone who had been at the scene, if they were to see her again, and would have seen her leaving the scene with the girl with the wooden katana. With a start, she realized she had not even asked the older girl's name. Nevertheless, she considered that the least of her worries at the moment.
*Welcome to Tokyo, Young-eun,* she said to herself as she trudged down the back streets to the restaurant.
* * * * *
(1) Sapphire Wind
COMING SOON: Chapter 2, "Changes of Plans." Soujiro and Young-eun alter their plans a little to let peoples' memories of Young-eun die down a little. Soujiro decides to go try finding out what the police know about the heist and the two women who foiled it, and runs into everyone's favorite Tokyo cop.
NOTE!! It may be a while before I can update this again. I'm just throwing this out there for feedback and suggestions. I have outlines of a few subplots I'm going to try putting characters through, and another couple of original characters I'm going to introduce, but I'm not entirely sure where I'm going with this yet. In addition, college has gotten tougher as the years have gone on and I have more extracurricular commitments now as well. I will do what I can, as I truly love this stuff, but I'm not sure how much time I'm going to have over the next few months. I promise I'll take it up again in the summer, if not before.