Chapter One:
When Chiaki first met Kamui, she clubbed him in the head.
It was inevitable, really. Chiaki worked in a dilapidated clinic found in the poorer parts of Edo. The shifty looking ones with the water damaged signboards and creaky sliding doors with no locks to protect its occupants from late night drunks and the occasional extorting mafia. She worked dutifully as sort of an assistant to a doctor that was well known around those parts. The owner of the clinic often left to visit homes while she tended walk in patients that went to visit him.
Her liking for the job stemmed mostly from extra experience and money. She didn't want to get kicked out. She didn't want to make mistakes. That was why she continued to sit and smile patiently behind a rickety table after the front door was kicked off its hinges by some jerk with majestic salmon hair and his companion: a tired middle aged man who looked like he was done with life. Both of them carried massive umbrellas, a telltale sign of danger if she watched planetary documentaries about alien-warrior races, which she didn't.
The local Yakuza huh? She thought, faking bravery.
"The Yakuza again? We just paid the 'protection fee' a week ago. I'm afraid I'll have to ask you to leave… unless you want things to turn bloody." She crossed her arms cooly. If Kamui and Abuto could see through her, they would find out that she was close to shitting herself with fear.
"Oho. Aren't you a fighter? Girl, what are you? A samurai, a courtesan, a shinobi perhaps?" The shorter one with the braid grinned. His companion gave a sigh.
Chiaki swallowed the rising bile from her stomach. "I am a highly professional… med student from Edo University… … … If you are brave enough. I'll take you on!" She waved a pair of scissors threateningly, making sure that its fine blades caught the blinking light from the sole lightbulb that illuminated the room.
Seeing as she wasn't worth his damn time, Kamui slouched immediately in disappointment. He closed him umbrella and sat on the chair nearest to him. Abuto wanted medical attention for his severed arm and broken bones. He was especially whiny about it, more than usual, so Kamui decided to be less of an ass and give his right hand man a little taste of charity.
Abuto did the friendliest grin he could have imagined. "Uhh, hello?" He called out and waved at Chiaki. She raised an eyebrow and couldn't help but steal glances at Kamui who began rummaging her backpack for her…Money? Phone? Packed lunch? … For her packed lunch.
There was apparent bleeding from the older man. Pushing fear away, Chiaki crept closer to him, fully aware of the dangers of helping out a Yakuza.
"What happened to your arm?" She asked immediately when Abuto removed his cloak. It was a mess of blood, flesh and poor bandaging. It wasn't just the arm. He also had a fractured femur, a ripped of ear and a damaged face. Chiaki resisted the idea that the damaged face were actual damage and wasn't just his ugly, sadistic leers he seemed to put on unconsciously.
Abuto, not wanting to scar someone who hasn't experienced the sweet taste of death and defeat in the battlefield decided to say: "Ya know, limbs fall off when you go in between silly arguments of people you don't really want to care about but need to care about because of your job…" He cast an evil eye at Kamui for fighting Hosen. Although the entire crisis ended quite well, he would have appreciated not losing an arm and falling off a ten storey building underground.
"Oh, like a lover's spat!" Chiaki rummaged through drawers, pocketed a knife, a taser and took most if not all the paraphernalia she needed.
He knew saying yes would lead to Kamui diching his body in a canal later on, and saying no would lead to the little shit asking a bunch of questions. "Just fix it already! We don't have all day" Abuto said impatiently.
"Touchy"
She went to Abuto and gingerly removed the bandages around his arm and found a poorly stitched swelling wound that looked worse than the day he got it. Pus began to seep from the stiches and the room immediately smelled of infection.
Abuto immediately looked away in disgust and felt vomit creep into his mouth, even Kamui, who hasn't seen disgusting to that extent backed away in fear and apprehension.
"Fuck! Not again!" Another infection! Maybe because he was getting old, he thought. The last time he caught an infection was from a gunshot wound that hit him because his shitty captain won't keep his mouth shut. If only Kamui understood the amount of women that refused to visit his bedroom after they found out about his raging infection. Talk about repopulating the species…
She felt the room's temperature go down a few degrees and decidedly avoid staring at the shadow that masked the older man's face.
"That's what you get for butting your nose in my business, Abuto." Kamui remarked.
Chiaki immediately memorized his name.
"Cheh- quit being so critical, ya damn captain."
Chiaki turned her head and caught Kamui munching on her delicious packed sandwich. Asshole. She gaped. People shouldn't destroy other people's doors, drop their dying demanding Yakuza friends onto nurses and eat their food. She stretched her patience to an infinite scale and decided to ignore the man.
She fixed the sutures, and started clearing the open wound. It wasn't the first amputation she fixed, her year of service proved that drunken Amanto are more often than not a little too arrogant that they decidedly thought it was morally right for them to start chopping limbs after a little provocation. She's also seen the doctor hack appendages off to save men and she's proud to say that she knew what she was doing. She removed splinters and fabric from inside the wound and had what she thought was a pint of puss taken out from the festering injury while Kamui stared at her with creepy unblinking eyes.
Maybe, just maybe these guys weren't as evil as she took them for. Maybe the Abuto guy got his wounds from preventing a bar fight between the braid-fucker and a law enforcer. The creepy younger one probably had a penchant for kicking doors and creepy smiles… right?
"Abuto, get her to the ship as our new doctor." Kamui said after little thought of the matter.
Abuto was very used to Kamui making idiotic decisions out of the blue, but it was his first to be openly ordered to kidnap. Abuto pondered a little then remembered that their ship's sole doctor had died in an accident. That accident being Ungyo and the others being ordered to shove the old man into space. The old man was forgetful and was forced to retire immediately. (Abuto suffered for weeks, the rate of balding heads and nasty halitosis increased tenfold, he was forced to deal with it)
Being the smart girl she was, Chiaki responded with a "Huh?" hoping for a sign that what the younger man said was a bad joke.
Kamui was dead serious.
"Hey." She said. "I'm not even a doctor. I'm a nurse, barely a nurse, I'm still studying, see?" Chiaki managed to say, she gave Kamui her school's identification card just in case her school uniform wasn't proof enough.
Kamui took the ID and snapped it in half.
"Do you know how to treat baldness?" He asked with a smile.
Chiaki frowned, confused.
"I have a general idea." She replied, putting her right hand in her pocket where the Taser was.
"How about bad breath?" Abuto asked this time, a glint of hope in his eyes. Those weeks of endless complaints might actually come to an end.
"Drink water, brush your teeth, if it doesn't work the problem might not be in the mouth." She said, stepping back in fear.
Kamui shut his eyes and did a terrifyingly sweet smile. "Do you know how to do a root canal?" He asked.
"No." Do I look like some dentist to you?
Kamui seemed to weight his options. "Good enough, Abuto."
Abuto grinned and raised his arm to grab her by the scalp.
Chiaki opted to tase him in the armpit.
Abuto fell to the floor, twitching and cursing. He didn't expect the little shrimp to be armed dammit! He took a brave glance at his Captain who wasn't amused to have to do the job himself.
Chiaki gracefully ran past Kamui. She dug her foot against the floor and jumped swiftly over remnants of the broken door. Two seconds to freedom! The light of outside was close, so close! Then Kamui grabbed the back of her uniform's collar. He lifted her up and left her standing on her tip toes, strangling her.
"Let go of me!" She said clutching her collar to give herself air.
"You little shit." Abuto managed to croak out. He easily lifted himself up from the ground. For someone who had one arm and was electrocuted with a shit ton of volts. He looked deadlier than a Christmas sale. He approached her with a means to an end.
Chiaki felt panic.
"Assface" She said as loud as she could.
"What?"
Abuto paused and Kamui looked at her with confusion. It was enough distraction for the Yato to lower his arm a few inches.
Once her feet touched the ground, her right arm shot backwards at an almost impossible angle her muscles ached as she grabbed a baseball bat resting in a waiting chair that was left by a patient that morning. In a blur of movement, the baseball bat made hard contact with Kamui's forehead.
It's either Kamui made no effort to show that he was in pain or it was genuine that he never felt anything.
It was more of the latter.
He gave her a shit eating grin.
"Really? Nothing? No reaction? You mean, I did all that effort and it was still ineffective?" Chiaki frowned, panic drained from her system. Kamui let go of her, still smiling, but a dark purple aura emanated from his being. If she listened to her side, she would have heard Abuto trying and failing to give out an identifiable noise.
"Fucking bitch." Kamui smiled wider. Was he, was he just bashed in the head by a weird looking human woman? He, Kamui, the ultimate totalitarian leader of over a hundred pirate Yato? The man who had battled armies without getting scratched, the man who can eat fifty servings of meal and still have room for dessert without any medical complications, allowed a piece of yesterday's garbage land a solid hit at him?
Judging by Abuto's wide eyes, the answer was a definite yes.
Kamui grabbed the front of her shirt and smashed her forehead into his, knocking her unconscious.
She definitely was up for the job.