Alas! The long-awaited second chapter. Or, first "real" chapter. Be assured, this fic has moved to the top of my priority list (for fanfiction) and the next chapter is already coming along. In the meantime…
I hope you enjoy!
(and a big thanks to my beta, Liem!)
Chapter Two
A Lesson in Obedience
Sendai, Japan
12th Year of Meiji
July 20
I have done everything I can to make Enizu happy, and I'll do this too.
But the thought of being alone in the cold, harsh world outside sends shivers down my neck. It has been more than a year since we moved up North, away from Tokyo, from Castle Edo.
An entire year. And now I have to run away. I have half a mind to just stand up and fight these men who are forcing us into hiding. I hate hiding, and running is even worse.
But I must put all that aside and do this. For everyone. For Enizu. For me. For you.
I'll run away, I have to.
I think of you often, and it gives me strength. So please, don't worry. The next time I see you, though, I will be happy. Because Enizu is coming to find me, and he will take care of me. I hope I can make him as happy as he has made me, though I know he will never be content until he kills Battousai. I don't understand this at all, though I try. How can one man's death bring another such happiness?
Enizu says it's for me. He says he's going to find Battousai and kill him for what he did to my father. But I can't have a man die on my behalf! I barely remember my father anymore, it doesn't seem right to kill a man for what happened so long ago. I know my father would not want a life to be taken for his sake.
But Enizu says that he has to do this—if he doesn't he can't consider himself worthy of me. Once he takes Battousai's life, he says he will marry me. Perhaps then I can make myself worthy of him—I will spend my life trying to be a good wife to him.
I know you may think this is a silly thing to devote my life to, but my life has changed, and this is what's important to me now.
I hope you can understand that. I hope that with all my heart.
--Naruku
Naruku had thought that being out on the road
would give her freedom, room for reflection, a pause in her whirlwind
life.
She had thought wrong. All she really felt was lonely. But it was a sort of half-hearted loneliness, the kind that only really ate away at her when she wasn't thinking about her next meal.
Food was the one thing that seemed to occupy Naruku's mind at every waking second. It was hard to say which she preferred more—the gnawing hunger each day or the fear each night of the nightmares that plagued her.
Gruesome images of the deaths of those around her filled her thoughts when the sky went black. But when the sun was out, Naruku could think only of her own death. Ravaged by a bear, drowned in a river and starved to death were just a few scenarios Naruku had, very wryly, thought up for herself.
"I know what I'll do," Naruku announced to the trees. "Next town I see I'll get a job."
Luck was on Naruku's side that night, for as soon as the sun began to set, the lights of a nearby town could be seen, glowing near the horizon. Excitement bubbling in her belly, Naruku ran ahead. She would not stop until she reached it, and there she would rest, because she doubted she could last another moment without something to fill her stomach.
When she reached the town she found that most of the buildings already had their lanterns extinguished. The size of the town did not lend itself to tourism—it was probably a town whose purpose was to house all the men traveling from Yokohama harbor back to their homes in Kyoto or Tokyo. A place for travelers, but not a place for vagrants, especially not those who had no money to speak of.
Naruku's plan was to find any shelter to spend the night in and find an inn in the morning that she could beg for work at. The trick was to find a place that was noisy enough for no one to detect Naruku if she broke in.
Unfortunately the entire town seemed to shut down at sundown, and everything was eerily silent. Finally, though, she reached an inn that seemed to be the only one that was still alight, its insides bursting with the sounds of laughter and clanking dishes.
Turning her eyes to the sky in an act of sincere gratitude, Naruku circled around the building. She found a storehouse in the back and tried the door.
Not surprisingly, it was locked. Crouching low down to the ground, she examined the wall with her hands. She grinned to herself when she felt one of the wooden panels give a little when she pushed on it. It was soft from mildew and eaten away by mice.
Glancing around briefly, she stood up and kicked through the panel. The one next to it was easily ripped from its place and soon Naruku had created a hole big enough for her to wriggle through, which she then did with some difficulty.
Picking her way through bent, rusty nails and spider webs that brushed against her skin, Naruku scrambled inside the shed and to her feet, where she stood for several minutes, allowing her eyes to adjust to the darkness.
Then she waited a moment or two longer to detect any sound that might indicate a guard was present. She heard soft breathing and a snore that told her to avoid the front most corner of the shed. Creeping silently between rows of food stock, she squinted hard at the items, finding herself frustrated at her inability to discern between rat poison and sake jugs. Finally, though, her eyes fell on something she knew was food—a barrel of apples.
No doubt they were as ripe and juicy and she imagined them to be. Grinning madly, Naruku picked one up and brought it to her mouth.
A loud barking sound startled her and the apple flew from her hand, hitting the ground and rolling away into the darkness.
Panicking, Naruku gathered up as many apples as she could fit into her sleeves and obi before racing back to where she had come. She looked wildly around for her escape as the barking increased and she heard the sounds of the guard waking up.
The sudden thump of feet on the ground told Naruku that she had to get out of there—fast.
"What is it? What is it, boy?" a gruff voice asked as the loud barking continued. "Someone in here?"
The thumping of footsteps came nearer and quicker.
Running wildly, Naruku skidded around one of the shelves, glancing behind her where she could barely make out the figure of a small man running toward her. She tripped—ironically, it was her dropped apple that made her fall—and came crashing to the ground. Her head banged against the floor and she bit back a gasp.
Squinting up through her tears of pain, Naruku could see the figure of a well-dressed, balding man above her.
"You thought you could get away a second time, you ungrateful brat? Trying to steal from the teahouse like this, oh, Mistress will not be pleased…"
Naruku shook her head, trying to clear it. What was this man going on about?
"Didn't you realize you'd get caught if you came back? Stupid whelp."
He disappeared from her line of sight and she took that moment to sit up, her elbows propped up on the floor.
"Well, you better get up and enjoy the rest of the night. You're going to get quite a beating in the morning, I can tell you that much," he gave a hoarse chuckle and walked off.
"Wait, sir," Naruku called after him, struggling to her feet. "Who exactly do you think I am?"
"Don't play these stupid games, Nana," he told her. "No matter where you go you're always going to be a worthless serving girl."
He left, but not without calling, "This place better be spotless and have every apple put back in place when I return tomorrow morning."
Then the door slammed and Naruku was left alone, blinking in the darkness.
-
"Wow, that's the maddest I've ever seen Mistress Shinju. How did you escape a beating?"
The query came from a wide-eyed young girl who sat, scrubbing the floors with Naruku.
Naruku shrugged in reply, somewhat surprised by this girl. "Told her the truth. That I'm not this 'Nana' everyone seems to think I am."
"Oh," the girl replied. Then, "No one really thinks you're her, you know."
"Could have fooled me." Naruku couldn't count the number of times she had been called Nana by the employees of this place.
"Nana-chan was my friend. She ran off a week ago. Then you came wandering here. Same age, same looks, almost. It's just convenient for everyone if you take her place," the girl shrugged.
Naruku nodded, her eyes fixed on the floor as she scrubbed harder, ignoring the pain in her knuckles as they rubbed raw.
"I'm Momoko, by the way," the girl said after a few moments. "You're not really from around here, huh?"
Naruku suppressed a chuckle, the corners of her lips turned in amusement. "Nope."
"And you're not really fourteen, are you?" Momoko went on.
"I'm twenty," Naruku replied sourly.
Momoko seemed vaguely surprised. "Well you're stuck here, and if you want to survive, you better stick with me."
"Stuck here?" Naruku repeated, taking a moment to wipe her hands on the front of her uniform. "For how long?"
"Well, until Mistress Shinju and Takeshi-san accept that you are not Nana-chan," Momoko reasoned.
Naruku blanched. "But…they already believe that, otherwise they would have beaten me, wouldn't they?"
"Mistress Shinju may have said something like 'Go away and don't bother me with your useless runaways' and saved you from a beating. But that only means they know you aren't Nana, which anyone could tell. But they are still pretending like you are," Momoko explained.
"So what do I have to do to stop their pretending?" Naruku asked, thoroughly disheartened.
"Probably you'll have to find the real Nana-chan," Momoko replied, and Naruku could sense a twinge of despair from the younger girl. "In the meantime, just listen to what Mistress Shinju and Takeshi-san say. If they call you by Nana's name, just respond to it."
"Sure," Naruku replied, focusing all her energy on the floor again and wondering for the fiftieth time how she'd ever ended up in this situation. "I can do that."
Kaoru wondered each day whether Naruku had walked out of their lives forever and, if she had, how it would affect Kenshin. She didn't know what had transpired between the two of them just before Naruku's departure, and she hadn't the heart to ask.
But sometimes she would catch him sitting out on the porch, or doing the laundry, or gathering water from the well with an unwarranted look of concentration on his face.
Often she asked him what he was thinking of. His reply was always the same.
"Nothing, Kaoru-dono."
She always left it at that.
But it seemed to all of them that something was simply missing, as if Naruku had taken a small piece of each of them when she left. They had grown so accustomed to her presence, her laughter and her spirit that when she was gone, it was like she had left a whole in the world, her own imprint.
A week after Naruku's departure, Kaoru was setting the table and put out four plates, four sets of chopsticks and four cups for tea.
"Hey Kaoru, is Sano coming over?" Yahiko wondered in confusion, looking at the table.
Kaoru looked up and wrinkled her forehead. "No. Why do you ask?"
Soundlessly, Yahiko raised one hand and pointed at the extra place Kaoru had set.
All breath seemed to rush out of Kaoru's chest as she looked at the table. Three, not four, people currently lived at the dojo. Three, not four, were having dinner.
"Oh," Kaoru said slowly, wanting to hide in shame. "I guess I just thought…" she swallowed and didn't continue.
Yahiko seemed to realize what she thought because he quickly changed the topic and made some jab about Kaoru's cooking and danced out of her reach when she got angry.
In the days following, Kaoru couldn't help being reminded of the time after Kenshin's departure, almost a year and a half ago. True, Naruku's absence was far less jarring than Kenshin's had been, but that lulling feeling, the sluggish waiting had returned, engulfing them entirely like the heat of summer.
But the lethargy of their days soon dissipated, replaced only with the growing anxiety of a new problem.
-
"Well Kamiya-san, I can't say I'm very impressed with the state of things here," the tall, broad-shouldered man sniffed. Each syllable was said with immaculate pronunciation, as though he were talking to someone who spoke very poor Japanese. "You still have no students, the dojo is in terrible shape and you are currently boarding a homeless man and an orphan. This isn't even taking the mortgage into account. I must say, this dojo has gone right down the drain after your late father's unfortunate decease."
Kaoru kept her head bowed. "With all due respect, sir, Kenshin is not homeless and Yahiko is no orphan. They are the only family I have left, now."
With these words she raised her eyes to stare into Hirakatu's defiantly.
"Kamiya-san, you have a very poor perception of what a family is, and it is certainly not what you'd call this little band of scoundrels," Hirakatu replied primly.
Kaoru lowered her eyes again, not daring to respond, but immensely shamed with her own silence. However, she knew if there was any hope for the dojo, she had to bridle the zealous, fierce being inside her that was just waiting for a chance to bite back.
"It's no wonder you have no students. No man would ever subject himself to learning the sword arts from the weaker sex," Hirakatu went on, almost in a bored tone of voice.
The smooth white surfaces of Kaoru's teeth ground against each other.
"The best idea for you at this point is just to sell the dojo, or devote it to some more appropriate purpose."
As much as Kaoru felt like slamming Hirakatu's face into the dirt, she didn't.
She didn't get the chance to, for just then Yahiko came charging up, yelling loudly.
"Kaoru! Hey, Ugly! Ugly!" he cried as he reached where she and Hirakatu were talking. "Jeez I've been calling you for the past ten minutes. What's with you?" He seemed to notice the strange man standing on his porch, for he then added, "Who is this guy?"
"Yahiko-kun, this is Hirakatu-san. I'm sure I told you he would be visiting to evaluate our progress as a dojo," Kaoru bit out.
Yahiko looked somewhat bewildered, but he then brightened. "Oh! Coming to challenge the Assistant Master and her First Apprentice, are you?"
His grin was so cocky, so sure, that for a brief moment Kaoru felt very proud to have him.
But that was before his words came crashing down on both her and Hirakatu. How much Kaoru wanted to pummel both men into the dust was hard to say. But it was clear that without Kaoru's remarkable self-control, the two would be rendered immobile for a matter of hours.
"Anyway, we're supposed to be training now, remember Kaoru? You can come back tomorrow if you want a fight," Yahiko said to Hirakatu, waving as if to dismiss him.
Kaoru was horrified and Hirakatu didn't look too happy about being treated as such by a mere child.
He turned to Kaoru. "To make it short, Kamiya-san, this dojo's current condition is completely unacceptable. I would be mortified if I were the proprietor of such a poorly-managed establishment."
He folded his papers primly and stuck them in a crisp haori sleeve. "If you cannot come up with the funds to pay the mortgage in a week, I will find a more worthy use of this land."
With that he promptly marched out, leaving a gaping Kaoru and her bemused student behind.
"Hey Kaoru, what's that guy talking about? What's the dojo being used for?" Yahiko asked, as though he had done nothing wrong.
Kaoru rounded on his immediately. "You—you—I can't believe you—" she spluttered. She was trembling too hard with rage and distress to form words properly.
She sank to the floor, every muscle in her lean body wilting. "Oh Yahiko," she whimpered, the dismay and grief evident in her eyes. "What are we going to do?"
End Notes: Nana means "apple" and Momoko means "peach child." I know, I am a riot (or is that 'idiot?')
Quick Edit has been acting really funky, so if there's anything wrong with this chapter (formatting-wise) please let me know!
And if there's anything wrong with it grammatically, (spiritually?), plotwise or character-wise, I expect that you'll let me know as well.
A quick note on the letter at the beginning (yes, it's a letter): To be honest, I hate italicizing big chunks of text like that. Abusing italics does not a good writer make. However, I have no other way to denote the fact that it's hand-writing, since fanfiction won't let me indent or use a different font. So italics it is, and I hope that doesn't bother you as much as it bothers me!
For those of you who have read the original Down the Road (or Down the NEXT Road as it was called) I'm sure you can tell how very different this version is, and will continue to be.
For those of you who have never read the original version, THANK GOD you don't know how badly I sucked.
That's all for my ranting. Please leave a review!