Tokyo is a city of sin.
The sun dips below the horizon, and the sky turns pink for a little while. And then the pink light moves down to the earth, blaring out from a thousand garish neon signs. Each sign hovers above an inviting doorway. Through each doorway, a constant passage of the youth of Japan, who have grown into a Westernised country. Alcohol and sex and loud music fill the city centre from dusk to dawn.
Kitsune is a creature of sin.
In folklore, Kitsune are trickster spirits. They appear to the human eye as beautiful women; or, when the fancy strikes them, as effeminate but elegant men. In their true form, they resemble an anthropomorphised fox. They can have up to nine tails, depending on the potency of their magical abilities.
They are said to wander the Earth looking for love that will stay with them forever. To a Kitsune, the ordinary human soul is a boring thing indeed. Those people capable of feeling rich love will keep a Kitsune's interest for some time, but not forever. And when the Kitsune gets bored, her victim's souls falls away and they are left bereft of what the Japanese call Gen Ki (Primary Spirit). A man must be truly remarkable in soul and in dedication to win a Kitsune forever; and when he does, the Kitsune finally disrobes herself, casts away her magic and becomes mortal, and lives happily to the end of her days.
But before their mantle is discarded, a Kitsune is a cruel thing. She will wander the streets of the city and search for a beast of a man, pull him in towards herself and suck out his Gen Ki, leaving him even sadder and more meaningless than before.
Of course, the fact that our Kitsune's behaviour seems so much like the creature of which I have just spoken... it is nothing more than coincidence.
Smoke drifts through the air in warm, nicotine-stained clouds. It is a blend of cigarettes and the finest cigars, cologne and perfume, and it intoxicates her.
She smells an excited European, his hormones turning into scent that washes through the room. It is a shame to her that the Japanese lack so many of the scent glands this one man has. It would make the art of seduction so much easier if the glands had not disappeared over time.
She smells a professional woman, her freshly dry-cleaned suit releasing the barest hint of cleaning solvents into the air. This smell accompanies a hint of apple, a rare but tasteful fragrance. It could be fun, trying to bed a reticent businesswoman...
She smells a frightened child. There should be no children here. The fear manifests as the tiniest hint of acrid vinegar, the youth as the scent of innocent, clean sweat. She wnted to find the child and reach out and take her someplace safe... but then her eyes passed over the corner of the room, where a young girl had a group of high-strung men converging on her. There was no way Kitsune could help her fight off all of those lustful males.
Maybe the bouncer could, though.
She made her way over to the burly man at the door, only to find that a plain young man in drab clothing was already animatedly calling on the bouncer's sense of duty to go and get that poor girl out of this situation, which she should never have been allowed to get into in the first place.
It was only after the bouncer trundled off to deal with this blatant unpleasantness that Kitsune stepped forward. "Good man," she said.
The plainly dressed fellow turned to face her and he smiled, an eyebrow raised in curiosity. "He is, yeah. All bouncers are, really. They're employed to make sure untoward things don't happen, and they're good at it."
"Didn't mean him," Kitsune said, with a grin. "You came over here and drew the muscle-man's attention to you for the sake of that girl. That probably took a load more courage than what he's doing now."
One of the dodgy men from earlier was flat on the floor; the others were in the process of leaving the club, and quite quickly.
"It's one of the things you come across in life that has to be done." The man shrugged. "Not a question of courage or fear or any of that. Plain duty, I guess."
The fox smiled. "Duty exercised where everyone else looked away. Fully deserving of a drink, on me. What say you?"
He looked at her askance, then nodded.
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"One through four.
Never more.
Ever sure.
Fight for."
Kaolla Su and Motoko Rouzeki faced off. The taller swordswoman needed the training; Kaolla, as a member of her home royal family, had a very different martial art under her belt and was willing to pit it against Motoko to help.
Kaolla heard the words from Motoko's mouth, and uttered a mantra of her own.
"Corto, Medio, Largo,
Hakbang - Fraile, Ritriada.
Dance and spin and change.
Throw them for a loop."
Motoko's stances shifted; Kaolla detected it and pounced. She held a twenty-eight inch Bolo in each hand, each one a machete with a waved blade. Her left whipped forward, slicing the air in a sraight line towards the taller girl's abdomen.
In the last possible second, Motoko moved. From her left hip-scabbard, she withdrew one of the Quartet swords and parried Kaolla's first blow. The coloured girl brought her other sword around in a slicing motion - Motoko unsheathed another of the Quartet and blocked that as well.
One, two, three more blows launched from the MolMolian's aggressive stance, then she rolled back, out of Motoko's range.
No such luck, with a Rouzeki.
Motoko assembled a sword and two sword/hilt units into a polearm and nearly took off Kaolla's head as the younger girl unfolded from her roll. She took the polearm apart as she moved in closer to Kaolla. The younger girl backstepped frantically, reached the wall and immediately used it to her advantage. She pushed off it, pivoted around her own feet, hit the ground and slammed a foot back into the wall as she did. Her hands snuck behind her torso and traded the Bolo swords for a pair of fairly short daggers. These shot up as the girl slid under Motoko, and the MolMolian's loose wrists were the only thing that kept Motoko from bleeding out through the thighs.
The swordswoman scowled and rescabbarded her swords. "Good," she said. "You're very, very good, Su. Thankyou very much for this opportunity. Shall we go again?"
The young coloured girl was at her throat before she'd finished the sentence. Panic seized Motoko; she ducked, grabbed the girl's feet, hurled her up and over, but not quite out of range. Su had switched again, and was holding an Espada sword in her left hand. Motoko felt the flat of the blade bounce heavily off her shoulder and winced. Had that blow connected with blade-edge, it would have cut straight through her gi and her shoulder.
Motoko did not ask for the next bout. She connected three sword-hilt units with chain links and lashed out behind herself. This was a three-part staff. A little more complex than the nunchaku to wield, but an awful lot more devastating. She heard the loud crack of metal parrying the furthest wooden sheath, and turned with her fourth sword bare and ready. Su had blocked the three-part staff, and was hurtling toward Motoko with a Bolo in her off-hand. She looked to be holding her on-hand with care. Had she sprained it, blocking the main strike?
They fell into close-quarters fighting. Metal rang, the harsh high pitch of Filipino blades dissonant against the mellow hum of one of the finest Japanese weapons forged since the Sengoku Jidai. Blow upon blow flew toward each of the combatants, and neither let a strike through.
Motoko had always been stunned by Kaolla's knowledge of martial techniques. It stood to reason that a young princess would have been educated in the arts of war, but Motoko had never suspected that Kaolla had so much knowledge of physical fighting. It never came across in the girl's stance outside of the fight. But Su had explained that already. She had been trained never to let her knowledge show, never to assume a martial stance unless it was absolutely necessary, to feign clumsiness so that if assassins ever came, they would not be strong enough to hurt her.
It was with great reluctance that Su had first offered to help Motoko train. She'd had to confront a few old demons in doing so, face some fears she had not wanted to deal with just yet... if ever. She did not want to go back home, Motoko knew that. But in acknowledging her proficiency with Arnis, she was almost admitting that she was royalty in her home country, that she did belong there. And she was making that sacrifice to help Motoko through the coming trial.
The sharp sound of the flat of a sword hitting flesh. Motoko had finally borne through Su's intense toe-to-toe combat and won out. Her arms were exhausted, but she had made a welt on the younger girl's arm before receiving any injury. This was a victory.
Su looked like she was in quite a lot of pain. She turned to face Motoko and bowed; "Sorry, Tokomoko! I don't think I can carry on right now." Her smile was warm, but the blood had drained from her face.
"Su, is it your wrist?" Motoko was concerned. For blood to rush away from the skin was a sign of trauma.
"Yah," The younger girl hissed. She dropped her Espada and let her wrist hang as limp as she could make it. "Didn't expect that much force. You're strong, 'Toko. Use that in your fight tomorrow. Gonna have to ask you a favour right now, though. Can you help me get into the city?"
Motoko blinked. "Surely an ambulance would be better?"
A wan smile from the girl. "I don't want my family knowing, or worrying. There's a doc in the city who does these things on the sly. He'll help out."
The swordswoman felt regret threatening to take her over from the inside. Hot remorse was trying to build up in her throat and behind her eyes. But she swallowed it and nodded. "I'm sorry for this, Kaolla. I have strong painkillers in my room; would you like me to bring you some of them before we set out?"
The MolMolian's eyes were half-lidded already - she looked to be in a nasty state of shock. She had the strength to smile and nod, and lie carefully down. "Migh' be out for a little while..."
Motoko nodded, short of breath, frightened. She turned and left the room and ran as fast as she could.
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Keitaro Urashima wandered the Inn. His head was full of strange, new thoughts.
He considered Kitsune, and last night. It had been exciting, in a forbidden way. It had been foreign - he had never felt so vulnerable before. And yet, he had trusted her. He'd let her take down his defences and explore what was behind them, and she was gentle in her exploration.
And he had enjoyed it?
A part of him - a huge part - had been so thankful to Naru for being angry and defensive, because it allowed him the certainty that she would never get close enough to truly hurt him. That guarantee was gone with Kitsune. She had moved in so close he could feel her breath in his mind, so close that even now, his lips twitched in anticipation of a kiss that wasn't there. And it frightened the hell out of him.
Perhaps he was the same as everyone else, after all. Not a clever guy who could get through on willpower alone. Not an unlocked musical prodigy. Not a hero. Perhaps he was just a confused young man muddling through life in the same way as everyone else. And perhaps, on top of that knowledge, the idea that he should seem so strong to everyone else was flawed. Maybe he could - even should - let someone close enough to see his flaws.
Was that his problem? People called him sensitive - but that was to the pain of others. Did he ever really let enough of himself out to seem real?
Was that why he always felt so isolated around strangers? He had seen so many people who knew how to play the crowd, how to pull a group of people around them and make themselves into the centre of the group - benevolently. It was a Western approach, but it worked in today's somewhat Westernised society.
Was he trying to be a traditional Japanese person where tradition was failing in favour of flexibility?
No. That was self-aggrandisement. Keitaro Urashima was nothing but a shy, confused man who should have grown out of his shell five years ago.
...was Kitsune the answer?
Motoko dashed past, Su in her arms.
...that was strange.
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A\N : Okay, so, four months. That was really bad, and I hope to be up to speed from now on. I can't promise anything, but I will try. Add to that the appalling shortness of this chapter... well, I hope you guys will stick with me nonetheless.
In this chapter, we find that Su has a decent amount of training in a martial art which is these days referred to as Arnis. It is the system of Filipino Martial Arts, which is practised in many different ways and focuses on adaptability. This makes her a very good drilling partner for Motoko, whose Quartet swords are also designed for great adaptability in combat.