Okay, so I know that the Shinsengumi haven't appeared yet, but I am trying to make this story a little bit believable. I mean, how would you react if you were suddenly swept away to a different time? So no Shinsengumi just yet, but they will be coming up in a few chapters.
For the people who have read this story, thanks for hanging on even though it hasn't really picked up yet. I'll try to get the guys worked into the story before the end of this weekend, not sure if I'll be able to do it, but I will try so that it doesn't seem like they are never going to show up. They will, in a few chapters.
Until then, I hope that you enjoy this chapter and thanks for reading.
Blaise woke up slowly to find herself lying on the grass being baked alive by the sun. At first she didn't attempt to move, the haziness of sleep preventing her from worrying.
However, when she realized that she was soaked to the skin, she remembered everything that had happened and sat up in a panic until she realized that her sister was curled up in a ball beside her.
After checking that Bella was simply unconscious, she slowly stood up so that she could attempt to figure out just where the two of them had ended up.
I suppose that we must had drifted downriver from where we fell, but just how far did we drift. It must have been rather far, I've never seen a place this quiet in our area, not even on the reservation. And it looks like it's been at least a day since we fell into the water. We're lucky that we didn't drown.
Blaise's speculation ended when she heard Bella begin to stir behind her. After assuring the young girl that she would figure out where they were, Blaise led her up the small hill across from the hill, rationalizing that she couldn't risk them being swept away by the river again.
Once they reached the top of the hill, they found a small dirt road. As Blaise stared at it trying to figure out just what town in America had roads like that, she noticed two women coming down the road. This wouldn't have been odd, except that the clothes they were wearing looked outdated.
Blaise vaguely recognized the clothes as a type of kimono that she had seen clients wear when she was guarding them, but she had never thought that people still wore them outside of special occasions. For a few minutes, she simply stared before she got up the courage to call out to them.
As she did, both women looked scared. When they finally spoke, Blaise was even more shocked.
Blaise's company mostly guarded the heads of foreign companies or members of their governments, and so she had a working knowledge of several other languages. She was far from fluent, but she had to be able to at least understand the basics of their languages in order to communicate while on duty.
And these two women had just spoken Japanese.
It took a few moments for Blaise to gather her composure back, but once she had, she managed to stutter out a sentence in broken Japanese asking where they were.
The women looked at her strangely, but eventually told her that they were near Edo and then said some more that Blaise couldn't quite understand. It probably wouldn't have mattered if they had replied with the limited vocabulary that Blaise could understand. After hearing their location, Blaise barely had the presence of mind to thank the women for their time before she grabbed her younger sister's hand and led her into a small copse of trees.
As they walked, Bella began to feel afraid for the first time since she had woken up. Blaise was a person who had always enjoyed being quiet, but now she wasn't just being quiet, she looked scared.
Her sister was never scared. This was a thought that Bella had always believed with all of her childish innocence, but now it was being called into question, prompting her to desperately ask, "Where are we? You know, right?"
"I'm not sure where we are, but I promise that I'll keep us safe. Just give me a few minutes to think," Blaise replied after seeing the fear creeping into her sister's eyes. Believing her words, Bella quickly calmed down as Blaise sat against a tree and pulled Bella onto her lap while she thought.
Okay, I told Bella that I'd get us out of here, but just how am I going to do that when I don't understand anything?
Those women said that we are near Edo, but I thought that Edo was the name of a Japanese city that had ceased to exist decades ago. And what's more, why were those women wearing kimono?
I've had to wear the damn things in the past for jobs protecting Japanese clients, so I know that they are heavy as hell and hard to move in. Yet those women seemed so comfortable in them.
Actually, now that I think about it, they looked surprised when they saw my clothes. I know that I'm not all that well-dressed, but jeans and a t-shirt aren't exactly startling clothing. So why were they surprised?
Well, I suppose that the first thing I should do is try to find a town and get someone more normal to tell me where we really are. Those women said we are near Edo, but even though it's impossible, they were walking somewhere, so there must be a town or something somewhere down the road.
Once Blaise resigned herself to the fact that she wouldn't come up with any answers by sitting against a tree, she decided to walk along the road and hopefully find someone who could give her answers.
Looking down into her sister's trusting eyes, she said, "I don't know where we are, but those women must have been walking somewhere. Since they were walking instead of taking a car or bus, that somewhere must be close, so why don't we try to find it and figure out how to get home?"
Bella was so relieved to see the look of helplessness leave her big sister's face that she would have agreed to go anywhere she said to go, not that that was unusual. Bella had always followed Blaise, even before she had lost her parents. After all, Blaise had always exuded an aura of confidence that had made Bella feel safe and had always sworn to protect Bella and now that she was in a strange place, she would believe in her sister's words even more.
They were all that each other had left after all.
