Kids Will Be Kids

kingfisher's game

Chapter 4: Bad Things Happen to Good People, but Bad Things Also Happen to Bad People

…

Notes: Into the belly of the beast!

Having recovered from the hit he'd sustained, Sadaharu bounded up from the cabin to lick Kagura's face, undaunted by the splatters of blood drying over her skin and clothing.

"Sadaharu…" Kagura was close to tears. This was bad, wasn't it? Really bad. She'd been scared out of her mind, and she'd felt something rise up in her. Instinct. But it wasn't like she'd done something evil, right? Those men had been about to kill her. She'd had no choice.

At the top of the stairs, Sougo shook Kamui's grip loose and stepped down to where Kagura was sitting. "What the hell were you doing, China? If you're trying to kill, you should be aiming for the neck, not the stomach. Don't Yato parents teach their kids anything?"

"Sadist!" Kagura jumped to her feet and tackled Sougo in a hug that would have deprived a lesser man of oxygen.

"Oi, don't get my uniform dirty. You look pretty nasty right now," Sougo said, knowing she would ignore him. Same old Kagura, huh? Except for the savagery, maybe. Gintoki or Kondou might be worried for the fate of the little girl's soul right now, but Sougo decided to chalk it up as a win. After all—she was alive, wasn't she?

"That kid, did you say her name was Kagura?" Kamui asked, quietly enough that he might have been talking to himself. The name, and her hair and eyes…so familiar, but it couldn't be. He jumped down the stairs to get a closer look.

Sadaharu, sensing a threat, bared his teeth in a protective growl. Kamui grinned and reached out to pat the dog, who in turn snapped at him. "There, there, mutt. I'm just looking for my little sister."

Kagura blinked at the sound of a voice—smooth and self-assured and so familiar—and looked up at the smiling man who'd come down from the deck. With his long orange hair and blue eyes, he looked almost like Mami, but not. Her eyes widened. "Onii-chan?"

"Is that really you, Kagura? You're smaller than I remembered."

"Nii-chan!" Kagura detached herself from Sougo and ran toward Kamui to leap into his arms, a practiced move within their family that he, miraculously, hadn't forgotten in the ten years that had passed. He picked her up with ease and she clung sloth-like to the front of his shirt.

"It looks like my cute little sister is a kid once again. How did that happen, huh, Kagura?" Kamui patted Kagura's head as she rubbed her face on the grayish fabric of his cloak.

"Nii-chan's the one who got bigger," Kagura mumbled.

Wait—of all the rabid Yato in the universe, this guy is the 'Nii-chan' Kagura's been going on about since she was turned into a kid? Sougo blew out an exasperated breath.

This mission was going from bad to worse. It wasn't enough that he'd been forced to take over as a diplomatic envoy in Hijikata's place. It wasn't enough that he had to take care of a 5-year-old the whole time. It wasn't even enough that goddamn pirates had attacked the ship. No, for some reason the universe had decided to make it so that the main enemy threat was a blood relative of Kagura's. What had he done to deserve this level of bad luck? Could it be karma?

Nah, that was impossible. Sougo couldn't recall ever having done anything to earn karmic punishment.

Wait—this situation could work to his advantage, actually. If the space criminal genuinely cared about Kagura, he could use her as a bargaining chip…

…Or not. If she was a teenager as usual, he wouldn't hesitate to betray her. He'd sell her to a circus just to see the look on her face when she kicked her way out. (Now that he thought about it, he should try that once she got back to normal.)

But with her as a kid, he couldn't do anything. Annoying.

Kamui, on the other hand, was exhilarated. Was this child really the weak crybaby Kagura he knew? She'd taken down two of his pirates, both of them four times her size. Not to mention one of them was a Yato. His little baby sister had beaten an adult Yato. Sure, she'd been lucky enough to take them by complete surprise, and as a 15-year-old she probably could have done the same thing without being injured, but this Kagura looked no older than 4 or 5. The gore staining her clothing was proof of her strength.

So this was Kagura's potential.

He put an arm under her legs to support her as she held on to his shirt. Her dislocated arm was still hanging limply by her side. "Kagura, I'm going to fix your shoulder. It'll hurt at first, but it'll feel better afterwards, okay? I'll count to three."

Kagura nodded and gripped Kamui's collar with her good hand.

"One." Without waiting, Kamui snapped Kagura's arm back into its socket.

What a sadist. A kindred spirit? Sougo thought as Kagura yowled in pain. The shock—combined with the stress of the previous situation—was too much for the poor kid. Her muscles went slack as consciousness left her.

"Whoops." Kamui adjusted her position against his chest so she wouldn't fall as she fainted. "Kagura's had a long day, hasn't she?"

He turned to Sougo. "Do you know how she got like this?"

"What do you mean? A Yato brat with a big mouth? I thought she was born like that."

"Her age, not her personality," Kamui said. He knew her then, this Shinsengumi officer. It looked like they'd been traveling together, heading for Oukoku—a planet known as a trading hub for exotic species and materials from around the galaxy. "Did my little sister get her hands on something dangerous?"

Sougo recalled the way Kagura had hunted and eaten those fish, one after the other, until the pond was nearly empty. "She's the dangerous one."

"She doesn't seem to have any of the memories of her older self," Kamui mused. If she did, she wouldn't be so eager to cuddle up to him. Sougo gave a non-committal shrug in response.

"Why is she with you? What are you, her babysitter?"

"For that beast? More like a zookeeper."

Kamui laughed. Vulgar, but at least it's entertaining. The policeman was focused on Kagura, attention diverted enough that Kamui didn't have trouble smacking his umbrella across the back of his neck just hard enough to knock him out. As Sougo crumpled to the ground, Kamui felt a twinge of regret. He'd like to finish his fight, but…

In her sleep, Kagura mumbled something like "do-S" and punched upward. Kamui tilted his head to avoid the blow.

…he'd found something more interesting.

Kamui stepped back up to the deck, carrying the swordsman like a sack of flour on one arm and Kagura in the other. Abuto frowned at him. "Who's that kid? Another hostage?"

"Nope. You've met a couple times—you should remember her." Kamui smiled. "This is my sister, Kagura."

"Did you finally lose your mind, commander? Your sister should be…" Abuto tried to recall Kagura's age the last time they'd met. "14? Or…15, right?"

"No, this is her. Abuto, go down to the cabin and look for her umbrella, she'll need it."

"You're actually taking this kid with you? Even if that's really the young lady-" (and Abuto had his doubts about this particular assertion) "-there's no reason to bring her along."

"What am I supposed to do? Leave my helpless little sister here to fend for herself?"

In her sleep, the kid reached up to grab Kamui's braid with one hand and pull on his cheek with the other. Kamui's only reaction was to drop the unconscious Shinsengumi captain he was holding so that he could gently unfurl her fingers.

There was red finger mark on Kamui's cheek where Kagura had pinched him.

It was official. Abuto's commander had finally gone crazy. The only thing left to do was follow his orders and hope for the best.

…

Kamui knew how strong Kagura was. When they'd fought in Iga and then in Rakuyou, he'd seen how much she'd grown since their shared childhood. The crybaby sister he'd left behind was, unbelievably, on the same level as the greatest of the Yato—himself included. In his absence she'd become a worthy opponent. Almost.

Well, she could be, if she stopped denying her Yato blood. Kamui knew that no matter how much she claimed to dislike violence, she was capable of the same bloodlust as the rest of them. Abuto was the only enemy to have ever witnessed her in her awakened state, and he wouldn't have lived to tell the tale if she hadn't gained control of her instincts. All strong Yato could succumb to an awakened state—Kamui had too, in Rakuyou—but Kagura had built an iron wall between her two selves.

It was unhealthy. Did she think she could play the part of a human by locking away her most natural instincts? She could pretend to be a normal girl in the earth family she'd found as long as she wanted, but she would never really belong with them.

He'd thought there was nothing to do about it. After everything that had happened between them, he had no place in her life. Being near her would just mean having to watch and wait for the wall separating her usual self and her Yato blood to inevitably break.

Now, though, he had an opportunity. Kagura had somehow turned into her younger self, the girl she'd been before she went to earth and buried her Yato side. This younger version of Kagura didn't fear violence, didn't hate the part of herself that needed blood like it needed air. What he'd witnessed in the stairwell had started in self-defense, but it hadn't ended there.

If there was a chance, just a chance, that Kamui could find a way to make sure that Kagura could never again try to hide away the Yato in herself, he would take it. After all, how could he ever become the strongest if his own little sister was running away from her true potential? The 15-year-old wasn't a match for him, but if she was able to access her abilities, she'd at least be worth fighting.

Now, after all these years, he'd forgotten how much she moved around in her sleep. Whenever he tried to put her down, she would grab hold of his shirt collar and pull closer in protest. After a few tries, Kamui resigned himself to letting Kagura monopolize him until she woke up. He was getting strange looks from his men, but at least she wasn't heavy.

As instructed, Abuto had gone back for Kagura's umbrella and picked up what he assumed was her bag as well. He'd also recovered the unconscious Shinsengumi captain from where Kamui had dropped him. Really, the Earthling looked more like he was sleeping than unconscious. There was a snot bubble inflating and deflating from his nose as he slept.

"I'll put the hostage in a cell," Abuto said. It was odd seeing his commander like this. If that child really was a younger version of the commander's little sister (by now, Abuto was just trying not to think about the possibility that Kamui had inexplicably snatched a random child from the spacecraft), it was strange to see him actually show affection to her. Although Kamui was no longer actively trying to kill the remaining members of his family, he wasn't friendly with them either.

Yesterday Abuto would have sworn that no sane person could ever describe Kamui as "gentle", but the look on the commander's face right now was proving him wrong. Maybe the little girl's presence was a reminder of what their relationship used to be. Come to think of it, the first time Abuto and Kamui met, Kamui had been trying to protect her.

"Don't," came Kamui's belated reply. "I don't plan on babysitting Kagura the whole time; I'll let him do it."

"'The whole time'? What do you mean? I thought we were meeting Takasugi tomorrow to transfer the hostage."

Kamui grinned. "Not quite. We're going to take a little detour first. The trip to Oukoku shouldn't take more than a week, right?"

Notes: ...I don't really have anything to say about this chapter. I'm more interested in you guys' thoughts. Remember to follow, favorite, and review! The #1 thing that inspires me to work on revising this story so I can post it is reading your reviews.

Next time, Chapter 5: Children Are Terrible Listeners Except When It Comes to Picking up on Dirty Words