Chapter 10
Disclaimer: I do not own Rurouni Kenshin, but Midori was my idea.
Sanosuke cannot help but grin devilishly at Midori, who is giving him a look of pure confusion as Tae and Tsubame unload what he is proud to inform her are one hundred and fifty full jugs of sake around their table in a quiet corner of the Akabeko.
"You ready for this, aibou?" he crows, rubbing his hands together in anticipation. She in turn raises an eyebrow at him, still eyeing all of the liquor in confusion.
"What is 'this', exactly?"
He supposes that he can understand her confused state. Midori has only been back from Kyoto for two weeks; she has not left the dojo in that time; and she has had a constant second shadow in the form of a certain redhead they both know and love. Sanosuke has taken it upon himself to save her before she goes mad. He had shown up at the dojo around dusk, looped an arm around Midori's waist – nearly loosing the arm in the process; apparently he had startled her and the katana had come out before he had shouted at her – and proceeded to drag her after him as he exited the dojo. He has told Kenshin that he is going to show Midori a good time, get her shit-faced drunk, and that Kenshin is not invited to join them.
He doesn't mention to Kenshin – and will not mention to Midori – that this is his own way of celebrating her return. He doesn't want to talk about how this is his way of giving thanks that she is alive when he couldn't save her, that he owes her life to a certain wolf bastard that's going to get the shit beat out of him for making Sanosuke worry about her, or that this is his way of apologizing to Midori for failing to save her in the first place. All he says is that he's going to take her to drown her in alcohol for a night.
Sanosuke's grin gets even more devilish as he recalls the look on Kenshin's face as his precious kabu was steered away from him. The guy had looked like someone had just informed him that he must shave his head and enter a monestary. Priceless.
"This," he replies in answer to his drinking buddy's question, "is us getting absolutely shit-faced drunk, aibou. We're going to get sloshed."
Midori is staring at him as though he has grown a few extra heads, so he gestures to the liquor spread out before them and explains a little more.
"No friend of mine can go too long without getting plastered with me. I got Kenshin drunk once – funniest thing I've ever seen, that guy's hilarious when he loosens up. Jou-chan gets even louder and more obnoxious than usual – yes I'm serious, don't give me that look. She gets all clingy and violent if she doesn't think your paying attention to her. Yahiko's a lightweighted little pansy – he'll pass out on ya after a drink or two tops. And the foxlady –"
Here he pauses, a visible shudder wracking his body as he recalls exactly what happens when Megumi drinks. That is not a mental image he needs right now.
"She gets scary," he finishes shortly, making a face at Midori – who is obviously trying vailiently not to laugh at him. "Anyway, you're the only one of our little group that I haven't gotten smashed with yet, and tonight we're gonna change that. Get ready, aibou; there's a hundred and fifty jugs of sake to drink, it's on the house courtesy of Tae-san, and we're not leaving 'till it's all gone!"
Sanosuke is pumped. Sanosuke is going to drink Midori's pants off – figuratively, of course, since he doesn't want Kenshin to kill him and that would sort of be like sleeping with his sister, which is gross.
Midori is currently giving Sanosuke a look that makes him feel really stupid, regarding him from under her long eyelashes with a little smirk on her face. "You think that you can out-drink me, Sagara?"
Sanosuke grins at the blanant challenge in her tone. He grabs up a jug, uncorks it with his teeth, and watches as she picks up and uncorks a jug of her own before issueing a challenge of his own.
"I don't think so, I know so. Prepare to be drunk under this table."
Midori lets out a bark of laughter, lifting her jug towards Sanosuke as though toasting him. "Bottom's up, Sano."
He grins one more time at her use of his shortened name before lifting his jug to his lips and chugging for all he's worth. He slams the empty jug back down with a gusty sigh, delighted to see that Midori is still drinking. This is going to be awesome; she can't drink as fast as Sanosuke, so that should mean she can't hold as much liquor either. He is going to get her so drunk she's not going to remember her own name.
"Sorry, aibou," he taunts as she lowers her jug and places it – empty – back on the table. "I didn't realize you were so slow. I'll try to slow down so you won't feel so inferior to the drinking master of Tokyo, Sanosuke Sagara!"
He punches a fist into the air, stocked that this is really happening. This is going to be so much fun!
"I'm sorry, perhaps I missed something. You have drank seven jugs already, Sanosuke?"
He pauses at her question, brown eyes sweeping the table between them; he has to count the jugs for a second to understand what she is saying. There is one empty jug directly in front of him. There are six empty jugs in front of Midori, including the one she just finished.
She's laughing again, the witch. Sanosuke is sure he has a completely dumbfounded look on his face. How in the hell did she do that?
"You didn't think that fighting and killing were my only talents, did you?" She's the one taunting him now, wagging a finger beneath his nose in a mock-scolding manner. "I can do many things that you are not aware of, Sanosuke. Aside from which, it will be a very cold day in Hell before a rooster can out-drink a panther."
Oh, that does it; she's going down!
Sanosuke grabs up three jugs of sake at once and drains them all as fast as he can.
Midori waits until he has emptied his sixth jug before drinking anymore, but when she does start up again it's scary. She seems to pick up a jug only to put it down empty half a second later. How is she doing that! She will not tell him when he demands an explanation; she just laughs in his face and asks if she should slow down so that he might catch up.
Sanosuke Sagara, the drinking master of Tokyo, is getting his ass kicked by a woman. If any of his buddies find out about this they will never let him live it down.
"Yer ch-ch-cheatin'," he slurs out at one point, jabbing an accusing finger at her that almost takes her eye out. "Yer dump…dump…pourin' out tha liquor, ya cheatin' pantharlady!"
Midori merely grins cheekily at him before downing her thirty-fifth bottle of sake almost as easily as she downed her first.
When all of the jugs are at last empty – sixty-one for Sanosuke and a whopping eighty-nine for Midori – they are both doused to the gills, drunk enough to stagger against each other as Midori – who is still more sober than Sanosuke – half-drags, half-leads him down the deserted city streets towards the dojo. Sanosuke comforts himself with the knowledge that he has succeeded in getting the notorious Zetsumei Kurohyou drunk enough for her to stumble every ten or so steps. He is so pleased that he can't help but break into a loud chorus of a particularly bawdy song he and his buddies sing after a good night of drinking and gambling.
Midori is easily the most badass drinker he's ever met in his life, something he promptly tells her in loud tones.
"Ya gotta come 'n drink…drink wif ma buddies…show 'em how fast…drink 'em ta China!"
"Are all of your friends as uncouthly loud and boisterous as you when intoxicated?"
How the hell can she still use such big words after drinking that much?
Sanosuke finds himself sprawled out on top of Midori, who has tripped over her feet (and Sanosuke's) to face-plant in the dojo's courtyard. She is laughing; laughing underneath him as they struggle to extract themselves from their two-person dog-pile; laughing and tapping him in the ribs with her foot as she slides out from under him; gasping and clutching her chest as she curls into a tight ball; gasping and clutching her chest as Sanosuke realizes that something is very, very wrong.
He scrambles over to her and crushes her back to his chest as she convulses once, twice, her hands curling into claws as her feet beat against the ground. The sounds she is muffling are enough to partially sober him in a hurry, the world still spinning weirdly as he frantically searched the dojo's porch for Kenshin's ever-present silhouette. Figures the one time he needs to be lurking he's nowhere to be found.
One of Midori's claws bats at Sanosuke's restraining arms. Sanosuke looks back at her to find that she is staring directly at him, sweat pouring from her skin as she bores into Sanosuke with her green green eyes. Her look plainly tells him that he is to sit there and shut up and hold onto her until her fit passes, and Sanosuke doesn't want to think about what she will do if he tries to call from Kenshin. So he keeps his mouth shut and his arms tightly around her, hoping and praying that her fit ends soon.
When Midori suddenly goes quiet and limp against him, Sanosuke experiences one of the most horrifying moments of his life when he thinks that she has died on him. It is therefore a huge relief when he feels her take a deep breath, when he hears the quiet snorts of muffled laughter as she buries her sweaty face into the side of his arm. He is so relieved that she is alright that he can't help laughing with her.
"We should do this more often," she tells him, patting his arm to indicate that he should let her go. "We will take Kenshin with us. I haven't seen him drunk in a long, long time."
And Sanosuke knows that she is telling him not to speak of her fit, telling him without words that she doesn't want to talk about it. That's just fine by Sanosuke; he's just had the everliving shit scared out of his drunken ass and he really doesn't want to talk about it either. So he nods and laughs and helps her to stand, saying that yes, they should definitely do this more often and thinking that no, he never wants to see his friend have a fit like that again.
…But it's going to be awesome to see what Midori does with a shit-faced-drunk Kenshin at her mercy.
For the first time in a very long time, Sanosuke Sagara wanted to commit murder.
He wanted to kill that white-haired bastard. He wanted to stuff his hand down the bastard's throat and rip his heart out through his mouth. He wanted to beat the bastard to death with his bare hands.
The white-haired bastard had murdered Sanosuke's aibou, after all; anybody that had a problem with Sanosuke killing him in return to go hang themselves for all he cared.
They couldn't even have a proper funeral for her because she had technically been dead for the last decade or so. They'd had to bury her in the woods outside of town, her grave marked by a couple of sticks made into the cross-thing Christians used to mark the graves of the dead. Midori had told him once that she didn't believe in a god, or a heaven for people like her. She had said that she didn't think Hell would be all that bad, either, with the kind of life she'd lived. She wouldn't have given a shit what they marked her grave with.
Sanosuke wanted to mark it with that white-haired bastard's head on a pike.
And then, if he could stand to be around the son-of-a-bitch long enough to get it, he wanted to bury Kenshin Himura's heart at the base of the pike. The jackass was already acting like he was dead; Sanosuke didn't see why it would hurt to finish the job. Not like Kenshin would stop him, the selfish jackass.
Sanosuke thought that he was a pretty forgiving guy. He could have forgiven Kenshin for getting them all into this jinchu mess to begin with – it wasn't his fault the white-haired bastard was fucking crazy. He could have forgiven Kenshin for not beating the white-haired bastard and therefore giving the white-haired bastard the chance to kill Midori and leave her body pinned to the wall of the dojo – not like Sanosuke could have killed the guy either.
But there was no fucking way in the seven circles of Hell that Sanosuke Sagara would ever forgive Kenshin Himura for leaving before he had helped them bury Midori's body. He didn't deserve to be forgiven. He wanted to run off right after his best friend and lover and closest companion was butchered and sulk in the Rakuninmura.
Well then fuck him.
Sanosuke was done. He was leaving this fucked-up city. He was through with Kenshin's bullshit. He had already packed his meager belongings, had already said a gruff goodbye to Yahiko and Jou-chan and the foxlady.
And now he was standing over the slumped form of Kenshin, here in this pathetic little dump full of has-beens and losers.
"You disgust me," he told the shell of his former friend, his empty right hand clenching into a tight fist as the cord of his satchel cut into his also-fisted left hand. "You didn't even wait to bury her. You said that you loved her and you didn't even help us clean her up. She would beat the shit out of you right now. She'd hate you for how fucking stupid you're acting."
The lump on the ground said nothing, didn't move, didn't give any sign that it had heard a word Sanosuke had just said.
Fuck goodbyes, then. Sanosuke turned and walked away without a backward glance, not acknowledging the tears in his eyes, not acknowledging the tightness in his chest. He didn't acknowledge any of the lowlifes he passed as he walked out of that hellhole or any of the people he passed as he walked right out of Tokyo.
He just kept walking.
It is a beautiful day. The sun is shining, a cool breeze is blowing gently through the trees, the birds are singing happily…
And Yahiko Myojin is bored out of his mind.
He sits slumped over his knees on the edge of the porch, scowling at his feet as he digs a hole with his toe. There is nothing to do! He has finished the training buso left for him before going to teach at a dojo across town, he has finished all of the chores for today – even the laundry since Kenshin's not around today – and he has even taken a nap to try to pass the time. Nothing is alleviating his boredom. Yahiko wants some action, damnit. He wants something to do.
A shadow falls over his as someone comes to stand between him and the hot noonday sun. Yahiko looks up, trying to squint against the light to see who it is. An object is tossed to him suddenly, causing him to fumble to catch the bokken before it hits the ground.
"I am bored. Come."
Yahiko stares, dumbfounded, after Midori as she marches away towards the training dojo. Is she serious? She wants to spar with him? She, Zetsumei Kurohyou, wants to spar with him, Yahiko Myojin?
"If you do not wish to spar with me, Yahiko-chan, that is fine. I will hunt down Sanosuke for a good fight instead. I apologize for bothering you.
Oh, crap.
Yahiko literally falls off of the porch in his haste to get up. He is on his feet and tearing across the courtyard in a second, skidding to a halt an inch from Midori where she stands in the doorway of the training dojo, a small smirk tilting her lips up. He scowls, carefully shoving past her into the dojo and turning to face her with his bokken up and ready.
She, on the other hand, is relaxed as can be, leaning against the wall by the doorway and twirling her own bokken between her fingers. Her katana is nowhere to be seen. She pushes away from the wall, dropping her bokken and beginning the series of stretches she always does before practicing her own style of swordsmenship. Midway through a stretch – in which she holds her body upside down off the floor with one arm and does push-ups – she pauses to glance over at him.
"Should you not also be stretching, Yahiko-chan?"
He scowls at her, hating that stupid suffix. "I trained earlier. That's enough stretching for me. And don't call me 'chan'!"
"Very well."
Stretches apparently finished, she picks up her bokken again and comes to stand before him, eyeing his form and getting a pensive look on her face. Yahiko recognizes that look; it's the one she gets every time she wants to explain something to him but isn't sure how to put her thoughts into words that Yahiko will understand.
He really hated that look; it made him feel like a little kid.
"Before we begin, I would like to explain what I hope to accomplish during our spar."
Yahiko groans loudly, stamping his foot in annoyance. "Come on! I thought you said you wanted to fight, not sit here and talk all day!"
Midori says nothing for a moment; she merely gives him The Look.
He has seen this look on her face before, too. She has used it against him a few times after he has smarted off to her. She has used it a couple of times against Sanosuke, and a lot of times against buso. It's just a simply look, but the message behind it is always enough to shut them all up in a hurry.
'Watch it.' That's all The Look means: 'watch it'.
Sometimes Yahiko forgets exactly who and what has come to live with them.
He really needs to stop forgetting.
When Midori sees that she has gotten her point across, The Look morphs back into that contemplative expression as she tries to put her thoughts into words. Yahiko says nothing, merely waits quietly for her to speak.
"I have watched you train, and I have watched Kaoru-dono train, and I have watched the two of you spar against each other in an attempt to gain an understanding of your chosen technique, the Kamiya Kasshin Ryu. I want to understand the mechanics and the forms that are used in the movements of the technique. It is vitally important when facing an enemy to have at least a basic grasp of the style they use, whether it is Kenshin's Hiten Mistirugi, your Kamiya Kasshin, or my own Tenrai dageki taishite ikazuchi-kurohyou. Understanding your opponent's technique even a little can give you the necessary edge to win."
Her brow furrows and she focuses slightly confused eyes on Yahiko, clearly baffled. "I have tried to get Kaoru-dono to spar with me so that I can better analyze the attack and defense of the Kamiya Kasshin Ryu, but she has continued to decline. I get the feeling that she is afraid of me, but I am not sure why she would be."
Yahiko has to suppress a snort of laughter at that. He knows exactly why Kaoru is afraid of sparring with Midori. They all saw her fight against that Saito-bastard; they all saw her take a katana through the shoulder and then get up like it was nothing. They have all seen her spar with Kenshin, seen the look upon her face as she fights – the cold calculating look that plainly says that she will kill anything or anyone that gets between her and victory.
Yeah, he knows why buso is so scared: buso's a freakin' whiny little chicken. Yahiko isn't scared! Yahiko will fight anybody, anytime, anywhere.
And he might even beat them, too.
"What I would like for you to do, Yahiko –" – and he knows that she is leaving off that stupid suffix on purpose – "– is attack me using any move of the Kamiya Kasshin Ryu that you would like. I will only be dogding for now. After a while I will begin to counter your attacks so that you can show me the defense of the Kamiya Kasshin Ryu. I will, of course, by holding back."
Yahiko opens his mouth, about to tell her just what he thinks of that idea. He doesn't need her to hold back! He's not a little kid!
"Were I to not hold back and actually used the full force of my strength when attacking you, there are two scenarios that might occur. The first would be that I would break several of your bones, injuring you severely and having both Kenshin and Megumi-san throw fits at me for the next year or two. The second scenario – the worst case scenario – would involve me hitting you much too hard somewhere vital, killing you by accident even if I am using this chunk of wood."
Yahiko pales and promptly shuts his mouth, reminded once again as to who and what she really is.
Damn, he really needs to stop forgetting that.
"You may begin."
And he does. He throws himself into every attack, trying so damn hard to hit her. He wants to land a hit. Just one hit. But every time he thinks he has her, she will suddenly move to the side, or back, or go over his head as if he were an ant in her path that she is stepping over. Not once does his bokken connect.
Sadly, the same cannot be said for her attacks when she finally begins to put him on the defensive. What is worse, Midori is kind enough to tell him exactly where she intends to strike, giving him ample time in which to dodge her attacks. It doesn't help.
"Right arm."
Whack.
"Across the stomach."
Whack.
"Left kidney."
Whack.
She never hits too hard. She strikes him just firmly enough to sting before moving on, always careful not to put too much force behind her attacks. Yahiko would be insulted, but considering the ease with which she is kicking his ass he decides to be thankful.
Finally he can go no longer. He collapses to lie on his back, panting heavily as Midori picks up his discarded bokken and goes to put it up along with her own. She soon comes back and sits down at his side, waiting calmly for him to regain control of his breathing. She isn't even breathing hard.
When he at last regains some semblance of control and no longer sounds like he just ran a marathon, Midori asks him if he would be willing to spar with her once or twice a week. She assures him that if he is not up to it, she will simply continue sparring with Kenshin or picking fistfights with Sanosuke. She does not want him to strain himself.
He puffs up with all of his samurai pride and tells her he'll spar with her anytime she wants.
And one of these days, he's going to beat her, too.
Yahiko sat hunched over his knees on the edge of the porch, manfully trying to hold back the childish tears that stung the backs of his eyes. He was not going to cry. Men didn't cry. Kenshin was rotting away in that Rukuninmura craphole, Sanosuke had left to go kami-knew-where, and Midori was dead thanks to that bastard Enishi – but he still wasn't going to cry. Crying was for girls and wimps. Kaoru and Tsubame had cried enough for all of them.
Yahiko just wanted to wake up from the nightmare that his life had become.
His family – his surrogate family that he cared so much about – was falling apart at the seams. He wanted somebody to tell him that it was all a joke, that the thing that they had buried in the circular box in the woods wasn't really Midori's dead body, that Kenshin wasn't really wasting away with his guilt again, that Sanosuke wasn't really gone for good because of Kenshin's behavior.
Surely it was just some sick joke. Surely if he just went to sleep he'd wake up and all of this would have been just a horrible nightmare.
It was just a horrible nightmare.
Right?
"Come on, Midori-san, please? Please wear this kimono?"
Kaoru is starting to get seriously desperate. Midori is just sitting there with a glare on her face, acting like Kaoru is asking her to shave her head or something. It is just a kimono! Why won't the stubborn woman put it on?
It had been Kaoru's idea to go out to eat tonight. Kaoru is the one who wants to get dressed up and feel pretty and spend some time with her boys and Midori somewhere other than the dojo. She wants everyone to have a great time tonight.
And she really, really wants Midori to wear this pretty kimono that Kaoru never wears because it's black and black just doesn't work with Kaoru.
"I do not wear kimonos." Midori has already said this a half-dozen times and Kaoru is getting really sick of hearing it.
"What do you mean 'you don't wear kimonos'? Every woman wears kimonos on special occasions! This is a special night, Midori-san, I want everyone to have a good time and look their best, and that means you have to put on this kimono!"
"No."
"Please!"
"No."
"Why not?" Kaoru wails, stamping her foot in irritation.
Midori doesn't answer and irritation turns to anger in a flash.
"Fine!" she yells, throwing the kimono at Midori and stomping towards the door in fury. "Wear your stupid hakama and your boring old gi! When everybody else is all dressed up and you're wearing your same old boring clothes, don't blame me when you feel left out!"
And she storms out of the room.
She is thrilled when Midori joins her and her boys an hour later as they leave the dojo, decked out in the kimono and positively glowing with beauty. She gushes all the way to the Akabeko about how nice Midori looks in her borrowed clothes, pestering Yahiko and Sanosuke until they compliment Midori, too. She can't understand why Midori was so resistant to dressing up when she looks so beautiful.
But when they are seated in the Akabeko around their beef hotpot, when Tae is trying to hand Midori a jug of sake over said hotpot and Midori has to stretch to reach it, causing her sleeves to fall past her elbows the way her modified gi sleeves never do…
When Kaoru sees the scars that mar Midori's skin all the way past where her sleeve is bunched over her elbows, and sees the horrified, embarrassed, self-loathing look on Midori's face…
She understands exactly why Midori never wears kimonos, and she vows to never make her wear one again.
Kaoru curled tighter around herself in her futon and her blankets, trying to muffle the sounds of her tears and failing miserably.
She couldn't believe it. She just couldn't.
Oh, Midori-san…
She hadn't slept well since Midori died. She didn't want to sleep. Every time she closed her eyes she saw Midori's body again, pinned to the wall of the dojo with those vibrant green eyes dull and lifeless. She saw the devastation that had eaten its way across Kenshin's face, she heard the heart-broken howl of agony that he had made, and she remembered what he had looked like after Midori's body had been buried, when they found him at Rukuninmura.
Oh, gods, how could this have happened? How could Midori be dead?
"Kabu, we need a way to identify each other. That's the third time this month you've tried to kill me; I'm on my fifth attempt. What should we do?"
"How are you with riddles, Himura?"
"Passable."
"Alright. If someone comes up behind you in the dark, and you want to know if it's me, there is a simple riddle that you can ask."
"What is the riddle?"
" 'I am the part of the bird that is not in the sky. I can swim in the ocean, and yet remain dry. What am I?"
"What is the answer."
"The answer is a shadow, Himura. And it is fitting for us to use, since we are both killers in the shadows."
…
"Why are you so fascinated with the stars, kabu?"
"Because they always come back; every night, they come back without requiring a bribe. They're reliable."
"But in the morning they are stolen from you."
"Not stolen, ninjin. Just temporarily lost. You have to go through the day to make it to the night and find them again, but you know that they will be there. Sometimes that's the only thing that makes the days bearable: the promise of the night, and of the stars."
…
Her face, covered in blood, as she tells him that she has spent the past two weeks being raped by her own allies.
…
The warmth of her body as they lean against each other, drinking sake to keep from crumbling under the weight of all the death piled on their souls.
…
Her hands running gently through his hair as he weeps for the death of his wife.
…
The look on her face when he puts his blade through her chest.
…
The look on her face when Sano brings her to the dojo for the first time.
…
The feel of her in his arms as he kisses her, after she is wounded by Saito.
…
The feel of her in his arms, in the hotsprings where they first make love.
…
Her face when she returns from Kyoto and finds him at the river.
…
His kabu with Sano, with Kaoru-dono, with Yahiko-chan or Megumi-san or Tsubame-chan.
…
His kabu…
She was dead. His kabu was dead.
She was dead.
His kabu.
Dead.
A/N: I know this is kind of weird, but I still want reviews to let me know what you think. Thanks in advance.
