Well, all I can say is that this is a true number 13. It has been hard to write and there has been a lot going on in my life outside of it that made it difficult to concentrate on it. It may not be the best chapter I ever posted, and I won't swear not to come back and change things if I realize I forgot something important, but I need to get moving on the rest of this story. So here it is, and if I change anything, I'll be sure to let y'all know so you don't miss something. Please don't forget to review after you read - like all authors, I live to know what you think! ;)
As always, I don't own Rurouni Kenshin or Highlander or much of anything else, but I am rather fond of my extended Himura family.
twp
Chapter 13 – The Worm in the Apple
Early June, 1942
Sasuke gently worked the stone against the wet concrete floor of the bath house and held it up to the light. This piece looked like a chip off a chocolate bar, and he had slowly worked it into a teardrop shape, wearing the stone away against the concrete until it looked the way he wanted. He'd been working on it for a couple of months now, and was happy with the shape, but it still needed polishing, a slow and tedious process. A dull patch on one side showed a low spot in the surface of the stone, where the concrete wasn't touching it. He turned that side to the floor and rubbed it gently back and forth. Each part of the bath house floor had varying texture in the concrete. It was rough in the areas likely to get wet where traction was needed. Those areas were best for shaping the rock. The transition areas between showers, sinks, and toilets were smoother and better for polishing. He was currently sitting in the middle of the room where the concrete was almost smooth, the best for putting a nice shine on the stone.
His team had bath house cleaning chores today, and since they'd finished, they were taking advantage of the clean floors to work on the agates they had found pushing out of the ground as the winter's snow melted away. Sasuke smiled at the memory. All the men in the camp had seemed to go crazy, picking up the stones, polishing them, and turning them into jewelry or other art objects. The men had laughingly called it 'stone fever' and had laughed even harder when one of the wives had written back from a different camp asking for symptoms of the fever and if her husband was seeking medical care for it.
Sasuke hadn't gotten as into it as some of the other men, but he had found a couple interesting pieces and was working them into pendants for Masumi and Cho. Masumi's was a long, quarter-inch-wide icicle shape that reminded him of a slice of sunset sky, showing the dark earth and then the glorious, flaming horizon in changing shades of orange, gold, and red, and then near the very top, a purple band of encroaching night. His daughter, he thought, would love the chocolate drop look of this one. Finding the unique stones had been a piece of serendipity, since he hadn't really been looking for agates. He'd been stretching after practicing his kata with a piece of broom handle and had looked down, and there they'd been. At least it had saved him from walking around, shoulders hunched and contemplating the ground, like many of the men did. The older ones reminded him of Uncle Yoshi, staring intently downward and then swooping down to leap up with a prize only they truly understood. At least Sasuke understood the allure of the stones. With Uncle Yoshi, it could have been a leaf or a bug or some unnamable piece of detritus that caught his attention and would lead him on a scientific ramble – either verbally or physically – to connect it with the rest of the universe. He was still smiling fondly at the memory of his some-what eccentric uncle when another man entered the bath house and called his name.
"Himura-sensei? You've got a telegram." The speaker was an older man, a little stoop-shouldered and with elegant wings of grey hair fanning back from his temples to mix with the rest of his straight black strands. "I didn't bring it because I didn't know you'd be here. It's up in the mail room."
"Thank you, Ikenaka-san. I'll go up with you and get it when you are ready." Sasuke slipped the stone into his pocket as he stood, and ran his mop over the wet spot on the floor, spreading out the moisture so it could dry faster. Water helped the stone polishing process, but it did make for a bit of a mess. By the time he finished rinsing out the equipment and putting it away, the older man was ready and they walked back up to the post office together, talking about their families. Ikenaka had two grown daughters at Heart Mountain camp and a son in the Navy somewhere in the Pacific.
"We lived near Seattle," he said when they were inside the small room that served as the postal center and his fingertips were walking through his card file to find the H's. "My wife died several years ago, and my son shipped out last year, so when they put me here in December, my daughters were left alone to take care of our berry farm and then selling everything. I never stop worrying about them, but what can we do? You are lucky your brother is there to help your wife. I wish one of my girls was married so they'd have a man to rely on." He finally found the thin slip of yellow paper and handed it across the counter to Sasuke.
The younger man scanned the paper quickly – it didn't take much. He'd discovered in the last several months that Tom wasn't much of a letter-writer. Even when the government paid for the telegrams, he didn't waste words. All the telegram said, besides his name and address, was:
CONGRATULATIONS, DAD. SHINTA BORN 5:28 THIS MORNING.
TOM
He looked up at the postmaster, eyes shining, to find the man smiling back at him. Of course Ikenaka would know what it said, since he received it.
"Thank you! I am a father again. I have another son."
"Yes. Congratulations. I hope you can see him soon."
Sasuke couldn't quite remember how he left the post office, only that he was suddenly full of more energy than he'd had in months. He tore down the alley between the buildings, skidding around corners and generally heading towards his barrack. He startled the Italian cook who had stepped outside of his kitchen for a breath of cooler air.
The Italians had been in the camp longer than the Japanese, but the two nationalities didn't mix much. The cultural and language barriers were too much for most of them. Sasuke liked the cook, though. He always came in to the kitchen early to start cooking while the Japanese crew was cleaning up, and Sasuke had been interested in the traditional foods and enticing smells. He was genuinely interested in other cultures throughout the world and thought the best thing about America was that it mixed so many. He also liked the way the man spoke English, adding vowels after consonants like many Japanese did but somehow sounding much more musical. Italian, he concluded, wasn't spoken as much as it was sung.
"Yatta!" he crowed, waving the telegram.
"Hey, you maka all kindsa noisa. Whatsa matta?"
"I'm a father again, Carlo! Brand new baby boy!" He turned in a circle, running backwards to answer.
"Oh? Bambino, si? You a lucky mana." The big cook's smile was as broad as his belly.
"You bet!" He waved and turned around, continuing towards his barrack. The guys had all been betting on when the baby would come; he wondered who was going to win the pot. He, of course, hadn't been allowed to bet, so he was holding the money for everyone, and the schedule of who had picked which day. Masumi, he thought, would be scandalized if she knew, but that's why she wasn't going to find out. They all took whatever they could get in the form of amusement and after six months, original things were becoming few and far between.
xxxxxx
Two days after his birth, Masumi brought Shinta home to their stall. Kenshin and Cho, who had stopped by for a visit after class, acted as escort. As they rounded the corner of the building, Cho ran ahead, calling for Mrs. Fukuzaki.
"We're over here, Cho-chan!" Yuki called from her seat under the trees. She and several other women were collectively watching a handful of small children, Tatsuya included.
Cho changed direction, ponytail flying like a banner behind her.
"They're home! Mama's brought Shinta-chan home!"
Masumi good-naturedly joined the group so they could admire the baby, gratefully accepting a seat on her lounge chair so she could put her feet up. She still felt a bit like a cow, and the walk from the administration and hospital area seemed to get longer every time. She was happy to let the other women coo over and hold Shinta, and he took it all easily, blinking, yawning, blowing bubbles, and in general doing all the things that had made women coo over babies for time out of mind. At one point, with Shinta on the other side of the circle, Yuki settled on the end of the lounge near Masumi's feet.
"He's taking this very well," she said.
"Yes, I think he's well-named. Hasn't cried very much at all."
"But you're worried about something."
"Well, not really."
"Yes you are. You've got that crinkle between your brows. It's going to give you a big crease some day that you'll never get rid of. What's wrong?"
Masumi sighed. It was virtually impossible to hide anything from Yuki, and she should have known it by now.
"He's not eating very well. I mean, he tries. He's hungry. But if he gets too much at once, he just throws up. And I don't seem to be producing as well as I did for the other two, so I'm not sure he's even getting anything when he tries."
"Did you say something at the hospital?"
"Yes. The nurses are next to useless, I swear. The midwife is very nice, but I haven't been seeing much of her. There are several other pregnant women here, you know. And I haven't seen the doctor at all. All I get from the nurses are platitudes, like 'sometimes it takes a bit of time for these things to develop'. I nursed two other babies, so one would think I know how my body responds to this."
"But you've been under a lot of stress this time, and the food here is bad, not like you got at home. Maybe your milk is taking a little more time to develop."
"I guess. Tom said he asked Mr. Fitzcairn to bring some by, if he can, and maybe find some powdered formula to give us more flexibility."
"If your Mr. Fitzcairn brings milk, it'll be the first I've seen here. How will you keep it cold?"
"I don't plan to. Just give Shinta as much as he'll take and split the rest between Cho and Tatsuya. That's why I think formula is better, although certainly the other two will benefit from milk. I've been hoping we won't be here long enough, or we'll start seeing milk on the menu, that it won't effect their teeth or bones. Oh, I just want to go home. I don't care if it's the apartment above the store, the house in Berkeley, or someplace new, I just want to be in my own home and able to do whatever needs to be done."
Yuki laughed. "Honey, you've got about six thousands friends here who are all wanting the same thing."
xxxxxx
The next day after lunch, Kenshin and the children played near the back fence while Masumi and Shinta napped. They were tossing Tatsuya's little red rubber ball between them, and Kenshin was trying to show them how to throw and catch like it was a baseball without actually using the word 'baseball'. Doing so would make Cho instantly lose interest. So he threw rather wildly to get them to chase, get under, and run up on it and assigned points based on how quickly they fielded it and whenever they stopped it from getting past them. His score, of course, depended on his ability to compensate for what they threw back at him and while Tatsuya was honestly clumsy, Cho was actively trying to get the ball past him. He was still leading in points and covered in dirt and grass stains when he felt the presence of another Immortal just seconds after he picked up Fitz's ki. Together, he and the children headed to the fence, finding a place between the other people who lined it, talking to friends and coworkers from the outside.
Fitz had double-parked next to someone else along the side of the road, putting him dangerously close to the edge of the pavement and the cars zooming past, but with his usual British aplomb, didn't seem to notice or care. He strolled up to the fence, fishing in the pocket of his tweed jacket and pulling out a pint-sized bottle of milk.
"Hello," he drawled. "Thought you might like a bit of moo-juice here."
"Moo juice?" Cho giggled. "Mr. Fitz, you're weird."
"Ah! Wounded to the core already," he gasped, clasping at his chest with his free hand.
"And sooo melodramatic," Kenshin said, rolling his eyes. "You should be on the radio."
"Wrong coast." Fitz looked at the bottle, then the chain-link fence. "Not sure if this is going to fit through."
After several attempts, they were still stymied. The links were too stout to bend under muscle pressure alone, even though some of their fence-visiting neighbors offered advice and help.
"We need tools," Kenshin concluded.
"I'll bring pliers next time," Fitz said, wagging his eyebrows.
"How about wire cutters?" someone on the inside suggested, and they all laughed.
"Love to, old chap, but it might get me in a spot of trouble and the idea here is to get milk to the baby, not jail time for the limey. Well, then, here goes." He stepped back a couple paces and before Kenshin had quite figured out what he was going to do, wound up and lobbed the bottle over the twelve foot fence.
"Shima…" Kenshin bit off the expletive and backed up, catching the bottle and letting his arms give to keep from breaking it. "Fitz! Glass!"
"Ha! Used to bowl for the Dunham County Cricket Club way back when, and I must say, I haven't lost my touch."
Another voice drowned out the congratulations on Kenshin's catch.
"Hey, you, there! What did you throw over the fence?" One of the young soldiers who patrolled the fence was approaching from Fitz's right.
"Just a bottle of milk, my good man," Fitz said jovially.
"What?" It was clearly not the answer the soldier expected.
"Milk, for the baby," Kenshin said, holding up the bottle and shaking it, to show that it was indeed liquid and nothing clanked in it.
"For my baby brother," Cho added, pressing close to the fence, her fingers gripping the wire above her head.
The soldier, no more than twenty-five, looked into big blue eyes and was lost. He could have been hard-nosed for two adult males who should have known better, but those guileless blue eyes snared him and wouldn't let him go.
"Oh, well, uh, okay. But try to go through channels, huh? You should bring it through the visitors' room."
"If I did that, it would be cheese by the time it got to them," Fitz said wryly. "Look, we'll try not to be so obvious, but the babe has to get milk to sort of, uh, supplement, if you know what I mean."
"Please?" Cho asked.
"Uh, okay. But that's only for my shift. The guy who's here when I'm not may say different."
All the people around them, on both sides of the fence, murmured with approval.
"Yeah."
"All right."
"Hey, thanks, man."
"Thanks." Kenshin said.
"Right. Appreciate that, Private…Howard" Fitz said, squinting at the name plate on the man's chest and offering his hand. The soldier hesitated, obviously unsure if this was permissible, and then finally shook.
"K-Tommy, I've got to go. Mrs. Martins and I are meeting with Mrs. Brooks and the administration after school to see what they can do to help with school things for you."
"Great. Thanks, Fitz. Give them our regards."
The Englishman, already heading for the car, waved over his head to show he'd heard, but when Cho's voice rose over the rest yelling: "Thank you, Mr. Fitz!", he turned around and blew her a kiss.
They heard the squeal of his tires as he peeled out too quickly match the speed of the traffic coming up on him, and Kenshin shook his head. With tires already being rationed, Fitz was going to be mightily sorry if he wore those ones out too quickly.
Back at the stall, Masumi was awake, with half her blouse hanging down her side, talking softly to Shinta as he suckled. He was pulling hard and seemed a little frustrated, giving her the impression there wasn't much there, but he'd already drained the other side, too. Then he stopped and hiccupped, and Masumi lifted him to her shoulder, patting his back lightly. He didn't make much noise, but she felt his body jerk a little and knew he'd burped. When she brought him back down, milk was dribbling down his chin.
"Spit up again, huh?" she asked softly, taking a spare cloth and wiping his face. "You're doing that a lot, you know.You're supposed to keep that down inside you. I'm telling you because you're a little new at this."
"Masumi? Are you decent?" It was Tom's voice, from outside the stall.
"Always decent, but not dressed," she replied, reaching for a towel to drape over her shoulder and Shinta's head.
"Here, Cho, you take this in to your mother. Tatsu-chan and I are going to sit under the trees until we're needed."
"Okay. Mr. Fitz brought us milk, Mama. Is it okay if I come in?"
"Of course you can."
Cho pulled open the lower door into the back half of the stall and slipped into the dim, cool interior.
"That's very timely," Masumi said, taking the offered bottle with her free hand. "Can you get me one of the little bottles?"
Cho nodded, opening the door of the nightstand Kisho had made and taking out one of the small baby bottles Masumi had brought from home.
"Okay, sit up here and I'll let you hold him while I put this together. Will that be all right?"
Cho hitched herself up onto the cot quickly. She'd been dying for another chance to hold her brother. She liked his warm, soft weight and his milky, baby powder smell. She held her arms just the way Masumi had showed her the first time and let her mother settle the baby just right and gazed down into his dark eyes.
"Can he see me, Mama?"
"Not really. He knows there's a face there above him, but not who it belongs to." Masumi was efficiently transferring a couple ounces to the baby bottle and screwing the lid on, sprinkling a little milk across her wrist to check the temperature. It was already lukewarm.
'At least he won't colic,' she thought. 'The only things that are ever cold around here are the morning air and the wash water.'
"Here you go," she said to Cho. "Hold the bottle like this."
She straightened her clothing as Shinta sucked greedily at the bottle. After a couple minutes, however, he stopped and hiccupped, milk leaking from his lips.
"He's barfing again, Mama," Cho said.
"Vomiting, Cho, or at the very least, throwing up. Where do you get words like 'barfing'?" She lifted Shinta from Cho's arms and rested him against her shoulder, patting his back gently.
"Um…the other kids. Everybody says it."
"Hn, Kisho is right; American kids are rude. I would prefer that you not use it. It sounds vulgar."
"Okay," Cho said, subdued.
Masumi patted her shoulder. "It's okay; you didn't know. Why don't we go outside? I don't think this is a healthy place for a baby, and since we have the bottle, we don't have to stay in. Take the milk bottle and yours and Tatsuya's cups and you can split the rest of the milk."
When they came into the trees, Kenshin folded his knife, slipping it and another partly-formed wooden animal into his pocket, and then jumped up from the lounge, brushing away wood shavings. He surprised Masumi by taking Shinta from her and letting her get settled on the lounge, and seemed reluctant to hand him back. He also seemed remarkably able at shifting a baby about, unlike many single men she'd observed. Before she could ask, though, he had given Shinta back and was tugging Cho's ponytail.
"Hey, get your broom handle; you need to practice today."
"I'm drinking milk," she said, burying her face in her cup. Next to her, Tatsuya was lustily slurping at his share.
"Drink fast. You haven't practiced since Shinta-chan came home. You need to keep up on this."
"I don't know why," she muttered into the cup, taking little sips to make it last longer.
"So you're not an embarrassment to your family and you don't lose what little skill you have. You're going to get lazy if all you do is sit all the time."
"I don't sit all the time. I walk to art class and I play ball with Tatsu-chan…"
"And you wouldn't be doing either if I didn't poke at you," Kenshin said knowingly. "So I'm poking again. Finish your milk and get your broomstick."
"But what if Mama needs…"
"Mama is perfectly capable of handling most things herself, and Tatsuya can help me if I need it. He's getting to be a big boy now." Masumi smiled indulgently at her older son and ruffled his hair, and then turned a sterner gaze on Cho. "You are a big help to me, Cho, but I would like to see you practice kendo more frequently so you can remember your father's teaching. You don't think your great-grandmother Kaoru stopped practicing just because her father wasn't around to push her, do you?"
"No," Cho said in a tiny voice and gulped down the rest of her milk. Great-grandmother Kaoru had kept their style alive. What if she had to do the same thing? What if her dad never came back from Montana and she had to go to Japan to train and she was so bad they were all embarrassed and sent her home? Eyes swimming with unshed tears, she set down her cup and ran for the stall to get her broomstick.
"Oh, dear," Masumi murmured. "That wasn't the reaction I was trying for. She's always been so inspired by her great-grandmother. I thought she'd perk up and imagine herself the next savoir of Kamiya Kasshin Ryu, like she usually does. I can't seem to get it right with her today."
"Kaoru wasn't nine years old and recently uprooted when her father died," Kenshin said, forgetting himself for just a moment and speaking more familiarly than he should have. When Masumi turned questioning eyes on him, he hastily amended: "At least, that's the way I understand it. Didn't Sasuke say she was seventeen when she started teaching and kept the family dojo going? Maybe the fact that he's not here is uncomfortably close to being dead and being the savior of the sword style isn't so romantic if it means losing her dad."
"Maybe." Masumi shifted a burping Shinta back onto her shoulder and patted circles on his back absently. She could feel the spit-up milk soaking through the spare diaper and knew she'd have to change her blouse again. "I'm not sure what she's thinking anymore. She's as helpful as ever, but she's so much quieter now. She used to just chatter all the time and fly in all directions at once."
"Trying to figure out the boundaries again," Kenshin said as Cho came clattering down the walkway, stick in hand. "Trying to see where she fits in now that everything has changed. We're all doing that. It's pretty scary."
"Yes, it is."
Cho's face, when she came back up to them, held no hint of tears. She'd dashed them away or controlled them, and now it was only determination shining from bright sapphire eyes.
Kenshin smiled in approval. "Ready now?"
"Yes, sir!" She leaned over the arm of the lounge and pecked her mother on the cheek. "Bye, Mama!"
"We're only going over there," Kenshin chuckled, pointing to a clear space near the end of the stable. "It's not like she isn't within shouting distance."
"I just wanted to say it." Cho started skipping in the direction he'd pointed.
Kenshin looked at Masumi and rolled his eyes. "Changeable as the weather…" he said, and followed.
He ran her through all the forms she knew and began on basic drills, wishing he could legitimately teach her more. She was so ready to learn new things, and it was hard to keep the old ones fresh. He was aware of other people passing by or stopping to watch, but kept both his attention and Cho's focused on the work at hand. No one approached him until he gave Cho the command to turn around so they could repeat the blocks she was doing while moving forward in the other direction.
"Are you a kendo master, too, Mr. Niitsu? Like Cho's dad?" Daisuke asked, walking up to where Kenshin could see him and yet keep Cho in view also. Hiroki was one step behind him.
"No," Kenshin smiled. "I'm just running Cho through what she knows so she doesn't forget. I can't teach her anything new."
"We used to go to class with them when they lived in San Francisco. We had to stop when they moved because we didn't have anyone to take us to the ferry to ride over, or get us up to the Y from the dock. We could have taken the cable car up to the school and walked from there." Daisuke sounded wistful, and a little injured that his parents hadn't let them make the trip alone.
"You're welcome to join in and do what you know. You'll have to tell me what it's supposed to look like, if you want a critique. And you'll have to get your own sticks. My job is to make sure you're working hard and no one gets hurt."
"Can we spar?" Hiroki asked, eyes lighting up.
"Nope. Can't do that unless there's a…what's the word, Cho?"
"A dan," she replied. "'No sparring without a dan present for instruction and control.' That's the rule."
Kenshin hid his grin under the pretext of lifting his battered Seals baseball cap and wiping his brow with his shirt sleeve. That bossiness in her tone was certainly an inherited trait.
"What she said," he agreed, and resettled the cap. "We do basic movements and forms. That's about all we can do without a dan here."
Hiroki looked disappointed, but Daisuke said, "That's okay. It's better than nothing. How about we look for a couple sticks and join you next time? Will you be doing this tomorrow?"
"Every day, two o'clock, unless and until they get a school set up. Then we'll have to modify our schedule to fit."
"Great. C'mon, Hiro. I'll bet we can find something near the gardeners. They've been breaking a lot of handles lately." Daisuke grinned. "Not all of those guys know how to use tools like you do, Mr. Niitsu."
"Yeah, I noticed that. I've been doing more tool repair than gardening lately."
"Maybe you can teach me that? That would be useful to know."
"That it is. After art class tomorrow, then. I'll meet you at the tool shed at about ten o'clock." Kenshin waved them off and turned back to Cho, who was idly swinging her broom handle, waiting for his attention.
"Did I tell you you could relax?" he asked mildly, and she gave him a surprised look before jumping back into her last position. He managed to squeeze his grin into a semblance of sternness. "What number was I on?"
"One, Sir!" was her prompt answer.
Kenshin began counting again at one.
xxxxxx
"Daisuke, you are such a brown-noser," Hiroki said as they jogged towards the center of the track.
"What?"
"'Oh, Mr. Niitsu, we used to do that. Could we join the class? Gosh, could you teach me to mend tools?'" Hiroki's voice was taunting as he mimicked his brother in gushing tones.
"I didn't ask to join, necessarily; he invited us. And I am interested, both in practicing kendo and learning to mend tools. I'm thinking about going into landscaping when I graduate. That's why I'm taking that drawing course. I don't want to be stuck in a shop all day like Mom and Dad. I like working with flowers and plants and stuff, but I don't want to cut them and have them die in somebody's house. I'd rather be outside with them."
"You don't gush around the other gardeners."
"I don't gush at all, you wiener." Daisuke aimed a swat at his brother, who avoided it with the aid of much practice. "I just ask questions and learn, instead of blabbing all the time and causing trouble. You were the one who asked to spar."
The two of them stopped at the shed on the end of the grandstand where the tools were kept. The doors were open since a gang of men were working in the infield, turning up new ground at one end of the garden and digging deeply for a pond near the middle. The broken tools were propped neatly in one corner, out of the way until someone could fix them. Daisuke started pulling them out, sorting through the defects and picking out ones that might make good practice swords. Rake and hoe handles were the best, because of their shape and weight, and there were certainly plenty of damaged ones.
"Not that one," Daisuke said, as Hiroki pulled out one that was broken near the head of the hoe. "They might be able to shave it down and re-use it."
"It's got to be long enough. Those ones you're pulling out won't be, once you cut off the splintered end."
"We're not sparring with them, so it doesn't matter how long they are. It's just for hand position and angle. We can't take something they might be able to re-use because Mr. Nakamura said they have trouble replacing the broken stuff."
"No wonder all those old guys have bent backs, then," Hiroki muttered. "Their handles are all too short."
Daisuke rolled his eyes. "Drag out that sawhorse, there. We'll need something to brace these on as we cut them."
They'd finished cutting the first broken handle, getting a little over three feet of usable wood and were working on the second when they became aware of Hosokawa watching them silently from the front corner of the grandstand.
"We're going to have to round off these cut edges," Daisuke said, determined to ignore the man. "Or they're really going to hurt if our hands slip. Is there any sandpaper or files in there?"
They looked for either as they put the tools and sawhorses away, but there was no sign of files or sandpaper in the shed.
"I'll bet Dad still has some sandpaper from when he made those tables for Mom and Mrs. Himura," Hiroki said. "Or we could wrap them with bat tape." He knew he could con some off the baseball coach they'd met with earlier in the day as teams were being organized and outfitted. The man looked to be an easy pushover.
"So are you boys going to play with sticks like they're swords?" Hosokawa asked. His voice had a quality that was both ingratiating and insulting at the same time.
"We took kendo lessons before we came here and we're going to practice," Daisuke said stiffly. It would be rude not to answer a direct question.
"Kendo, feh. That's not real swordsmanship. It's just weak child's play."
"Works for us."
"I'll bet your Mr. Niitsu could teach you real swordsmanship."
"If he could, we might use it on you," Hiroki said, facing the man squarely.
"Mr. Niitsu doesn't teach kendo, he said so. He's just supervising Cho. And us, too, now. And we are not fighting anyone." Daisuke passed between them, grabbing his brother by the shoulder and towing him along. "Remember? We are not getting into any fights."
"That guy pisses me off," Hiroki said, glaring over his shoulder. Hosokawa was smirking but making no attempt to follow them.
Daisuke cuffed him. "Watch your mouth or Mom's going to shove a bar of soap in it. Then you'll have to stand in line for half an hour tasting it before you can get near a sink to rinse it out."
"I just want to know what his deal is. He's such a jerk. Henry says he's L.A. yakuza."
"How would Henry know?"
"He's got cousins in L.A.. Well, he did. They're all in Manzanar now. But he says he saw yakuza guys when he was visiting down there last summer and they all act like old Yellow-teeth there."
"Then why is he here?" Daisuke asked reasonably. "Everyone here is Bay Area, not L.A.."
"Recruiting. And trying to make one big gang out of both cities so they can control everything in California."
"Yeah, well, the army screwed that up, didn't they? Stuck us all in camps and now nobody is running anything. I knew there had to be something good to come out of this."
"Not on the outside, and not connecting with Japan anymore, but that doesn't mean they can't control things in here."
"You are so paranoid."
"And you've got blinders on, just like Mom and Dad," Hiroki retorted. "Those guys are out there, and he's one of them. Not everyone is nicey-nice just 'cause we're all Japanese."
"Mom and Dad chose not to live in a world where they worry about those things. So do I. And if they try to get up to much here, we've got the guards in the towers and the soldiers around the fence. And despite what the administration says about them being there for our protection, they're facing in, not out. Hosokawa and his buddies won't make too much trouble. Not if they're smart."
xxxxxx
In the next week, the Fukuzaki boys weren't the only one who started practicing with Cho. Former students, both children and adults, approached Kenshin with sticks in hand, to humbly ask permission to join. He didn't have the heart to turn them down. Each was looking for some way to keep busy or block out the reality of life in camp or find some sense of normalcy. When the group got too large to fit between Barrack 16 and the new one being built next door, Kenshin moved them out onto the track. The end near his barrack wasn't being built on yet, although the other end was slowly being consumed by hastily built barracks, washrooms, and latrines. Many of the new members were Sasuke's students. Even former students, some of whom had dropped out of formal classes for reasons of work, time, or family, had asked to join in. With nothing else to do, returning to kendo was a boon, and they were welcomed by the more recent students. Others who joined the group had belonged to other schools and willingly followed the Kamiya Kasshin students just for the opportunity to practice something. Every day for an hour, they drilled up and down the section of track, and after every session, each came up in an orderly line to thank Kenshin for his leadership.
"You know," Kenshin said one day after practice to Sasuke's two highest-ranked students, "one of you guys should really be running this. You're students and I'm just…" He spread his hands like he was lost for words. He certainly couldn't tell them the truth; that he was perfectly capable of teaching them because of all the years he'd spent watching Kaoru and Yahiko, assisting when Kaoru was pregnant, or that he was a swordsman in his own right with a dozen or more styles at his disposal. Of course, most of them were killing styles and there was no way he'd teach that. "You know, I only started this to keep Cho practicing."
"Yeah, but you make us work hard and that's what we need. See, I'd look at those kids and see them all sweaty and tired-eyed and I'd let them stop, but you work them just that bit more that makes them better," Yamaguchi said.
"And you do the same to us," Sato chuckled. "And that makes us better, too. We can't teach yet anyway, since we're not dan. Sometimes being a good leader is more about motivating than teaching. You may not be able to teach, but that's not what we're here for. You motivate us and that's priceless. Sensei has that, too. I don't know what it is."
"It's that air of expectation. Like you both know we can do more or do better, so we do. Whatever it is, keep it up, 'cause it works." Yamaguchi grinned and clapped Kenshin on the shoulder, then motioned at his son to follow him away from the practice ground. Sato chuckled as he, too, departed.
"See you tomorrow, Coach."
Kenshin sighed. It certainly wasn't what he'd intended to become.
xxxxxx
Vocabulary (there isn't much)
Bambino - (Italian) - baby boy
Si - (Italian) - yes
Dan - (Japanese) - a rank that would equal black belt, but as I understand it, kendo doesn't do color belts like many of the other martial arts. First dan means you've accomplished the basics and now your training really begins. You climb in numbers from there, and however many levels there are depends on your style. If I'm wrong, someone please correct me.