This discomforts aside, Motoko was astounded at the volume of information these old texts contained. None of them specifically used the words 'Lycan,' 'vampire,' or 'werewolf,' but in the context it was pretty clear what it was talking about. She was also amazed at the ability of whomever had written them to translate the abstract and ethereal Ki sensations that she had experienced with Keitaro into written words. She found surprisingly complete texts that corroborated everything that Keitaro had told and shown her, but went into more detail, particularly in the historical context. There was a wealth of information on vampires as well. Of particular interest to Motoko were equally detailed and easily understandable descriptions of the Ki energies of vampires, by the time she had covered those volumes she was pretty sure that she would be able to recognize a vampire by his or her energies if said individual let them slip at all. However, it also said that, as Keitaro had done, vampires could also learn to rein in and control their energies.
While issues of Ki signatures were of great personal interest to Motoko, she had kept in mind that her main objective was to find any sign that this school was somehow involved with the vampire community, or more importantly, any sign that foreign vampires might be able to use the school, its resources and talent, for its own purposes, either with or without the cooperation of its members. She had poured through countless volumes in the past three days that had covered, or at least addressed, virtually every other relevant topic that she could imagine, but there was not one word that said anything about any kind of relationship between the school and vampires. Granted, she had certainly not read anywhere near everything in the archive, but she knew how to look for specific information there and if there was something relevant that she had missed, it was deliberately hidden from prying eyes by categorizing it incorrectly or otherwise making it undetectable by standard searches.
My mid afternoon, Tsuruko had returned. The message was duly passed on to her that Motoko was here and that she was in the archive chamber. Tsuruko thanked the messenger and made her way to the archives.
"Motoko? Are you in here?"
Silence greeted Tsuruko's words. She walked all the way into the room and closed the door behind her. After she had taken a few more steps she could hear the sound of slow, steady breathing.
"Motoko?"
Rounding a bookshelf, she saw Motoko slumped over a table, sound asleep. With a cocked eyebrow, Tsuruko walked over to her. There was a massive pile of old books all around her on the table, and going by the dust caked all over Motoko and the scent of dried sweat, Tsuruko had no trouble believing what her student teacher had told her about Motoko having not come out of the archives in 3 days.
"What on earth was she so interested in all of a sudden?" Tsuruko thought to herself. Quietly she opened on the of the books on the top of the pile closest to her.
It wasn't much more than an hour later when Motoko groggily came around. She shook her head a few times and stood up and stretched. "Ug," she said to herself. Her head throbbed from the dust and stale air she had been breathing for 3 days. She walked heavily out of the archive and headed over to the office. Motoko hoped that there was unoccupied cabin that she could take for the day. Most of the younger and newer students that lived there simply spread out their bedrolls on the mats in the training rooms, but older, more advanced students could have a small cabin to themselves, the idea being the solitude would serve them well for the meditative and book studies that were part of the advanced curriculum. Motoko had been the youngest student in the history of the dojo to have had her own cabin. She also hoped that Tsuruko was back. Motoko really did want to see her sister again. The last time they had met, although all had ended well, had not been under the most favorable of circumstances.
Tsuruko was indeed in the office when Motoko opened the door.
"Hello Motoko. Good too see you again," Tsuruko said.
"You too, Tsuruko. How have things been here?"
"Just fine, thank you. And how is life at the Hinata Apartments?"
"Oh, you know, never a dull moment. But wonderful all the same."
"Good to hear."
Motoko tried to smile, but it turned into a yawn. "Listen, Tsuruko ... I don't suppose you've got an empty cabin that I might take for the day?"
Tsuruko laughed softly. "Good idea. You look like you just got back from a wilderness course."
"I feel about that way too."
Tsuruko opened a cabinet on the wall, took out a small key, and handed it to Motoko. "Number 9 is available. I trust you remember where the cabins are."
Motoko yawned again. "Of course. Thank you Tsuruko."
"My pleasure. Welcome home."
Motoko managed to smile without yawning this time. She had long since come to regard the Hinata Apartments as her home, but this place ... well, at the very least, it was her home away from home.
"Say, will you have some spare time tomorrow? I'd like to catch up with you a bit. It's been a long time," said Tsuruko after a moment.
"You took that idea right out of my head. Sounds great," was Motoko's reply.
Tsuruko smiled at her and turned back to the papers she had been reading when Motoko had first come in. "See you tomorrow then, Motoko. Sleep well."
"I will. Thank you again for your hospitality." With that, Motoko bowed out and retired to her cabin.
Back at the Hinata Apartments, breakfast had come and gone and neither Haruka nor Seta had yet come back. After helping Shinobu clean up from breakfast, Keitaro headed over to Haruka's tea shop, figuring that was the logical place to start looking for her. He found her in the back room office.
"Knock knock," he said as he also rapped lightly on the open door to the office.
"Come in," said Haruka without looking up. Keitaro squirmed his way in past the door and closed it behind him. At the sound of the door closing, she looked up.
"Oh, good morning Keitaro."
"Good morning Haruka. Is this a bad time?" He asked, nodding to the small stack of paperwork in front of her.
"I can take a break. What's up?"
"Well, I was hoping that you might have some free time today, but I suppose my question has more or less been answered ..."
Haruka nodded her head slightly. "Well, there are a lot of things that need taking care of around here today, I'm afraid ..." she said. "But I suppose I'll have to eat sometime, at the very least. We could plan on doing lunch."
Keitaro nodded. "Better something than nothing. What time is good for you?"
"I'll call you. You going to be home?"
"Yeah, I'll be home."
"Alright then. I'm sorry I can't give you a more definite time right now, but it seems that my hired help was unequal to the tasks I gave them and there's a lot of catching up to do."
Keitaro snickered a little. Doing his best to imitate his aunt's voice, he said, "If you want something done ..."
"... do it your damn self. Damn straight," Haruka finished. "See what happens when people don't listen to me? Even me? I ignore my own better judgment just once and the shop goes to hell in a hand basket."
"Anything I could help with?"
Suddenly Haruka's eyes narrowed a bit, the way they did when she became suspicious of something. "Wait a minute ... is this your responsible way of trying to give me my day of your attentions? That 'some time with each of you individually' that you talked about?"
Keitaro shrugged and nodded.
Haruka chuckled softly. "Well, I really need to finish this audit and then I need to do an inventory count, but I suppose the rest could wait. If you would care to get the count started for me, I could be done that much faster," she said as she picked up the clipboard with the relevant papers on it and offered it to Keitaro.
Keitaro accepted the clipboard and smiled. "I'd be happy to."
It took the two of them about three hours to finish those projects. As Keitaro helped Haruka put the last of the back stock back up on the top shelf in the storage room, he said, "are you sure that's all you want to do right now? I'd be happy to help you out for the rest of the day if needs be."
Haruka smiled at him as she stepped down from the ladder. "I appreciate the thought, and I may take you up on that in the near future, but I'm sure you didn't spend your time with other girls moving boxes. I wouldn't want to stand out in your mind as the boring one."
Keitaro shook his head sincerely. "Don't worry Haruka. If there's one adjective that I don't think has ever been used to describe you, it's boring."
"I assume you've already had breakfast?"
"You haven't?"
Haruka huffed. "No, I haven't. I've been busting my ass since sunrise and I could really use something to eat. Would you mind tagging along with me while I grab some grub?"
"Not at all. I could nibble."
For all their differences, Keitaro and Haruka did at least share their practical approach to eating out. Haruka went to the very same fast and inexpensive restaurant that Keitaro frequented himself, and ordered the same beef bowl that he usually got too.
"I'm surprised that I've never run into you here," said Keitaro with a laugh. "I've eaten here everyday for weeks at a time for years."
"Your schedule has always been a bit freer than mine in terms of when you have the option of going to lunch," answered Haruka in between bites. "When I'm not staying at the Hinata Apartments I tend to be a few hours behind the rest of the world when it comes to meals."
Keitaro had ordered the smallest size of the same entrée, but even though she had ordered the largest size plus a side dish, Haruka finished her food first. Haruka politely declined Keitaro's offer of a drink, but was in fact the one who suggested first that they go do something together. Keitaro asked her what she did with herself when she wasn't hard at work at the shop or lending a hand to Seta. She smiled slimly at the question.
"A military training facility! Why do you have access to a military training facility?" Keitaro asked incredulously as Haruka confirmed that that was indeed their destination.
"Let's just say that I've made some varied contacts in my time. Thanks in no small part to you-know-who and his penchant for digging up trouble, after running with him for a short while I quickly found that tactical firearms training was a necessary job skill. Pretty hard to come by in Japan for civilians, but easily acquired elsewhere. Then, you know ... Seta and I show off a bit at a competition one day, impress some local officials and ... well, I probably shouldn't say anything more, but I think you get the idea," she said. "I admit that I didn't practice as often as I used to after I'd sort of settled down with the tea shop, but after you brought home some stray dogs that one night, I thought it might be prudent to warm up my bull's-eye a bit," she gave Keitaro a squint that he wasn't quite sure if it was lighthearted or not. In any case, it took a moment for him to catch her little jab.
"Hey, this is supposed to be quality family time, not a scolding session with mommy." He made sure his own tone was also not quite distinguishable as either playful or reprimanding.
"What'd you call me?"
BLAMBLAMBLAMBLAMBLAMBLAMBLAMBLAMBLAMBLAMBLAMBLAMBLAMBLAMBLAMBLAM! Keitaro watched with no small feeling of being impressed as Haruka blew through her clip at near full-auto speed. The target silhouette hung 25 yards down the range, and she printed a 2-inch group at the very center of the kill zone without a single one of her 16 shots hitting outside of it. Indeed, only a couple of shots spoiled it from being a 1.5 inch group. Placing the empty pistol on the counter, she took off her ear muffs and turned to look at Keitaro, who took his off as well.
"That was very impressive, Haruka."
"Why thank you Keitaro," she replied, rather matter-of-factly.
"You still carry silver bullets?"
Haruka nodded. "Yeah, although naturally I don't practice with them, that would be awfully expensive. They've got slightly different ballistic properties than these cheap rounds here, but it's close enough for training purposes."
Keitaro looked downrange again at Haruka's target, then back at her and smiled meekly. "I knew there was a reason I'm still afraid to piss you off."
Haruka grinned wryly. "Now why don't you show me what you've got, nephew?" She said, motioning to the pistol.
Keitaro nodded lightly and stood up to the counter, picking up the pistol and loading a fresh magazine into it. "I had never even touched a gun in my life until about 4 months ago. Whatever happens here, blame my predecessors," he said with a slight chuckle as he pressed the button that brought Haruka's target to them. He took it off the clip and handed it to Haruka with another respectful nod, then clipped on a fresh target and sent it back down range. Haruka took a step back and they both put their ear muffs back on. Keitaro centered himself and took aim.
BLAM!
About a centimeter from dead center.
BLAM!
A little closer and just higher.
BLAM! BLAM! BLAM!
Three steady but spaced shots. The second shot took a piece out of the center circle, and the third shot was half inside the hole made by the second.
BLAM! BLAM! BLAM! BLAM! BLAM! BLAM!
Slightly less spacing between these shots. Keitaro's group was looking less neat that Haruka's, as his shots, though only slightly farther from center than hers, were a bit more scattered from one another.
BLAM!BLAM!BLAM!BLAM!BLAM!
He ripped off his last 5 shots at a similar speed to that that Haruka had done. He clearly absorbed the recoil better than Haruka had, but that did not necessarily translate into better accuracy. His rapid fire sequence placed his farthest-from-center hits, and when he brought his target in, it was clear that Haruka had won this match. They both took off their ear muffs and Keitaro grabbed the ruler. 16 distinct holes on the target just fit within a 4 inch circle around each other. Haruka nodded to him.
"That's still very good for that range, Keitaro. All of your hits are still well inside the kill zone."
Keitaro shrugged lightly. "Firearms are a relatively new skill for my kind. There really hasn't been enough time for much communicable skill to have built up in my particular line and I have no prior experience."
Haruka smacked him lightly across the top of his head and smiled. "Quit making lame excuses. You lost to an ordinary human fair and square. Deal with it."
Keitaro blushed slightly and let out a few quiet laughs. It wasn't always pleasant, but the blunt, too-the-point nature of his aunt never ceased to amaze him. "You're hardly a 'normal' human. About the only person I've ever seen who might just be more 'abnormal' than you would be Tsuruko."
Haruka seemed momentarily unsure whether that was a friendly jab or a genuine comment, but quickly decided that it was probably the latter. "Well, thanks .. I think ..." she added with a wink. She paused a moment, then motioned to the pistol on the counter. "Shall we continue?"
Keitaro smiled widely. "Yes. Lets."
The shooting continued for nearly two more hours, and the Urashimas burned though several hundred rounds of ammo in the process. The would both take a turn emptying a magazine and then they'd talk a bit in between. At first they mostly talked about their groups, which had improved for both of them by the end of their session, but they ended up talking about themselves and each other some as well. Both were again rather somberly surprised at how little they really knew about each other beyond that which related to their mutual home, mutual friends, and the most obvious of things even from the relative small talk that came out in between shooting turns. Unbeknownst to each other both made a mental promise to themselves to make it a point to work on that deficiency in the immediate future. At the end of their shooting session Haruka had reluctantly excused herself on the ground that she still had a lot to do at the tea shop, but promised to make more time for him and the rest of the residents from here on out, especially for the next week or so that Seta was still gone. When she mentioned Seta, Keitaro had gotten the wicked thought to turn the tables on Haruka for those times in the past she'd gotten a chuckle out of the antics between him and Naru, but Haruka had craftily closed the conversation in such a way that would have eliminated any tact from anything Keitaro could have said to that end. As it was, Keitaro and Haruka gave each other a friendly hug and, after Haruka dropped Keitaro off at the apartments, went their separate ways.
"Come in," said Naru at the sound of a knock on her door. She seemed almost surprised that it was Keitaro who stepped inside.
"Weren't you going to spend the day with Haruka? I'm surprised to see you home so early."
Keitaro nodded rather regretfully. "I managed to spend some time with her, but she still has a lot to do at the tea shop. I offered to help, but she said most of what she had left to do were pretty much one-person jobs."
Naru nodded once in acknowledgement. "I don't know how she manages to help out here sometimes. She's such an industrious woman."
"I wish Seta was in town. He and Sara are the only people here that I know even less about than my own aunt," he said with a weak chuckle.
"Oh, Seta is out of town?"
"Yeah, I knew he was dealing with some problem with his archeology team, but I guess I didn't think that he was actually out of town either. Makes sense though."
Naru just nodded. Keitaro walked over to where she was sitting and sat down right behind her, putting his arms her as he did so. He sighed a small sigh of pleasure and rested his chin on her shoulder. Naru smiled and looked up at him from the university papers she had been reading.
"You sound happy."
"I am," he replied dreamily. "Spending some time with everyone this past week has been wonderful. I've only been home for a week and it already feels like I never left."
Naru raised an eyebrow and nodded her head again. "Now that you mention it ... it really does seem as though it's been longer than a week, doesn't it?"
"Yeah."
They were both silent for a few minutes before Keitaro spoke again.
"You got plans for dinner?"
Naru smiled at him. "Nothing beyond the Shinobu Special at the Dining Room Café."
Keitaro returned her smile. "You once complained that I had never taken you to that restaurant that I went to with Shinobu. Would tonight be a good time to rectify that?"
Naru laughed softly and pushed Keitaro's head far enough off of her shoulder for her to give him a kiss.
"Tonight would be great."