Disclaimer: "Dark Materials Trilogy" and "Golden Compass" are the creations of Philip Pullman. Evangelion is the creation of Gainax.
Asuka was peeved. That pervert of a samurai, Suzuhara Touji, had the chutzpah to put his hands on her body and carry her away from the hall. Just because she was a little tipsy, the uncultured brute thought that he had the right to touch her and, worse yet, her daemon. The young noblewoman had caught a maid chatting about it with a hotel employee. Worse yet, the gossip had referred to her in the most unflattering of terms. Even the stunned looks on the servants' faces and the fervent apologies from the hotel manager did nothing to mollify the red haired girl.
Siegsmyrth was clamped tightly to her hawking gage with his powerful claws.
She stalked the hallway looking for Ibuki. Asuka wanted to take her mind off from the aggravating incident. At least yesterday had been exciting, she would have to get the story from Hikari later. Her roommate was at the police station with Shigeru Aoba, the older samurai.
A harried maid rapidly ascended the stairway; she was tailed by a small cat daemon. The maid knocked on the door to the room that Shigeru shared with the younger Suzuhara. There was no answer, though loud voices penetrated the oaken door. The Deutsch girl cleared her throat. Asuka recognized the hotel servant as the same cross-eyed teen who had been gossiping about her. The baroness loudly cleared her throat. The maid jumped.
She bowed rapidly. "Good morning, are you with the Horaki party?" she asked nerviously.
"Yes," Asuka answered imperiously.
"I have a telegram for them, but no one is answering the door," the maid said, stumbling over her words.
"I'll take it," Asuka said.
"Thank you very much," the girl replied. She handed Asuka an sheet of onionskin thin paper, bowed, and bolted for the stair. Her feline daemon sprinted to catch up.
"Wait up!" the daemon yowled after her.
Asuka unfolded the translucent page and read.
21. A Telegram for Suzuhara
Touji sat cross legged and bare chested in the middle of the room. Underneath him were several towels. Four squares of mats had been moved aside to bare the wooden floor. His father knelt behind him holding a straight razor. A basin of water sat nearby. A strange bear-dog hybrid daemon and a lupine daemon sun bathed in separate pools of light.
"Don't worry, son," the elder Suzuhara said with a thick Osakan accent. "I've done this plenty of times."
"Dad," Touji groused. "It's not the shaving that bothers me, it's just that it seems so incredibly pointless!"
"You desecrated the shrine, you have to atone for it."
"We were at the stairs NEAR the shrine."
"Still spilling blood before the Buddha is still bad for the karma, you have to do what's right," the burly bald man declared. "Stop trying to confuse the issue."
"Seeing as how I'm sending myself to the bone heaps of Yomi soon, I don't see why I need to go there bald."
"It's not the baldness that counts, it's the sentiment. I can't let you be there with that weighing on your conscious. What would your mother think?"
"Fine, fine," Touji said. "Just get it over with."
"That's my boy," the older Suzuhara said. The old man wet down his son's hair and began to lather it with a bar of soap.
Three knocks sounded at the door. They ignored it. Several damp locks of hair fell to the towel. A few seconds later, insistent knocks followed.
"Come in," Suzuahara the Greater yelled through the door.
The Western style door swung open to admit Asuka into the room.
"Baroness," the bald man said as he continued to shave Touji's head. "Good morning."
"Good morning," Asuka said sweetly. She left the door open a quarter of the way; she was a maiden in the presence of men after all. Siegsmyrth launched off her arm and perched onto a bar projecting from the wall. Asuka settled against the wall next to the door with her hands crossed like a butterfly behind her back. She closed the oaken door halfway. Besides the tatami mats, she could have stood in a hotel room in London.
"Do we need an audience, Dad?" the boy asked petulantly. His daemon bared her long teeth at the young baroness.
"What are you talking about? This is an act of penance. The Baroness probably has never seen this before, have you?"
"No, Mr. Suzuhara."
"See, you'll be educating by example," the older man declared expansively as he continued to shave.
"Whatever," Touji responded.
"You look funny," Asuka commented. The half bald sixteen year old gritted his teeth, and his daemon twitched.
"That's part of the point," the elder Suzuhara said. "But then again, he just hasn't gotten used to of it. Not that he will get the chance."
"You don't have to rub it in," Touji said in a surly tone.
"That's the truth boy, you should never flinch from the truth. First tenet of Kisetsufu-budo."
"Kisetsufu-budo?" Asuka asked.
"The Horaki method of war, Winds of the Seasons. The founder of the method, the honorable Horaki Hayako, believed in change, continuous change"
"Hayako? Sounds like a woman's name."
"She was," the sinewy older man answered. "There," he said as he toweled off Touji's clean shaven head.
"Like father, like son," Asuka gushed.
"Well, now," the older samurai said with a grin. He scratched the side of his mouth with his right finger. His son looked far less happy with it. "Okay, enough dawdling boy, here's your daisho. Sure, you're alright with your letter?"
Touji took the sheathed blades from the old man. "Yeah, old man," the boy said. "I apologized to Lord Horaki and Lady Hikari for my failures and hope to restore honor back to the Suzuhara name.
"Now, can I have some privacy?" he asked brusquely.
"I just want to make sure you do it right, son."
"I mean her," Touji snapped, pointing at Asuka.
"It's not polite to point," Asuka stated tartly. "Are you doing to take all day?"
"She's right on both counts, son. You should show proper respect to those above you. And you need to be more manly about these things, do them right and do them right away."
"Are you planning to lecture me until the end?" Touji groused under his breath.
"Son, I just wanted to say this: you aren't the smartest or the fastest or the most obedient boy, but you're still my boy. That's why I'll lecture you until the end," his father answered piously. "Now get on with it. Is your sword sharp enough? There's nothing more embarrassing than a botched seppuku."
"Yeah it's plenty sharp," Touji said. He took several deep breaths to compose himself and wrenched the bright katana from it's scabbard in one smooth pull. He placed the keen blade to his left. "Shina," he called.
His primordial daemon ambulated to her human and laid on her side before him. She bared her belly to him. The samurai drew his wakizashi and placed the edge against her vulnerable belly.
Asuka sighed and cleared her throat to speak. She brought forth the folded telegram in her right hand. A hand knocked at the door. The well balanced portal swung open on well oiled hinges to show Hikari standing in the hallway. The girl's expression rapidly shifted from tired to stunned.
"What are you doing!" Hikari shouted. The girl rushed forward and tackled his right arm. There was the distinct clank of mail at impact. Touji yelped in pain. Shigeru was half a step behind and dove for his left. The lank samurai had wrapped his arm around the boy's arm and throat.
"No, wait!" his father shouted. "Touji, you've got to finish what you started!"
"No, Touji! Don't, I'm so sorry," Hikari yelled as she tried to pin the struggling samurai.
"You must report to Lord Horaki, first," Shigeru shouted into his ear.
Two shapes blurred into the room as Asuka cleared her throat loudly.
"Lord Horaki has a message for you!" she screamed above the ruckus.
They all froze in mid-struggle and turned to her.
"START RECEIVED SHIGERU REPORT STOP SUZUHARA LESSER NO SEPPUKU FOR YOU STOP YOU MUST PROTECT HIKARI UNTIL SHE IS READY STOP THAT IS AN ORDER STOP LORD HORAKI END," Asuka read.
"I don't know why don't you use hiragana all the time, it's so much easier to read than kanji.
"What?" Asuka asked innocently. Eight blank stares from four humans and four daemons focused on her.
The red haired girl was rescued by a knock at the open door.
*****
"Excuse me," the shriveled monk asked at the door. His gray tanuki daemon waddled in after him. An unflappable male servant followed him.
"Hello, Uncle," Hikari said. He was the same monk from the dueling site.
"My, you youngsters are awfully feisty these days," the old man quavered.
Hikari looked at the bare chest young man she was draped over; she blushed. "Are you still going to kill yourself?" she asked Touji.
"No, not right now," Touji answered.
She relinquished her hold on his right arm. Shigeru let go of his left. Touji retrieved a kicked scabbard. He picked one of the towels and cleaned of the grease his hand had left on the blade and then sheathed the katana. An ugly bruise formed on his left side.
"Please join us," Hikari said to the monk, who bowed and entered.
"Excuse me," the girl said to the servant. "Would you mind bringing some refreshments?"
"Very good, madam," the servant said. He bowed precisely and left.
"How is the youngster from yesterday?" the monk asked.
"Fukugawa Chomei? He will live," Hikari answered as she joined the group. "The bloodmoss worked well."
Asuka had drifted over to the group. They shuffled themselves into a rough circle.
"Bloodmoss doesn't grow around here," Asuka commented with a furrowed brow. "And it can only be used fresh."
"Usually," Hikari said. "This sample developed by Miss Akagi. That was what the instructions said."
"I thought that I would have to consign his soul to the Buddha," the monk said. "This bloodmoss is a wondrous thing. In some ways, you are the image of her."
"Who?" Hikari asked.
"A woman of extravagant methods. A woman who would have defended her honor as fiercely and then work as fiercely to save her opponent's life. Hayako Horaki, the woman who cursed the world with the black ossein bow."