Morning came quickly following Miryu's arrival the night before. Despite the fact that Tomoe tried to kill her last night, the young hitokiri, widely known as Tsubasa Battouryu, immediately made herself at home, and as soon as Tomoe arose, she offered to help the older woman in the kitchen.
"Okami-san told me that you would always help her out in the kitchen", Tomoe said to Miryu, while she was cleaning the rice that was to be cooked for breakfast. "I often wondered why a swordswoman like you would enter a kitchen"
Miryu gave Tomoe's words a little ponder before answering, and said, "Ever since I was a little girl, my Shishou raised me and trained me in every aspect of the Hiten-Mitsurugi Ryuu. He also gave me a lot of chores to do after my everyday training, which Kenshin shared with me" She smiled a little, and continued, "I would always help at the kitchen, while Shishou tries his best not to burn his cape while cooking dinner"
Judging from her expression, Miryu knew that Tomoe wanted to laugh. Out loud. "So, you had to suffer all the burnt dinners?" Tomoe asked.
"No, but Kenshin had to learn to cook" she answered, with a laugh. "He was far worse than Shishou in the beginning, but he got better" Those were the days, no matter what mistake she and Kenshin made, Hiko would always make them see the error of their ways (in a very, very demeaning fashion), but he would still make learning fun for them. Sure, he was an arrogant and punishing task-master at times, but he always cared for them. But, somehow Miryu knew that she could not always look to Hiko for help and guidance. She knew that she had to find her own place in the world, and she found it now in the shadow of war and politics, a world that she did not know existed just two years ago. Vengeance and democracy were now her goals, and she would kill anyone who would stop her.
A few minutes later, when breakfast was done, both women brought the dishes to the main room, where Kenshin was waiting for them. "You ladies are early this morning…" he said sleepily. "I can't believe that you're so energetic even after you collapsed last night"
"Uh, Kenshin, have you forgotten that I am Tsubasa Battouryu, famous for my stamina and speed that surpasses yours?" Miryu replied in the most "Hiko-like" manner. Kenshin only sighed. She loved to imitate their master to annoy him, as payback for pulling at her leg. It has been like that ever since they started training together. He would irritate her, and she would fight back with her cynical remarks and extremely extensive vocabulary. And if that did not work, she would crack her whips just millimeters away from certain body parts of his.
Breakfast that day was not only filled with reminiscence between the two child-prodigy hitokiri, and filled Tomoe with a lot of information about them unknown by anyone else. Embarrassing moments like the last time Kenshin wet his bed, and the incident where he almost laughed himself to death after accidentally eating a wild mushroom were fascinating, and that the one who trained them in their skills of Kenjutsu loved Miryu like his own daughter. Slowly but surely, her resolve to kill the both Kenshin and Miryu disappeared, and she gradually started to warm up to them.
"Shishou still misses my mother…" Miryu said in a small voice when a suffocating silence washed over them. "I heard him calling out to her in his sleep…"
Tomoe became intrigue at her words. Miryu has never mentioned about her mother before. "Who was your mother?" she asked, hoping to get something out of her. It was then Kenshin gave her very foreboding look and seem to tell her with his violet eyes that she shouldn't say anything. He knew of Katsura's order to her regarding the revelation of her relation to the late Reiyama Ryumiko, the daughter of the founder of the Shinsen-Gumi, and he did not want Miryu to come to any harm should Tomoe know her secret.
"She was the one my Shishou loved more than anything", Miryu answered, "I do not know anything else about her" Considering the fact that she only knew the identity of her mother just days before her fifteenth birthday, it was quite true that she did not know anything about Ryumiko. She was sure that Hiko would never talk to her regarding the woman whose death caused him to be as anti-social as he was these days if she had not forced the answers out of him.
We suspect that the girl, Battouryu is the daughter of the Iron Wolf-Maiden of Mibu, Tomoe remembered the words of the Bakufu agent that sent her to Kyoto to hunt down Kenshin and Miryu. She has the blue eyes of the Tsubasa clan's eldest son that was killed by his own wife. Their daughter just disappeared into thin air after Reiyama Ryumiko's death. Could Miryu be the daughter of an equally accomplished swordswoman, the very first one in the Bakufu to hold the position as the leader of the Shinsen-Gumi's First Division, even before Okita Souji?