ICKLE BITTY GLOSSARY FULL OF WORDS YOU PROBABLY KNOW ANYWAY BECAUSE THEY'VE APPEARED SEVERAL TIMES IN THIS STORY BUT HEY WHY TAKE CHANCES?
Engawa : Japanese-style front porch, often wraps around a building
Hanten : padded coat for winter
Bozu : term of endearment for little boys
Daisho: long sword (katana) and short sword (wakizashi) paired together
Ochazuke : green tea poured over rice. A popular breakfast or snack
Founding year of Meiji
(November 1868)
The days again blurred into weeks.
The trees, once so brilliantly streaked in golds and reds, discarded the last of their leaves that had since turned crisp and brown. The daylight slipped away faster and faster, the days grew chillier, and the nights became frigid.
"It feels as if it might snow soon," Yukishiro-san remarked one evening, over a game of shogi that Kenshin lost so quickly, he hadn't even blown the steam from his tea yet.
The next day, Kenshin, Enishi, and Hiko put the storm shutters up, closing off the engawa for winter. It made the house look stark, almost unwelcoming, but at least it would be warmer within.
They had been in Tokyo for three months, and neither Tomoe nor Enishi had shown any hint of being ready to leave soon. Perhaps Kenshin should have asked Tomoe what she wanted to do, but her everyday actions seemed answer enough.
And anyway, winter in Tokyo would likely be far easier than winter on Mount Atago.
"Your cheeks are as red as your hair when you first come in from the cold, Himura-san," Yumi remarked with an impish smile when he and Tomoe and Kenichi came to see her one particularly chilly day.
Before Yumi could even lead them toward the stairs, the other girls whisked Kenichi away in a flurry of giggles and promises of sweets.
Once upstairs, the fresh cups of tea Yumi poured for Kenshin and Tomoe sent up welcoming curls of steam, and Kenshin gratefully wrapped his cold hands around the cup.
"Oh, I know." Yumi clapped her hands together. "I'll send Kanomo-chan and Konomo-chan out for roasted yams. It will warm everyone up nicely."
"You're so generous, Yumi-san." Tomoe drew her hands out of the sleeves of her hanten to warm them against her own teacup, breathing in its fragrant steam. She smiled a small smile, then took a sip of hot tea.
"But you have to stay behind, Himura-san." Yumi's eyes sparkled. "Wouldn't want any more streetfighting."
Kenshin frowned into his tea. "Word really gets around."
"Of course it does." Yumi shrugged delicately. "And the word is, old Fukurou-san is quite taken with you, seeing as you saved her most popular pleasure girl from being unceremoniously cut up."
She appeared to wait until Kenshin took his first sip of tea to add, "The other word is that said pleasure girl would like to thank you. Personally and privately."
Tomoe immediately laid a gentle hand on Kenshin's back, between his shoulderblades, and tried to soothe away the spluttering caused by his sudden swallow of scalding tea.
"Please don't drown my husband, Yumi-san." Through his coughing, Kenshin could hear the smile in his wife's voice. "How would I ever explain it?"
"You mean you wouldn't want to explain to your father that your husband choked to death on his tea in a brothel?" Yumi said brightly, and appeared delighted when the tea nearly dribbled out of Kenshin's nose.
"It would be something of an awkward conversation," Tomoe replied serenely, offering Kenshin a handkerchief.
"So," Kenshin rasped, ignoring the handkerchief and the knowing looks both women gave him. "Yams?"
…
…
It was a new and pleasant experience to have a female friend, Tomoe mused as they walked back to Musashino, Kenichi swinging by his hands from between them.
She had never been particularly close with any of the girls her own age when she had been younger, and of course, they had all stayed far away from her in the wake of Kiyosato-sama's death. But Yumi-san was welcoming and jovial, witty and intelligent, and it was clear that she liked Tomoe as much as Tomoe liked her.
The wind was merciless, even with a scarf wound tightly about her head and the thickly padded hanten, turning what ought to have been a bracingly crisp day into a shockingly cold one, and she was glad to hurry inside the gate when they reached home.
In the courtyard, Hiko-san sat crouched on the ground a few paces away from the house, staring at the rock garden with his chin resting on his knuckles.
"Jiji!" Kenichi called, breaking away from Tomoe and Kenshin and heading toward the rock garden. "Why Jiji make that face?"
Hiko-san's already-cloudy face furrowed into a scowl. "It's my face, bozu."
"Jiji have grouchy face!" Kenichi insisted, then pulled off a passingly good (or perhaps just adorable) imitation.
Hiko-san snorted. "Now that's a pleasant sight."
As always, Tomoe hid a smile as she watched Hiko-san interact with Kenichi. The gruff and sour demeanor that the big man liked to project did nothing whatsoever to disguise how deeply he cared for his grandson.
"It's been some time since you've had any practice," Hiko-san said abruptly, swiveling his head to face Kenshin. "Knocking out a handful of drunkards hardly counts, after all."
Kenshin blinked.
Tomoe tugged her scarf down. "He just came back from the war."
"Five months ago," Hiko-san replied flatly. "I've been training Enishi more than I've been training him lately."
"He's the new apprentice," Kenshin offered. "You're still breaking him in."
"And if you go for much longer without any practice, I'll have to break you in all over again," Hiko-san shot back. "Besides, if you have the time to be touring the city and visiting Yoshiwara every few days, then you have the time to get back into training."
Tomoe frowned.
Clearly there was something else on Hiko-san's mind, perhaps just below the surface, but Kenshin took the bait.
"Every few days?" Kenshin raised an eyebrow. "We hadn't seen Yumi-dono in weeks."
"Kenichi ate mizu mochi!" Kenichi offered cheerfully.
"Well, then, I suppose everything is perfectly fine." Hiko-san gave them a look that said he was anything but, and continued. "I'll mind my own business, then, while you go on about yours."
Kenshin studied him for a long moment. "All right," he finally said. "But I can't help but feel I'm going to pay for that somehow later."
Before Hiko-san could reply to that, Enishi appeared on the top of the wall and then dropped into the courtyard. Otousan followed just behind him, though he used the more traditional method of going through the gate.
"We do have keys, Enishi," Otousan murmured.
Enishi shrugged. "But this is much more fun, and it counts as training."
Otousan took in the scene before him, the slightest of frowns creasing his mouth. "Why is everyone standing outside in the cold?"
Tomoe gave a somewhat guilty start and headed for the house. "I'll see to the tea. Come inside, Kenichi."
Hiko-san merely grumbled something unintelligible as Kenichi scampered after her. And just before Tomoe slid one of shutters open, she heard Kenshin say:
"Are you coming inside, Shishou? Or are you just going to mind your business out here?"
…
…
Hiko had known Kenshin for twelve years. The pair of them had lived alone in the house on Mount Atago for seven of those years, and there was hardly anything they did not know about one another.
Which was why his idiot apprentice knew exactly what to do in order to annoy him.
In the months they had stayed in Tokyo, he had watched Kenshin become more and more comfortable. Even though the two of them had agreed in the beginning that Yukishiro's house was too ornate, too spotlessly clean, too painstakingly arranged to ever feel like any welcoming sort of home, Kenshin had gotten used to it in a way that he himself never could.
But that had not been the annoying bit.
On the mountain, the group of them had been united. But in coming down into the city, they seemed to have fragmented. Tomoe and Enishi had gravitated towards their father, eager to rebuild their broken ties with the taciturn old man. Kenichi had bounced energetically around from person to person in search of whatever his three-year-old mind had focused on at any given moment. And Kenshin had taken to disappearing out of the house for long periods of time with his wife.
Leaving Hiko behind.
It was an unfamiliar and alien sensation, and he found himself becoming increasingly irritated by it.
He narrowed his eyes at his idiot apprentice's question. "I doubt anyone's going to leave me in peace if I stay out here."
Another long moment of silence passed between them, though Hiko felt Kenshin's eyes on him. Just as he was about to snap at him to go inside and tend to his wife and son, Kenshin crouched down beside him, elbows on knees and fingers threaded together.
"Winter in Tokyo will be easier than winter on Atago." He rested his chin atop his fingers. "We won't have to eat salted fish for weeks on end or go ice fishing when we feel desperate."
How very like Kenshin to miss the point so entirely.
"And when we feel desperate for an escape from being walled in?" Hiko raised an eyebrow. "Or when being surrounded by so many inescapable people all the time drives us completely insane?"
The truth was that he had always been indifferent to the so-called comforts of civilization. The harsh and difficult winters on Atago had been bearable because he had been away from the seething crush of humanity down in the villages and cities below. And perhaps they had been more bearable yet due to the presence of the family that had gathered around him.
But this winter - despite all the creature comforts afforded to a man like Yukishiro, and therefore his guests - promised to be the most difficult Hiko had ever seen.
"I seem to remember many winters where being walled in the house drove us outside. Sometimes in the middle of a snowstorm." A hint of a smile tugged at the corners of Kenshin's mouth. "You called it 'training', but really, you were just stir-crazy."
The memory of those times brought a wry smile to Hiko's own face and an odd wrenching to his heart. However little the two of them had had up on that mountain, they had always had their training.
But now, they didn't even seem to have that.
"I doubt we'll be doing much training here during the winter months," he grumbled, gesturing around at the walls of the courtyard. "It's fine for training the boy, but there's nowhere near enough room for us."
"I've no desire to put on an exhibition anyway," Kenshin murmured. "In this neighborhood or anywhere else."
"You're not turning your back on your apprenticeship again," Hiko snapped. "I thought I made that clear enough for even you to understand it."
Despite his bluster, however, a sudden and irrational fear seized Hiko's heart. If Kenshin was saying he had no intention of returning to his training no matter where he was, then his attitude towards his apprenticeship - indeed, his attitude towards Hiten Mitsurugi Ryu - had completely changed. And there might be no means of returning from such a change.
Kenshin glanced at him. Frowned, then shifted his gaze toward the rock garden. For another long moment, he seemed content to simply study the swirling patterns that had been raked into the stones.
Finally he said, "I'll recommit to my apprenticeship once we return home. But I can't do it here. Not in Tokyo." He sighed. "I've called enough attention to this family as it is."
Hiko's demeanor changed instantly as relief slammed into him like a buffeting gust of wind. He realized suddenly what had been irritating him: he had not wanted Kenshin to remain in Tokyo at the end of the winter. He had not wanted to make the trek back to Atago alone, or be forced to remain in a place so ill-suited to him. But more than anything, he had not wanted to experience the severing of Kenshin's life from his a second time.
"I understand," he said gruffly. His careful study of the rock garden broke for an instant as his eyes flickered over to Kenshin, then back to the gravel. "The more people you allow into your life, the more complicated it becomes."
He had certainly learned that over the past few years.
He rose abruptly to his feet, his cloak billowing around him, and gestured toward the bathhouse. The sudden need to do something had seized him.
"Come," he said in what felt like an unnecessarily loud voice. "Let's have a look at that tub."
And that was how Tomoe found them after they had failed to turn up for tea: barefoot and crouched around the magnificent wooden tub, engaged in a careful study of its contours and discussing how they could construct such a thing back on Mount Atago.
Hiko swore the smile on Tomoe's face suggested she understood a good deal more than she cared to let on right then.
…
The following morning, Hiko awoke to a familiar feeling in the air. He recognized it instantly, though he hadn't expected to feel it here.
The very air seemed to have stilled. There was no ambient sound, not even the soft rush of the wind. Everything felt as though it had been weighted, a heavy and muffling blanket dropped over the entire world.
He felt a smile cross his face.
Once Kenichi realized what had happened, he would be shaking them all awake. He decided to wait for his grandson's gleeful summons, and together they would peer out past the shutters to see what had transpired during the night.
It didn't take long.
Over Tomoe's gentle protests, Kenichi squirmed out of their shared futon and climbed to his feet. Despite the banked embers glowing in the hearth, the boy shivered visibly.
"So cold," he observed. "So quiet. Why so cold and quiet?"
"Because some of us are still trying to sleep," Enishi muttered, though Kenshin had already turned watchful eyes on his son.
Kenichi slid the shoji aside, stepped onto the enclosed engawa, and with a good deal of effort managed to nudge one of the storm shutters open just a crack.
A world of white glared back at them.
"Snow!" Kenichi squealed. He turned, bouncing up and down and clapping his hands together. "Kaachan, Touchan, snow! Everybody, snow!"
"Is there, now?" Hiko rumbled as he rose into a sitting position, the smile impossible to fight down. He ran a hand through his sleep-tangled hair and beckoned to Kenichi. "Well, then I suppose we'll have to go out and see it, won't we?"
As he'd suspected, there was no restraining Kenichi once that offer had been made. As Hiko dressed, Tomoe and Kenshin bundled their son into the warmest clothes he had. While Hiko pulled on his boots and cloak and guided Kenichi through securing his tiny straw fukagutsu boots, Tomoe disappeared into the kitchen.
Hiko supposed that the housekeeper would likely not be able to reach the house until later that day, if at all, and so Tomoe would have to see to the meals and tea.
Enishi, meanwhile, had tried to roll over and go back to sleep, but had been unable to shut out his nephew's joyous squealing. He was now sitting upright with his quilt around his waist and his hair a spectacular tangle.
"It's too early for this, you know," he grumbled. "Some of us were still trying to sleep."
Yukishiro, on the other hand, had risen silently, reached for his spectacles, and moved over toward the hearth to warm his hands. And, Hiko supposed, to have a better view when Kenichi began playing in the snow.
Kenichi didn't waste a second clambering off the engawa.
Later, when Kenichi was soaked through but beaming with red-faced bliss, Hiko guided him back into the house for a hot drink, breakfast, and a dry set of clothes. The boy grudgingly agreed, but Hiko knew he would be back out in the snow the instant his mother permitted it.
Hiko breathed in the fragrant steam of his tea and looked across at Yukishiro. "Should your son and I go and dig out your housekeeper?" He raised an eyebrow. "It would be our poor luck if she couldn't get out of her house."
"There are teams of men who will dig out the streets as needed." Yukishiro looked at him over his porridge bowl. "Especially in a district such as Fukagawa, where Otetsudai-san lives. Much larger population, and all of them have places to be."
"Well, then." Hiko turned a wry, anticipatory smile on Enishi. "I suppose your son will just have to get his exercise in the usual way."
The day passed pleasantly enough.
Enishi managed a surprising degree of agility in the snow, owing to the fact that he had continued to grow taller even over the past few months. Hiko found himself having to adjust to his second apprentice's increased reach, and he was pleased with the boy's progress. Tomoe remained busy in the kitchen for most of the day, filling in for the snowbound housekeeper, and Kenshin patiently followed Kenichi everywhere he went.
By late afternoon, it was apparent that there would be no more snow that day.
The sun had not come out, but the clouds overhead were the flat gray of cloudy water, not the deep iron color of clouds that would shed snow. And as Hiko looked up at the sky to confirm this, Yukishiro slid open the shutters and stepped out of the house. The daisho at his waist poked out of his black hanten coat, he wore straw fukagutsu boots, and he held what appeared to be a rolled up bamboo mat meant for carrying ink brushes.
"Where are you headed?" Hiko asked, turning to face him. Hopefully the streets had been cleared enough for him to walk wherever it was he had in mind. And hopefully, it wasn't far.
Enishi darted suddenly forward, slashing downward with his bokutou in an impressively quick and strong blow. Hiko neatly sidestepped the attack, and as Enishi's momentum carried him forward, Hiko booted him in the rump and sent him sprawling forward. Only the boy's experience training with Hiko enabled him to get a hand and a foot clumsily underneath himself and prevent an embarrassing face-plant into the snow.
"You're getting better," Hiko said offhandedly, "but don't interrupt."
"I'm going to help Kamiya-kun with his book today." Yukishiro watched his son dust the snow from his hakama and mutter expletives under his breath, though he didn't so much as twitch an eyebrow. "Should you like to come too?"
Hiko considered his spluttering second apprentice for a moment. They had made decent progress that day, and his heart felt lighter than it had for what seemed like days. And besides, Enishi had been training hard for hours. Kenichi would likely want the chance to play in the snow with him.
"Why not?" he replied with a shrug, tossing his bokutou to Enishi and pulling his cloak around him to ward off the wind. "I've been meaning to talk to him about his style anyway."
Enishi caught the bokutou with a scowl, his eyes darting between Hiko and his father. "Well, then I want to go too." He took a breath and shouted, "Hey, Kenshin?"
As if on cue, Kenichi came zooming around from the side of the house, followed by his father, who took one look at Enishi and said, "Did you just get kicked into the snow?"
"No," Enishi snapped. "And that's not why I called you anyway. We're all going to the Kamiya dojo to look at their style."
A short time later, all of them (with the exception of Tomoe and Kenichi) were filing through the side gate of the Kamiya home. Yukishiro had explained that Kamiya would be finishing up his final lesson for the day, and that the side gate would be open for students to enter and exit the courtyard closer to the dojo.
They mounted the steps to the dojo just in time to see Kamiya demonstrating a curious method of striking. It was similar to a standard kesagiri strike, but Kamiya held his bokutou in a defensive position almost through the entire movement of his body. Only at the last possible moment did he complete the strike, and its speed was impressive.
"In Kamiya Kasshin Ryu, the objective is to maintain a defensive posture whenever possible." Kamiya lowered his bokutou and addressed his students, all of whom were watching intently. "Even in the midst of an attack, and not just for the sake of your own defense, but for everyone around you." He smiled. "Even your opponent."
At the sight of his guests, Kamiya gestured for his students to pause. "We have visitors," he said, his smile broadening. "Please welcome them."
The students bowed obediently as said visitors seated themselves along the dojo's perimeter. One of the students, Hiko noticed, was Kamiya's daughter Kaoru. She had exchanged her bright kimono for a training gi and hakama, her hair was tied at the crown of her head with a simple cord instead of her usual floppy ribbon, and her expression was one of concentration and determination.
"Now then." Kamiya's expression reverted to that of a swordmaster. "Twenty strikes from each side, and remember your defense."
Hiko watched Kamiya walk among his students and assess them with extreme competence. He swung his bokutou at several of them with great speed, nodding with approval when the position of their own bokutou intercepted his. Hiko noted that Kamiya's grip was loose enough that his strikes had very little power for their speed. He was testing them, but gently. And when one student's form was poor enough that he did not block the attack, Kamiya pulled back at the last instant and only tapped the young man lightly.
"Defense is everything in Kamiya Kasshin Ryu," he said to the young man in a low, grave voice. "If you cannot defend yourself, then you cannot defend anyone else. Think of who may be harmed if you yourself are struck down."
The student bowed low, his face embarrassed but determined, and then returned to his exercises.
Hiko reflected that had he been the one teaching, he very likely would not have pulled back nearly as much. A gentle tap did not linger in the mind nearly as much as a stunning blow, and every student of kenjutsu had to be aware of the very real and deadly consequences of their mistakes. A mistimed swing or block in the dojo against a fellow student armed with a bokutou might only mean a bruise, at worst a broken bone, but against a real adversary armed with a sharp sword, it would mean death.
Still, Kamiya knew his students and his style.
His sharp eyes missed nothing, and he corrected tiny imperfections in his students' body positioning with exquisite attention to detail. A handful of times, he put his hands on a student's arms or shoulders and guided them through the correct movements before releasing them to try again. And he did not show any favoritism to his daughter; indeed, he clearly expected more from her than from any of his other pupils.
Eventually, Kamiya called for attention and instructed the students to trade their bokutou for shinai. A vigorous sparring session ensued, and Hiko was pleased to see that Kamiya disdained the use of bulky kendo armor. His students bore the stinging blows of the shinai on their flesh, and they were careful with their movements as a result. They approached their encounters with patient defense and very light offense, trading lightning-fast counterstrikes for a fraction of a second and then warily circling and feinting for longer lengths of time.
The style was intriguing to Hiko, even if it could not compete with Hiten Mitsurugi Ryu. From what he had seen of other styles, he was certain that a competent student of Kamiya Kasshin Ryu would fare considerably well against most other swordsmen.
Finally, the lesson ended and the students replaced their shinai on the wall racks before making their final bows. They all went through the process of cleaning up the dojo, a low murmur of chatter arising as they worked. Kamiya's daughter worked right along with them, but Kamiya broke away from supervising to head over to his guests.
"Beautiful weather we're having today, isn't it?" he said pleasantly. "I'm honored that you all braved the streets to be here."
Yukishiro inclined his head. "We should have had the book and the writing desk at the ready, Kamiya-kun."
A brief expression of surprise flitted across Kamiya's face. "Did I say anything worth writing down?"
Another nod. "Certainly, though I hadn't time to even grind the ink."
"Is this the way you've been writing the book?" Hiko asked with mild surprise. "I would have thought the pair of you had been sitting down at a desk, dictating and writing."
Kamiya smiled. "That's usually how we write the book, but it seems Yukishiro-kun is eager to get started today."
Yukishiro's reply was drowned out in the sudden flurry of students bowing and calling out their goodbyes before departing the dojo, though Kamiya's daughter stayed behind, replacing a shinai that had somehow slipped off the rack.
"Why is she here?" Enishi said abruptly. "Girls don't learn kenjutsu."
"Enishi-" Yukishiro started, before Kaoru darted forward and smacked the shinai down over Enishi's head with surprising force.
"What the hell?" Enishi snapped, over Kaoru's angry "This one does!"
"Kaoru." Kamiya looked disapprovingly at his daughter. "How is that an example of protecting life?"
"I'm protecting his future life, Touchan." Kaoru scowled up at her father, shinai slung over her shoulder. "I'm protecting him from saying anything stupid in the future."
Enishi rubbed at the top of his head, while Kenshin looked away, hiding a smile.
"Twenty strokes," Kamiya said. "Make them count."
Hiko couldn't help but be impressed with the girl's effort and ability as she moved towards the center of the dojo floor and began her corrective exercises. Her strike had been a near-perfect karatake, and it had landed with a much louder crack than he had expected. Even now, Hiko's practiced and discerning eye could see that her form and footwork were excellent for a child of her age.
Enishi had, of course, been correct in that no master Hiko had ever heard of had deigned to teach his skills to a girl. However, Kamiya was an anomaly in many ways, and it seemed that his efforts had not been wasted on his daughter.
"Does that answer your question, Enishi?" he chuckled, though he didn't quite catch Enishi's muttered reply.
"Please come inside the house for tea," Kamiya offered. "It'll be much warmer in there."
Before long, they were all situated around the hearth with steaming cups of tea and small bowls of shredded squid and rice crackers. Yukishiro had set up his tools at the writing desk with the easy familiarity of an oft-welcomed guest, and Kamiya brought in a spare andon lantern to add a little extra light to a house also shuttered for the winter.
Hiko settled comfortably down beside the hearth and listened intently as Kamiya spoke about his style.
Having seen Kamiya move and having watched his students, Hiko was far more inclined to give the style the benefit of the doubt than he ordinarily would have been. The notion of a style dedicated to the preservation of life would normally have struck him as naively ridiculous. After all, a sword was nothing more than a weapon, and the art of the sword nothing more than the art of murder.
And yet Kamiya was clearly a man who had used what he taught. He had fought in the war, and in all likelihood killed men. And even if he had not killed nearly as many as Kenshin, he would surely have been affected by the lives he had taken in combat.
Perhaps that had been the source of inspiration for this style.
The desire to continue to wield a sword, but never to use it to take life. While Kenshin had taken up his inverted sword to restrain the deadly power of Hiten Mitsurugi Ryu, Kamiya had instead utilized his ingenuity and experience to create an entirely new style of kenjutsu. One that may not have been as strong as Hiten Mitsurugi Ryu (though what style could ever hope to be?) but one which could still hold its own against nearly any other style and still retain its principles.
"... And now I can't think of even one more significant or noteworthy bit to add," Kamiya said, when the last of the tea had been finished and the snacks had been eaten down to the crumbs. "I think that's all I have in me for the day."
"Please warn me before you do that." A hint of a smile flitted across Yukishiro's mouth. The ink brush was still poised in his hand. "I wrote down exactly what you just said."
Kaoru giggled over her teacup.
"You write as fast as I speak, Yukishiro-kun," Kamiya said.
Yukishiro inclined his head. "My one noteworthy skill."
"I wouldn't say that." Hiko rolled his eyes. "You're also supremely adept at self-deprecation, for a man with absolutely no reason to be."
Kenshin looked at him. Raised an eyebrow.
"What?" Hiko snapped. "Tell me I'm wrong."
"And this is where I step out." Kenshin rose to his feet, turned to Kamiya, and bowed. "Thank you for allowing me to watch and hear about your style today. I've learned quite a bit."
Kamiya nodded. "I'm honored you think so. Thank you for coming."
"Come, Enishi." Kenshin reached out and tugged the boy's ear. "Tomoe might want help setting up for dinner."
"Ow." Enishi scowled, but rose to his feet. "All right, I'm coming." He retained enough of his fine samurai upbringing, however, to bow hastily to Kamiya before following Kenshin out of the house.
Kaoru clambered to her feet. "I'll heat up the bath, Touchan."
"You go first today." Kamiya smiled at his daughter. "You've earned it."
"Okay!" Kaoru beamed back at him before skipping out of the room, sliding the shoji carefully shut behind her.
Kamiya looked from Yukishiro to Hiko. "I haven't even brought out the sake yet."
"Then I suppose I'll stay," Hiko put in with a chuckle.
While Yukishiro cleaned, dried, and rolled his brushes back into the bamboo mat, Kamiya set a pot of water over the hearth and placed a few carafes of sake in the water to warm. Only once all three men were seated around the hearth, cups of warm sake in hand, did Kamiya say:
"Your son is not at all what I expected."
For a confused moment, Hiko turned to look at Yukishiro before the truth descended on him like a falling tree: Kamiya hadn't been speaking to Yukishiro about Enishi.
Hiko coughed, the sake stinging his windpipe, and fortunately found himself incapable of saying anything for a moment.
"He's a good deal more mild than rumored." Kamiya sipped casually at his sake. "Also, a good deal… well…"
"Shorter?" Yukishiro murmured.
"Well…" Kamiya tossed back the last of his sake, and Yukishiro moved to refill his cup. "Yes."
"Everyone says that," Hiko said hoarsely. He wondered how many other people thought of Kenshin as his son. It was an extremely uncomfortable thought which he immediately chased away with the remainder of his sake. "The broadsheets made him out to be much bigger. I've no idea why."
"Likely because they simply couldn't comprehend the feared Hitokiri Battousai hardly clearing five shaku," Kamiya mused, refilling Hiko's cup.
Hiko heard his idiot apprentice's voice very calmly stating that he was five shaku exactly, thank you, but the discomfiting word son kept pushing its way rudely to the forefront of his mind and making it very difficult to concentrate.
Clearly more sake was needed.
"I kept waiting for him to grow." Hiko drank the freshly-refilled cup at a single gulp. "He never did."
"He still might," Yukishiro said. "He's not yet twenty."
"I never had the occasion to meet him during the war." Kamiya frowned. "I had no idea he was quite so young."
"Of course you never met him." Hiko leveled an unsmiling gaze at Kamiya. "If you had, you'd be dead."
Kamiya shook his head. "He was not in the habit of attacking his allies."
The sake cup nearly slipped out of Yukishiro's hands. His eyes went wide behind the polished sheen of his spectacles.
The truth clicked into place almost audibly, and Hiko regarded Kamiya with fresh perspective. What this revelation would mean for Kamiya's friendship with Yukishiro, he had no idea. But he would watch what unfolded with curiosity.
"Forgive me, Yukishiro-kun," Kamiya said immediately, setting his sake cup down and inclining his head much lower than necessary. "But I couldn't risk saying anything during the war."
"You were…?" Yukishiro started, then trailed away.
"Fighting on the side of the Ishin Shishi?" Kamiya nodded. "Yes. And my only regret is that I couldn't be honest about it, but if I had been found out…" He shook his head, expression grim. "If I had been found out, I would have gone to my death with my head held high, but what would have happened to Kaoru is… something I have no wish to imagine."
Yukishiro blew out a breath. Shook his head. "I have learned a lifetime's worth in these past few months," he said quietly.
Hiko reached for the sake carafe. Though Yukishiro's cup was more than half full, he tipped enough into it to fill it to the top and gently nudged it towards the man.
"You already knew a lifetime's worth beforehand," he said gruffly. "All you learned recently was that you'd been employed by the wrong people."
They parted ways not too long after that. Tomoe would likely have dinner ready, after all, and Kamiya had his own daughter to attend to. They were halfway down the street, however, when Yukishiro abruptly stopped in his tracks.
"I think I need another drink," he murmured.
Hiko let out a contented laugh. "Words which ought to have come from my mouth." He gestured for Yukishiro to accompany him. "Where do you think, now, the place that served us that awful Portuguese wine?"
"Perhaps something a little ways away." Yukishiro tucked the roll of brushes into his belt, next to his daisho. "The snow isn't so slippery that we can't walk."
And so Hiko followed Yukishiro down streets which seemed narrower now, ramparts of snow tossed up against the walls where it had been scooped up off the street in shovelfuls. And before long, the pair of them were in a small but crowded pub, seated on old barrels before an ancient and battered wooden table, being served warmed sake in carafes by a whip-thin elderly man.
"The sake in this city is good," Hiko said appreciatively after he'd drained his first cup. "And you're clearly in need of it, after today."
Yukishiro took an experimental sip of the sake and must have liked what he tasted, as he tossed back the rest of the cup.
"The past few months have been one new revelation after another." He moved to refill Hiko's cup. "Perhaps after fifty years, I'm too old to keep up with so many changes."
Hiko shrugged, refilling Yukishiro's cup in turn. "The world changes." The corners of his mouth turned down for a moment. "Not often for the better, and never without loss of some sort, but that is the way of things." He paused, then raised an eyebrow. "You're not thinking of parting ways with Kamiya, are you?"
"Parting ways?" Yukishiro paused, sake cup halfway to his mouth. "Of course not." Again, he downed his drink in one swallow. "But I now realize there's an entire facet to him that I just…" He shook his head. "Failed to notice completely."
"Oh, please." Hiko blew out an exasperated sigh and gestured expansively with his own cup before tossing it off as well. Yukishiro refilled it immediately. "He said himself that he couldn't risk telling you. It wasn't a matter of you not being perceptive or failing to notice; he actively hid it from you."
He refilled Yukishiro's cup once more, then set down the carafe with a decisive sound. "He sided with the common people against an army and a government that had fallen victim to the downfall of every government that has ever existed." He shook his head, keeping his eyes on Yukishiro. "And he remained your friend throughout."
Yukishiro's gaze fell into his sake before he knocked the drink back and set the empty cup down on the table. "What did he see that I so thoroughly failed to notice?"
It was unjust, Hiko thought with sudden bitterness, that a man who had suffered such terrible losses as Yukishiro should be driven to self-reproach over having been on the wrong side of a war he had not even fought in. For all his inscrutability, for all his stoic formality, for all his inability to connect with his son until a few months ago, Yukishiro was a decent man. A good man, even. And this world seemed designed to make mockeries of good men before crushing them utterly.
"I would imagine you'd be better served by asking that question of him," Hiko replied, pouring sake into Yukishiro's cup yet again. He paused, eyeing Yukishiro sharply. "And by not taking a bamboo whip to yourself, either. Why do you insist on heaping blame on yourself?"
"And why do you insist on asking the unanswerable?" Yukishiro returned, before draining his cup and gesturing to the pubkeeper for another round of carafes.
Hiko snorted. "Just because you can't put the answer into words, or don't wish to give voice to it, doesn't mean you don't have the answer at all."
They drank their way through the fresh round of carafes in what felt like grim determination, and once the last drop had been drained, Yukishiro promptly ordered a third round.
Hiko drank off the sake in his cup and set it down. "But you're doing yourself no favors by thinking harshly of yourself. Kamiya certainly sees something worthwhile in you." He frowned. "And so do your children. And your grandson. And me, for that matter."
"Ah." Yukishiro refilled Hiko's cup with slightly unsteady hands, before turning his attention to completing round three.
The better to order round four, and this time, the pubkeep provided them with a few bowls of edamame and dried, shredded squid.
Yukishiro plucked one of the edamame pods from the bowl, fiddled with it for a moment, then tossed it aside. "Too difficult." He drained off his sake instead.
Hiko raised an eyebrow. "Are you going to need assistance getting to your feet when we're through?"
He refilled Yukishiro's cup all the same.
"Perhaps I'll order a… a palanquin. Have them carry me home in style, as if I were the Emperor himself." Yukishiro blew out a breath and waved the thought away before topping up Hiko's cup.
"Perhaps you ought to have another," Hiko replied, chuckling dryly. He knocked back his cup almost as soon as Yukishiro had finished refilling it. "As for a palanquin, I doubt any bearers will be out on the streets in weather like this." He shook his head. "I'll get us home myself."
Somehow they drank their way to a fifth round, and Hiko strongly suspected he would end up half-dragging Yukishiro home.
"Do you think…" Yukishiro pushed his spectacles up into his hair and rubbed at his eyes. "Do you think Kamiya-kun was right? Or Himura-kun?" He made a sound that was a cross between a laugh and a snort. "My daughter certainly seems to think so, and she paid a personal price for Himura-kun's actions."
Hiko sipped his sake - he did not knock it back this time - and considered.
"I think every man does what he believes is right," he said eventually. "And every man is right and wrong about himself and his convictions in measure."
He gestured expansively. "Kamiya is a man of noble heart and lofty intentions. He followed his heart, and he happened to be on the side of those who won the war. Now that the war is over, he intends to teach and use his sword style to promote the protection of life." He blew out a small puff of air; the smallest of laughs. "Perhaps he is naive, or perhaps he will succeed."
His expression became a halfhearted scowl. "As for my idiot apprentice, he was driven by his own experiences. He saw nothing but the very worst of the world before his seventh year, and he ran off to join the rebels when I was too much of a fool to restrain him." His scowl deepened. "His goals may have been noble, his ideals may have been pure, but he chose the stupidest of possible ways to achieve them when he first left me." He shook his head. "And afterwards, when he returned, his mind and his heart were harmed by the war. I can still see it."
Hiko drank again, this time tipping back the last of the sake in his cup. "Your daughter is a very perceptive girl. If she believes my idiot apprentice was right, then it's safe to assume that he was."
Yukishiro blew out a breath, tented his fingers, and then leaned his forehead against them. "So you defer to my daughter's judgement?" he murmured. "It appears, then, that now I've asked the unanswerable."
"It's taken me much of my life to discover that right and wrong are concepts the world has little use for."
Hiko thought bitterly of all the evil he had witnessed, all the cruelty that men were capable of inflicting upon one another. All the good he himself had failed to do, and all the wrongs which could never possibly have been set right.
"Right and wrong are solely the province of humanity, and yet only humanity is capable of deliberate malice." He shook his head and gave a single humorless laugh. "What my idiot apprentice did was both right and wrong. And I suppose, in the end, that is all we men are ever truly capable of."
Yukishiro's shoulders shook, and it took Hiko a moment to realize the man was laughing silently into his hands.
"You don't speak like a man who has drunk five rounds of sake." He didn't look up from the table. "Perhaps we should order a sixth?"
If Yukishiro was laughing, Hiko thought wryly - actually laughing, not merely smiling - then ordering a sixth round of sake would mean he would wind up carrying the man home over his shoulder. As it was, Yukishiro would probably make the trip leaning heavily against him for balance.
"It looks like five rounds were plenty for you," he replied with a chuckle of his own. "As for me, I learned long ago that it takes far more than that to intoxicate me."
"Perhaps it's as the old saying goes." Yukishiro looked up and beckoned in the general direction of the pubkeep. "'The first cup, the man drinks sake; the second cup, sake drinks sake; the third cup, sake drinks up the man.'"
Before long, they indeed had a sixth round before them.
"I'll have to remember that one," Hiko said once he'd refilled Yukishiro's cup. He had better watch the man carefully or else he really would end up having to tote him home over his shoulder. "But I always preferred the one about the seasons."
He smiled to remember how, long ago, he had sat under a bright autumn moon drinking sake and related the old saying to Kenshin as he now related it to Yukishiro.
"Springtime brings the cherry blossoms. Stars cover the summer sky. The full moon shines on autumn, and the winter brings the snow. If the taste of sake ever becomes unpleasant despite these things, then the unpleasantness is in you." He chuckled. "I have never once seen that saying proven wrong."
He sipped at his own cup, relishing the flavor, and all at once a revelation struck him. It was not the snow blanketing the ground outside that gave sweetness to the sake, nor was it the clear and crisp air that only winter could bring. It was the company he had chosen to keep this evening that made the sake taste exceptionally fine.
Though by the end of the sixth round, it was clear that said company was ready to crawl into one of the many empty carafes and stay there.
"Perhaps I should have eaten some of the edamame." Yukishiro weaved drunkenly through the streets in the dark, and Hiko felt compelled to stay near him. He had stumbled almost as soon as they had left the pub, and Hiko had had to steady him once or twice already. "I realize I haven't had an actual meal since lunch. The edamame, however, was far too much work."
"Perhaps you'll wish that much more fervently in the morning." Hiko reached out again to put a stabilizing hand on the smaller man's shoulder. "Ah well. A lesson for next time."
Yukishiro blew out a breath and shook his head, and would have stumbled to the ground had Hiko's hand not been clamped on his shoulder.
"Ochazuke for morning," he said. "Tea rice will soak up fermented rice quite nicely."
Hiko was on the point of mentioning that it would be a minor miracle if Yukishiro were able to rise from his futon at breakfast time the following morning, but the noise of several sets of quick footsteps silenced him.
A handful of scruffy-looking men wielding tanto knives - and, in one case, a slightly tarnished sword - darted out from one of the side alleyways to stand in front of them.
"Your money or your life, old man," the sword-wielder barked, giving Yukishiro what he must have thought was a particularly intimidating glare. "And you, big man - stay still." He grinned unpleasantly, revealing yellow teeth. "Unless you want to get hurt."
Hiko rolled his eyes. Of all the unbelievably moronic things to happen as he was helping Yukishiro home…
"Here," he muttered gruffly, seizing Yukishiro by the shoulders and shifting him bodily aside. He propped him against the wall, where he promptly began to slide down in a gradual, almost imperceptibly slow slouch. "I won't be a moment."
It occurred to him as he unsheathed his sword that he could kill these five men in an instant. That it would be like stamping on a cluster of ants; that he could do it without even breaking his stride. That he had killed much more powerful - and much more evil - men in less time than it took him to pull on his boots.
But these men were not murderous bandits.
Had they been, they would have swung their swords first and not bothered with intimidating talk. They were simple robbers, and clearly they were imbeciles as well. And he suddenly found the notion of cutting them down distasteful. It would be beneath his honor to soil his steel with their blood.
Perhaps his idiot apprentice was rubbing off on him, he thought as he flipped his blade around in his hand.
It was all over in a matter of eyeblinks. Using only the dull back of the blade, he moved like a spring wind through the group of men, dealing out punishing blows that would leave them incapacitated but not dead. And when the last one crumpled against the wall where he had been thrown, Hiko sheathed his sword with deliberate slowness.
"You're not a particularly bright man, are you?" he asked the ringleader, who was clutching at his injured ribs with a pop-eyed expression. "Trying to rob a man of my size who's carrying a sword?"
Behind him, Yukishiro was once again laughing.
"My money or my life?" He slid further down the wall. "I'm a samurai. I don't have any money. What did you think you were going to do? Steal my house? Steal my rice? Had you planned this better, had you put any thought into this at all, you would have robbed a merchant in one of their districts. They're the ones with all the money."
The man's only response was a groan of pain and a look of absolute and humiliated embarrassment.
Hiko shook his head in disgust. While it might have been quicker and easier simply to kill the men, they would remember this moment for the rest of their lives and perhaps think twice before attempting any more dishonesty.
Or perhaps this was the world's way of confirming that his idiot apprentice had indeed gotten it right.
He watched Yukishiro slip further down the wall, almost into a sitting position, and reached out with one hand to seize the inebriated man by the front of his hanten and lift him upright once more.
"Come on," he muttered. "It will be some time before these idiots can get to their feet again. We can take our time getting back home."
"We can't just…" Yukishiro wavered on his feet, then gestured vaguely toward the men, all of them sprawled unconscious in the snow. "Are we supposed to just leave them there?" He frowned. "That feels unseemly."
Hiko raised an amused eyebrow at Yukishiro. "And where exactly would you like me to put them?"
"I don't know." Yukishiro's frown deepened. "This is an entirely new experience for me."
"I suppose it must be," Hiko replied with a chuckle, steadying him on his feet. "Still, they're far better off where they are now than where they would have been if they'd tried this on me a year ago."
That much was true. The men would be sore and bruised and hurt and soaked and thoroughly humiliated when they woke up, but at least they would wake up. And probably in fairly short order as well, what with the cold air and the snow.
"Think of the unseemliness as part of their penance for trying to rob you," he suggested, starting off again towards the house.
"They would have been terribly disappointed." Yukishiro followed him unsteadily. "A much-depleted coin purse and a roll of ink brushes are all they would have gotten for their efforts."
"Yes, well." Hiko slackened his pace to let Yukishiro catch up with him, then put a firm hand on the man's shoulder. It wouldn't do to have him slip and fall on the way home. "I think we've thoroughly established their stupidity by now. Amassing further evidence of it seems pointless."
They reached the Yukishiro house without further incident, and when Hiko slid open the shutters to help Yukishiro into the house, he saw Tomoe, Enishi, and Kenshin sitting around the hearth sipping tea and playing a quiet game with hanafuda cards. Kenichi lay in his mother's futon, his face that expression of childish sleep that was equal parts innocence and silliness.
"Into bed with you, I think," Hiko muttered to Yukishiro, whose legs seemed to have lost their strength somewhere around the front gate.
"Otousan?" Enishi set his cards down and looked at his father. "Are you… are you drunk?"
Yukishiro removed the daisho and the ink brush roll from his belt and pushed everything into his son's hands. "I think I very well might be, yes."
Enishi turned a glare on Hiko. "What'd you do?"
Yukishiro handed his hanten to Tomoe and then wandered over to his futon. He managed to undo the ties to his hakama, somewhat folded the thing and set it aside, and then crawled into the futon.
"Left some would-be robbers in the snow," he murmured, "but other than that, it was a fairly uneventful, yet pleasant evening."
Kenshin and Tomoe exchanged a glance, then looked at Hiko. Kenshin raised an eyebrow.
"What?" Hiko exploded. Kenichi stirred, Tomoe frowned at that, and Hiko winced. "What?" he repeated, much more quietly.
"Those would-be robbers," Kenshin said quietly. "They're still alive, aren't they?"
"Not through any of their own merit," Hiko grumbled, sitting down at the hearth beside them. Tomoe poured him a cup of tea, which he accepted with a nod of thanks. "What sort of previously-unheard-of stupidity might have led them to rob a middle-aged samurai and a man who looks like me, I can't begin to imagine."
"Wild mountain man," Yukishiro murmured, before rolling over and very likely falling asleep.
Kenshin ducked his head and began to neatly stack the hanafuda cards in the palm of his hand, but a hint of a smile was still visible through his curtain of hair.
Hiko turned a scowl on Yukishiro which may have fallen a touch short of convincing.
"What was that about sake drinking up the man?" he asked wryly, and received no answer from his sleeping friend.
It had been a thoroughly interesting - and enlightening - day.
NOTE THE FIRST
HEY FAM GUESS WHO'S BACK WITH AN UPDATE? (Me. That's the answer. It wasn't a trick question.) Anyway, I've been gone a while - appreciative thanks to those of you who checked in me - but now I'm back, and the bimonthly update schedule should continue apace. (Unless it doesn't. But it probably will.)
NOTE THE SECOND
Did anyone catch the RK GLOBAL FAN EVENT? Because I didn't. In fact, I only found out about it the day after the fact. THANKS, GLOBAL FAN EVENT. The first new and exciting content in a number of years (Watsuki, don't interact), AND I MISSED IT LIKE A CHUMP (though thankfully a fan sent me a few links). I'M HYPED FOR THE NEW MOVIES, ESPECIALLY FOR MY GIRL TOMOE OMG SHE LOOKS PERFECT I ALREADY LOVE HER.
Also, my boy Takasugi Shinsaku (tuberculosis shamisen guy, also founded the Kiheitai but like nbd right?) is in the movie, which is also very exciting to exactly one person. (Again, me. The answer is me.)
NOTE THE THIRD
I don't have any cultural notes today, except to say that Hiko and Papa Yukishiro have gone drinking together three times in this story so far, which means they're probably like BFF now, and thank fuck for that, because Hiko NEEDS FRIENDS EVEN IF HE'D NEVER ADMIT IT.
Anyway, I'm here, I'm eager for you to talk to me, blah blah blah. Leave comments and notes, and the like because you know I lap that stuff up like a delicious Cadbury Egg that's half-off because Easter clearance.