Hi! I'm back with a new chapter. As usual, if you see any mistake and want to correct me, please let me know. I really appreciate any constructive criticism.
I just wanted to add that if you expected to see Kenshin killing every "bad guy" he faces, then this story will disappoint you. He still hates killing, and only will do it if he sees there is no other choice. He still has a moral compass. However, there will be some surprises in the future.
III
Yahiko Myojin,
a descendant of the Tokyo samurai.
Kenshin sighed with weariness as Kaoru's angry voice echoed through the dojo, muttering things under her breath about the red-headed man's stubbornness.
Since they had returned home the day before, and after regaining her confidence completely by seeing that he was now calm after the incident with the sword-bearing police and the subsequent encounter with General Yamagata, the girl had not stopped scolding him about how reckless he had been for falling into that captain's provocation, and how completely stupid it was to walk around with his swords.
"One of these days you're going to end up in jail and no one will be able to get you out." The blue-eyed woman mumbled at that moment, hitting the air with her bokken in a repetitive forward motion that Kenshin found extremely boring.
Kaoru was training in the dojo at that moment and in the process, had taken the opportunity to remind him again that he could no longer carry his swords around. The red-haired samurai was already tired of the subject, but he had swallowed the complaints and had merely sighed at having to return to the usual conversation about the sword-carrying ban. He knew that after yesterday's fight, he would have to listen to her lecture him for a good couple of days, and he certainly wasn't looking forward to that.
For him, leaving his sword behind would be like cutting off his arm, or something similar. He could not even imagine actually giving up his weapon and going on with his life without it. He would feel unprotected, vulnerable, and after having lived through everything he had done, that feeling would be truly horrible. When he had abandoned his katana after the battle of Toba-Fushimi, and a little before he got his sakabatō, the feeling of being helpless had been quite grim, so much so that he never wanted to feel it again.
"I know it's hard to give up the old ways, but if the other samurai have been able to do it, then so can you." the girl grunted between swipes of her bokken, under the watchful eye of the swordsman who watched her critically from his relaxed position against the wall, sitting on the floor with his sword resting against his shoulder.
Most of the other samurai have either joined the police, or have become bandits, he thought dryly, but prudently decided not to verbalize that, remaining silent as he analyzed the girl closely.
During the days he had been living there, the man had taken the liberty to observe her training and, in doing so, he studied the girl's fighting style. His conclusions had been that the Kamiya Kasshin was a style that, although he did not really like as he found it inefficient, it was useful for defense. And in the long run, that was what it was meant to do: to defend and nothing more. In that era, where the sword was not needed, kendo was doomed to become just a method of defense, and he already knew that. However, the girl needed help with some of her forms, and even he could see that as he watched her train. It was obvious that she had never completely finished her training, and for that reason she was the assistant teacher, and not a full teacher.
He had been tossing around the idea of offering to help her, but he didn't want to offend her or anything, as she might take it negatively that he wanted to help her with her fighting style, when he wasn't even the one to use it. But he was a skilled swordsman, with many, many years of experience, and was perfectly capable of realizing that Kaoru's forms could be improved. Perhaps if he used a more subtle approach to help her, he could avoid annoying her... Well, he would think about it later.
"First of all, I've carried this sword for ten years, I'm not going to give it up just because." He muttered defensively, rolling his eyes at the girl's back. "Secondly, getting caught yesterday was a consequence of me not putting all my efforts into running away. If I had wanted to, I would have escaped over the rooftops and they wouldn't have been able to catch me. And thirdly, I've been in the dungeon for carrying the sword before, and they always release me a day or two later. It's no big deal. I don't worry about whether someone gets me out or not."
Too late, he realized that wasn't the right answer. Kaoru suddenly stopped training and shot him an annoyed look, almost shooting sparks out of her eyes. If looks could kill, I think I'd be more than dead on the ground by now, the wanderer thought, slightly pale and with a bead of sweat on the back of his neck as he felt the irritation in the young woman's ki.
"You are such an ingrate, I worry about you and you don't even care!" The girl shouted at him, but Kenshin suddenly stopped listening to her. An annoying shiver ran down his back as he felt some unfamiliar presences at the front of the dojo, so he silently stood up, placing his sword in his obi, and then walked towards the door of the place with his left hand resting on the hilt of his sakabatō. The blue-eyed girl, however, was completely unperturbed by his movement and continued with her rant: "Carrying a sword only brings you trouble, it's absurd for you to keep carrying it when you don't need it. You could carry a bokken like I do."
Well, that got the samurai's attention again, who turned his outraged blue gaze back to the female. She had to be kidding if she thought he would carry a wooden sword. He couldn't even imagine wandering around with a bokken... And he could only imagine what the reaction of anyone that knew him and learned that the Battousai Himura was walking around with a bokken would be. If in itself the sakabatō would already make him the laughing stock of many men who had met him during the Bakumatsu, it would be worse if he exchanged it for a wooden sword.
Besides, there were certain habits that could not be easily broken, and his use of the sword was one of them. He was a swordsman who all his life had used a real katana, even from his early days. From the early days of his training with his shishō in the mountains, he had always used a steel sword, he could not simply abandon the katana now to replace it with a bokken. The very idea seemed ridiculous to him, what could he do with a bokken?
"If I've been in trouble, it wasn't exactly because of the sword." He rolled his eyes at the black-haired girl again, a gesture that she saw perfectly this time, and which made her press her lips together in irritation.
"But it could happen! And you could avoid it if you carried a bokken!" she exclaimed, stubbornly.
But Kenshin, deciding to ignore the comment outright, frowned and looked outside again with his eyes narrowed and his left hand still on the hilt of his sword, while unconsciously tensing his muscles a little. He sensed a crowd gathering outside, and that brought him to immediate alertness.
"What's wrong?" the girl asked in an annoyed voice, bewildered and a little bit annoyed to see that Kenshin's attention was no longer on her.
He, with icy eyes, resumed his way to the door that led to the front of the house, barely directing a glance at the woman in the dojo as he raised his right hand to open the shōji.
"There's been a crowd gathering outside for a few minutes now."
The blue-eyed woman blinked, confused, quickly making her way to the red-haired man who only watched her out of the corner of his eye with pursed lips before flinging open the door as she reached his side.
And he was right. Outside, a group of more than a dozen people were crowded at the entrance, and as soon as they saw them they began hurriedly asking about kendo classes. Kaoru almost dropped her bokken to the ground in shock when she heard that question, however, Kenshin was not particularly amused to see that those people were more focused on him than on her. Clearly, they wanted lessons from him, not Kaoru.
"There must be at least fifteen people!" the girl said excitedly as she finished counting those closest to her, unable to properly count those farther away, "At last the Kamiya Kasshin Ryu is going to reopen its doors!"
She was so happy, it pained Kenshin to have to be the one to ruin her happiness. He didn't want to disappoint her, but he couldn't allow her to believe that they wanted to take lessons in her style, when the ki of those people clearly said that what they wanted was to learn the style he used.
"Don't be so sure." Kenshin muttered under his breath, but the young woman heard him and looked at him confused, not understanding what he meant. With a sigh, he set out to crush Kaoru's illusions, knowing that the reason why that crowd was there, after no one had come all week, could only be due to the incident of the previous day: "Excuse me. If you have come because you saw or heard about yesterday's fight with the police, I'm afraid there is some misunderstanding. I do not belong to this dojo, nor am I going to take any disciples to teach my technique to. Therefore, if that is the reason you have come here, I must ask you to leave. I'm sorry."
Before the Kamiya Kasshin teacher understood what had happened, the dojo was empty again. She stared at the desolate courtyard with wide eyes and mouth open in shock, unable to understand the implications of the words spoken by the red-haired man. The only thing she understood was that where once there had been fifteen potential students, now there were none.
Seeing the stupefied state of the young black-haired girl, Kenshin decided to make a strategic retreat in the direction of the market, or any place far from the dojo... like a nice forest that was on the outside of the city, where he could perhaps train his katas for a while. Anything to be away from that house while he waited for his hostess to get over her anger, and it was safe enough to return so that he could prepare the food without having to look over his shoulder for the angry girl. For she was sure to be a hell of a lot angrier than she had ever been before.
However, he barely made it a few steps away from her when instinct made him turn around, raising his hands in a defensive position to grip the bokken that had been coming straight down towards his head.
Kaoru had reacted sooner than he had thought.
He cursed internally in a language he had learned from his comrades in the war. He would never say words like that in front of a lady, and that was why he only thought them and swallowed them before he said them outloud. With a swift deft movement, he released his grip on the wooden sword and jumped backwards, narrowly dodging the second strike she had tried to give him.
"You idiot!" Kaoru shouted as she chased the samurai through the house and then around the courtyard, trying to hit him with her bokken or at least to grab him to rebuke him better, but he kept prudently away from her, dodging her with his usual lightness. "Because of you they are all gone!"
"But I'm not going to teach them my technique, and I don't belong to the dojo." The red-haired man defended himself, avoiding a new blow. Tired of that "dance", he slightly bent his legs to give a powerful jump that left him on the roof of the house, where he could keep a safe distance from the girl. Kaoru was extremely enraged at that moment and, to tell the truth, she was starting to scare him a little. Honestly, he would rather face a hundred armed men than that angry woman.
She glared at him from the floor, raising the bokken at him in a threatening gesture that honestly made her look terrifying, even if he had faced worse in the past. Nothing had ever seemed more terrifying to him than the girl's livid expression and indignant, angry blue eyes.
"But that's no reason to have told them to leave!" the kendoka shouted from the floor, glaring at him with eyes burning with fury. "Come here, you coward! Face me like a man!"
The rōnin snorted lightly, then sat down in a lotus position on top of the roof of the house. I'm not suicidal, thank you very much, he mused silently, watching the girl with an expression that plainly said that he didn't plan to come down from there until she had calmed down a bit and put violence aside.
He could take on a lot of men without breaking a sweat, but he wasn't going down to take her on. Firstly, because he wouldn't even be able to defend himself properly if he did. And secondly, it was really exhausting to have to run away from her blows all the time, even for someone like him.
"That's not true." He replied with a small spark of slyness shining in his violet eyes, while raising his voice a little so she could hear him clearly from the courtyard, "Technically speaking, I told them to leave if they were here because of yesterday."
She was not amused by the joke. She gave him such an angry look that it made him swallow unconsciously, thinking that being smart when she was angry wasn't the best of his ideas.
"Kenshin, you're an idiot! Those people would have helped restore honor to the dojo!" She shouted, furious, kicking the ground in an extremely childish gesture, like a little girl having a tantrum. The red-haired man found it enormously amusing, but managed to swallow his laughter with some difficulty.
"That wouldn't have been honest. You shouldn't deceive people, Kaoru-dono." He replied weakly, struggling not to laugh at her expression. She shouted something unintelligible in response, almost spewing fire from her mouth as she glared at him angrily. Then she threw her bokken at him like a javelin in a move so utterly unexpected that it caught the redhead completely off guard. For once he was unable to dodge the weapon and ended up taking a blow full in the forehead that left him severely dazed on the roof, dizzy and with his eyes in a spiral shape.
"Oro..." he muttered under his breath, dazed by the unforeseen blow and struggling to stay balanced on the roof. A fall from that height wouldn't be very pretty if he was dizzy, as he wouldn't be able to brace himself for landing and might land badly and break something.
He wobbled a bit from his once perfect lotus position, but managed to stay on the roof with some difficulty until the dizziness faded.
Focusing his gaze again on the blue-eyed girl, he frowned irritably at her reciprocating the female's angry glare, bringing one of his hands up to his forehead where a red mark was beginning to appear at the spot where the bokken had hit him.
"Why was that?" The red-haired man complained aloud, in a way that reminded him of when he was 12 years old and used to argue with his master. That almost made him snort. It had been many years since he had been a child, but at that moment his voice sounded like one.
"You deserved it." The black-haired girl replied, still furious but no longer shouting. Raising up her chin in a proud gesture, she headed inside her room, closing the shōji behind her back as tightly as she could.
Kenshin sighed, rubbing his forehead carefully, feeling the sore area and already feeling some slight swelling under his fingertips.
"This is surely going to leave a bruise..." he muttered, pursing his lips slightly at the thought. He snorted before leaping down from the roof, then heading for the kitchen, cursing inwardly as he muttered in an almost inaudible voice, with clear outrage: "Insufferable violent women..."
If Kenshin was outraged, Kaoru was absolutely and totally offended because of what happened with those people.
The girl stayed angry for most of the day, and she didn't miss any opportunity she had to reproach the rōnin for sending all those potential students away. Not only was she offended, she was livid with fury that seemed to have no end, and her shouting and ranting continued for hours, to the complete frustration and exhaustion of the redhead, who was already beginning to get seriously annoyed with the situation.
Therefore, while walking a couple of prudent meters behind her in the direction of one of the schools where the woman taught classes, the samurai tried to disconnect his mind from Kaoru's grunts and insults, having partial success in doing so. Gods, that girl's temper was worse than an erupting volcano.
He had had no reason to accompany her, but she had basically demanded him to escort her to the dojo in case some thug assaulted her on the way. Honestly, if that happened, Kenshin felt sorry for the bandit who dared to attack her while she was in that state of rage. He even doubted that any idiot would dare to do so, just looking at her unfriendly face was scary as hell.
"Honesty, bah!" he heard the girl grumble at that moment as they crossed a bridge, with him following at a safe distance in case she decided to try to hit him again.
With a sigh, he refocused his attention on the black-haired girl, hearing her whispered insults under her breath. That made him raise his eyebrows slightly in poorly concealed astonishment. She was the first woman he knew who could utter so many swear words in a row, no other had ever been so foul-mouthed. But, really, that didn't matter too much, as he was more focused on wondering how it was possible for her to stay angry for so many hours. Didn't she get tired of being in that state?
"Are you still upset?" he muttered in a low, almost inaudible voice, talking more to himself than to the girl, but she somehow managed to hear him and turned a little to give him an irritated look.
"There were more than fifteen people! Of course I'm still angry!" The girl exclaimed, glaring at the red-haired man over her shoulder. "If you hadn't scared them away I'd have a lot of students by now."
The male sighed, a small vein throbbing in his temple. A headache was beginning to form in his skull, a product of feeling the constant aggressive ki from the kendoka, added to the overly loud female voice that had been yelling at him most of the day. He was getting seriously tired, and his patience was hanging by a thread. At any moment, if she continued to be this irritating, he would turn around and head back to the dojo to get his belongings and get the hell out of there faster than she could say "bokken."
"Those people really weren't interested in kendo." Kenshin commented, struggling to keep his composure. If she was acting like a child, then he should act like the adult he was and keep the situation from getting out of hand. As much as he wanted to growl at her to shut up and behave, it wouldn't solve anything. "They were impressed by yesterday's fight. A student who was just out of intrigue wouldn't have lasted more than a few months, Kaoru-dono. You must be patient and wait for real disciples to arrive."
The girl glared at him, again, drawing a sigh from the increasingly irritated swordsman, who merely shot her a look with a pair of tired purple eyes. She had been like this for half a day now, screaming uncontrollably every chance she got. Really, there was no way to deal with her when she got so angry.
Himura, don't lose your temper, he thought in those moments, closing his eyes momentarily to concentrate on breathing deeply, searching for his inner calm. She's young, she'll grow out of this bad temper.
At times like that, when she acted in such an irrational and surly manner, he almost forgot the reason why he kept hanging around. It was easy to erase from memory the fact that she was kind and sweet to him most of the time, when she was acting in that aggressive way that repelled him like nothing ever before. However, he tried to force himself to remember it as she raised her voice again to shout at him.
"I have to go to other schools to teach my style! That's outrageous, if I have my own dojo to teach in!" She was very upset. She had a school of her own and could not teach her technique in her dojo. She had to go to other dojos to support herself because no one wanted to return to hers, all because of the fake Battousai.
"At least you don't get rusty," Kenshin muttered slightly amused, trying to joke to calm things down a bit. But she was not at all amused.
"I wouldn't get rusty if you trained with me!" she shouted so loudly that probably all of Tokyo heard, but the redhead only shrugged in response, not wanting to commit to anything.
On the one hand, he knew that training with her would be useful, as he could help her with her forms in a subtle way, without her knowing what he was doing. But on the other, he seriously feared hurting her.
It was true that he had wandered in the last ten years, and rarely stayed in one place for too long, but that didn't mean he had given up his training. He had made sure to keep his skills sharp as ever, and he hadn't lost any practice in all that decade, in fact, they had probably grown as he had taken the time to perfect and even slightly modify some of his techniques in order to have more speed when wielding the sakabatō, which wasn't the most suitable weapon for the style he used. Because of that, he feared that if he trained with her, he might hurt her by accident.
Sure, he knew how to control his strength better than many other swordsmen, but he wasn't used to fighting with girls and he didn't know how much she could endure if they fought.
"I told you I'd think about it." the samurai said, gently reminding her that they'd already had that conversation and that he'd assured her he'd think about training with her.
Kaoru snorted, again dissatisfied with the red-haired man's response. Before she could open her mouth to yell at him again, however, he scowled and turned slightly to look over his shoulder, with a tense posture that she recognized as him preparing for some fight. Instantly swallowing her anger, she merely watched with concern as the red-haired man scanned the area with his still violet gaze.
The rōnin, for his part, had placed his left hand on the sheath of his sword when he felt a peculiar ki that put him on momentary alert. It was faint, probably from a child, (which made him relax a bit and drop his hand back to his side), but it still felt somewhat vicious and malicious in intent, and seemed to be heading his way.
Mm, he thought, casting his violet gaze over his shoulder, searching for the source of the curious energy that was now directly behind him, only a couple of meters away. Probably a thief.
It was then that he could see him out of the corner of his eye. A small boy, no more than 11 years old, wearing a slightly orange kimono and brown hakama, who at that very moment was running towards him like a bat out of hell with one of his hands outstretched, ready to shove it into the red-haired man's sleeve.
Kenshin just sighed and at the precise moment when the little boy was inches away from colliding with him, he moved out of the way to dodge him. The boy rushed past him with a surprised expression on his face, unable to slow down in time because of the speed he was going, but before he could get too far away the samurai grabbed him by the back of his kimono, holding him firmly so he wouldn't run away.
"Hey." The red-haired man muttered, narrowing his eyes at the little boy, who with a grunt began to struggle against his grip. Kenshin looked at him boredly, not at all impressed by the brat's actions, waiting patiently for him to tire of struggling, which happened only a few minutes later. "If you're going to try to steal, at least don't be so obvious about it. Or pick an easier target."
The boy whined incoherently and continued to struggle in the grip of the redhead, who finally released him and took a step back, keeping his hands in the sleeves of his kimono in a relaxed gesture.
"I only chose you because you're using swords." the boy mumbled with an indignant voice, observing with his dark eyes the face of the samurai, who only raised an eyebrow in his direction: "You go around with those swords... I am Myojin Yahiko, son of a Tokyo samurai! And my father could have wiped the floor with you!"
The rōnin merely gave him a curious glance, raising both eyebrows this time in clear surprise. A descendant of samurai stealing in the streets? For it seemed things were worse than he thought if it had come to that.
"You shouldn't disgrace your parents' names by being a pickpocket." Kaoru suddenly spat, standing next to the red-haired man who gave her a brief glance when he heard her speak, "A samurai wouldn't do such a shameful thing."
"Shut up, you hag!" the boy shouted in response, not at all happy about being lectured by a girl.
Kenshin flinched slightly at the insult, refraining from letting out a whistle of admiration for the boy's audacity. He took a step away from the furious girl, wanting to avoid being indirectly affected by her anger, as he didn't want to end up being hit again. He had enough of a hit on that day, thank you very much. Honestly, he couldn't decide if the boy was too brave or too stupid to mess with Kaoru at that moment, since she was almost breathing fire from her mouth, and her expression was terrifying. And of course, upon hearing the insult all the anger that the girl had accumulated during the day was immediately focused on the aggressor.
She instantly started yelling at Yahiko, who was undaunted and yelled back with increasingly creative insolence, further upsetting Kaoru. She had already pulled out the bokken and seemed ready to lash out at the boy.
Poor soul. Kenshin watched them for a few moments with a drop of sweat on his temple, as insults went back and forth between the kendoka and the boy. The little thief had as bad a temper as Kaoru, and he showed it by responding to the girl's aggravations with some even worse.
"Guys..." he tried to get their attention in a meek voice, raising a hand to calm things down, but was completely ignored by the arguing pair. That irritated him, and momentarily his eyes turned ice blue, then quickly turned back to violet as the redhead took a deep breath to keep his composure.
"Shut up, you damn kid!" Kaoru shouted at that instant, her face red with anger as the boy messed with her physical appearance, "Over here they call me the kenjutsu beauty!"
"Then they're totally blind! You're an ugly witch!"
The samurai's jaw dropped when he heard that, and he looked so shocked that it was almost comical. He forgot his irritation with the pair for the sheer astonishment that seized him, for he could not believe his ears, now indeed the lad had gone overboard with the offense. Perhaps calling herself "the kenjutsu beauty" was exaggerating a bit, but Kaoru was a good looking woman, and anyone could see that. Even he himself had thought so from the first day he met her, and he didn't usually take much notice of women since... Anyway, the point is that she was far from being as the boy described her.
The girl at that instant had forgotten the bokken and was holding the brat by the collar of his kimono, while snarling at each other like a pair of rabid dogs. Of course, Kenshin decided to intervene at that instant, to prevent the boy from being the victim of a sovereign beating from the pissed off blue-eyed girl.
"There, there." He muttered in a firm voice, taking a step forward to free the boy and pull him away from Kaoru, who protested something unintelligible when he got the boy out of her hands, but otherwise didn't object too much. "Stealing is bad, kid, and if you're really a descendant of samurai, then you shouldn't do it."
Without further ado, he let go of the brat and turned around, moving forward a couple of steps with Kaoru following him grumpily, for he had prevented her from hitting the thief.
"I'm not a kid!" Yahiko shouted from behind him, tapping his foot on the wooden floor of the bridge and picking up a small stone which he hurled towards the samurai's head.
Kenshin dodged the projectile with ease, and as he looked back he knew he had hurt the boy's pride and couldn't help but think how different his life would be if he had been born a couple of decades ago. He probably would have been a samurai, for he had the pride of one. That also made him wonder why on earth he would be stealing... However, he didn't get anything out of thinking about what might have happened. This was the Meiji era, and the samurai had lost their privileged status, leaving hundreds of honorable warriors without a place in the world. And that seemed to include that kid.
"It's all right, little one..."
"I'm not little!" Yahiko interrupted him grumpily, shooting a look full of fury at the red-haired man.
"You're right, it's obvious that you have the heart of an adult." Kenshin said instead, giving him a small smile, "I'm sorry for offending you."
The boy then walked away, grumbling under his breath, and left Kaoru and Kenshin standing in the middle of the bridge, watching him with different expressions on their faces. She was still fuming, but the man was watching him with a look of sadness and pity, that if Yahiko had seen it, he would have surely thrown another stone at him.
"What a brat." Kaoru growled, looking at the place where the boy was leaving.
"Foolish pride or a strong sense of honor?" Kenshin wondered, shaking his head with some amusement, but deep down he felt quite saddened by the situation the boy had fallen into.
The girl next to him grumbled under her breath, pursing her lips in a gesture of clear annoyance.
"He's just a brat, if you ask me." she snarled again. Kaoru's mood hadn't changed, it was still just as horrible as before the encounter with the little thief, but at least it seemed that her anger was no longer directed at the samurai, which made him a little relieved.
He made a mental note to thank Yahiko if he saw him again, though the boy probably wouldn't be happy about it at all. Amused, he turned around again and they soon resumed their walk to the dojo where Kaoru was to teach that afternoon.
"Well, I think that in former times, that boy would have been a great samurai."
The sound of the flowing river was all that could be heard in the desolate area, but Yahiko did not pay the slightest attention to it.
Sitting on the riverbank with his legs hugged against his chest and his chin resting on his knees, the brown-haired boy was completely lost in his own thoughts, which were plagued by the words that the red-haired man and the blue-eyed girl from a few hours ago had said to him.
He hadn't been able to stop thinking about it all day. He had even found it impossible to do a single robbery because of it. Sure, he knew perfectly well that stealing was bad, and that he shouldn't do it, but it was the only way he could repay the debt he owed to those yakuza who had provided medicine to his sick mother, and then had taken him in after her death.
At first, he had thought those men were good people. After all, they had taken him in without asking for anything in return, hadn't they? But then they started demanding him to pay back the money they had lent him or else they would beat him to death. When he told them he had no way to pay them back, they suggested he should start stealing to pay off his debt.
At first, the proud boy had resisted this fate. He had never had to live in such a dishonorable way, and he didn't want to either, but then those guys gave him such a beating that he quickly realized that he was in no position to refuse, and that the time when he had been just a kid under the protection of his family was behind him and would not return. He no longer had his parents to protect him, and he would have to start fending for himself.
Yahiko didn't have the slightest idea how to steal a wallet, nor did he possess the speed required to run away should he need to. Even in the worst of times with his mother, when money was scarce after his father's death, he had never come to the need of stealing, so he didn't know what he was getting into when he started. He had earned himself some tremendous beatings on several occasions when he had been caught stealing a wallet or shoplifting something from a store. But sooner rather than later, thanks to the beatings he gained experience, and was able to acquire certain skills to steal without getting caught.
Or at least, that's how it had been until that redhead who had felt him and grabbed him as if he was nothing.
That had hurt his pride, he admitted. Stealing was bad, yes, but he had gained skills for it through blood, sweat and tears, and it hurt him that they had been ruined with the minimum effort on the part of a samurai who had to be arrogant enough to walk around with his swords despite the government's prohibition.
And speaking of samurai... Yahiko knew that his father must be rolling in his grave over his son's actions. He had been an honorable man, a dignified samurai who had always been very proud to have served his master. But his son was stealing on the streets, and that had to be so embarrassing to him that just thinking about it made the boy wince. Not to mention his mother, who was probably also very disappointed.
He wanted to pay off his debt soon and stop stealing, so he could be the boy his parents would have wanted him to be. He wanted to leave the yakuza soon. But hell, it seemed that no matter how much money he stole, his bosses always asked for more and more. It was as if his debt was eternal.
He was so lost in his own musings about what had turned out to be his fate, he didn't even hear the two thugs coming up behind him until it was too late and he wouldn't have been able to escape even if he tried.
"Oh, there you are. We were looking for you, Yahiko." A man said from behind him, in a voice so mocking that it irritated the boy, though he struggled to keep his temper under control so as not to upset the thug. If he did, he would surely be beaten again to the point of being almost on the verge of death. "This month's payment is due today. Hand it over."
The little boy sighed slightly, mentally preparing himself for the hit he knew he was about to receive when he said:
"Get out of here. I won't steal again, and I won't be with you scum anymore."
And just as he had predicted, the response from one of the men was not long in coming. Before Yahiko could even blink, a sharp blow to the back of his head with the sheath of a sword sent him to the ground with a choked groan of pain, which made the tall man who had struck him smile sadistically.
"Don't ever talk to us like that again, understand?" the guy growled in his hoarse voice, which allowed Yahiko to identify him as Gasuke, one of the yakuza hitokiris. Knowing he was there made the kid break out in a cold sweat, but he was undeterred and raised his head slightly as he tried to get up: "And if you don't steal, what will you do with your life?
"That... doesn't matter." Yahiko mumbled, struggling to sit up as the words of the samurai from before echoed loudly in his ears. You have the heart of an adult. Sorry for offending you. The heart of an adult. "I won't do something as pathetic as stealing again, I assure you."
Gasuke growled in disbelief at the boy's nerve, moving instantly to kick him in the back of the head, hard but not hard enough to kill him, getting the boy to yelp slightly from the sudden pain.
"Bloody brat." The man spat, eyes narrowed at the little boy who had just lost consciousness after a second kick, "We'll show you who's in charge."
Without further ado, he motioned to the other thug, who instantly threw the child over his shoulder and set off for his hideout, with his companion following him without uttering a single word.
On the other bank of the river, Kaoru was walking at that moment, humming a merry little song under her breath. She was tired from the class she had taught, but she was finally calm after having forgotten her previous anger, or rather she had taken it out on her students in training. Either way, the girl was serenely walking in the direction of home with her mind distracted elsewhere, or rather on someone else who at that instant was probably waiting for her at home.
I hope Kenshin has already heated the water, the girl thought at that moment with a small amused smile on her lips. Sometimes, like that one, she found it quite funny how the samurai could go from being a dangerous hitokiri who could kill without a second thought, to being a perfect housewife, even better than her.
The samurai had headed to the market after dropping her off safely at the dojo where she was going to do her classes, and had told her that after that he would head back home to do the laundry and surely clean the floor. Before saying goodbye, the redhead had assured her that he would have the water hot for when she arrived in the afternoon, so that she could take her needed bath in peace.
Distracted as she was, she almost didn't notice what was happening in front of her until a movement in her peripheral vision caught her attention, making her focus her gaze to the side more out of instinct than anything else.
That's when she saw them. A pair of bad looking men who gave her the creeps with their features. They looked like yakuza, and that in itself frightened Kaoru, but they ended up stopping her heart in mid-beat when she saw that one of them was carrying an unconscious child on his shoulder, who looked pretty beaten up.
That child is... the one from before, the blue-eyed girl thought, blinking in surprise and biting her lip slightly with uncertainty.
She didn't like the scene at all, and suddenly she was gripped with fear for the boy's life. She didn't even stop to think twice about it when, as quietly and as inconspicuously as she could manage, she followed the trio from the opposite bank of the river carrying her bokken on her shoulder. For an instant, she thought about dropping it so as not to attract anyone's attention, but she might well need it to defend herself if she was caught, so she carried it with her without further thought.
She walked after the thugs at a safe distance so as not to be seen by them, following them through half the city until she reached the most dangerous area where simple bandits and yakuza lived. That scared her a little, though she wouldn't admit it if asked. Maybe she shouldn't be following them, and why was she doing it anyway? What happened to that insolent boy was none of her business either way. But... she couldn't just leave it at that. Insolent or not, Yahiko was just a child. And thief or not, he deserved to be saved, no excuses whatsoever.
Just a couple of streets ahead, she saw them stop and enter a ramshackle house after looking around, causing the girl to have to hide in a corner. Kaoru suspected that that might be their hideout, so she stopped in mid-step when a new doubt struck her.
She could go in there and try to save Yahiko, but... could she do it on her own? Those men were dangerous, and surely murderers as well, and for sure there had to be a lot of them there. Even if she was a woman, they would have no mercy in killing her if she meddled in their affairs. They could even do worse things to her than just kill her, things that made her turn pale and shudder just by imagining it.
And if she somehow survived and managed to save the brat on her own, a monumental scolding would await her at home from a dangerous hitokiri who would put all her previous screams down to the level of mere meows of newborn kittens, and for once she would be the one being scolded and not him. And even though she knew he would not physically harm her, she still feared him if he ever got angry with her.
Then she knew who could help without a problem, without even breaking a sweat. Kenshin. How had she not thought of that before.
She didn't even stop to think about it for a second. Driven by something extraordinary, a primitive instinct perhaps, she ran away as fast as she could in the direction of her dojo with only one thought in her mind: she had to find Kenshin. He had to save that boy. And he had to do it fast.
Meanwhile, the little boy was confronting his superiors inside the house where he had been taken.
Gasuke was beating him savagely, making him let out soft moans of pain but nothing more, for Yahiko stubbornly refused to give him the satisfaction of hearing him scream in agony. That seemed to annoy the thug more and more, whose viciousness with the boy increased with each passing minute without achieving his goal of making the brat beg for mercy.
In truth, he couldn't explain how a simple child could show so much willpower and not flinch in the face of the rain of blows.
"All you have to do is apologize and this will be forgotten." The man snarled at the almost unconscious boy who hung limp in his hand, bleeding profusely from several wounds from the repeated blows.
Yahiko remained silent, limiting himself to observe the older man with an expression of fury that made it clear that he was restraining himself from answering him. He was perfectly aware that if he behaved insolently with that guy, then his punishment would be worse. So for once he swallowed his pride somewhat, and said nothing of what he was thinking.
"Hitokiri Gasuke, stop it. If you keep this up, you're going to kill him, and it's of no use to me if he' s dead." A fat man at the back of the room said calmly, watching the spectacle as he calmly ate. Without complaint, the man obeyed and stopped beating the boy, waiting for his boss to do or say something else. The latter, with a smile that was meant to be reassuring but looked grotesque on his face, then addressed the boy: "Yahiko, how will you live if you stop stealing? Your samurai legacy is worthless in this day and age. Now only money matters, honor is just a word. Samurai who live by honor are treated like dogs in the streets. Forget your samurai lineage and live with us. You'll be fine, Yahiko."
The boy gave him a look of utter disdain, almost grinding his teeth at the words the filthy man was saying. How many times was he going to have to tell them he didn't want to go on stealing until they believed him and left him alone?
He let out a deep sigh of exhaustion, momentarily closing his eyes and ducking his head slightly as a wave of exhaustion hit him. His body was so wounded that it was already beginning to go numb from blood loss, and that was a definite bad sign.
"Don't make me say it a thousand times." He muttered then in a voice barely loud enough for the boss to hear him, "I won't work with you anymore."
He sighed again, and was about to cry out in pain when a kick threw him to the ground, but he managed to restrain himself in time and ended up letting out a muffled groan again. His words had annoyed some of the thugs in the room, and they were quick to give their punishment to the kid who dared to talk to the leader of the group in such a way.
"You fucking brat!"
"How dare you talk like that to the man who took care of you after your parents died!"
"Your parents were samurai, so what?!" the man roared, his face disfigured with anger. "Your father was a poor man with only three koku and two servants. He died a fool defending the emperor's army. And your mother was a whore who sold her body to anyone until she got sick and died. I don't know which of the two of them you took after, but you're just as much of an idiot as both of them!"
For an instant, Yahiko saw red from the fury those words provoked in him. And the next, he lunged forward in a surprise move to bite the first thing he caught, which turned out to be Gasuke's crotch.
Kenshin, for his part, had taken the afternoon at his leisure. After arriving from the market and having put away the groceries he had bought, the samurai had secluded himself to clean the floors with his extreme speed, while quietly singing a song to himself.
Having the dojo entirely to himself for once did him good, for besides doing his chores faster than usual without Kaoru's constant presence, he was also able to take advantage of the time and solitude to practice his kata, which he had left somewhat forgotten since his arrival in the city.
After having finished cleaning the house completely, he went to the dojo where he quickly began to train and in complete silence went from one kata to another smoothly and calmly, progressively increasing the speed until he reached the shinsoku, without even having the need to stop to think about what the next form was. It was like a well-choreographed dance that he already knew by heart and performed guided by instinct. After so many years of using the style, his body moved by inertia to move from one form to the next without him having to execute any movement really consciously.
The training calmed his tense nerves a bit after the constant tension he had experienced with Kaoru in the morning. And really, he hoped that the girl's practice with the boys from the other dojo would make her get rid of the temper she'd had that day, so that she'd get home a little calmer. He didn't want to have to tiptoe around her again.
Before he knew it he was done with the forms he knew and found himself once again standing motionless in the center of the dojo, a sorrowful sigh escaping his lips. He had never finished his training, he had abandoned his master before he completed it... but as much as it pained him to not be able to continue his practice, there was nothing he could do to fix it anymore.
With a expressionless face, though his violet eyes looked like two gaps filled with regret, he sheathed his sword and walked out of the dojo.
Since Kaoru would be arriving soon that day, after training Kenshin took a short bath and then changed his clothes, exchanging his blue kimono for a red one, and his white hakama for others of the same color. Since he had started his travels in Japan, he carried those two sets of clothes with him, for being a vagabond he could not afford to have more than that.
After changing and tying his crimson hair in its usual ponytail on the top of his head, he hurried to wash his clothes and Kaoru's as well, as he had said he would. It took him no more than an hour, and when he finished, he hung them up to dry, then made his way back to the bathroom to prepare Kaoru's bath before she arrived.
However, the hour when the girl had said she would return passed, and there was no sign of her. Minutes passed, first five, then ten... When twenty minutes passed from the promised time, Kenshin began to worry. Kaoru had told him she would go straight home and he had assured her to have her bath ready for her by then. But she was not arriving, and since they had met, she had always seemed to be a very punctual person with her schedule. She was never more than five minutes late.
It was then that he rose from his position, to pick up his sword and put it in his obi along with the wakizashi, ready and willing to leave the dojo to go looking for the blue-eyed girl.
After putting another log in the fire to keep it active and maintain the hot water, the samurai headed for the exit, but at that very moment he froze when he felt the girl's ki approaching, and then saw the aforementioned girl enter through the front door.
And she did so quite perturbed. She was panting and sweating, which made it clear that she had run a long way, and by mere instinct Kenshin looked behind her in search of a possible pursuer, but soon realized that there was nobody there. He could see no one, nor could he sense any hostile energy.
"What's wrong, Kaoru-dono?" the red-haired man worried, narrowing his ice blue eyes in the direction of the young woman, as he approached her and made an attempt to touch her shoulder, retracting halfway.
"They've... taken him away." She gasped, her voice cracking from the run she had taken, and so Kenshin found it somewhat difficult to understand her.
He sighed deeply, bringing his emotions back under control so that his eyes softened to violet. He didn't want to alarm the girl, who already seemed to be quite upset.
"What are you talking about?" He then asked in a soft voice, frowning slightly at Kaoru, who took a deep breath trying to catch her breath.
"The boy. The thief."
"The boy from this afternoon?" Kaoru nodded, and instant recognition flashed in the hitokiri's pupils. Understanding more or less what was going on, he tilted his head slightly in a curious gesture as he asked the question: "Who took him?"
"I followed them to a house in the outskirts of the city. A yakuza gang lives there." The woman with the black hair answered, with such a distressed expression that if Kenshin hadn't known better, he would have thought she was somehow related to that boy and that's why she was so worried. "There were so many men there."
He frowned, narrowing his eyes again at that information. He knew that a yakuza gang could consist of many, many members, it was quite usual, so he thanked whatever being was up there that Kaoru had the sense to go get him instead of facing that problem alone. Considering that she had dared to fight a supposed battousai, and that she also had the real one living in her house, then such a thing from that impulsive little girl would not have surprised him at all.
Without another comment, he turned and headed for the door, casting an amber glance at the girl over his shoulder, saying in that calm and collected voice he used when he was dealing with conflict:
"I'm going now to get the boy, you stay here."
"But..." the blue-eyed girl tried to protest, but noticing the dangerous gleam in the redhead's eyes, she decided to swallow her complaints and nod calmly, even though her pride hurt from having to obey in such a way.
Kenshin had run into the yakuza before, when he had been searching for Gohei in the town, even if he didn't know who he was then. He hadn't confronted them then, because there had been no reason or need for it, but he knew that now the night probably wouldn't end without some bloodshed. He didn't like it, but he was prepared for it.
He just hoped the boy wouldn't get scared if he saw him kill someone.
Thanks to his previous encounter with the gang, he already knew where they lived, and it didn't take him long to reach the ramshackle house they had for a hideout, where a bunch of thugs were guarding the outside.
"Let me come in; I've only come for the boy." He said in an icy voice, wanting to avoid confronting the men unless he had no other choice, but they did not take his request kindly and immediately tried to attack him.
Kenshin sighed, and with an emotionless expression on his face, drew his sword to fight back. Of course, the confrontation meant a few broken bones for those men, but the red-haired man restrained himself from killing anyone. There was no need for him to kill those weak creatures. Not yet.
In a matter of minutes he was already making his way through the corridors of the house, walking through it swiftly in search of the boy, leaving in his path piles of "guards" lying on the floor with injuries of varying degrees of severity, though he had not yet felt the need to kill any of them.
As soon as he had knocked the last one unconscious in one of the corridors, he heard sounds somewhat up ahead. He only had to go by the screams to locate the room where Yahiko was being held, and if he could judge from the noises he heard, he was surely being beaten for who knows what reason.
Then he heard a shout from a male voice that sounded a couple of octaves too high, which was then followed by angry shouts from the boy he had come to rescue.
"My father would not betray the emperor's bakufu and join the shogun's forces! He died in the name of justice!" Yahiko shouted from inside the room, and Kenshin found himself unconsciously raising his eyebrows in admiration of the boy's boldness. Shouting like that at people who might kill you wasn't the smartest thing to do, but it certainly showed that the boy had more honor than many others. "And my mother ruined her life to raise me until her illness killed her! They were both honorable people and lived nobly! And I won't let you speak ill of them!"
At that very moment, the red-haired man decided to intervene before someone decided to kill the boy for his audacity.
He didn't even bother to knock. With one kick, he kicked down the shōji door hitting with it the man who was harassing Yahiko, sending him crashing to the ground with a thumping sound that the samurai found satisfying as he took a step over him. Looking at the boy, he saw that he was bleeding from the mouth and his clothes were also stained with blood, probably from the beating, but other than that he seemed to be in one piece.
"Who is this?" -an old man on the other side of the room asked in surprise. The leader of that group, the samurai deduced with complete disdain, "And how did he get in here? Everybody after him!"
Kenshin narrowed his golden eyes in his direction, his expression so icy that some of the men in the room shivered with fear just by looking at him.
"They won't come." He reported in a calm voice, taking a couple of steps forward to approach that disgusting creature that claimed to be a man, "Since they wouldn't let me in, I treated them to a short nap."
The sudden panic in the ki of the man who was now trembling under the force of his amber gaze, almost amused the red-haired rōnin. Almost. But he couldn't really feel amused when he was taking care of a problem that shouldn't exist in the first place.
"What?" The boss muttered, terrified, his eyes fixed on the figure of the intruder.
"I've come for the boy." Kenshin expressed serenely, not bothering to answer the old man's question. He had nothing more to add, it was not so difficult to realize what he meant by his previous words.
However, before the man could answer, a strong and furious ki from behind him made Kenshin turn slightly so that he could look out of the corner of his eye at the man he had previously knocked to the ground with the door.
The guy looked downright furious, but that didn't even intimidate the samurai, who just stared at him with an expression so completely devoid of emotion that it made all the men in the room nervous. How could someone be so controlled and almost bored in a place where he was outnumbered? Little did they know that the red-haired man was used to having to fight with numbers against him.
"How dare you come in here like that!" -The thug shouted, getting up from the ground quickly to come face to face with the rōnin who was watching him attentively, analyzing him silently. "And what's more, how dare you make demands! I, hitokiri Gasuke, will kill you and the brat!"
That made the red-haired man blink. Once, twice... and then he burst out laughing loudly, a cold, dry laughter, letting himself be carried away by the unhealthy amusement that the words of the self-called hitokiri had provoked in him.
"You, a hitokiri? I don't know whether to take that as a joke or an insult." He said ice-coldly once the laughter ceased, stopping in its tracks the other man who had been approaching him ready to attack him.
Gasuke froze when he noticed the cold, dangerous amber glowing in his opponent's eyes. It was at that instant that he realized that he was not facing just any samurai.
"W-who are you?" he questioned, under the red-haired man's stare, who hesitated for a moment, not sure if he should say his name.
After contemplating for a moment, he sketched a cold smile, determined to answer and somewhat curious to see what the reactions of his listeners would be.
"I am Himura Kenshin. Former Ishin Shishi... And also the hitokiri Battousai." He finally answered coldly, observing how the other man suddenly turned pale, and also feeling the fear flood the ki of all those who were there. Then, in the blink of an eye, he closed the distance between himself and the supposed hitokiri, striking him in the jaw with the hilt of his sword and lifting him up by the force of the blow, leaving him embedded in the ceiling. He barely glanced up at him to see his body hanging limp, probably passed out from hitting his head. Coldly, he reproached him:- "And I hadn't finished speaking. It's rude to interrupt."
Kenshin turned his attention back to the old yakuza boss who stood trembling against the wall, panic written all over his face. Kenshin's face grew even colder if possible, his golden eyes glowing with a murderous glint in them, and when he spoke it was with veiled threat. He was tired of being in the presence of such repulsive people, so he would take the boy out of there right now, and he didn't intend to waste any more time.
"From now on, the boy is in my charge." He informed in the most icy voice he could find, which was already a lot to say. For an instant, he had a flashback from the Bakumatsu, when using that voice had been a habit: "You will let me take him, or I will kill all your men and yourself without any remorse."
If the old man was trembling before, now he looked as if he might have peed himself from sheer panic. His face was so white that he seemed dead, and his eyes looked as wide as those of an animal in the face of a predator. The man was terrified, and in the red-haired man's opinion he had it well deserved.
He could have killed him there without hesitation, for he was the kind of evil he had no qualms in removing from the world, but he did not want the boy who was watching him in awe to see such a scene. It was bad enough that he knew who he was, without also seeing him kill in cold blood when it was unnecessary.
He preferred to keep what was left of the boy's innocence safe.
"He's... He's yours," the chief finally whimpered, sliding back in a move that he surely thought would be subtle, but which the hitokiri saw clearly and almost made him snort with disdain.
"Thank you very much," he replied wryly. Sheathing his sword, he walked over to Yahiko and held out his hand to help him to his feet. "Are you all right?"
The boy rejected the gesture and slapped the offered hand, remaining seated where he was with no apparent intention of standing up.
"I didn't ask for your help!" He grumbled with a growl, glaring at him with annoyance flashing in his dark eyes.
Kenshin looked at him in surprise at his reaction, but soon had to swallow the amusement that came to him in response to his words. He had just hurt his pride again, and his first reaction was to try to fix it, but there was something more important and he had to make it clear to the kid.
"Don't fool yourself. He may have been weak, but unfortunately you are weaker right now. You must get stronger, and I know how you can do it, but first we have to treat your wounds."
Then he bent down to grab Yahiko's kimono, and without pausing he threw him over his back, completely ignoring the complaints of the boy who was now resting against his shoulder.
Following this he headed for the exit, and as he stepped over the men he had left lying on the floor, a small commotion was generated in the hall he was leaving behind. Thanks to his fine hearing sense, he was able to hear somewhat muffled words from the boss:
"I can't believe that someone like him is still living in this Meiji era... Leave him alone. We don't want any trouble with him or he'll kill us all."
That made the hitokiri tighten his lips slightly to keep from smiling a cold smile. Yes, the boss was right about one thing: if he met those guys again, he wouldn't hesitate to kill them.
The ride to the exit was quiet, and even quieter was the walk in the direction of the dojo. Because of the late hour, nothing could be heard in the surroundings but the chirping of the crickets, and the barely perceptible sound of his silent cat footsteps. And also the whispered curses of the child he carried.
"Damn it!" the boy mumbled over and over again, completely motionless on Kenshin's back, something he was grateful for. It wouldn't have been nice to have carried that boy like that if he had been struggling to get loose all the way.
"Does your weakness bother you? " -the samurai asked him after a while, only deciding to speak when he felt him cry.
"I want to become strong so that no one has to help me." He sobbed quietly, speaking in a voice somewhat broken by crying. "So I can defend the honor of my parents by myself."
"I see." That was all the red-haired man said, unable to find any words that could comfort the boy.
He hadn't grown up with someone who was good at comforting people. His master probably would have just hit him or teased him and then given him advice that would have taken him years to understand, but that wasn't the same as comforting someone. And really, he didn't know how to make the boy feel better.
They said nothing more the whole rest of the way back, but Yahiko didn't protest or say another word. When he opened the door of the Kamiya dojo, Kaoru was standing in the courtyard dressed in outdoor clothes.
"He's really hurt!" She exclaimed, worried, not even bothering to say hello when she saw them coming through the door, "There's a carriage outside waiting to take him to the doctor."
Actually, the injuries looked worse than they really were. Yahiko was bruised, yes, but during the ride he hadn't complained in pain, so the samurai assumed it wasn't as bad as it looked. However, he was still careful as he lowered the boy down and placed him in front of Kaoru.
"Yahiko, this is Miss Kaoru, she's the teacher of the Kamiya Kasshin-ryu. From now on, she will be your instructor."
The boy made a sound of horror, turning his head back to look at Kenshin in utter disgust and then turned his gaze to a bewildered Kaoru.
"Wait! You expect me to learn kendo from that old hag?"
"Do you want that boy to be my pupil?" The girl shouted towards Kenshin, who only gave her a mildly amused look as they both looked completely horrified by the mere idea.
"Exactly." The samurai said joyfully, alternating glances from one to the other. He put a hand on Yahiko's shoulder to get his attention, giving him a small reassuring smile. The boy hadn't shown any fear of him at any point, which relieved him greatly, but he still didn't want to startle him: "Now, it's all up to you. Learn the Kamiya technique and become strong."
"I would do it even if you didn't tell me." Yahiko mumbled bitingly, looking away from the redhead.
It was then that the girl realized what the boy had said. With a snort of fury, she stepped forward to grab the boy's clothes, coming up to snarl in his face.
"You called me a hag again!" she shouted loudly, completely irritated by the situation.
But the boy was not intimidated, and instead of retracting his words, he shouted back and insulted the black-haired girl again.
"What's your problem, hag?!"
Kenshin blinked, completely stunned as he watched them fight. They were like a pair of five year olds, seeming to have endless energy for arguing. Kaoru should be exhausted after the eventful day she'd had, and that kid had been given a beating that would surely have sent even the bravest of men to bed in pain. They should both be looking for a futon to sleep on and not engaged in a battle that had nothing to envy to the fights of the Bakumatsu.
"Hey... Guys..." he said in disbelief at the scene, trying to get the attention of both of them to end the dispute. He for his part was exhausted, and wanted to go straight to bed, but he couldn't do it while those two were fighting, "Wouldn't it be better to call a doctor?"