--This story was co-written with my sister, Rosemary, whom you may contact at gohorses@yahoo.com.
--The story idea itself belongs to her, though I contributed to adding details to them. I was
--also the one who wrote the story, while she only made decisions. As a result, neither she nor
--I actually own Rurouni Kenshin. Heck, we don't even own Tsuyosa because we protray him along
--the elusive lines of Kaoru's father. We're not sure Tsuyosa is his real name even, but it's
--Japanese for strong and we thought it sounded pretty, so we decided to use it. Apoligies for
--any Out of Charactor you see, though we tried greatly to keep them out of that rut. Heck, we
--don't know how Tokio is supposed to act eithor, so we're not too sure about her . . .
--One final word: This story is slightly crossed over with Ranma 1/2. You don't need to be familar
--with it to be left in the dark, since I believe I explained everything in the story. However,
--it might be helpful for any inside jokes/puns I felt like tossing in. ^_^ C&C is ever so welcome.
--Please do not take and distribute this anywhere without my permission (dalimata@yahoo.com), or
--even run off with the idea. Thankyouverymuchos!
Soujirou sweatdropped as they watched the rising smoke. Tokio sighed and gave her nephew a mild
look of annoyance. "You spoke too soon," she said. He nodded sheepishly. She turned back to look
at the smoke. "Oh dear; I knew I never should have allowed that father of hers to teach her how
to cook!" Tsuyosa and Tokio never got along, even for the sake of the children. Soujirou sighed;
he could remember the times when both adults would sit in stony silence, using the children to
pass insults back to one another ("Tell Tsuyosa he has no more sense than a feather from a
seagull." "Tell your dear aunt Tokio she's lucky her husband was too desperate for a wife that
he would never leave a shrew like her.")
He and Kaoru learned many insults from those times.
He followed after his aunt as she pulled off her socks and hopped off the porch. She marched
her way around the dojo. "Why don't we just go through the front door?" he asked her. Tokio
waved a hand in the air.
"Because Ka-chan blocked the door so no one could get in," she replied. She stopped suddenly,
cocking her head to the banging. "Wonder what that is."
"Probably just some maintenance," Soujirou replied lightly. His aunt regarded this point, then
nodded. She continued on her way with quick strides. Soujirou was less inclined to hurry after
her. He lingered in the yard, remembering fond things about what he saw.
{Wow,} he thought wistfully to himself. {It's been too long since the last time I was here.}
He looked fondly at the well, knowing there were three gold bracelets studded with rubies that
the emperor had given his uncle for payment in some deeds, and then passed them onto Kaoru's
mother, Hana, were in the well. He and Kaoru had tied them up in a bag and then dropped it in.
These were the pieces of jewelry that had hurt Kaoru the most to look at, and they had put it in
the most impossible place to get to. He shrugged at the thought and looked over the old cherry
tree he and Kaoru used to climb with.
That had been with some of the neighborhood kids, whom the adults dubbed, "the Delinquents."
He wondered what the Delinquents were up to nowadays. He jerked his way out of his reverie and
decided to hurry after Tokio—his desire to see Kaoru had burst into a raging fire!
As he entered the house, he noticed an odd offbeat to the pounding. Perhaps that was why Tokio
had stopped and taken notice of it. He followed the noise, curious as to what it might be. He
peeked through the door of the room where the banging was the loudest, and stopped. His first
reaction to what he saw made him duck back out of sight; his second reaction was to peek back at
the sight; his third reaction was to smile and laugh.
"Oro?"
"Haha! Now that's something you don't see everyday!"
Kenshin looked at the handle of his sakaba, and blushed. "Ah, well," he began sheepishly.
"It's not as if I couldn't find a hammer, because I couldn't de gazaro!"
Yahiko peered around Kenshin's form. "Do you know him?" he asked suspiciously. Soujirou's eyes
grew wide and he gave Kenshin a fairly panicked look. Kenshin gave him a smile meant to build
confidence, and then dropped a hand onto Yahiko's spiky hair.
"He's a fellow rurouni I met a while back de gazaro," he assured the boy. Soujirou breathed
out with a sigh of relief. "What brings you here, Soujirou-dono?"
Soujirou shrugged, wondering why Kenshin was doing maintenance for work when there were
potentially hundreds of rich people who would pay handsomely for someone of his skills to be a
bodyguard. "I'm just here to see my cousin, and I heard you banging. Where are you staying in
Tokyo?"
Kenshin's eyes grew wide. "I live here in this dojo de gazaro. Who's your cousin?"
Soujirou's eyes grew equally wide. "You are living here with Kaoru unchaperoned? Aunt Tokio is
going to be very unhappy about that!"
Yahiko scratched his head. "What's going on?" he demanded. He looked up at Kenshin. "Aunt
Tokio? Isn't that what Saitou called his wife?"
Soujirou sucked in a deep breath, wincing as it turned into a squeak. "Saitou's here?" he
demanded shrilly. And then . . . "I always wondered why Mom never told me who Aunt Tokio married."
He glanced around nervously, remembering his last encounter with the tall policeman. "He isn't
around, is he?"
Kenshin shrugged. "He's about here dusting de gazaro."
Soujirou blinked. Very slowly. "Dusting?"
"You know," Yahiko began impatiently, "it's where you take a rag and brush it back and forth,
trying to pick up the dust?"
Soujirou blinked very slowly again as he attempted to imagine Saitou Hajime, Mibu Wolf, police
man, and swordsman extroidanare . . . dusting. The picture refused to appear in his mind, and to
make matters worse, the Mind refused to comprehend such an idea for the sheer stupidity of it.
"That's . . That's . . ." Soujirou stuttered to a halt, trying to regain his ability to think.
"That's . . . I don't believe!" he finally said. "Can't believe it!"
It was an impossible to imagine as Yumi and Shishio together intimately in bed and . . .
Eeewwww! Maybe not as difficult to imagine, but certainly more stomach churning—
"Believe what?" a deep voice asked behind him. Soujirou tensed and then turned slowly around.
His eyes did not see Saitou's face. Instead, they fell upon the dirty rag in Saitou's hand.
His mind refused to function beyond that point.
Saitou gave his nephew a dry look. "Believe what?" he asked again. Soujirou blinked his eyes,
trying to get his mind to follow orders once more. Saitou cleared his throat loudly, startling
the little rurouni.
"Ah! I'm innocent!" he declared. Saitou glared at him. "Uh, what was the question?"
"Believe what?"
"Oh." Soujirou glanced down at the dirty rag again. His mind wanted to rebel, but he forced
himself to take the picture in. He still had a very hard time believing such a situation was
possible. "I don't believe you are dusting," he said finally.
Saitou shrugged. "It's easy enough to do; all you need is a dust rag and you just brush it back
and forth over the dirty areas," he explained. He gave him a sly look. "Besides, you know how
your aunt feels about dust."
Soujirou suddenly remembered the life-startling secret he learned a few moments ago. The full
implication hit him like a ton of bricks. "I can't believe you are my uncle," he whispered,
covering his face with his hands.
Saitou switched the rag from one hand to another, and reached up to run the cloth over the
doorframe. "I can't believe you are my nephew," he replied dryly. "And to think I almost did
away with you." He eyed Soujirou's slight frame. "Tokio never would have spoken to me if she
ever found out."
Kenshin sighed with the rate the conversation was heading, and went back to pounding nails
into the wall with the hilt of his sakaba.
"I'm so sorry!" Kaoru blubbered as her aunt scraped charcoaled unknowns off the bottom of the
cooking pan. "I meant it to be such a surprise!"
"You certainly succeeded," Tokio remarked dryly. Kaoru stopped sniffing as she finished. "It's
all right now. I'll help you throw some simple fares together. Now, where do you keep the
supplies around here?"
Tsuyosa joyfully limped up to the front door of his dojo. He tried to slide the front door
open, but couldn't because something heavy blocked the pathway.
"What does a man have to do to get into his own house?" he wondered. He limped over to the
open window and used the curved end of his walking stick to pull himself through it. "After all,"
he continued silently, struggling through the narrow window, "what if we had visitors? How would
they be able to get in? Can't really expect everyone to crawl through the window like myself."
Halfway through the window, something heavy collided with his cranium and he fell roughly
through it. Tsuyosa landed on his head, and then looked up, holding it between his hands. A
fanged fiery youngster with spiky black hair banished his shinnai at him.
"Who the hell do you think you are, sneaking in here like a common thief?" the boy demanded.
Tsuyosa scratched his head. True, he could have gone through the back door, but where was the
fun to be had in that? Besides, he could do whatever he wanted on his own property and in his
own dojo. "The front door was jimmied," he said, pointing to where a heavy set of drawers
blocked the sliding path.
"Silence!" Yahiko rapped him across the head. "Why didn't you just knock then?"
Tsuyosa sighed. "Because I live here," he began patiently. Another rap followed.
"Liar! This happens to be my home, and I sure don't recognize you!"
Another voice called from another room. "Yahiko? Where is that water and soap de gazaro?"
Yahiko turned to gave the direction. "But Kenshin, I'm dealing with a burglar right now!"
Kenshin rolled his eyes as he continued to tug at the brass vase Soujirou had tripped over and
invariably got his foot stuck in. "Yahiko! Forget about the burglar for just a moment please de
gazaro! We really need the soap and water!" He glared at the smirking Saitou. "You aren't helping
matters," he said reproachfully.
Yahiko growled and gritted his teeth. He scowled down at the old man sitting on the floor. He
waved his shinnai threatening over his head. "Now, don't you be going anywhere, you hear?" he
commanded before tromping off with a bucket of water.
Tsuyosa stared after him. He made a face when the boy was a safe distance from him. "I'm going
to have a long talk with Kaoru about her students," he said finally as he painfully climbed to
his feet. He limped off to the kitchen.
He smiled as he listened to his beautiful Kaoru's voice explaining where the beans were kept.
He limped a little faster. Ah! How he had missed the light of his life!
He limped up to the doorway of the kitchen and froze in panic as he heard another female voice
reply to his daughter's. He paused for only a second to take in the small figure standing beside
Kaoru, and then leapt away from the doorway, flattening his body silently against the wall.
"Oh no!" he whispered in shock. "Not the Shrew!"
There was a sneeze suddenly from the kitchen. "Are you all right Aunt Tokio?" he could hear
Kaoru's voice asking out of concern.
"Ah yes. But for a moment there, I felt as if someone was speaking about me, and it carried
the sense of that wretched father of yours."
Tsuyosa gritted his teeth, biting back the normal response such an insult from the Shrew
normally would have earned. He dimly heard Kaoru gasp.
"Don't start on me, Kaoru," Tokio said in a patronizing tone. "I know we are not to speak ill
of the dead, but you also know I never liked him. I could never see what your mother, as sweet
and as gentle as she was, could have possibly seen in him!"
There was a short pause. "Well, Dad was a better cook than Mom," Kaoru replied testily.
Tsuyosa's face fell. {Is that all the support I get?} he wondered.
"It was the only area Hana had a failing in, " Tokio admitted reluctantly. She stared at her
niece for a moment, and then her delicate face broke into a bright smile. "Now, be a dear and
fetch me some well water for cooking."
"All right." Kaoru hurried out of the kitchen, not seeing the figure pressed up against the
wall of her dojo. Tsuyosa took a step forward, wanting to touch his pretty offspring. He heard
Tokio mumble to herself.
"Hard to see how you could get something as lovely as Kaoru as unflawed as she is out of a
father like Tsuyosa."
The cause of her anger turned his head and glared at her back. He crossed his arms and stepped
across the thresh hold of the inner domain many called as 'the woman's place.' "She gets her
temper from you," he said.
Tokio dropped the sack of beans she was holding and whirled around. "You!" she hissed, gripping
the edges of her kimono and drawing slightly away. She stood upright to look at him almost eye
to eye. "You're supposed to be dead!"
"Seeing you makes me wish I were!"
"I can easily accommodate that!"
"Don't bother. I thought I said you were never to enter this house again without my express
desire, four years ago!"
"You think I'd actually listen to you?"
"Um . . ." Tsuyosa 's train of thought stuttered to a quick halt and then resumed itself.
" . . . No. But that's beside the point!"
"And just what is the point?"
"The point? Uh. The point is, you are not allowed to enter this house without my permission
and . . . And . . ." Tsuyosa stared at the piece of paper Tokio withdrew from her pocket and
held it before his eyes. "What's this?" he asked, taking it and reading the writing. Was she
blackmailing him again?
"This," Tokio began slowly, as if speaking to an idiot (though she firmly believed she was),
"is the paper that states Kaoru must be married by her twentieth birthday."
Tsuyosa pointed at it, his eyebrows quirked upward. Tokio nodded. He shook his head. "I
thought we cancelled that engagement since the boy died ten years ago!"
"Disappeared, not died," Tokio corrected curtly.
"Same thing, isn't it? The rest of his family was found slaughtered—probably by the rebels—and
who expects a little boy to take care of himself in the middle of the war?"
"Nonetheless," Tokio snatched the paper from Tsuyosa and rolled it up, "the fact that Kaoru
must be married before she is twenty still stands, or else she loses the dojo."
"Now wait just a minute here! That was only if I died, and as you can plainly see, I'm not
dead—and don't look at me like that either! In fact, I am very much alive."
"You are legally dead, or illegally live. Whichever way you want to look at it." Tsuyosa
blinked at Tokio's logic. Was it possible to be illegally alive? She continued on. "Not only are
you legally dead, but all other property has been distributed amongst family and friends as
directed by your will. Kaoru was left with the dojo of course, and since the law considers you
dead, there is nothing you can do about this mess."
"That's not true!"
"Oh yes it is! Considering how you could be labeled as an imposter and thrown into jail, I
would not risk it. Kaoru must be married or she loses the dojo. Period."
Tsuyosa stomped his foot like a pouting child and mumbled something under his breath.
"I heard that!"
"It's true! You are a shrew!"
"I am most certainly not!"
"You've hated me since the day I met your sister, and you never wanted us to get together!
You've made my life miserable since day one, including the three times you blackmailed me and
that one time when you tried to sabotage our wedding and—"
"I did not try to sabotage your wedding! Can I help it if you thought we were supposed to be
in one building while the rest of us were in another? And I most certainly did not hate you
since the day I met you—I've hated you since the day you were born!"
"Hold on now, you never knew me back then, so don't you dare insinuate that—"
"And don't tell me what to do! I've never been able to understand why my sister chose a
low-class bubble brain like you and—"
"Low-class? Bubble brain? Don't you dare compare me to your sister Yumi!"
"My sister is not a bubble brain!"
"Oh no? Then what was it that you called her when she fell for that one man, got pregnant with
his child, and was dumped before they were married?"
"I called her flaky—but that was different!"
"Was not!"
"Don't you dare disagree with me, Kamiya Tsuyosa!"
"Or what? You'll hit me with that frying pan of yours like you did six years ago?" He pointed
at a white line running along his hairline. "I still have that scar, you know!"
A throat cleared itself loudly, interrupting the verbal fight. Tsuyosa turned and Tokio looked
over his shoulder to see a bemused Saitou, puzzled Kenshin, bewildered Soujirou, wondering Kaoru,
and unhappy Yahiko.
"Hey!" The little warrior stepped forward and glared at Tsuyosa. "You're that burglar from
earlier!"
Tsuyosa was about to give that a tart reply when Kaoru burst into tears, dropping her bucket
of water.
"Oro?" Kenshin caught it before it could spill onto the floor. Kaoru ran over to her father
and threw her arms around him.
"Dad!" she cried, tears streaming down her face. "I thought you were dead! I missed you!"
"There, there." Tsuyosa patted his daughter on the back and gave Tokio a smug smile. She
scowled back at him. That was when Tsuyosa realized a little unhappily that Kaoru was now a few
inches taller than him. {Just like Hana,} he thought wistfully to himself. {Rats; just
about everyone is taller than me in this lifetime!}
"Not with you around," Tokio grumbled, turning away and grabbing her sack of beans. The others
nervously waited for events to get beyond the point of Tokio and Tsuyosa muttering insults about
each other under their breaths.
"We have a problem," Saitou said, deciding it was up to him to break the fight up. Tokio broke
her glare with her brother-in-law and smiled sweetly at her husband.
"Yes dear," she said.
No one spoke for several moments and then . . .
"So what are you doing here?" Tsuyosa asked Soujirou from where he could see him through
Kaoru's hair. He brushed her silky black strands from his vision.
Soujirou laughed and shrugged in reply. "Oh, long story," he said. "Boy, if I had known you
were my uncle Kamiya, I would have told you I was Seta Soujirou," he added with another light
laugh.
"Seta Souji—" Tsuyosa broke off and looked at Tokio with upraised eyebrows. "Saaaaaayyy—"
"I know!" she snapped. "I know!" They glared at each other for a moment, and then Tsuyosa
gently pushed his daughter away by the shoulders. "Let me see you," he said softly, smiling as
his eyes swept over her features. He cupped her face with his two hands. "Beautiful," he
whispered with shining eyes. "You look exactly like your mother!"
"Cooks like her too," Tokio grumbled. Tsuyosa shot her a dark glance. She turned away and
grabbed a pot, which she poured several cups of beans into.
Saitou cleared his throat again. "We need to talk," he said.
"I know, it's about the engagement," Tsuyosa replied in a quiet voice. He felt Kaoru stiffen
slightly in his grip as Saitou shook his head. Tsuyosa sent his brother-in-law an inquiring
glance.
"What engagement, daddy?" Kaoru asked.
Tsuyosa laughed and patted her shoulder. "Nah, it's nothing for you to worry your pretty little
head about," he assured her. "Now, introduce me to your—" he glared fiercely at Yahiko "—house
guests."
"Oh yes dear!" Tokio turned away from where she had been sorting beans and folded her hands
demurely before herself. "Do tell! I am rather curious as to who these folks are."
Kaoru threw a panicked look towards Kenshin, glanced quickly over to her aunt, and then inched
slightly closer to her father's side. "Um, this is Yahiko," she began slowly. Seeing a chance of
revenge for his throwing water on her earlier that day, she quickly added, "he was a helpless
orphan that begged me to take care of him."
"Hey!" Yahiko seethed as Kaoru went on.
"Out of the kindness of my heart, I couldn't refuse!"
"He's not very grateful for what you've done," Tsuyosa said pointedly as Yahiko clenched his
fists. His eyes promised some sort of pain for the blow of humiliation Kaoru had struck him
with.
{Just you wait}, he thought to himself. {Just you wait.}
Tokio squealed with delight and pinched his cheek. "He's cute!" she declared. Yahiko gave her
his Evil Eye, but it disappeared from his face when he realized that Saitou—standing directly
above him—was staring down at him.
"And this is Himura Kenshin," Kaoru added nervously, pointing at the red-haired rurouni. She
inched closer to her father's side, decided it wasn't safe to be near him, and then began to
inch away.
"Hello," Kenshin greeted nervously as Tokio scrutinized him.
"She doesn't dress well," Tokio concluded finally, crossing her arms. Saitou smacked his
forehead as Kaoru, Yahiko, and Soujirou face faulted. Kenshin wilted as his face flushed red.
"Tokio," Saitou growled impatiently. "This is the Hitokiri Battousai!"
Tsuyosa scratched his head as Tokio's smile seemed out of place under her glinted eyes, the
skin upon her face tightening. Her face flooded with a brilliant red color. She took a deep
breath.
"YOU ARE LIVING IN THE SAME HOUSE AS MY NIECE?!" A giant-Tokio loomed over an orroing
chibi-Kenshin. Tsuyosa blinked.
{This is a side of her I have never seen,} he thought to himself. He smiled. Good; he wasn't
discovering it the hard way. "Oh come now Tokio," he began lightly, "surely it can't be all that
bad!"
Tokio whirled around to face Tsuyosa, pointing an accusing finger at him. "You bubble brain!
Don't you know who the Hitokiri Battousai is?"
She seethed under her breath as Kaoru cowered behind the only safe person in the entire
room—Saitou—and Kenshin began to creep out of the kitchen area. A thoughtful look came over
Tsuyosa's features as he thought.
And thought.
And thought.
And thought.
And for good measure, thought some more.
"Ummmmm . . ." he began in a tone Tokio knew all too well from experience. "No?"
Giant-Tokio loomed over a chibi-Tsuyosa whose hair stood on end. "YOU BUBBLEBRAIN! I DON'T
BELIEVE THERE IS A SINGLE PERSON IN THE ENTIRE CITY OF TOKYO WHO IS AS DENSE AS YOU!!!"
Sanosuke sneezed into Megumi's cooked rice, and was ruthlessly swatted for it by the fox-like
doctor.
--The story idea itself belongs to her, though I contributed to adding details to them. I was
--also the one who wrote the story, while she only made decisions. As a result, neither she nor
--I actually own Rurouni Kenshin. Heck, we don't even own Tsuyosa because we protray him along
--the elusive lines of Kaoru's father. We're not sure Tsuyosa is his real name even, but it's
--Japanese for strong and we thought it sounded pretty, so we decided to use it. Apoligies for
--any Out of Charactor you see, though we tried greatly to keep them out of that rut. Heck, we
--don't know how Tokio is supposed to act eithor, so we're not too sure about her . . .
--One final word: This story is slightly crossed over with Ranma 1/2. You don't need to be familar
--with it to be left in the dark, since I believe I explained everything in the story. However,
--it might be helpful for any inside jokes/puns I felt like tossing in. ^_^ C&C is ever so welcome.
--Please do not take and distribute this anywhere without my permission (dalimata@yahoo.com), or
--even run off with the idea. Thankyouverymuchos!
Soujirou sweatdropped as they watched the rising smoke. Tokio sighed and gave her nephew a mild
look of annoyance. "You spoke too soon," she said. He nodded sheepishly. She turned back to look
at the smoke. "Oh dear; I knew I never should have allowed that father of hers to teach her how
to cook!" Tsuyosa and Tokio never got along, even for the sake of the children. Soujirou sighed;
he could remember the times when both adults would sit in stony silence, using the children to
pass insults back to one another ("Tell Tsuyosa he has no more sense than a feather from a
seagull." "Tell your dear aunt Tokio she's lucky her husband was too desperate for a wife that
he would never leave a shrew like her.")
He and Kaoru learned many insults from those times.
He followed after his aunt as she pulled off her socks and hopped off the porch. She marched
her way around the dojo. "Why don't we just go through the front door?" he asked her. Tokio
waved a hand in the air.
"Because Ka-chan blocked the door so no one could get in," she replied. She stopped suddenly,
cocking her head to the banging. "Wonder what that is."
"Probably just some maintenance," Soujirou replied lightly. His aunt regarded this point, then
nodded. She continued on her way with quick strides. Soujirou was less inclined to hurry after
her. He lingered in the yard, remembering fond things about what he saw.
{Wow,} he thought wistfully to himself. {It's been too long since the last time I was here.}
He looked fondly at the well, knowing there were three gold bracelets studded with rubies that
the emperor had given his uncle for payment in some deeds, and then passed them onto Kaoru's
mother, Hana, were in the well. He and Kaoru had tied them up in a bag and then dropped it in.
These were the pieces of jewelry that had hurt Kaoru the most to look at, and they had put it in
the most impossible place to get to. He shrugged at the thought and looked over the old cherry
tree he and Kaoru used to climb with.
That had been with some of the neighborhood kids, whom the adults dubbed, "the Delinquents."
He wondered what the Delinquents were up to nowadays. He jerked his way out of his reverie and
decided to hurry after Tokio—his desire to see Kaoru had burst into a raging fire!
As he entered the house, he noticed an odd offbeat to the pounding. Perhaps that was why Tokio
had stopped and taken notice of it. He followed the noise, curious as to what it might be. He
peeked through the door of the room where the banging was the loudest, and stopped. His first
reaction to what he saw made him duck back out of sight; his second reaction was to peek back at
the sight; his third reaction was to smile and laugh.
"Oro?"
"Haha! Now that's something you don't see everyday!"
Kenshin looked at the handle of his sakaba, and blushed. "Ah, well," he began sheepishly.
"It's not as if I couldn't find a hammer, because I couldn't de gazaro!"
Yahiko peered around Kenshin's form. "Do you know him?" he asked suspiciously. Soujirou's eyes
grew wide and he gave Kenshin a fairly panicked look. Kenshin gave him a smile meant to build
confidence, and then dropped a hand onto Yahiko's spiky hair.
"He's a fellow rurouni I met a while back de gazaro," he assured the boy. Soujirou breathed
out with a sigh of relief. "What brings you here, Soujirou-dono?"
Soujirou shrugged, wondering why Kenshin was doing maintenance for work when there were
potentially hundreds of rich people who would pay handsomely for someone of his skills to be a
bodyguard. "I'm just here to see my cousin, and I heard you banging. Where are you staying in
Tokyo?"
Kenshin's eyes grew wide. "I live here in this dojo de gazaro. Who's your cousin?"
Soujirou's eyes grew equally wide. "You are living here with Kaoru unchaperoned? Aunt Tokio is
going to be very unhappy about that!"
Yahiko scratched his head. "What's going on?" he demanded. He looked up at Kenshin. "Aunt
Tokio? Isn't that what Saitou called his wife?"
Soujirou sucked in a deep breath, wincing as it turned into a squeak. "Saitou's here?" he
demanded shrilly. And then . . . "I always wondered why Mom never told me who Aunt Tokio married."
He glanced around nervously, remembering his last encounter with the tall policeman. "He isn't
around, is he?"
Kenshin shrugged. "He's about here dusting de gazaro."
Soujirou blinked. Very slowly. "Dusting?"
"You know," Yahiko began impatiently, "it's where you take a rag and brush it back and forth,
trying to pick up the dust?"
Soujirou blinked very slowly again as he attempted to imagine Saitou Hajime, Mibu Wolf, police
man, and swordsman extroidanare . . . dusting. The picture refused to appear in his mind, and to
make matters worse, the Mind refused to comprehend such an idea for the sheer stupidity of it.
"That's . . That's . . ." Soujirou stuttered to a halt, trying to regain his ability to think.
"That's . . . I don't believe!" he finally said. "Can't believe it!"
It was an impossible to imagine as Yumi and Shishio together intimately in bed and . . .
Eeewwww! Maybe not as difficult to imagine, but certainly more stomach churning—
"Believe what?" a deep voice asked behind him. Soujirou tensed and then turned slowly around.
His eyes did not see Saitou's face. Instead, they fell upon the dirty rag in Saitou's hand.
His mind refused to function beyond that point.
Saitou gave his nephew a dry look. "Believe what?" he asked again. Soujirou blinked his eyes,
trying to get his mind to follow orders once more. Saitou cleared his throat loudly, startling
the little rurouni.
"Ah! I'm innocent!" he declared. Saitou glared at him. "Uh, what was the question?"
"Believe what?"
"Oh." Soujirou glanced down at the dirty rag again. His mind wanted to rebel, but he forced
himself to take the picture in. He still had a very hard time believing such a situation was
possible. "I don't believe you are dusting," he said finally.
Saitou shrugged. "It's easy enough to do; all you need is a dust rag and you just brush it back
and forth over the dirty areas," he explained. He gave him a sly look. "Besides, you know how
your aunt feels about dust."
Soujirou suddenly remembered the life-startling secret he learned a few moments ago. The full
implication hit him like a ton of bricks. "I can't believe you are my uncle," he whispered,
covering his face with his hands.
Saitou switched the rag from one hand to another, and reached up to run the cloth over the
doorframe. "I can't believe you are my nephew," he replied dryly. "And to think I almost did
away with you." He eyed Soujirou's slight frame. "Tokio never would have spoken to me if she
ever found out."
Kenshin sighed with the rate the conversation was heading, and went back to pounding nails
into the wall with the hilt of his sakaba.
"I'm so sorry!" Kaoru blubbered as her aunt scraped charcoaled unknowns off the bottom of the
cooking pan. "I meant it to be such a surprise!"
"You certainly succeeded," Tokio remarked dryly. Kaoru stopped sniffing as she finished. "It's
all right now. I'll help you throw some simple fares together. Now, where do you keep the
supplies around here?"
Tsuyosa joyfully limped up to the front door of his dojo. He tried to slide the front door
open, but couldn't because something heavy blocked the pathway.
"What does a man have to do to get into his own house?" he wondered. He limped over to the
open window and used the curved end of his walking stick to pull himself through it. "After all,"
he continued silently, struggling through the narrow window, "what if we had visitors? How would
they be able to get in? Can't really expect everyone to crawl through the window like myself."
Halfway through the window, something heavy collided with his cranium and he fell roughly
through it. Tsuyosa landed on his head, and then looked up, holding it between his hands. A
fanged fiery youngster with spiky black hair banished his shinnai at him.
"Who the hell do you think you are, sneaking in here like a common thief?" the boy demanded.
Tsuyosa scratched his head. True, he could have gone through the back door, but where was the
fun to be had in that? Besides, he could do whatever he wanted on his own property and in his
own dojo. "The front door was jimmied," he said, pointing to where a heavy set of drawers
blocked the sliding path.
"Silence!" Yahiko rapped him across the head. "Why didn't you just knock then?"
Tsuyosa sighed. "Because I live here," he began patiently. Another rap followed.
"Liar! This happens to be my home, and I sure don't recognize you!"
Another voice called from another room. "Yahiko? Where is that water and soap de gazaro?"
Yahiko turned to gave the direction. "But Kenshin, I'm dealing with a burglar right now!"
Kenshin rolled his eyes as he continued to tug at the brass vase Soujirou had tripped over and
invariably got his foot stuck in. "Yahiko! Forget about the burglar for just a moment please de
gazaro! We really need the soap and water!" He glared at the smirking Saitou. "You aren't helping
matters," he said reproachfully.
Yahiko growled and gritted his teeth. He scowled down at the old man sitting on the floor. He
waved his shinnai threatening over his head. "Now, don't you be going anywhere, you hear?" he
commanded before tromping off with a bucket of water.
Tsuyosa stared after him. He made a face when the boy was a safe distance from him. "I'm going
to have a long talk with Kaoru about her students," he said finally as he painfully climbed to
his feet. He limped off to the kitchen.
He smiled as he listened to his beautiful Kaoru's voice explaining where the beans were kept.
He limped a little faster. Ah! How he had missed the light of his life!
He limped up to the doorway of the kitchen and froze in panic as he heard another female voice
reply to his daughter's. He paused for only a second to take in the small figure standing beside
Kaoru, and then leapt away from the doorway, flattening his body silently against the wall.
"Oh no!" he whispered in shock. "Not the Shrew!"
There was a sneeze suddenly from the kitchen. "Are you all right Aunt Tokio?" he could hear
Kaoru's voice asking out of concern.
"Ah yes. But for a moment there, I felt as if someone was speaking about me, and it carried
the sense of that wretched father of yours."
Tsuyosa gritted his teeth, biting back the normal response such an insult from the Shrew
normally would have earned. He dimly heard Kaoru gasp.
"Don't start on me, Kaoru," Tokio said in a patronizing tone. "I know we are not to speak ill
of the dead, but you also know I never liked him. I could never see what your mother, as sweet
and as gentle as she was, could have possibly seen in him!"
There was a short pause. "Well, Dad was a better cook than Mom," Kaoru replied testily.
Tsuyosa's face fell. {Is that all the support I get?} he wondered.
"It was the only area Hana had a failing in, " Tokio admitted reluctantly. She stared at her
niece for a moment, and then her delicate face broke into a bright smile. "Now, be a dear and
fetch me some well water for cooking."
"All right." Kaoru hurried out of the kitchen, not seeing the figure pressed up against the
wall of her dojo. Tsuyosa took a step forward, wanting to touch his pretty offspring. He heard
Tokio mumble to herself.
"Hard to see how you could get something as lovely as Kaoru as unflawed as she is out of a
father like Tsuyosa."
The cause of her anger turned his head and glared at her back. He crossed his arms and stepped
across the thresh hold of the inner domain many called as 'the woman's place.' "She gets her
temper from you," he said.
Tokio dropped the sack of beans she was holding and whirled around. "You!" she hissed, gripping
the edges of her kimono and drawing slightly away. She stood upright to look at him almost eye
to eye. "You're supposed to be dead!"
"Seeing you makes me wish I were!"
"I can easily accommodate that!"
"Don't bother. I thought I said you were never to enter this house again without my express
desire, four years ago!"
"You think I'd actually listen to you?"
"Um . . ." Tsuyosa 's train of thought stuttered to a quick halt and then resumed itself.
" . . . No. But that's beside the point!"
"And just what is the point?"
"The point? Uh. The point is, you are not allowed to enter this house without my permission
and . . . And . . ." Tsuyosa stared at the piece of paper Tokio withdrew from her pocket and
held it before his eyes. "What's this?" he asked, taking it and reading the writing. Was she
blackmailing him again?
"This," Tokio began slowly, as if speaking to an idiot (though she firmly believed she was),
"is the paper that states Kaoru must be married by her twentieth birthday."
Tsuyosa pointed at it, his eyebrows quirked upward. Tokio nodded. He shook his head. "I
thought we cancelled that engagement since the boy died ten years ago!"
"Disappeared, not died," Tokio corrected curtly.
"Same thing, isn't it? The rest of his family was found slaughtered—probably by the rebels—and
who expects a little boy to take care of himself in the middle of the war?"
"Nonetheless," Tokio snatched the paper from Tsuyosa and rolled it up, "the fact that Kaoru
must be married before she is twenty still stands, or else she loses the dojo."
"Now wait just a minute here! That was only if I died, and as you can plainly see, I'm not
dead—and don't look at me like that either! In fact, I am very much alive."
"You are legally dead, or illegally live. Whichever way you want to look at it." Tsuyosa
blinked at Tokio's logic. Was it possible to be illegally alive? She continued on. "Not only are
you legally dead, but all other property has been distributed amongst family and friends as
directed by your will. Kaoru was left with the dojo of course, and since the law considers you
dead, there is nothing you can do about this mess."
"That's not true!"
"Oh yes it is! Considering how you could be labeled as an imposter and thrown into jail, I
would not risk it. Kaoru must be married or she loses the dojo. Period."
Tsuyosa stomped his foot like a pouting child and mumbled something under his breath.
"I heard that!"
"It's true! You are a shrew!"
"I am most certainly not!"
"You've hated me since the day I met your sister, and you never wanted us to get together!
You've made my life miserable since day one, including the three times you blackmailed me and
that one time when you tried to sabotage our wedding and—"
"I did not try to sabotage your wedding! Can I help it if you thought we were supposed to be
in one building while the rest of us were in another? And I most certainly did not hate you
since the day I met you—I've hated you since the day you were born!"
"Hold on now, you never knew me back then, so don't you dare insinuate that—"
"And don't tell me what to do! I've never been able to understand why my sister chose a
low-class bubble brain like you and—"
"Low-class? Bubble brain? Don't you dare compare me to your sister Yumi!"
"My sister is not a bubble brain!"
"Oh no? Then what was it that you called her when she fell for that one man, got pregnant with
his child, and was dumped before they were married?"
"I called her flaky—but that was different!"
"Was not!"
"Don't you dare disagree with me, Kamiya Tsuyosa!"
"Or what? You'll hit me with that frying pan of yours like you did six years ago?" He pointed
at a white line running along his hairline. "I still have that scar, you know!"
A throat cleared itself loudly, interrupting the verbal fight. Tsuyosa turned and Tokio looked
over his shoulder to see a bemused Saitou, puzzled Kenshin, bewildered Soujirou, wondering Kaoru,
and unhappy Yahiko.
"Hey!" The little warrior stepped forward and glared at Tsuyosa. "You're that burglar from
earlier!"
Tsuyosa was about to give that a tart reply when Kaoru burst into tears, dropping her bucket
of water.
"Oro?" Kenshin caught it before it could spill onto the floor. Kaoru ran over to her father
and threw her arms around him.
"Dad!" she cried, tears streaming down her face. "I thought you were dead! I missed you!"
"There, there." Tsuyosa patted his daughter on the back and gave Tokio a smug smile. She
scowled back at him. That was when Tsuyosa realized a little unhappily that Kaoru was now a few
inches taller than him. {Just like Hana,} he thought wistfully to himself. {Rats; just
about everyone is taller than me in this lifetime!}
"Not with you around," Tokio grumbled, turning away and grabbing her sack of beans. The others
nervously waited for events to get beyond the point of Tokio and Tsuyosa muttering insults about
each other under their breaths.
"We have a problem," Saitou said, deciding it was up to him to break the fight up. Tokio broke
her glare with her brother-in-law and smiled sweetly at her husband.
"Yes dear," she said.
No one spoke for several moments and then . . .
"So what are you doing here?" Tsuyosa asked Soujirou from where he could see him through
Kaoru's hair. He brushed her silky black strands from his vision.
Soujirou laughed and shrugged in reply. "Oh, long story," he said. "Boy, if I had known you
were my uncle Kamiya, I would have told you I was Seta Soujirou," he added with another light
laugh.
"Seta Souji—" Tsuyosa broke off and looked at Tokio with upraised eyebrows. "Saaaaaayyy—"
"I know!" she snapped. "I know!" They glared at each other for a moment, and then Tsuyosa
gently pushed his daughter away by the shoulders. "Let me see you," he said softly, smiling as
his eyes swept over her features. He cupped her face with his two hands. "Beautiful," he
whispered with shining eyes. "You look exactly like your mother!"
"Cooks like her too," Tokio grumbled. Tsuyosa shot her a dark glance. She turned away and
grabbed a pot, which she poured several cups of beans into.
Saitou cleared his throat again. "We need to talk," he said.
"I know, it's about the engagement," Tsuyosa replied in a quiet voice. He felt Kaoru stiffen
slightly in his grip as Saitou shook his head. Tsuyosa sent his brother-in-law an inquiring
glance.
"What engagement, daddy?" Kaoru asked.
Tsuyosa laughed and patted her shoulder. "Nah, it's nothing for you to worry your pretty little
head about," he assured her. "Now, introduce me to your—" he glared fiercely at Yahiko "—house
guests."
"Oh yes dear!" Tokio turned away from where she had been sorting beans and folded her hands
demurely before herself. "Do tell! I am rather curious as to who these folks are."
Kaoru threw a panicked look towards Kenshin, glanced quickly over to her aunt, and then inched
slightly closer to her father's side. "Um, this is Yahiko," she began slowly. Seeing a chance of
revenge for his throwing water on her earlier that day, she quickly added, "he was a helpless
orphan that begged me to take care of him."
"Hey!" Yahiko seethed as Kaoru went on.
"Out of the kindness of my heart, I couldn't refuse!"
"He's not very grateful for what you've done," Tsuyosa said pointedly as Yahiko clenched his
fists. His eyes promised some sort of pain for the blow of humiliation Kaoru had struck him
with.
{Just you wait}, he thought to himself. {Just you wait.}
Tokio squealed with delight and pinched his cheek. "He's cute!" she declared. Yahiko gave her
his Evil Eye, but it disappeared from his face when he realized that Saitou—standing directly
above him—was staring down at him.
"And this is Himura Kenshin," Kaoru added nervously, pointing at the red-haired rurouni. She
inched closer to her father's side, decided it wasn't safe to be near him, and then began to
inch away.
"Hello," Kenshin greeted nervously as Tokio scrutinized him.
"She doesn't dress well," Tokio concluded finally, crossing her arms. Saitou smacked his
forehead as Kaoru, Yahiko, and Soujirou face faulted. Kenshin wilted as his face flushed red.
"Tokio," Saitou growled impatiently. "This is the Hitokiri Battousai!"
Tsuyosa scratched his head as Tokio's smile seemed out of place under her glinted eyes, the
skin upon her face tightening. Her face flooded with a brilliant red color. She took a deep
breath.
"YOU ARE LIVING IN THE SAME HOUSE AS MY NIECE?!" A giant-Tokio loomed over an orroing
chibi-Kenshin. Tsuyosa blinked.
{This is a side of her I have never seen,} he thought to himself. He smiled. Good; he wasn't
discovering it the hard way. "Oh come now Tokio," he began lightly, "surely it can't be all that
bad!"
Tokio whirled around to face Tsuyosa, pointing an accusing finger at him. "You bubble brain!
Don't you know who the Hitokiri Battousai is?"
She seethed under her breath as Kaoru cowered behind the only safe person in the entire
room—Saitou—and Kenshin began to creep out of the kitchen area. A thoughtful look came over
Tsuyosa's features as he thought.
And thought.
And thought.
And thought.
And for good measure, thought some more.
"Ummmmm . . ." he began in a tone Tokio knew all too well from experience. "No?"
Giant-Tokio loomed over a chibi-Tsuyosa whose hair stood on end. "YOU BUBBLEBRAIN! I DON'T
BELIEVE THERE IS A SINGLE PERSON IN THE ENTIRE CITY OF TOKYO WHO IS AS DENSE AS YOU!!!"
Sanosuke sneezed into Megumi's cooked rice, and was ruthlessly swatted for it by the fox-like
doctor.