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Chapter Four; Torrent Specters
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I am the daughter of Earth and Water,
and the nursling of the Sky;
I pass through the pores of the ocean and shores;
I change, but I cannot die.
For after the rain when with never a stain
The pavilion of Heaven is bare,
And the wind and sunbeams with their convex gleams
Build up the blue domes of air,
I silently laugh at my own cenotaph,
And out of the caverns of rain,
Like a child from the womb, like a ghost from the tomb,
I arise and unbuild it again.
-P.B. Shelley.
******
The rain had been pouring for three consecutive days and Enishi hadn't spoken to anyone since it started. Kaoru had an idea that his silence was related to the distinct lack of student placards hung on the walls of the practice hall.
Tonight she was cutting up a watermelon in an attempt to cheer herself and everyone in the dojo up, she'd been able to let it sit in the cool gushing rain and now it was nicely killed.
Kaoru herself was sitting on the boardwalks watching the rain fall on the small pond garden that her father had installed during the week before Kaoru was born. She was leaned against one of the beams supporting the roof overhang that sheltered her from the rain, her bokken was leaned against her shoulder... it was a pose she'd seen Kenshin in a thousand times and though she desperately didn't want to think she was turning into him, taking the position made her feel a little closer; like she and the Kenshin she knew weren't separated by the gulf of time and space.
Tens years and she was still as head over heels as she was when she'd been seventeen. That was the ultimate irony. In a bad Kabuki play the Buddha would come down from the sky and suddenly there he would be; sweet, kind, and clueless as ever and there wouldn't be a single consequence of his presence that she would have to deal with. It would be enough that they were both good, true people in love and the cosmos would re-order itself so they could be together.
Yeah right.
Kaoru sighed and propped her kin up on her knee. The alternative was to be in oblivion with Kenshin in the living world driving himself mad because he had failed to be the ultimate protector.
Life wasn't fair and damned if death wasn't worse.
'You just can't win.' Kaoru thought. 'Not the way you want to, anyway.' she traced the x-shaped scar on her cheek with her fingertips. Here was the brand of her profession, only one other person in the world carried a similar mark and he was probably harvesting his daikon radish crop at the moment.
"You look like you have a lot on your mind."
Kaoru looked over at Enishi who was sitting down beside her.
"You might say that." Kaoru gazed out into the misty depths of the rain; if she concentrated she could see the outline of the house next door. She shuddered.
She remembered a day like this nine years ago; it was a bad day to remember. It was bad day to experience; ghosts walked the streets on days like this and they weren't always the ghosts of the dead.
"Would talking help?" Enishi offered, he was unaffected by the rain today. He had no rainy day ghosts to speak of.
"No." Kaoru said. "Talking would make it seem... too, too real."
But it was already too real. She shoved the ghosts away from her and stood up. "I'll go cut up that watermelon, suddenly it seems like a good idea."
Enishi opened his mouth to agree but the clanging of the gate bell interrupted them both.
"Who could be visiting on a god awful day like this?" Enishi wondered out loud and got up to see. "Even the salesmen are inside."
Kaoru shrugged and followed Enishi to the door, making a short detour to get an umbrella from the stand in the genkan.
The parasol with a cheerful red but the dull grayness of the rain turned it maroon. Enishi walked a little too close to her than the cramped shelter required, but she said nothing.
The bell clanged again as Enishi pushed open the smaller door beside the main gate. A child, roughly eight or nine judging by height alone, stood huddled under the meager shelter offered by the decorative roof on the gate. The child was wrapped up in a thick gray woolen made dark and heavy by accumulated water. Under the bottom edges of the woolen, Kaoru could see shiny black geta and a festive yellow kimono.
"You poor thing." Enishi said sympathetically to the girl-child. "Did you get caught in the rain? You can come in the dojo until it stops..." he cast a furtive eye at the sky. "If it stops."
A pale, cold looking hand emerged from the depths of the gray woolen and pushed the folds away, revealing a heart shaped face framed to damp blue-black hair. A pair of stunning cobalt eyes glared out of that face at Kaoru.
"I'm here and I'm not going back." the girl informed Kaoru. "You can like it or lump it."
Kaoru stepped forward and wrapped the woolen a bit tighter around the girl, careful not to obscure that angry little face. "You got my last message didn't you?"
"I did, and I don't care." she huffed. "You can't just leave me up in that stuffy old Monastery and dance around Japan having a good old time without me."
"The monks will be worried by now." Kaoru continued. "They've guarded you all your life, don't they deserve a little consideration? I would have let you come if you'd asked, you've never asked."
The pale cheeks turned ruddy. "You can't guilt trip me into going back! I talked to the abbot, and he let me come." she snorted. "They said they'd keep my room open for me for when you brought me back home."
"Kaori, I won't ever make you do something you don't want to, but consider first the wisdom of your actions." Kaoru said earnestly to the young girl. "Consider who I am, what I can do. I am a dangerous person to be close to, the monks could protect you from anyone who wanted to get at me through you."
Kaori's kin began to tremble. "Y-you just don't want me, that's what it is." she heaved a shuddering breath. "You didn't want me in the first place so you left me at the monastery!"
Kaoru's eyes widened and she fell to her knees before the girl. "No!" she whispered and pulled the soaked child into her arms and rocked her against her chest. "Never that, never believe that!"
"Um..." Enishi paused, helpless. "Would you mind telling me what's going on?" the two females kneeling in the mud at his feet blinked up at him with identical expressions of curiosity. "Who is she?" he asked, pointing at Kaori.
Kaori sniffed and looked at Kaoru tragically. "They don't know about me?"
Kaoru got to her feet and pulled Kaori to her side. "Let's go inside and dry off before we get sick," she said sensibly. "Then I'll make tea and we'll trade introductions."
"Can I stay with you?" Kaori didn't let the subject go, even when she was pressed between Enishi and Kaoru underneath the parasol.
"That's not for me to decide." Kaoru said quietly and looked at Enishi. "My father left this Dojo to Yukishiro-san, it for him to decide who stays and who goes."
"You're the blood relative." Enishi shook his head. "It's your dojo, I'm just the resident teacher."
Kaoru pursed her lips but led the way inside the house, in the genkan she divested Kaori of the woolen wrap and made her peel off her soaked tabi. "You go into the middle bedroom on the left, that's mine, and change into dry clothes. I don't want that cough you had last winter to come back."
"You know about that?" Kaori asked, bewildered.
Kaoru smiled enigmatically. "Yes." she gave Kaori a firm push on the rear to get the child going. "Change, now!"
To Enishi she made a nod at the kitchen. "I'll explain about Kaori while she changes and the tea brews," she said.
Enishi followed her quietly and waited for her to fix the tea. Kaoru boiled water and tossed some loose green tea into the kettle to steep.
"Kaori's my daughter," she said as she watched the tea water turn brown. "I had her in a monastery nearly ten years ago. When I was recovered from my delivery, I stayed there for a while until Kaori was old enough to get along without me always with her. While I was with the monks I studied swordsmanship, many of the techniques I use today I developed there under the supervision of the monks. They took care of Kaori for me, raised her, and educated her. I visited her whenever I could... she's always so glad to see me and wanted to know when I'd start taking her with me. I couldn't bring her to half the cut-throat places I've been in my travels, it was best for her."
"Why didn't you settle down when she was born?" Enishi wanted to know.
Kaoru's hand shook as she transferred tea into tall ceramic glasses. "Believe me or don't, Enishi but I don't travel because I want to. I wanted so very badly to make a real home for Kaori, where I could be there and watch her become the amazing little girl she is now... but I didn't have that option."
"Why?"
Kaoru didn't look him in the eye. "There are some things best left unsaid. It is up to you whether or not can stay."
Enishi pursed his lips. "Do you want her here?"
"I won't lie, I'd feel best if I knew she was somewhere where she was safe... and the Dojo might not stay that." Kaoru sighed and set the teacups on a round serving tray. "But the mother in me wants to be able have her where I can see her, talk to her, and take a hand in making her the woman she will grow up to be."
"What happened last week was hardly a common occurrence," Enishi told her. "I think it would be more than safe for Kaori here and she obviously wants to be with you." his voice was a little strained. "What about her father?"
Kaoru froze. "If I ever meet her father again I just might forget that my sword style isn't about killing." she stood and kicked the shoji open, causing Kaori lose her balance and fall inside the kitchen.
She didn't seem embarrassed but rolled over onto her back and grinned up at her mother who was shaking her head. "I can stay!"
"Yes." Kaoru sighed. "You can stay, you'll write a letter to the Abbot telling him your madness is infective and to send along whatever belongings you left behind."
Kaori leapt to her feet and threw her arms around Kaoru's neck. "Yayyy!!!"
Kaoru tossed a long-suffering look at Enishi who quietly covered up his laughter with a fit of coughing.
***
Yahiko, however, didn't take to their new arrival. In fact it took hardly an hour before familiar shouts of 'Busu!' and 'Tanuki-no-Onna!' filled the dojo always followed swiftly by the sound of a beating.
Kaori, freshly changed into a set of gi and hakama not unlike her mother's (only in yellow and white), could be seen regularly chasing Yahiko around the dojo.
Kaoru could only watch and quietly flinch every time she heard the familiar insults, even if they weren't directed towards her. She knew Yahiko stood less than a chance against Kaori, who had been trained in hand to hand combat since she could walk by monks with absolutely nothing better to do than practice martial arts.
"Wow." Enishi murmured, fresh from watching Kaori throw Yahiko around the practice hall. "I never knew the Runt was such a glutton for punishment."
Kaoru, back in her 'thinking place' place by the garden, nodded. The rain had stopped almost immediately after Kaori had arrived, she chose to take that as a sign. She closed her eyes and basked in the warm sunlight... this was a good place to doze off.
"Kaa-chan!"
Kaoru cracked an eye to look at her daughter, who was walking towards her, dusting off her hands and looking pleased with herself. She sat down by Kaoru and leaned against the same roof support her mother chose to sleep against.
"Yes, Musume?" Kaoru replied, just a shade indulgent.
"My grandfather built this place, didn't he?" Kaori asked.
"No." Kaoru sat up and let her feet dangle over the edge of the boardwalk. "No, it was an ordinary Kendo Dojo fallen on hard times before Ue bought it. He paid it off the year I was born."
"This sword style was important to him?"
Kaoru laughed. "He lived for it, he hated the idea that to be a competent swordsman one must kill others. More often then not the spiritual side of sword work is completely overlooked, not that those who do so ever progress very far."
"That's what the monks say about Jujitsu." Kaori sighed. "I don't really understand what they mean when they tell me to hit with both my body and soul. I just heard Enishi lecturing Yahiko about 'ken ki', and he doesn't get it either."
Kaoru stood up. "Come with me and I'll give you a demonstration."
Kaori jumped up and obediently followed her mother to the open practice ground behind the practice hall. The ground there was cobbled and ever so slightly raised in the center so that water didn't collect in puddles.
There was a line of practice dummies made of sticks and straw set up in a line, the vital target points were marked with splotches of red paint.
Kaoru looked them over and went up to the shabbiest one that looked to be replaced soon. Yahiko stormed out of the practice hall behind them.
"Dammit, Enishi! I'm never gonna understand what the hell you're talking about until you use words I can understand!" he yelled.
Enishi followed him. "It's not that hard a concept!"
"Yahiko!" Kaori called to the angry boy. "Come on over here, Kaa-chan is giving a demonstration!"
Both Yahiko and Enishi perked up and jogged over to were Kaoru was waiting.
"I was going to show Kaori the difference between an attack of the body, an attack of the soul, and an attack of the body and the soul." She looked at the row of dummies. "They need replacing anyway," she said by way of justification. "Please, stand back."
Enishi herded the two youngsters away to a safe distance and Kaoru took a few paces away from her first target and took a Batoujutsu stance.
"The first attack will be an attack of the body. I will do this with only my physical muscles and bokken." Kaoru explained.
None of the spectators dared to breathe as Kaoru tensed and then flickered out of sight. She reappeared behind her target and slid her bokken back into her belt. The dummy remained as it was until Kaoru went up and tapped it.
The was a Pop! sound and the dummy split into several neat pieces.
"That's amazing!" Yahiko cried. "Her sword doesn't even have a blade on it!"
"She must have used the air pressure from her strikes to act as a blade in lieu of a real one." Enishi mused.
Kaori, on the other hand, said nothing but waited for the demonstration to continue. In a way, she was wiser than her two companions but then again she was used to seeing amazing sights. The monks back at the monastery had been capable of some... rather amazing things.
Kaoru went on to the next dummy. "This will be a an attack of the soul, I'll only use my ki to affect this one." She took a breath and centered herself.
Kaori, Enishi, and Yahiko all felt the hairs on the back of their necks rise up as one when Kaoru manifested her ki.
"It feels like an electric storm." Yahiko wrapped his arms around himself and shuddered. "I keep thinking that I'm going to be hit by lightning any moment now."
"Ki manifestations are a reflection of the person." Enishi explained through gritted teeth. "Her father always made me feel like I was standing on a cliff being battered by ocean waves." he didn't tell the children that the feeling hadn't been nearly as strong or bordering on the visual as Kaoru was. He could catch tiny flickers of blue plasma around the outline of her form. What really frightened him was that she didn't really seem to be exerting herself.
Kaoru's eyes snapped open and Enishi assured himself that he didn't see a flicker of lightning deep in her blue eyes as she extended a hand out in front of her and directed it at the dummy before her.
The dummy exploded in a rain of splinters and bits of straw.
Kaori cheered this time. "You're the greatest, Kaa-chan!" she cried, ignoring the dumbfounded looks on Enishi and Yahiko's faces.
Kaoru faced the last dummy and cocked her head. "You know, this just might be over kill," she said to no one in particular.
"Wait, Kaa-chan!" Kaori ran over to her mother. "That's enough... I think I understand." her gaze flicked to an odd shadow in a tree overlooking the Dojo.
"You just might be right, Musume." she followed her daughter's glance. "Come on out, Sanosuke!" she called.
"Yaa!" a certain spiky haired man feel out of the tree, somersaulted in mid-air and landed on the cobblestone practice ground with a curse. "How did you know it was me?" he asked.
Kaoru looked down at Kaori. "I knew it was you by the spiky haired shadow on the ground but I didn't see the harm in letting you watch, but Kaori obviously thinks differently."
"Well, I've seen him shadowing the dojo." Kaori explained. "I noticed him before I came inside this morning, but then someone (glare at Yahiko) started calling me names and I forgot."
The elder Kenshi placed a hand on her daughter's shoulder and smiled at Sanosuke. "There's really nothing interesting going on here, Sano."
"It's a matter of time." Sanosuke ran a hand through his unruly hair. "I figured on waiting until another good fight started up and just 'happening by'."
"I thought you said you had a job." Enishi asked suspiciously.
Sanosuke looked the other way. "They don't need me until after dark."
"Hah!" Enishi laughed. "I knew it! You're a Yojimbo at an Okubansho!"
Sanosuke turned red. "It's not like that!"
"A yojimbo?" Kaori turned a little red. "You're a bouncer at a whore-house?" she edged behind her mother.
"So what if I am?" Sanosuke seethed. "It's good pay an' I don't like to see working girls get slapped around. I ain't got anything to be ashamed of!"
"No, it isn't." Kaoru agreed. "That can't be the only reason you were spying on us though."
Sanosuke laughed nervously. "Well, actually... you know that fight I was talking about?"
Kaoru rubbed the spot between her eyes. "Dear Buddha, what have you heard?"
"Well, uh, I got a friend and she's gone missing for a while." Sanosuke paused and scowled. "I think I might know who's got her and he's been recruiting swordsmen like crazy lately. I made a little mistake and roughed up the guys who came to ask me to join him... ya know, before it occurred to me that I had a lead."
"You were waiting for them to come to me and then what? follow them home?" Kaoru asked.
"Pretty much." Sanosuke agreed. "but, ya know, if they saw me around here too much. They might not come."
"Astute of you." Sweet Buddha in heaven, Sanosuke had gotten slightly sneaky!
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End chapter Four
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Seiyuu; Net time we get to play with Kitsune and Kurogasa!