Ah! My Sempai 1
By: Vash-chan AKA Makoto Almasy
Rating: PG13
Summary: Rurouni Kenshin/SM. This is a SHORT story on my view of who Makoto's Sempai is ~in the RK universe~.
Disclaimer: The well-known characters are not my property. Only the fanfic idea is mine.
AN: Sempai is tall, has short black hair and 'ice blue' eyes. There's only one person who fits this description.
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Makoto ran like the speed of a lightning strike. The sense of adrenaline travelled through all parts of her body, forcing each leg muscle to run as fast as possible while they continued to ached in pain. She couldn't recall how long she had been running from them. Her mind had been solely focused on drifting those bastards away from town. Who could resist chasing an attractive Bishoujo? Makoto wasn't surprised that those troublemakers would go after her. All three men were perverts who wanted to use women as their filthy toys. The owner of the restaurant, Ayane-san, had been suffering a lot this afternoon because those three guys tried to force her to sit with them.
Makoto had just finished her daily afternoon training outside when she saw these idiots hurting her boss. She had kindly asked them to leave, hoping to fix this little scene up peacefully. But did they listen at all? Of course not. She expected them to disobey her suggestion. And this lead to an alternative solution – beat them down one by one till they apologised for being rascals. However, Makoto wasn't able to do her deed in the restaurant or else she'd be the centre of attention and she didn't like it when many faces watched her fight. How she battled was private and only ever took place in dark alleyways or in the quieter areas of the forest. This little chase happened to be one part of her plan. Well there was something before that as a matter of fact. One of the men wanted to be nice to Makoto and be a so-called gentleman though she didn't find his generosity convincing enough and pushed him away from her lightly. Running off from the restaurant was the only action she could think of in order to draw them away from the busy town.
The last time Makoto checked their bill she remembered seeing four large bottles of Sake written down by Ayane. Oh…that would explain the sick thoughts these males had today. They had no idea they were seriously drunk and wanted to enjoy themselves with female company. Not very gentleman-like now, was it? It was irritating in Makoto's opinion. What made her more annoyed with these men was how they insulted her because she was a woman who trained in Karate. In their view, they thought women were still weak no matter what martial art they learnt. She had never felt this offended in her life and if either one of her parents were alive they'd throw God knows how many kicks into these idiots' faces. Her father wasn't a chauvinist like these guys and respected all genders when it came to learning martial arts. Since when did these men know how to fight? From the way they acted in the restaurant it wasn't likely they were fighters at all.
BUT that was her initial thought after meeting them for the first time. Realism had hit her the hard way after discovering that these men were fully-trained swordsmen and one of them managed to make the first strike by stabbing deep into her left shoulder, which was the main reason to what made her running much slower than usual. Cursing herself for being careless wasn't going to make her problems go away and the amount of adrenaline just kept on pumping around in huge capacities. These Samurai had been holding back in town when they first saw Makoto. They probably could tell she was a worthwhile opponent in one glance and decided to see what this girl had in mind to take them on. And running through the forest was her answer in the end.
Makoto could hear their voices growing louder as she ran down the remote path on bare feet. Running from town was the right thing to do. She just knew it. Nobody was going to be hurt except these guys or herself since they were now in the deeper parts of the local forest. The chances of death threats or hostages were unlikely, which made things better for Makoto. At least Ayane wouldn't be in any trouble while she was still at the restaurant. The trouble had followed the young Karate student all the way here rather than remained in town. She was the one who was going to get the deadly punishment and so were these Samurai. Makoto clenched her right fingers into a ball and pressed them hard against the thick branch of a tree. Her breathing had sped up though it sounded ragged every minute. It felt like her insides were suffocating and she was losing oxygen fast. Why did she think it was a good idea to hit them while she ran? That was clumsy of her, wasn't it? It only faltered her concentration on striking her opponents at the right moment.
Her running had taken her so far into the forest that she didn't have a clue where she was right now. Was she near Kyoto or still within her hometown Osaka? This was further than her usual training spot for sure. Her gaze started to become a heavy blur and her cerebral released a giddy sensation while she leant against the tree, catching her breath and regaining her strength. A little voice forced her to wake up once three pairs of feet came into view. Makoto's jade eyes ascended slowly to stare at the snarling faces surrounding her. The expression of delight and victory could be smelt against the men's cheeks and the experience of failure was about to become greater within the only female standing before them.
The men posing in front of her were much huger than she was. Muscles could be seen beneath the folds of their robes. The man to her right was half-bald and had a face that reminded Makoto of a monkey. The middle guy was tall and skinny and was probably in his thirties whilst the last member of the trio had front rabbit teeth that showed clearly from his upper lip and had loose hair flying over his shoulders. He was the shortest among his friends. Although their appearances were not identical, the evil smirks on their faces seemed to be the same as one another and their dark eyes weren't leaving sight of the young girl. Amusement had somehow turned itself around today and seemed to be growing much more around these men rather than Makoto. Of course there was no enjoyment for her right now. Here she was, almost close to losing her breath and her stamina due to the bad behaviour of men who wanted to cause such chaos in her boss' restaurant. What right did she have to say she was enjoying this? She didn't start this brawl. They did.
Makoto gave a sharp glare to the three men and didn't waste any time sending more attacks to them. A side-thrust kick to the skinny dude, two flying jump kicks to the half-baldy man and a roundhouse elbow to the rabbit teeth guy. She couldn't believe their speed was faster than hers as the attacks to each person deflected immediately. Everyone dodged out of the way in a casual slide to the other direction and Makoto was in time to land on her feet safely before resuming her assault. She moved into a front stance and her emerald eyes watched each person again as they held their drawn Katanas at arms length. They were very skilled indeed.
"Nice try on outrunning us, Missie," Half-bald guy said, which sent a snigger between the other two standing next to him. "What you did just now to get us away from your pretty friend was a big mistake."
"We're not as stupid as you think," The guy with rabbit teeth remarked. "So why don't you give up and let us take you home?" Hearing Makoto swear at him, his blade swiftly moved across her right cheek and a tiny scratch formed in less than a second. It was difficult for Makoto to feel the discomfort on her face because the slice was so fast to keep up with. It took a while for her to feel any soreness whatsoever. Although there wasn't much pain on her face than in her injured shoulder, she could feel the hot blood slowly leak from the scratch while she stood stationary between the swordsmen. The blood in her left shoulder hadn't stopped trickling during the time she had been running and the pain wasn't helping her feel better in this fight. Her concentration wasn't going well because of the distracting smell of blood, as well as the aches in her body.
"Look at you," The skinny dude commented. "You couldn't even dodge that slash." His blade touched the tip of her nose. "You too weak to fight anymore. Victory goes to us."
"I'm not letting you win that easily," Makoto replied, showing her determination to fight on. "Tch…you deserve to be in jail." They laughed at the empty threat and continuously jeered at her on how she was no match for them because she wasn't strong enough. So what if she was injured. Makoto could still stand, couldn't she? They were good at talking crap while she was good at delivering blows. The blade touching her nose began to poke harder and Makoto clasped her left hand around the sharp end to push it backwards into the skinny dude's nose instead. He yelled in agony as the bone of his nose pressed inward in a horribly painful position. Blood was trickling from his nostrils as he stumbled backward, leaving his friends open-mouthed for a short time.
Yelling out loud to prove she was still alive, Makoto turned to the other two Samurai who charged at her. She knelt down to evade a strike to her left from the rabbit toothed dickhead and elbowed him hard in the stomach. Like a note in a completed piece of musical composition, the half-bald guy followed his friend's steps and also came in to attack the female Karate student. Catching his blade with both hands, Makoto then threw a back-fist to his nose and then a jaw-breaking blow to his chin to finish her damaging strikes. Her clenched fingers could feel the jaws grinding forcefully against each other once the uppercut connected. It was likely that he was going to have bleeding gums because his teeth would have bitten the insides of his mouth in a hard manner.
"Who said I was weak?" Makoto uttered offensively. Both the rabbit teethed man and the half-baldy stumbled against the bushes as they tried to recover THEIR focus. Looked like their fatigue from running through the forest was finally kicking in at last. At the same time, the pain from her hard attacks was also affecting their insides like burning fire. They knew they underestimated her a minute ago, bragging on how she wasn't able to fight them because she was exhausted from trying to outrun her enemies and from attacking them meaninglessly at the beginning. Then again, she underestimated these Samurai herself and didn't anticipate any strong attacks from them at an earlier time. However, she wasn't the type to brag on how her martial arts surpassed any legendary figures, including her father's skill as a Karate master.
She just didn't put her guard high enough when she first met these idiots. That was *her* mistake but the *real* trouble came in the form of these three men and it was their own fault for starting this fight. Makoto's anger had triggered some fast recovery time in her body, which was one reason how she managed to make her attacks connect precisely without any immediate errors. Unfortunately the fast recovering did have its limit and suddenly Makoto's injuries started to hurt her again after throwing some strikes at the two men. Baka! You used too much effort in one go. Now I'll really lose this fight She thought furiously. Her left shoulder had become a heavy weight and was literally pulling her down to the ground in a forceful motion. It almost felt as though her entire left arm had become paralysed completely. This was a horrible nightmare!!
"You bitch!"
"Huh?" Makoto yelped unexpectedly from a backhanded slap to her left cheek, which caused the cut on her face to enlarge and the blood flow to speed up. She crashed to the ground and landed first by her left arm, crushing her fingers underneath her hip. Great! More pain. How come her afternoon training wasn't helping her out here? Didn't she concentrate properly? She was always alert in the forest when she practised her Katas and meditated alone for two hours. Makoto would have thought her stamina would be longer than this. Long hours of training did make her urgency to fight grow by one level sometimes. Maybe she had used up all her energy in one go prior to this moment.
Her face tilted back up to see who the hell had slapped her. Swallowing another urge to swear aloud, she recognised the angry face of the third party member – the tall skinny guy who had a broken nose; courtesy of Makoto. His nose was still flat and had dug deep inside the rest of his face since that little sneak surprise the brunette girl had pulled off. Who cared about that? He too was on his feet, as were his friends. The half-bald man delivered a snap kick to her stomach, sending her flying to a willow tree branch. This day was becoming more and more painful by the minute. Now she really did feel paralysed all over her body. None of her nerves seemed to be co-ordinating well to each other. This did mean one thing though – she was truly weak from tiredness and damage.
"O-Ow my back," Makoto wasn't able to push herself back to her feet while the three Samurai encircled her hunched figure. The light reflected brightly into their blades, which blinded Makoto's eyes slightly and made her eyelids shut straightaway.
"If we can't have you then we may as well *cut you up* to satisfy ourselves," The skinny dude decided. "Farewell then….AHH!!"
Makoto opened her eyes slightly to see what the hold up was. Why didn't she feel any slash fall across her body? There was no time to assume she delayed Death as she watched the skinny man drop his Katana to the ground. The look on his face showed pure agony and a lot of torturous pain. Makoto wasn't entirely sure what had happened to him just now as she had her eyes shut for a minute, though took a brief moment to observe this situation with the skinny guy. An empty gasp was all that came from her mouth when she saw what had really taken place in front of her. The guy's right shoulder had been pierced, providing a deep red shower of blood to rise into the air and his entire body ended up on the ground alongside his weapon. It was like her damaged shoulder except she never got a fountain of blood as a result of the gash.
Makoto wasn't able to see who the hell was doing her work here. All she could pick out was a fast yet unclear shadow moving like a hungry predator in the shadows. It was too difficult to see where the person was and what he or she looked like. But whoever it was, he or she was surely going to get a huge thank you from Makoto when this was all over. She didn't give a damn who was the helper, primarily because she was busy seeing the half-bald guy and the rabbit-toothed moron struggling to fight this mysterious opponent who had come out of nowhere. Numerous punches flew everywhere on the remaining Samurai standing back to back as they prepared an attack on the new fighter though with plenty of inconvenience.
It seemed unlikely that these two were going to succeed in defending each other. This person was too quick for them – and very skilled by the looks of the things. The half-bald man screamed suddenly when he felt a gigantic slash across his abdomen and, like his skinny buddy laying on the ground right now, a fountain of blood gushed out into the air. Two men were down! Makoto couldn't believe her eyes. Was it her father's ghost coming to rescue her? Maybe that was why she wasn't able to see his physical appearance properly – because he was travelling in the air. However that likeliness disappeared right away when the person's physique became much clearer to her this instant. She knew right away it wasn't her dad because he wasn't more than 6 feet tall. And since when did her Father ever wear a white trench coat over his clothes? He never wore long jackets like that and looked cool in them.
Makoto rubbed her eyes for the third time today to make sure she wasn't observing this person incorrectly with a blurry vision. Nope, the white trench coat was still there so she wasn't wrong on picking out that garment. She watched in awe at this tall man who stood a few feet away from her. Unlike these poor guys, he had two swords in his hands, recently tinged with fresh blood. The rouge stains had to have come from these two men spread across his feet. It was hard to see his face due to the long dark fringe covering the top of his eyes. Although his lips seemed completely sealed there were no signs of any sarcasm or delight in moving his sword around – not like those three morons. It was as though his face was of a stone statue.
Makoto couldn't help looking at his weapons over and over again. There was something familiar about those swords he held. Where had she seen them before though? Her memories weren't functioning well because she could sense her brain informing her to sleep and regain some of her energy. But she couldn't do that yet. She had to see who this man was. Dammit how much blood had she lost today? She must have lost so much while fighting and it was making her tired a lot more quickly. Her brain wasn't able to tell her nerves to raise her right arm and catch the man's attention but the guy in the white trench coat didn't seem to notice her while he continued to fight the rabbit-toothed Samurai.
This new guy had truly amazing speed. Even a martial artist like Makoto herself had trouble catching up with him. Or maybe it was because she was too tired to watch any more of this. Her eyelids were losing control to remain open and the vision of the current started to darken her surroundings. She had no choice. She had to sleep. She was too tired and her body ached like hell from being kicked hard against the tree I…have...to…. Coincidentally her eyelids shot straight up when three loud slashes filled her eardrums and then a short choking sound followed after. Finally the last of these three losers had been beaten down. Makoto was so relieved – even though she wasn't the one to beat the hell out of them unfortunately.
Now she could die peacefully because her opponents were beaten in the end. "At last those idiots were taken care of. I'm feeling sleepy…huh?" Both her emerald irises looked back up again, albeit more swiftly since her enemies were badly injured this also meant it was safe for her to be calmer than before. She was able to see the rescuer more close-up than a minute ago and this sight was fascinating. But those cold eyes, the stony face…damn Makoto had seen them on time though couldn't recall where. As he knelt down slightly, the swordsman's emotionless façade met her fatigue gaze.
"Are you all right?" He asked. Makoto wasn't sure what words to respond with. She was having trouble trying to keep a clear sight of this mysterious man. The words 'Thank you' were what she wanted to say yet no words were expressed. A gasping cough was her automatic response. Had her voice gone now? She felt absolutely terrible in all parts of her mind and body and it worsened while she tried to remember who this guy was. But then it clicked like magic.
"Hey…y-you're the Commander of the Oniwaban …" Makoto couldn't say another word as soon as the tiredness spread all over her cranium and threw her into immediate unconsciousness. Her light figure flopped forwards to the ground but the swordsman caught it in time with his left arm to give her a softer landing. He could see she had lost a lot of blood during a long period of time and it was no thanks to these guys lying beneath his feet. However the injuries didn't stop her mind from growing weaker till it was nothing because he knew she wanted to talk to him. Sadly the heavy blood loss had hindered her speech and normal thinking, leading her to extreme exhaustion. This girl had indeed recognised him and was right on guessing his true identity. He really was the Commander of the Oniwabanshu, whose name was Shinomori Aoshi.
TBC.
Sorry if this sounds weird. I did say this was going to be short (I estimate 3-4 chapters, if not more – it depends). Yes as you can see, Aoshi and Makoto do have a small bit of history and I'll be explaining it more in later chapters :D. Constructive reviews appreciated.
