Disclaimer: zen zen arimasen. L (Trans: I do not own Rurouni Kenshin, it belongs to Watsuki Nobuhiro and other people, but not me.) (Too many hours of Kodacha under the belt by the time I wrote the last portion, and this)
Warnings:
Based solely on anime
*English* ____ Third and first person mix_____ thoughts
"zen zen arimasen" DOES NOT mean what I say it does.
This is my "webpage format" :P
Chapter 6: Introductions, chaos, sci-fi and mush, and more mush
Food… food… food… food… I thought as I searched through most of the ship looking for where Dom kept all the food that he fed us. When he had given us a tour of the ship, Dom had explained that the food was kept in something called a f'riju… unfortunately… I had gotten lost.
Hey! It's a pretty big ship!
Really…
I made a right turn and came to that room that Dom told us never to go into… it was some sort of energy gathering chamber or whatnot… didn't matter, if it didn't have food, it didn't matter. Well… maybe I could just take a peek inside. I don't know why I do half of the things I do but in any case, they get done. No wonder I'm always lost or in trouble if I follow that sort of logic. I sighed to myself.
Besides, if I made some sort of discovery about something Dom hadn't told us then I would have an excuse as to why I was wandering around the ship and no one will think that I got lost!
I bent my tall body over so that I could see into the small, thick paned window. Inside there was only another room, kinda like the dojo's bathhouse. There were two suites hung up on the walls. That didn't really give me anything to go on at all. The information Dom gave us all was vague at best, which only made me that much more curious.
My hand was just about to reach the handle to see if I might be able to open the door when I heard a slight cough behind me. With a cringe at the cold feeling that went down my back and made my hair stand on end, I froze and realized that the person who had caught me was glaring intently enough at my back for me to feel it. That meant I was doing something wrong, of course, maybe I could bluff my way out of it, or maybe the person liked me enough to let me go…
I turned around and all hope was lost at the slightly malicious grin donned on Tackets face. "*I wouldn't do that if I were you, unless you want to say goodbye to your skin. If you were lucky you might just have been thrown back, broken something and the ship would become toxic and we would all die. Then again, you have no idea what I'm saying, do you?*" Tackets paused in his speech that I couldn't understand a word of.
I had whipped my body around now, and I faced him with a shit-eating smile on my face, my hands "harmlessly" clasped behind my back.
Tackets' response to this was to plaster an equally (albeit more sarcastic) shit-eating grin on his face, "*Let me put this in universal terms,*" his grin made him speak through clenched teeth, making him sound even more cynical. He waved his hands in a panicked way and pointed at the door frantically to get my full attention. He proceeded to mime me a pretty clear warning by 1) opening the door motion, 2) taking deep breathes, 3) grasping his neck, making choking noises, and "dying" at my feet. He then stood up calmly and raised an eyebrow. After I wiped the tears from my eyes that had formed as I laughed my head off at his idiot tactics, I nodded to indicate I understood and stifled another laugh. Yes, I know, very mature Sano, but I couldn't help it.
"*Now,*" Tackets seemed to find some pleasure in talking to me in his language with the full knowledge that I had no idea what he was saying, "*you're either lost, hungry, or bored, but I bet you're all three, so I guess I have the responsibility to stop you from killing us all by entertaining you.
We got some grub from the f'riju and headed back into the main room. Kitsune actually looked as if she had been waiting for my return. I was inwardly happy at that but I only gave her the same smile I gave everyone when I show up places I'm not supposed to be. She only ignored me, which I had no problem with at all. Tackets seemed intent on doing something with me, and as much as I didn't really like the guy, he was still more interesting than having another argument with Kitsune. Being trapped on a small ship with the same people for two days really starts to grate on your nerves, especially since those two future-people-freaks had left us alone to amuse ourselves.
Tackets and I sat down at the round table in the main room and he tossed me one of those translator things to put in my ear that he must have got from Dom. I really didn't want to put some weird foreign object into my ear, but Tackets stared at me in that really annoying way after gesturing I follow his example. "Cut it out!" I yelled at him, I really didn't want to be forced to do something just because this idiot decided he would stare at me until I caved in.
He only stared back.
"I ain't puttin' this thing in my ear, no way am-" I started as he pressed a button on the wall panel and part of the table slid out on the open side. There were chips there… on my side… little pyramid-looking gambling chips.
Slowly I lifted the translator up to my ear so that I could know what the hell I was looking at.
I had the distinct urge to grab Tackets hand and hurry him by skipping down the hallway towards the lift to the ship. Roxanne must have been rubbing off on me more that I thought. Then again, she'd be willing to skip around in public and pull someone along for cookies… I was tempted because it was a life or death situation… well, more likely just a death situation.
It was a very strange feeling, and not one completely unfamiliar either: to be eager to hear something that you don't want to hear. I knew that someone that I probably knew was dead Being one of the oldest adepts had that strength, or conversely, drawback. One knows pretty much everyone that came before him or her and is still alive, and needs to help train those that come after, so I knew practically everyone.
Once Tackets and I were inside the ship we split off without another word. Tackets went who-knows-where, and I went directly to the consol to look through my mail. I shirked off my duties to implant the new passports and clearance tickets, figuring that if Tackets had half a brain, he would do it. Its not like he had anything important to do anyway.
Most of my mail was junk mail, some of it was mail from friends wondering how my mission went, and a lot of it was job offers or propositions also mostly considered junk mail by me. I got a lot of job offerings for my services and abilities. I had, I was painfully aware of, quite a reputation since I started singing at the UnDeRcLuB. However, it didn't matter how much some people were willing to pay me, I was not going to sing for a kid's birthday party, and I did not want a record deal. My first and foremost job in everything that I did was my duty to the war, and to my race. All else came after that.
I knew, deep in my mind that besides the urgency I had to read the mail from the LEA council… I also… more desperately than I had thought, wanted to see mail from Roxy, but there was none.
There. I did find the mail that I was looking for, two pieces, almost right next to each other, and dated about six days ago. I opened the first one and sped read through most of the parts that I knew, or had guessed, and shamelessly I also skipped through most of the damage reports, casualties, budget impinges… to the section where there were adept casualties.
I could have sworn that my heart stopped.
Nothing hit me more than the disbelief, really. It couldn't be Varn; Varn was always around. He just… he was. I wasn't believing my eyes to the point where I became slightly confused; it couldn't be Varn, the whole concept was just passing over my head. I knew that I was staring blankly at the screen and tried detachedly to snap out of it, but in a way, the numb state of my mind was more pleasant than a reality without Varn.
Varn was, to say the least, one of my closest friends. To say the most, the man was like a father to me. That could be a slight exaggeration there, he was like a father to me sometimes. He was a mentor, he taught me everything from my first day in the future, there weren't many adepts back then and so the older adepts taught the newer ones. Varn went on countless dangerous missions, trained a dozen other adepts, faced off with Enders, and always, always came back. In a world that was always turning upside down and inside out without notice, where the person that you meet one day became the corpse you buried the next and nothing was sure, Varn was the one consistency in my life. Unlike Roxanne he could be relied on for outside advice, he was wise, and kind, but not very lenient and always very dedicated.
I could say, without a doubt, that Varn and I had had something special. I wasn't just another trainee to him, I was a person that he could call friend, and I was another one that always came back. After being five and a half years an adept Varn would have been ready to give up on friends altogether like Tackets had- if it weren't for Roxanne and I. Since we were always there, and we watched our friends die together, we knew that we could count on each other if nothing or no one else.
My heart was still in turmoil, and my mind was still numb… but all I could do was stare right at the message, and think about what I would never have again. Varn would never be there to have a pleasant drink with me after a hard day of work, he would never again ask for my advice when I knew very well he didn't need it, I would never ever again feel his comfortable arm around mine when we were talking about girls and relationships, and all the troubles that came with them, and he would never give me that unique lopsided smile he had ever again.
In the past year we had become so close that he even invited me to his apartment every Friday night for Dorlasion cookies, something that he said he had always enjoyed doing alone, but that we were together so much that he didn't even notice I was there most of the time. He told me I was like an extra limb.
"Hey, where are those translators?" Tackets tapped me on the shoulder, unknowing of my emotional state. I guessed that was because I wasn't really showing it in any way, except maybe looking dumbfounded. Distractedly I pointed to where I had left them and said something with an uncanny normal sounding voice.
Tackets disappeared out of my line of concern. I didn't care; I didn't care about anything. My numbness had not faded at all. I needed to do something to keep me occupied, at the very least to keep my mind occupied, what had I been doing? I looked up, checking mail… My hand moved to the consol and continued to sift through mail, looking for something important, something that I needed to act on or do. There were no urgent letters from Roxy or missions that I just had to take. The closest I came to urgency was that the LEA council had sent me a blue letter- a letter of request.
I opened it obediently in my quest for something to do and tried to focus my eyes on it. They refused to at first, and then after more concentration than I thought was possible given the circumstances I began to read at an alarming rate. I read through the whole message in a couple of seconds… and I hadn't absorbed a word of it. I couldn't even remember what its main point was, I had read it but it didn't stick in my mind. Slowly, I read it over again, my mind absorbed some of what I saw and I sat there staring blankly for a few seconds trying to connect words and ideas.
Once again there was that annoying feeling of being thrown into ice water without warning. My eyes widened uncontrollably and if I hadn't been sitting I would have fallen over. Hurriedly I reread the message more carefully and actually understood it. I had to fight off teetering waves of nausea and fear. I was disgusted with nausea because Varn had only been dead six days… and I was afraid because the message made me realize I was now the oldest living, longest running, adept. I'd lived as an adept only four and a half years… I was only twenty-one… and yet, I was the new Connoisseur. It was so… wrong. So very wrong!! So unfair! He's dead!!! Dead and they want me to replace him!? They want me to- to just replace Varn like he's replaceable? Like he's expendable? Just another casualty? Numbers were so cold at a time like this… 80,000, 100,000, 150,000- all I could really think about was the number 1. One person that meant so much to me, one person that I had respected. So many other adepts died so very often and I never really had to think about whom I expected to live, I never needed to worry about my friends' safety. 150,000 seemed like such an overwhelming, depressing number when I thought of it one Varn's worth at a time.
Now my throat finally constricted and I let out a shaky breath. I guessed it wasn't so bad to express one's feelings sometimes. I felt like crying, my eyes stung a little but didn't well up. No, crying just wasn't my way. I did breathe a bit harder, and looked around anxiously to see if I was being watched like a paranoid person. Yahiko was with Kenshin watching Tackets and Sanosuke do something, and Kaoru-
-apparently Kaoru was directly to the left of me.
"Dom-kun… daijoubu? Do you- want to talk about it?"
I blinked widely at her for a second. She had just picked up on my reaction and comforted me like… like she had known me for years… The feeling I was getting should have been along the lines of unnerving, but somehow, her kind treatment of me made me more willing to bear my soul to her. Well, not that willing, but more willing than with most people.
"I… my friend died almost a week ago. I just found out." My response was not as calm as I had expected it to be. How is it that when I was talking to Tackets my voice sounded fine but now I sounded like a lost child?
Her eyes softened, "I'm sorry to hear that." She opened her hand to reveal two translator earpieces. She expects me to talk more? She… cares to listen to… more of my incessant, sissy, mindless, childlike babble about someone she doesn't even know? And she even prepared for it! She could read me enough to have the foresight and get the translators. Amazing woman… I was temporarily speechless but managed to get the earpiece in his ear.
After a pause I realized I was supposed to speak first, "Varn is dead. He was like a father to me in many ways, and now they- the Life Energy Administration Council- want me to take his job as the Connoisseur."
"What is that?"
"It's the position of the highest ranking, most experienced adept. Technically I'm now the longest running adept…" my throat constricted again and I looked down as I trailed off, "four and a half years…"
"You knew him for that long?" She sounded mournful… empathetic to me. I had expected her to brush it off, four and a half years wasn't that long compared to an actual father or a real family member. No big deal. Not so bad. Really, wasn't that how I was supposed to feel? No! How stupid of me, I was just being stupid.
"Its… not that long…"
"No!" I was taken aback by her response, "A friend is a friend, death is death. If you say he was like a father to you, the amount of time you knew him doesn't matter. I mean, look at my family, I have known them for barely a year, but their still the closest thing I have to a family and if any one of them died I would-" her rapid and free expression of emotions almost scared me, she looked as if she could cry at the thought, or cry for my sadness, I couldn't tell but I was sure I had the stupidest, most dumbfounded look on my face, "I would be devastated," she finished heartfeltly.
I suddenly realized I was devastated. I know it was stupid of me to realize then, but although I didn't show it, that was the word to describe it: devastated. I blinked at her concerned face again, and this time with more realization. I couldn't just numb away the feelings, what good would that do? That was unproductive devastation. If I wanted to function immediately then it worked, but long term it was better for me to deal with my devastation by allowing myself to feel.
All the emotions I had blocked were let loose from where I had shoved them, and like a floodgate being opened, they all poured to sit heavily in my chest like lead. The weight caused my chest to clench so sickeningly tight that I doubled over in my chair grasping at my loose shirt at my chest. I breathed as though I might have been crying, but no sound escaped my mouth, and no tears escaped my eyes. I felt Kaoru put her arms on my shoulders and say something comforting.
Kenshin looked at Tackets, and then at Sano and back. Gambling didn't interest him, and especially since it really made Kaoru very pissed off at him. Sano enjoyed it, Yahiko wanted to watch, and Kenshin just wanted to observe how the game worked. It wasn't as simple as dice were, as an understatement. This game had three layers to it. The table had opened up and three glass panes had risen out of it. Lights were displayed on the table to make checkered layers to the game. Not only could you take different moves than in checkers by moving up and down in the game, you could also jump over different pieces but only depending on the piece. There was a whole hierarchy of pieces that made Kenshin's head want to spin. He was lost after the first five types. Considering there were sixteen he had given up.
Sano was at the advantage of actually understanding the game more because he had a translator and so he could understand what Tackets was saying. Yahiko was watching for the hell of it, and he enjoyed doing so, but Kenshin found his eyes glazing over.
From what he could hear, not too far away behind him was Kaoru. He would have wandered over to get a moment with her but she was currently talking soothingly to Dom, who must have been upset, and Kenshin left them alone to their private conversation.
"YATA!" Sano yelled as another piece fell from its three-foot-doom to land dejectedly in his collection bag. In the game, whenever you got a piece it counted as money at the end of the game. Whatever the looser had retrieved from you was deducted from your total.
And boy am I kicking so much ass, Sano thought with a smile. Tackets glared at him not so good-naturedly. "Why the long face, old man? Did you swallow something sour… like maybe your foot?"
"Did you just call my foot sour?"
"What?"
"You just called my foot sour, did you not?" Tackets said belligerently.
"I guess I did," Sano answered with equal cockiness.
"You wanna start something with a sour footed man?"
Somehow, Kenshin saw where this was going, "Maa maa…"
Tackets whipped his head around to Kenshin and grimaced… he seemed to be holding back something and grimaced harder, but as he saw the worried look on Kenshin's face, the grimace turned into a repressed grin. Suddenly, the whole charade broke down and he started laughing breathily. "You guys are all right…"
The three male members of Kenshin-gumi looked around confused.
"Everyone gets tired of being alone," Tackets responded with a cocky glance. "I see no harm in warming up to you guys for just this once. Besides, I'll never see you again anyway, ne?" He said all of that in English, and Kenshin and Yahiko just stared blankly at him.
"Oi, this is no time to get mushy! I want to finish this game."
______________________@.@________________________
Hugs…
Hugs were Dom's official new favorite thing in the world. As he lay down in his bed opposite from Tackets', and was aware of the night of snoring and inconsiderate criticism he was about to endure, but most of all, as thoughts he could not let go of Varn filled his mind, Dom was sharply aware that he really was missing the comfort, protection and care than a hug offered. When Kaoru had hugged him earlier that day he had felt sheltered from the world's problems, demands and all the stress that fell upon him the second he realized he was being asked to take Varn's place.
Dom sighed and stared at the dark metallic ceiling with one are behind his head. I have to remember that Kaoru is not the solution to all my problems. She can't heal my grief, she can take away my job, and she can't … help me with Roxanne either. I can't hide in her arms forever, and God knows I can't, and wouldn't.
"What was that sigh? I know that sigh, it was a woman-sigh." Tackets sat his heavy body up on his bed and turned his head in the dark towards his opponent.
"Woman sigh? That was not a 'woman-sigh'. I was thinking about my new duties as a connoisseur." Dominic gave him an annoyed look that neither of them could see.
"That girl-"
Dom sprang up from his rest, "Who? Kaoru- you're out of your mind! I'm mourning, okay? Our time together was not some plot to get her into my bed, or even near it. I was in pain-"
"-And she soothed it. When are you going to realize that you never know you've fallen until you've fallen? You're going to end up liking her, getting closer to her, spending time with her. Soon you won't even remember what's-her-face." Tackets was referencing Roxanne, and they both knew it. Even though Tackets could care less about Dom's personal life most of the time and never asked, he still knew that those far away looks, and the forlorn sighs, and the glazed eyes belonged to some woman back on Inok.
"I will not." Dom crossed his arms. How dare he underestimate my feelings for- oh my gosh what am I thinking? I'm the one that dumped her. Ack! What am I thinking?! Is that all I think of it as when it comes down to it, did I just 'dump' her? He shook himself out of his inner dialogue and continued his thoughts in his argument. "Well, if there's one think I do know about what you suggest, that's that that girl and the red haired fem-boy are together. I would never try to break apart a relationship just for someone I barely know and some comfort. I'm not that easy."
"I'm saying this for your benefit," Tackets continued in earnest, "Don't get too close to these people, they will suck you in and you'll regret it. Either they'll die, or you'll fall in love with that girl, or you'll ruin your relationship with what's-'er-face. Just drive the ship, get us back, and take your rightful place. Smooth things over with that girl-"
"-Roxanne," Dom managed through clenched teeth.
"-and forget about this one."
Dom restrained himself from yelling but his voice did rise. "It's really funny that you would be saying this to me after you became so chummy with the rest of them, especially the tall one. You, winner of the cold-hearted-bastard-award of the year, actually accepted someone into your personal ice bubble today- and don't think I didn't notice -and now, of all times you want me to stay away from these people. You're afraid I'll lose my self control, that I'm too much of a flake, a skirt-chaser…" He became frustrated with a loss of words, "Well, well there's no way I'm going to turn into you just because you're afraid of opening up, icey-man!"
"First of all I'd like to point out how mature that was of you, and second I'd like to point out one other thing: maybe you don't change tides that easily, but in case in your experience from today with that girl- you're vulnerable."
Sawyer froze. His mind raced over the idea several times, at several different angles as to whether or not he was really being as vulnerable as Tackets said he was. It was true, he was vulnerable, and it had made his attachment to Kaoru very strong since first meeting, and he couldn't let that happen- but all that came out his mouth was one of the many questions that had passed through his head, this one escaping through the hole there called his mouth. "You think she's trying to take advantage of me??" Both blinked.
"That's not what I said-"
"You aren't answering the question-"
"No you dolt!"
There was a pause, and then they began to argue again. "How is it that after all these years you can become friends with some random Japanese person overnight while gambling, but you still treat me like crap?"
"I called you a dolt because you're an idiot, not because I dislike you!"
"So you don't dislike me-"
"No, I despise you."
Dom flipped over and pulled the covers over himself before he hit the pillow, "I'm tired, I think I've had enough childish bickering for tonight."
"Yea, the only way you can escape from your own idiocy would be sleep, wouldn't it?" Tackets made motions to go to sleep as well. Both settled down for a couple of minutes when there came a noise, "Sawyer?"
"What?" Sawyer said with grumpy sleepiness.
"Are you going to accept the role and become connoisseur?"
"You are aiming to ruin my good night's sleep, aren't you? Yes, I probably will accept, but I will consider it. It's not something I would immediately sign in to do."
"God save our race…" Tackets mumbled sincerely.
"Oh, shut up."
Notes -.-/:
-If you're still reading this (fic), thank you ^.^
-Important: I need definite feedback on whether or not my focus on the Other Characters (OCs) are annoying. I must know now how much to include about their problems. Be honest. Originally, they were supposed to be introduced like all the other characters were- ppl who were important to the plot and became main characters: ex. Misao. But if you guys can't stand it or just skip over it, please tell me- I'll make my own judgment from there.
-I have recently came to the revelation that my writing will no longer have anything to do with how many reviews I receive. Hopefully, I will keep writing ^.^. Fanfiction.net is too focused on reviews, I'm glad they don't show how many you have with the fic anymore. Reveiws are usually nice, and helpful, they also let me know you're still alive out there, but I will never stop writing just because I'm not getting many reviews ever again. Otherwise, I probably wouldn't have written this chapter ^.^
-I have come to the decision that I ramble too much, but my reason for this taking so long is that I went to Otakon. This entails much. And- it was fun. :P (yes I know I like in NY- mad Maryland connection skilz)
-read MT: www.megatokyo.com Fred just made a lot of money at otakon, he should get more readers to go with his new server ^.- (big fans know what I mean) Ack! Rambled too much!
The author would like to thank you for your continued support. Your review has been posted.