Disclaimer: I'm sure I'm not the first to say this, but I speak along with the legions of other fans when I say, "I do not own Rurouni Kenshin, I just WISH I did."
Chapter Two
It was not hard to find the culprit. Being a perceptive man and keen observer, Himura had already deducted quite a few many things about Obaga Nuhiro during their brief encounter. First and foremost, the man was obviously someone who could contest his own master in a sake-drinking contest. Second, he was a freeloader and probably looking for the next sucker. Third, he was a womanizer; Himura was very sure of that.
These habits helped determine the part of town he'd be in as well as specific places. So a few of questions and of the less-classy streets later, the Battousai made visual with his soon-to-be Dou-Ryu-Sen victim. Not surprisingly the old man was trying to impress some… er, "working" young women. Even more unsurprising, he was drunk again...supposedly.
"Sho there I was!" he spoke, his words sloppily running together. "Fifteen men shurrounding me on all shides! An' they're all like, 'Move ya bum!' An' then I'm all like, 'Bite me de gozaru.' And then they-"
"Obaga Nuhiro."
The name wasn't said very loudly, but the venom that dripped from those two words spoke volumes. Too bad Nuhiro was too intoxicated to pick that up.
"Oh, itsh my new friend de g'zaru!" he cried happily, welcoming the deadly assassin over with a casual wave. "Hey girlsh, I wantcha ta meet a good drinking buddy o' mine!" Himura made no movement to step closer to them but the alcoholic apparently had other ideas.
Trotting over to him carelessly, Nuhiro draped an arm (that would have been missing if it weren't for the witnesses) around the smaller man's shoulders, forcing him to step closer to the ladies. "I'd like ya ta meet my pal, Battousai-dono!"
Himura didn't immediately shove Nuhiro away because he was too busy blinking. Battousai-dono? That had to have been the most… backwards title he'd ever been called. Aw gee, he had a name to fit along with his sword now. Wonderful.
Their female company giggled, bringing him back to reality. Then he realized that reality still had him under the arm of the one man he did not want to be close to and hastily pushed him away in a flush of embarrassed anger.
"I am not one of your 'pals!'" the redhead scowled, wishing the women weren't there so he could get on with his cool pre-smack down speech. Well, it did need some tweaking. So far it sounded something like, "Hello, my name is Himura Battousai. You left me with the check. Prepare to die."
"He's shy 'cause he looksh like a gurl de gozaru," Nuhiro explained in a whisper loud enough to defeat its purpose. "But don' worry, he'z not ash pretty ash you two." The girls tittered again while Nuhiro soaked in the attention. Himura gave the samurai his best hitokiri glare but the man's eyes were already preoccupied with their job of ogling.
"Obaga," the sakabatou swordsman growled, his patience growing thinner by the minute. "I'd wish to speak with you privately." He actually just wished to beat him senseless privately, but the women folk shouldn't have to know that.
"Shay Battousai-dono," Nuhiro said, wrapping a girl under each arm. Himura winced a fraction, not comfortable with how casually this man was throwing around his name. "Whadda ya shay we go have some fun today?" Each woman took their turn giving each man a seductive grin and open invitation.
"I'd rather not," he replied evenly, causing everyone there to frown in disappointment.
"Besides, you'd probably just leave me to pay the bill again."
"Oh! Ish dat what yer so upshet about de gozaru ka? I was wonderin' why ya looked like you had yer wakizashi stuck up yet butt." Nuhiro studied him for a bit and noticed that Himura's short sword was indeed missing. "Oi, ya don't really have it shtuck there, do ya?"
A test. This all had to be a test. Yes, that's it. If he could manage to keep himself from murdering this man, then he was sure to never kill again!
"Shorry ladies," Oabaga said, suddenly not looking as interested in their… business as he had a moment before. "I promish ta visit cha back at the teahouse later though, okay?"
They pouted prettily in protest, but to Himura's surprise, Nuhiro declined again and gentle shooed them on their way. Figuring the man had finally understood his seriousness, the battousai waited until the sour murmurs of the women were gone before propping his sword out in a ready gesture. Curiously enough, Nuhiro made no movement towards a battle stance. Instead, his gaze seemed drawn further down the street behind him.
"Don't look now, Battousai-dono," Nuhiro spoke evenly. "But it seems we have company de gozaru."
All at once Himura suddenly picked up the presences coming from behind and turned around only to find himself completely surrounded.
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It was not hard to find the Battousai. Being slower-witted men who hardly ever saw importance in anything beyond their own ego, they had still manage to grasp quite a few things about the legendary hitokiri during their brief encounter. First, the man was obviously someone who could contest his beauty with that of a geisha. Second, he had flaming red hair and a cross-shaped scar on his left cheek. Third, he was dirt poor; one look at his clothes and they were sure of it.
These characteristics helped determine the part of town he'd be in as well as specific places (namely the cheap inns). So a few questions and less-classy streets later, the rebels made visual with their soon-to-be-massively-assaulted prey. As a bonus, the drunk samurai who had beaten them earlier was there too. Two birds with one stone it seemed.
Himura took the liberty of starting off the acquaintances. "You again," he stated simply. (As was mentioned before, people skills just weren't in the hitokiri job requirements.)
"You got off easy, but don't think it'll happen again! We'll get you for sure this time, Battousai!" their leader proclaimed, giving the redhead an awful premonition that that would not be the last time he heart that sentence.
"I think we should have had the police collect them afterwards instead of just leaving them unconscious in the middle of the street de gozaru," Nuhiro commented lightly, stepping up behind Himura.
Kenshin spared a glare at him from the corner of his eye. "You think?"
"Hey, don't get touchy with me. You didn't think of it either at the time, Smarty-dono."
"You're over-killing the 'dono' bit, aren't you?"
"I 'dono,' what do you think?" Nuhiro laughed at his own joke until small tears formed him the corners of his eyes. "Hoo, that was a good one de gozaru."
"…Give me strength, Tomoe…"
"You talkin' to someone Battousai-dono?"
"AHEM." The two men looked back at their situation to find it had not changed but rather had grown impatient. "If you two are done exchanging final farewells, we'd like to get on with killing you now," the leader drawled. "So if you're finished…?" They nodded in acknowledgement. "Great." He turned towards his small legion. "ATTACK!!!"
"Oro!" Himura heard Obaga exclaim before they had to engage in combat. "Can't we all just get along de gozaru ka?!"
The rebels were swift, fierce and raging. Himura, however, was swifter, fiercer and raging-er…? …Um, that is to say, he was having a much worse day than they were.
Sakabatou streaking through the air, his opponents hardly stood much chance against his level. However, unlike a katana, enemies had a much better chance of getting back up again after being hit with a reverse-blade. Being the tenacious devils they were, many of them did just that causing Himura to frown. While he was perfectly aware his sword couldn't kill anyone normally, a year still wasn't enough time to get him used to his foes repeatedly "rising from the dead."
This could prove to be quite a nuisance…
The ex-hitokiri looked over to see how his "new friend" was doing. Not that he wanted to keep the man from tasting a little "just desserts," but because despite the trouble he'd caused, Himura still didn't desire to see the old samurai get killed. However, that didn't seem to be a problem he needed to worry about…
"Whose house is this de gozaru ka?!" was Nuhiro's most unusual battle cry as he creamed through a charging opponent. Actually… he was creaming through many of his opponents. This wouldn't have been so unusual to Kenshin if he didn't notice that Nuhiro had flipped his blade again. Before-when Nuhiro had thought he was a woman (*cough, cough*)-he could understand the desire to not shed blood out of respect for the innocent eyes of a lady. But now there were no females around to witness any killing (should there be any), yet Obaga was still holding himself back from slaying them. It wasn't that Himura disapproved, but…Why?
The battle did not last very long. Even dogs learn not to mess with skunks after being sprayed enough; so did the radicals learn to not mess with these men after being bruised numerously. And those who did not learn were too unconscious to care.
"They'll probably only come back with more," Himura muttered, watching a few fleeing figures disappear into the street's various alleyways. "I should leave town as soon as possible."
"Oro? Why's that?"
Himura looked over to find the graying swordsman sheathing his sword that was clean from blood. That reminded him…
"Obaga-san, why did you refrain yourself from killing them?" he inquired curiously. "It would have been much easier to slay them, don't you think?"
The samurai smiled harmlessly. "You make it sound like that's bad de gozaru."
"Not bad, just…" What was the right word? "…inconvenient." Aurg! Baka, that wasn't it! You should've tried reading some of those books you slept against at some point!
Nuhiro chuckled amicably in spite of the answer. "Well let's just say I was inspired by you, Battousai-dono. I must say it was very surprising to see such a legendary hitokiri as yourself carrying around a… sword like yours."
Himura cast his gaze down at his blade which was also clean of blood; yet another thing he wasn't entirely used to… but grateful for. As long as there was no blood, that meant he'd kept his promise for one more battle; for one more day. …Now for the next one.
Sheathing his sakabatou in a swift and fluid motion, he tucked it securely into his belt. "In gratitude for your continual assistance Obaga-san, I shall forgive your earlier trespass."
"You mean when I thought you were a woman? Yeesh, you should drop that already de gozaru yo." Himura ground his teeth as his "things-that-suck-today" list had yet another addition. If there was much more of that...
"I did drop that," he grumbled. "I was talking about your irresponsibility back at the restaurant."
"Aa," Nuhiro nodded. "I did drink a bit too much, I suppose. Still, isn't that a strange thing to be forgiving me for?"
"KAMI, WHAT KIND FO IDIOT ARE YOU?!" Himura finally bellowed. Oh well, one can only be calm and patient for so long. Surprisingly though, Nuhiro merely grinned at the outburst and looked quite pleased with himself.
"Would you really like to know?"
The younger man blinked. "…Eh?" was all he could think to respond with.
"You know Battousai-dono, I have a feeling that you don't… 'blend in' easily."
As though to mock him, his flaming red bangs waved lazily in front of his violet eyes and accented his scarred left cheek. "Gee, how'd you guess?"
Nuhiro shrugged. "Just a hunch de gozaru."
"You're point being?"
"While you may never be able to blend in, I could help you become… unnoticeable in other ways."
Himura raised an eyebrow suspiciously. "Meaning what?"
"Avoiding troublesome things like this," Nuhiro replied, gesturing to the broken rabble littering the ground. "I'm going to only guess that being the Hitokiri Battousai brings you a lot of unnecessary battles despite the war being over de gozaru."
Hoo boy, did it ever. Was it a crime to wish to have a little peace and quiet? Heaven knows he found trouble often enough. Did it really have to come looking for him?
But what was this Obaga was telling him? That he could become more "unnoticeable?" That would certainly be nice. He didn't have anything personal against his brilliant red hair (it was quite "bishie" in his own opinion), but it had helped cause him trouble more than once. With such distinguishing features as his, it really was a wonder he'd managed to even remain the Imperialists' secret weapon for so long. Still…
"Exactly how do plan to make me 'unnoticeable,' Obaga?"
Nuhiro waggled a finger in the air while peering at Himura through a paused wink. "Sore wa himitsu desu de gozaru," he replied mysteriously.
Himura could only stare for a while as he was unable to shake off a strange sudden feeling that someone should be popping up out of nowhere right about now and protesting, "That's my gimmick!" However, after a few minutes of that not happening passed, he continued the conversation.
"What do you mean, 'a secret?' How am I supposed to even believe your capability if you won't tell me your methods?!"
"Okay, okay, so that was a bad intro of my theory de gozaru," Nuhiro said. "But I want you to agree to hear me out to the end before deciding what you want to do. Agreed?"
The younger swordsman regarded him suspiciously for a moment, caught between curiosity and doubt. Finally, he nodded in agreement. After all, it was only listening. What could that hurt?
"Great! Now tell me Battousai-dono, how do you feel about idiocy?"
Apparently Himura had forgotten how painful regret could be.
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The day had warmed pleasantly as the sun now hung on its noon-high perch and the busy rippling of the riverside was still calming in its own rhythmic way while its cool waters were quite inviting. Wildlife, though mostly unseen, added its own harmonic symphony to the background as a playful breeze kept a lively game with the grass and leaves. The scene on the banks was absolutely breathtaking.
But Himura didn't know that since he wasn't anywhere near it. The only scenic view he had at that moment was one of Obaga Nuhiro kicking back his third sake cup at the vending bar they'd found a few blocks away. Himura had already informed their server that he was not paying for anything Nuhiro ordered and that he himself would not be having anything. As insurance, Himura was making sure Nuhiro put the money down for his drinks upon request. When he had become positive history wouldn't repeat itself, they continued their discussion; Nuhiro explaining as soberly as he could and Himura listening as open-mindedly as he could.
Being an ex-hitokiri that had only lived around the words "slicey" and "no slicey" didn't help that.
"So what you're saying," Himura said in response to Nuhiro's conclusion, "is that you want to teach me how to act like an idiot?"
"Exactly!"
Himura nodded thoughtfully before tactfully gave his own humble opinion.
"That is without a doubt the most insane and moronic thing I have ever heard in my life!"
"Aa," Obaga sighed sadly. "That's what they all say de gozaru."
"And who exactly are 'they?'"
"……Okay, so maybe just you so far. But if I told more people this, I bet they'd say the same thing you did de gozaru."
"And with little wonder," the redhead muttered.
"Aw come on, you're hardly giving this a chance, Battousai-dono," Nuhiro complained, looking through the pockets of his orange gi for more change.
"I would appreciate if you not use my nickname in public, Obaga-san," Himura stated quietly after seeing the ears of the vendor perk up slightly at the mentioning of it.
"Well you haven't given me yer real name, so what else can I call you? …You wouldn't happen to be feeling generous enough to loan me a few sen, would ya?"
"No," he said, answering the last question first. "I'm not even feeling generous enough to give you my name let alone money. You still owe me from before."
"Oi! You said you forgave me of that de gozaru yo!"
"Forgiven, not forgotten."
The samurai frowned. "Shouldn't those be one and the same, Hitokiri-dono?"
Himura nearly face-planted his head into the counter. Hitokiri-dono?! That was no better than before! In fact, it sounded worse!
"Yatta!" Nuhiro beamed as he spotted a coin on the ground. One glance at it and Himura figured that the coin should have been left there; dirt was about it monetary value.
"Excuse me, Bartender-dono! What can I get for this?" He held up the dusty piece of metal.
The vendor took a glance at it, slowly raised a skeptical eyebrow, then placed half a cup of water in front of his customer and dropped in two spots of sake.
Obaga looked at the cup, shrugged carelessly, and paid for it. Himura's skull nearly met the counter again.
"I can't believe you're actually paying for that," he said, lips curled in distaste. "That's pretty pathetic."
"Do you think that makes me pathetic de gozaru ka?" the other asked lightly, a friendly smile pasted on his lips.
"Lots of things make you pathetic," Himura replied dryly as he watched the man down the liquid in a single take.
Nuhiro laughed boisterously. "You'd never think me to be a very good swordsman, ne?"
Kenshin blinked. That was… true. Very true.
He had seen Obaga's handiwork twice already and even as the infamous Battousai had to admit that the elder was faster and stronger than most men he had fought during the revolution. Himura couldn't recall ever seeing the style before, but for such offensive power it was surprisingly made mostly of defensive stances. It almost seemed unfit for a real sword, yet Obaga had taken down all of his opponents with surprising grace and ease with his flipped blade. …Easier than he himself had.
Himura frowned slightly. That wasn't right. Even if he wasn't completely used to his sakabatou and the power of tenacity, it still didn't seem fair that Obaga was somehow able to put away his enemies faster. He was, after all, practically a Hiten Mitsurugi master! Obaga was… well, to be tactlessly blunt, a stupid drunk. …A stupid drunk that could kick major butt maybe, but nonetheless…
"Oi, Hitokiri-dono." Himura was startled back into reality as Nuhiro waved a hand in front of his face. "Daijoubu ka? You looked like you were caught up in some sort of long-winding internal monologue."
[/internal monologue] "I'm fine," the younger replied, still too seriously thoughtful to look embarrassed. "I was just wondering what kind of kenjutsu you use. It seemed very effective, even for a flipped sword."
"Aa. It is, actually. I noticed you seemed a bit frustrated during the battle."
Not looking over the attempt to change the subject, Himura continued, "How is it you knew how to take them down so easily with the backside of your blade? I've been training with my sakabatou for a year and still haven't quite mastered it yet. And I'm a fast learner."
Nuhiro sweated visibly. "If I didn't know any better, I'd say you were trying to corner me into something, Hitokiri-dono."
"Just answers," was the honest reply. "I'm curious to know just exactly who you are and what techniques you use."
At this, the wanderer smiled pleasantly. "There isn't much to tell de gozaru. Shikashi… I'll make a deal with you."
Naturally, suspicion was cast over Himura's face. "What kind of deal?"
"I'll teach you how to use your reverse-blade sword more correctly if you also train under my theory."
"You mean the 'acting like an idiot' thing?" he deadpanned. "No thanks. I think I'd like to pass on that one."
"It's the only way I'll tell you about my past de gozaru. Besides, you've already agreed that you'd wish to avoid further unnecessary combat. What's the harm in trying?"
"I thought the same thing about listening to you…" he muttered.
"Battousai."
The former hitokiri paused and looked over to see Obaga had pulled out his 'don't make me school you de gozaru' stare again and stripped away all formalities. It was one thing to not take a fool seriously; it was quite another to not solemnly listen to a fellow swordsman.
"I am not saying that you have to accept my teachings and I am not expecting anything in return other than a valiant effort. All I am doing is offering you a chance to discover a better way of living." Looking down at his sakabatou Obaga added, "A life that can help avoid bloodshed and violence."
If Himura had known what baseball was, he would've been able to say that Nuhiro had just cracked a homerun in his own psyche.
To never kill again; that is what he'd vowed. What was he willing to sacrifice and attempt to attain that oath? What was he willing to do to keep his promise to her? To Tomoe…
…Well that was a no-brainer.
"So what do you say, Battousai-dono?" Nuhiro asked, gradually slipping back into pleasantries.
"Himura," the redhead answered.
"Hn?"
"Himura Kenshin. I would prefer it if you'd call me by my real name as long as I'll be with you."
Obaga practically beamed. "Yosh! You won't regret it Himura-dono."
We'll see about that…
The mustached man stood up and tucked his katana into his belt. "We'll start right away then! Before we go to the training ground however, we'll need to make a few stops on the way de gozaru."
"Stops for what?" Himura asked, rising to follow his new mentor.
Obaga gripped the collar of his eye-challenging orange gi in a proud manner. "School uniform of course!"
Himura brought himself to a dead halt. "'School… uniform?'"
"Hai! You are the first apprentice to the Obaga School of Simple-Minded Rurounis now, Himura-dono!" Both paused and let that announcement sink in. Finally Nuhiro rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly. "Well, it's a working title de gozaru."
Kenshin continued following, trying not to think of all the good reasons he should be running away screaming right now.
End chapter two.
Author's Notes:
Wow, I didn't think I'd get so many reviews so fast on this one! Thank-you minna! Believe me, flattery works!
Sore wa himitsu desu = That is a secret.
Kudos to all of those who know who that is from! For those of you who don't, ask a Slayers fan; they'll tell ya. ^_~I'll just explain right now why I'm referring to Kenshin as "Himura" throughout this fic. I'm sure most of you have guessed why already, but here's the reason anyway. It's actually just a little "authorism" I do. Whenever I'm writing fics and referring to Kenshin as the Battousai, or closer to the hitokiri part of him, I reference him as "Himura." But when he's out lovable rurouni, he'll be known mostly as "Kenshin" in the narrations. Make sense?
I shall continue to work on this fic whenever I can and get you the next chapter ASAP! Thanks for all the encouragement!