Disclaimer: Unless I can buy it for... *checks purse* ...$10.58, a Walmart reciept, and a bit of lint, I don't own Rurouni Kenshin.
Chapter Ten
Public relations, as has been previously stated in this story, were not part of a hitokiri's resume, unless by "public relations" you meant "kill people." Construction and lumber work were also foreign to the job description. An assassin didn't need to learn how to replace the rice paper doors he kicked down; that would completely ruin the Dramatic Entry effect.
Despite this however, Himura the Battousai found himself trying to repair the shingles of a rooftop while pleasantly conversing with the lady who lived under it.
"CAN'T YOU KEEP THAT INCESSANT POUNDING NOISE DOWN TO A REASONABLE DECIMIL?!"
The conversing part wasn't going too hot.
"S-sumanu," he answered, looking down at her through a part of the hole that hadn't been covered up yet while leaning forward on the board he'd just nailed in. …Apparently he hadn't nailed it in well enough (despite all of his incessant pounding) and it gave away causing him to pinwheel his arms frantically before falling, catching hold of the edge just in time to save himself… somewhat. Half of him hung rather gracelessly from the damaged ceiling as he awkwardly tried to climb his way back up. "Ororororoooo!" he wailed miserably.
…The repair part wasn't going too hot either.
Nikko stared at him in a cynically incredulous way (an action that didn't quite help his situation) before heavy a long-suffering sigh. "Why do all the men I get stuck with always turn out to be hopeless idiots?" she muttered.
Although he didn't say as much, Himura actually took that as a compliment to the credit of his "training." He had personally decided that it was time to test The Rurouni theory once and for all and play it to his very best capability today. After all, if it were supposed to help save him from disastrous situations, surely it would come in handy on fending off the little kids who apparently wanted to boil him alive. Speaking of the tykes, where were they?
(*Smack*)
"Itai de gozaru," he said when a small pebble bopped him upside the head. Looking down, he found that the children, despite being told otherwise by Yuiishi-dono herself, had still labeled him as their personal torture-toy. With growing fear, he saw that each of them had a small rock in their hands and were led by Futashi himself.
Oh goody. This looked like it was going to involve more pain.
"Fire!" Futashi cried and the onslaught began.
"Oro! Oro! Oro!" Himura squeaked each time he narrowly dodged a stone. He figured that he didn't really have to take this much punishment and as long as it looked like dumb luck was saving him, he'd still be keeping within the rules. However, if he kept it up too long without anything happening, that effect would wear off.
Deciding another "clumsy trip" was in order, Himura made sure to "slip" on a loose board he'd brought up to fix the hole. However, it slipped a little further than he intended and he ended up riding it down and straight off the roof. …Or at least he would have if he hadn't managed to once again grab the edge just in time, hanging there like a cloth drying on the line.
…And why did he keep finding his life intertwined with laundry?
The kids instantly began to laugh at him which he preferred much better than their throwing things at him. He was about to cap off his predicament with another good round of oro's when a scraping noise suddenly came from above. Even though he couldn't quite see it from his vantage point, Himura realized that his little klutz act must've jarred something else loose that was now rolling down the roof towards him.
Looking up, the redhead was able to recognize the object as it reached the edge of the shingles directly above him and fell off.
It was his hammer.
Well that wasn't planned, was his brain's sole reaction.
(*Clang!*)
"Oro!"
(*Thud*)
----------
Himura had the vague sensation of being carried.
"Hey Futashi, what if he'd dead?" a voice floated to his brain. The reply sounded just as hazy in his ears.
"Then it won't matter. It was his own fault anyway. He fell off the roof himself."
As consciousness began to filter further in, he realized it had to have been at least two people carrying him; two small people.
"But we knocked him off balance, didn't we?"
"Well maybe. But he didn't really fall off the roof from that."
Ugh. His head was throbbing like crazy. What had happened? Something about the roof? He was fairly sure these people were talking about him. So what was it…?
"It was only after the hammer landed in-between his eyes. Then he fell."
…Oh yeah…
"Still… Are you sure it's okay to do this? Shouldn't we tell your sister?"
"This was her idea."
For some reason, this provided no comfort to Himura. In fact, he forcefully began pushing his mind back to awareness.
"Oh. …Well what if this doesn't wake him up?"
"Yeesh, Hiroshi! Will you just lighten up? He'll be fine! …And even if he isn't, what does it matter? Now help me hoist him up."
"Okay."
Must… wake… up… now!!!
"Wow, he's light!"
"That's cuz he's built like a girl. Ready?"
No!!!
"Hey, I think he's waking up, Futashi! He just groaned."
Yes! Yes, I'm waking up! Waking up on my own!!
"Too late. Besides, this'll get him up faster."
…I'm gonna hurt that kid.
"One…"
Moaning away the grogginess and pain that was beating his brain to putty, Himura slowly opened his eyes.
"Two…"
He blinked away the double-vision just in time to see…
"Three!!!"
(*Splash*)
…what the inside of a barrel full of water looked like.
Oro-ing and gagging, then spluttering and oro-ing some more (this time because he couldn't let himself curse), Himura righted himself and broke the surface of the water. Standing up in the rainwater bin, he judged by the boys' faces that he had the appearance of a drenched cat. …Actually he judged that from their laughter. Their faces seemed to tell him that if they smiled any wider, their faces were going to split in half. …Hmm, tempting…
"Futashi!!" All of them looked over to the side of the house, where Nikko was sternly standing, the other children, who also looked dizzy with hysterics, gathered around her. "I can't believe you just dunked that man into the bin! Shame on you!"
At last! Respect! He was finally getting appreciated around-
"That's good water!! You think anyone wants to drink out of it now?! What do you have to say for yourself?!"
Oh. Nevermind. False alarm.
"You said to splash him with water," the young sibling said in defense.
"Splash him with water. Not into water." Nikko sighed heavily. "Oh well, it doesn't matter much now I guess. But Futashi-kun, leave the guy alone or else he'll never finish the roof. As for you…" She turned toward Himura. "What are you doin' slacking off?! This is no time for a nap!!"
"Oro! I fell off the roof!!" he protested.
She rolled her eyes. "Oh, well isn't that convenient. You just happen to be rendered 'unconscious.' Sure."
A bead of sweat rolled down his cheek. "I have the head injury to prove it de gozaru."
"Whatever, Slacker. Naptime's over so get back to work."
"But I wasn't…"
"Ah-ah-ah," she interrupted. "I don't want any more excuses."
"But…"
"Talk to the hand cuz the face ain't listening!" she said in an odd manuver, halting him with her palm.
The brain ain't listening either, is what the Battousai wanted to say. But he was being the Rurouni now, so he couldn't quite give "the hand" his honest and colorful opinion. Resigning himself to defeat, Himura climbed back up to the roof. Only once up there did he remember something.
"Anou… Can someone please hand me back my hammer?"
(*Clang!*)
"Oro!"
(*Thud*)
-----------
One ice pack, two concussions, and plenty of bandages later…
"So where do you come from, Himura?"
"All over, I guess you could say de gozaru. I'm a wanderer, after all."
"Sou ka. Been any place interesting?"
"This place is definitely climbing the charts."
Nikko chuckled dryly at that, casting an odd look up at him while futilely trying to reposition her pillows for a more comfortable sitting position. "You can't be much of a traveler if you find this place intriguing. Nothing much happens around here."
The young man grinned wryly. "Trust me, Nikko-dono. I've never had such… unique experiences as I've had here de gozaru."
The woman shrugged with a mutter of, "To each their own," before trying to rearrange herself again. "Stupid lumpy pillows," she added angrily. In a frustrated fit she literally knocked the stuffing out of one before falling back in defeat. "I give up! I'm too tired to do this."
"You should take a nap then," he said in what was exactly the wrong suggestion. She glared up him lethally.
"If I could sleep, I would be already! But I can't because of all the noisy construction going on overhead!"
"I'm trying to keep it quiet," Himura protested in his defense, "but the nails won't stay in well if I don't hit them hard enough."
"It doesn't matter if you hit them loud or quiet! I have to keep awake to make sure you don't slack off again!"
"I told you, I was out cold de gozaru!"
"Yeah, yeah, yeah. And now I need to keep you awake because of it." In a mocking voice she added, "But Nikko-dono, with these concussions I could lapse into a coma!"
"I could, you know!"
"Please," she deadpanned. "Be a man and walk it off."
"Oro." He gazed down at her with a helpless stare. "You won't believe anything I tell you, will you? I bet if I came up to you with a katana sticking out of my chest you'd tell me to 'walk if off.'"
"Well, only if you weren't bleeding badly…"
"…I have mentioned you were heartless, ne?"
"…only because someone took it away…"
Himura blinked, her response having been spoken so softly he doubted he'd heard it correctly. Looking down at her, her countenance suddenly seemed darker as her head bowed. "What'd you say, Nikko-dono?"
"I… I said…" Very abruptly did she snapped her head up. "I said, are you gonna take all day?! Honestly, you get no production done at all!!"
Well she was quick to recover.
"Orororooo… I can't ever get a break, can I?"
The wood groaned beneath him.
"Kami, will you stop taking that literally!!!" he cried just before the shelter broke and sent him 'oro-ing' into the room below, ending with a loud Crash. But that not being enough, the repair work Himura had been doing came down a moment later just to let him know what a poor job he'd been doing. That too ended in a similar but slightly longer crashing noise.
Coughing through the dust this created, Nikko was still able to instantly jumped into action. …Not quite the action Himura had hoped for (which involved checking for his pulse), but action nonetheless.
"That's it, I'm fixing it myself you worthless bum!" she declared. "Where's the hammer?"
(*Clang!*)
"Oro!"
(*Thud*)
"Oh there it is."
----------
"Nikko-chan," Yuiishi inquired as she and Asuka made their way inside with the lunch basket and children in tow. "What's Futashi-kun doing fixing the roof? I thought I left that up to Himura-san. …Speaking of which, where is the man?"
"To answer your first question," the young woman replied as she helped settle the kids down, "Futashi is taking care of it because I can't. I was about to head up there and fix it myself, but my condition puts a bit of restriction on me. To answer your second question…" She jabbed a finger in the direction of a far corner where the two other women found a pile of lumber, dust, and Himura Kenshin.
"Oh dear," the head mistress responded more nonchalance one would expect to hear after finding a boneless heap of a body in the corner of your house. "What's he doing there?"
"Suffering from head trauma, or so he claims," Nikko answered indifferently. "He's been laid up like that ever since he fell off the roof."
"Was it that bad?" Asuka inquired, beginning the servings and not seeming too concerned with much else.
"Well, I figured he could've just licked it off the first two times, but I think that last fall kind of really did him in. Didn't help I suppose that he got hit with the hammer each time as well." The mother-to-be sighed. "I swear, that roof's never gonna get fixed."
"Glad to see you still have your priorities straight, Nikko-chan."
Futashi poked his head into the conversation from the rooftop. "Since the girl man is out cold, can I have his serving?"
"I'm sure he'll want it when he wakes up," Yuiishi chided. "By the way, exactly how long has he been out?"
"More than long enough to have earned his tea-break," Nikko said. "Still, I wouldn't count on him being much more help with the roof. That's not to say Himura's not doing any work, but he's putting holes in it faster than they can be boarded. He's putting termites to shame!"
"He is clumsy, isn't he?" the mistress agreed.
"Careless too," Asuka added, bitter memories of a torn kimono still fresh in her mind.
"And he doesn't have much for taste in clothing…"
"Not to mention his abnormal speed at laundry. Who ever heard of a man doing laundry so fast?"
"He is a bit frail-looking for a man…"
"Like I said, he's a fem-boy," Futashi contributed from the roof.
"And that's another thing I don't get! How can he be so quick at laundry but not be able to patch up a few loose shingles?!"
"Not to mention that hair… I wonder if he's really Japanese."
"He's never responded to my attentions. I wonder if he's really straight."
"I wonder if he's even male!" the boy added again from the ceiling.
"Futashi-kun, get back to work and stop being ridiculous! Of course he's male! He's too stupid to be a woman."
The younger brother paused in recollection to this. "…Hey!"
A fifth voice entered the conversation. "…Anou…" it hesitantly began. "I'm not unconscious anymore. I can hear you talking de gozaru."
Indeed Himura had awaken, but with the topic he'd woken to, he was thinking that the coma would've been better. What was up with the criticism? And why the heck was his sexuality the big debate?! Kami, he knew he'd done some awful things in his past, but to deserve this?! Tomoe must've hated him more than she let on. Still, this seemed awfully cruel for a grudge, even against a person who accidentally killed you…
"Ah, awake at last, eh Himura-san?" Yuiishi remarked. "Would you like some lunch?"
The man nodded. "Hai, I would like that very much, Yuiishi-do-"
"Hey, no fair!" a voice from the ceiling protested. "I'm up here doing his dirty work and he gets to eat lunch before me? What's he done to earn it?!"
Nikko and Asuka turned towards their mistress simultaneously. "I agree with the boy," they said.
"…Oro…"
The older woman tapped her chin thoughtfully. "Hmm, well since it does seem a little unfair, and since I don't think we should have you fixing the roof anymore considering the repeated consequence…" She turned to the other women. "Any suggestions?"
…Uh-oh…
There was a moment of thoughtful silence that put a heavy weight of impending doom upon Himura's shoulders, much like the feeling of being saved from the noose but suspecting you're being moved on to the guillotine instead. At last Nikko perked up with a mischievous grin on her lips that only helped his foreboding premonition in a "twisting-the-knife" type of way.
"I think I have an idea…" she mused.
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"I'm impressed," Yuiishi admitted with a calm sip of her tea. "How did you ever figure out that he'd be the perfect baby-sitter, Nikko-chan?"
The young woman shrugged casually. "It was just a hunch." She cast her eyes out into the yard where the redhead and children were. "Aww, look at that…"
"GAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!!!"
"…Himura-san's playing with Kuzu-chan's pet spiders."
"Get 'em off me! Getemoffmegetemoffmegetemoffmegetemoffme!!!"
"He's wonderful with children, ne?" their mistress agreed.
"Kami, they're everywhere de gozaru yo!!! Aaaaaahhh!!"
Asuka grinned devilishly. "I like this idea," she quipped.
End of chapter ten.
Author's Notes:
Whoo, just when you think you get the background to all the invented characters, I throw in another one. ...Which is perhaps not the best thing for a writer to do, but... Scrum it, this is how the story's going. By the way, I realized I wrote Nikko's name wrong in the last chapter, when it was first spelled "Nikkon." No "n!" Yeesh, I'm having trouble with that. The reason I wanted it "Nikko" is because (according to my mini-Japanese dictionary) it means "Sunlight." I actually wanted something close to "Sunshine," so I went with that because I wanted it to be a name that almost seemed opposite her personality. Oh well, I hope it works. ^^;
Thanks for all the support from everyone about my SDS. I'm well-over it now. I recommend Firefury's "Twisted Paradise" as something of a cure. I had read some of it before it was mentioned in the reviews and it does make you laugh in wake of SDS (I especially found Tomoe and Kaoru's interaction hilarious). Try it.
I still love/hate it(the OAV), but a couple of the Omake episodes of Kenshin and that one fanart also boosted my spirits in a hurry (not to mention watching some Excel Saga, but we'll keep this as RK-related as we can).
Speaking of fanart, I drew some of my own! Yes, that's right people! I like to write and draw! GASP! ...Er, anyway, I just did some sketches of my original characters in some of my favorite scenes with them. (Obaga when he first meets Himura Kenshin; Asuka trying to "warm up" to our battousai/rurouni during breakfast; and Yuiishi observing him "do the laundry.")
For OBAGA, go to: http://www.geocities.com/songochi/Extra/obaga.jpg
For ASUKA, go to: http://www.geocities.com/songochi/Extra/asuka.jpg
For YUIISHI, go to: http://www.geocities.com/songochi/Extra/yuiishi.jpg
If baka geocities works, they should be enjoyable. More will coming soon! Stick around, minna!