Chapter Six
"Sister?!" I shouted in shock, nearly falling over. This was the last thing that I needed today.
"Yah, sister. Little blonde thing, maybe twenty years old..." Yahiko stated, obviously confused.
Wait. Little blon... oh no. Anyone, ANYTHING but her... I decided that an explanation was in order, and quickly, before the little monster found m...
With a deafening roar, the force of a blonde blur blew in the doors to the Akebato. The blur homed in, approaching like some unstoppable force, then proceeded to attach itself to my arm. It resolved itself into a young woman, with a shock of wild blond hair, clear blue eyes, and slightly elfin features below long bangs.
"Sano-neechan!! I've looked all over for you, and I couldn't find you, and you were gone when I woke up, and I couldn't get anyone to tell me where you went, so I started wandering, and I remember you talking about your old friends in Tokyo, and how you needed to go there someday, and that was so long ago! So I went searching for you, and I got here, and there were these mean men, and Ken-neechan beat them up, and then I found out that he was the same one you knew and..." With a sick grin, I disentangled my arm from her grip, and, giving the out of breath girl to Yahiko, told him, "I see you've met Chisai."
"Yes, and she does seem to have quite an attachment to you." Yahiko replied with a slight grin. "She wandered in about two months ago, and was getting roughed up by a couple of local boys. Shinta came through and stopped them, and she... as she put it, "adopted" him. Then she asked about her other 'neechan' Sanosuke, and has been here ever since. It's been quite an experience for Shinta, let me tell you."
"I can understand that." Boy, this was going to be hard to explain to everyone.
*****
With Tsubame's help, I quickly filled Yahiko in on the story up to the point where I had been... interrupted. By this time, the Akebato had slowed down considerably, most of the regular patrons having left for other business. Tae had brought out some more food (at my expense) of course, and I was ready to continue my tale. Settling back again, for the second time that day, I continued.
*****
. We had just finished cleaning up Chisai's wounds, the cut from the pottery shard was not as bad as I had first thought, and I had wrapped it up with some of my bandages that I had brought with me. She had finally settled down enough that I believed she wasn't going to try and gut me in the middle of the night. After roughing up my straw futon for night, I noticed that she had just sat and watched me the whole time.
"What did you bring to sleep with?" I asked her with what I hopped was an authoritative tone in my voice.
"mmfm" she mumbled back at me.
"What, I can't hear a word you're saying."
"I didn't..." she mumbled again.
Realizing that she didn't bring anything to sleep with, I sighed to myself, picked up my dogi jacket from where I had stowed it in my pack, and tossed it over to her. "You sleep on the floor, over there, facing away from me." Pointing at a small cubby between two barrels, I watched as she shuffled over and looked at the space distastefully. "Use that until I can find you something better," I said diplomatically.
"Why can't I use the mattress?" she wailed.
"Cause, I booked it, you tried to loot me, and you're annoying." I replied in a curt voice.
"You're nothing but a old mean man!" She replied back.
"Yah, well, I still get the mat!" With that, I turned over, closed my eyes, and ignored the little monster so that I could get some sleep. Hearing a rustle behind me, I cracked an eye and noted that she did as she was told, though I heard the grumble about "Baka old men" before she pulled my dogi over her shoulders, glaring back at me one last time, then turning over and closing her eyes.
*****
The process of slugging water and rigging sails for my trip wasn't difficult, once I got into the rhythm of it. Moving about the ship was good exercise, and I quickly got the hang of moving with the sway of the vessel to avoid the seasickness that seemed to catch people who were not used to sea travel. I might have been perfectly happy with that, but for the fact that every time I turned around, I had a little blonde in my shadow glaring at me when she thought I wasn't looking.
This was added by the fact that several of the crew were looking at Chisai like the stinking dogs that I was rapidly coming to believe they were. It was really starting to get on my nerves some of the looks that I was getting as well, and decided to bite the problem off the best way I knew how. Picking one of the more... disturbing... men staring at Chisai, I set down my bucket and walked up to him. Noting that I was again being shadowed, I mentally thanked my stars that Chisai was so terrified that she wasn't willing to start a war with me.
"Gendou, isn't it?" I decided to try a little tact before beating his skull in. "I noticed that you've kept a close eye on me since I came on board. Can I do something for ya?"
He looked at me, then changed his expression and looked Chisai, standing behind me. "How much?"
"Excuse me?" I asked, though already guessing what he meant.
"For the kid. How much? I've got about four hundred yen with me right now." He again asked, the lecherous and sadistic look in his eye mirroring the captains from the night before.
"Ah..." I replied in complete understanding. Stepping forward quickly, I lifted him up with my left hand, while at the same time landing a blow with my right in his unprotected solar plexus. After he doubled over, I grabbed him with my right hand, and quickly shifting my weight, tossed him into the small crowd that had gathered to watch what might happen. Looming over the mass of arms and legs at my feet, I again re-iterated what I had said the night before. "Anyone, ANYONE touches her, and I break every bone in their body, understand?"
"You just want to hold her for yourself. You want all the tail for your own damn..." was as far as the idiot made it before I tossed him overboard, head first. As he sailed over the railing, a cry of "GET HIM" came from the bodies still lying at my feet, which caused the fight to degrade into a free for all. People were throwing themselves at me, thinking they had a chance if all of them rushed me en mass.
They were wrong.
It was a brawl for several minutes, until I heard a cry from behind making me whirl quickly, forgetting a heavyset man with a moustache I had just kicked over the railing into the water below.
The first man that I had 'handled' had a large knife out, and was holding Chisai's arm in a painful overhand grip whle he waved the blade in front of her face like a snake. Now, you know how I get when life is on the line. Sure, I like fighting as much as the next guy, but when a life is in danger, I get more serious. Sure, the little snot annoyed me, but she was in danger, and I didn't have the time to be nice. Blurring forward, I grabbed Gendou's knife hand, and, yanking hard, heard the brittle snap of bones before throwing a open palm strike into the middle of his face. He went over backwards, a spray of blood pouring from his nose, and dropping like a sack of rice to the deck of the ship.
All motion stopped, everyone looking at the fate of Gendou. Most of them thought he was dead. I knew better, though. He would live, unfortunately. I looked down, noting that Chisai had a small trickle of blood running down her face from a small slash running across her forehead. The blade of the knife had evidently nicked her as it traveled up.
The captain, being drawn by the commotion, made his way to see what the fight was all about, noted Gendou, Chisai, and then my challenging glare.
"Go clean up Gendou, I want to talk to him when he wakes up. Lock those two up until the trip is done. We will figure out what the Chinese want done with them when we hit port." Understanding that this was the only way to prevent more bloodshed on board, I relented, and Chisai and I kept the cockroaches company in the forward hold for the rest of the trip to China.
*****
"He was SOOOO cool, I didn't know he cared so much about me, even back then!" Chisai gushed, her exuberance plain. By the time I had finished the story, it had grown to late afternoon, and the evening rush was beginning once again. Tae had wandered off, to be replaced by Tsubame, who laughed and cried in rounds at the story.
"Well, I think it's about time we started back, don't you, Sano?" Yahiko stated.
"Sure, I need to find an inn yet, anyway." I replied back to him.
"I will have no such thing. You will stay with us, and that's the end of it!" Tsubame chimed in. "You are an old friend, one who has helped us more in the past than I care to remember, and you will be staying with us." The steel, hidden behind her voice, was suddenly quite strong, and I smiled to myself before relenting and allowing myself to be dragged outside by Chisai, being followed behind by Yahiko and Tsubame.
*****
"So, what do you think of his story?" Tsubame asked her husband as they settled down for the evening.
"I don't know, it seems straight forward enough, and Chisai SAID that she met him on a boat... it just seems there is something else more to it than he is saying." Yahiko seemed deep in thought, something nagging at the back of his mind.
"Anata..." Yahiko was still distracted.
"Anaata..." The whisper of fabric on skin could be heard. Yahiko's eyes widened, turned, and looked.
"Maybe we could worry about it in the morning... Yahiko-chan?" Tsubame used her most coy voice, the one that set Yahiko off every time.
*****
The sound of yelling in the middle of the nigh brought Yahiko running down the hallway to the spare room, Tsubame close on his heels. Flinging the door to the spare room open, Yahiko noted Chisai sleeping peacefully in Sanosuke's bed, then noted Sano plastered against the wall, looking like a man who just found a naked woman in his bed.
Yahiko's left eye twitched...
To Be Continued
Authors Notes
I want to thank Nightman and chendo for their work in helping with this chapter. The comments and help have made this a much easier fiction to write than some of my other writing. I also want to thank everyone in #fanfic on irc.nabiki.com for their help and input.
"Sister?!" I shouted in shock, nearly falling over. This was the last thing that I needed today.
"Yah, sister. Little blonde thing, maybe twenty years old..." Yahiko stated, obviously confused.
Wait. Little blon... oh no. Anyone, ANYTHING but her... I decided that an explanation was in order, and quickly, before the little monster found m...
With a deafening roar, the force of a blonde blur blew in the doors to the Akebato. The blur homed in, approaching like some unstoppable force, then proceeded to attach itself to my arm. It resolved itself into a young woman, with a shock of wild blond hair, clear blue eyes, and slightly elfin features below long bangs.
"Sano-neechan!! I've looked all over for you, and I couldn't find you, and you were gone when I woke up, and I couldn't get anyone to tell me where you went, so I started wandering, and I remember you talking about your old friends in Tokyo, and how you needed to go there someday, and that was so long ago! So I went searching for you, and I got here, and there were these mean men, and Ken-neechan beat them up, and then I found out that he was the same one you knew and..." With a sick grin, I disentangled my arm from her grip, and, giving the out of breath girl to Yahiko, told him, "I see you've met Chisai."
"Yes, and she does seem to have quite an attachment to you." Yahiko replied with a slight grin. "She wandered in about two months ago, and was getting roughed up by a couple of local boys. Shinta came through and stopped them, and she... as she put it, "adopted" him. Then she asked about her other 'neechan' Sanosuke, and has been here ever since. It's been quite an experience for Shinta, let me tell you."
"I can understand that." Boy, this was going to be hard to explain to everyone.
*****
With Tsubame's help, I quickly filled Yahiko in on the story up to the point where I had been... interrupted. By this time, the Akebato had slowed down considerably, most of the regular patrons having left for other business. Tae had brought out some more food (at my expense) of course, and I was ready to continue my tale. Settling back again, for the second time that day, I continued.
*****
. We had just finished cleaning up Chisai's wounds, the cut from the pottery shard was not as bad as I had first thought, and I had wrapped it up with some of my bandages that I had brought with me. She had finally settled down enough that I believed she wasn't going to try and gut me in the middle of the night. After roughing up my straw futon for night, I noticed that she had just sat and watched me the whole time.
"What did you bring to sleep with?" I asked her with what I hopped was an authoritative tone in my voice.
"mmfm" she mumbled back at me.
"What, I can't hear a word you're saying."
"I didn't..." she mumbled again.
Realizing that she didn't bring anything to sleep with, I sighed to myself, picked up my dogi jacket from where I had stowed it in my pack, and tossed it over to her. "You sleep on the floor, over there, facing away from me." Pointing at a small cubby between two barrels, I watched as she shuffled over and looked at the space distastefully. "Use that until I can find you something better," I said diplomatically.
"Why can't I use the mattress?" she wailed.
"Cause, I booked it, you tried to loot me, and you're annoying." I replied in a curt voice.
"You're nothing but a old mean man!" She replied back.
"Yah, well, I still get the mat!" With that, I turned over, closed my eyes, and ignored the little monster so that I could get some sleep. Hearing a rustle behind me, I cracked an eye and noted that she did as she was told, though I heard the grumble about "Baka old men" before she pulled my dogi over her shoulders, glaring back at me one last time, then turning over and closing her eyes.
*****
The process of slugging water and rigging sails for my trip wasn't difficult, once I got into the rhythm of it. Moving about the ship was good exercise, and I quickly got the hang of moving with the sway of the vessel to avoid the seasickness that seemed to catch people who were not used to sea travel. I might have been perfectly happy with that, but for the fact that every time I turned around, I had a little blonde in my shadow glaring at me when she thought I wasn't looking.
This was added by the fact that several of the crew were looking at Chisai like the stinking dogs that I was rapidly coming to believe they were. It was really starting to get on my nerves some of the looks that I was getting as well, and decided to bite the problem off the best way I knew how. Picking one of the more... disturbing... men staring at Chisai, I set down my bucket and walked up to him. Noting that I was again being shadowed, I mentally thanked my stars that Chisai was so terrified that she wasn't willing to start a war with me.
"Gendou, isn't it?" I decided to try a little tact before beating his skull in. "I noticed that you've kept a close eye on me since I came on board. Can I do something for ya?"
He looked at me, then changed his expression and looked Chisai, standing behind me. "How much?"
"Excuse me?" I asked, though already guessing what he meant.
"For the kid. How much? I've got about four hundred yen with me right now." He again asked, the lecherous and sadistic look in his eye mirroring the captains from the night before.
"Ah..." I replied in complete understanding. Stepping forward quickly, I lifted him up with my left hand, while at the same time landing a blow with my right in his unprotected solar plexus. After he doubled over, I grabbed him with my right hand, and quickly shifting my weight, tossed him into the small crowd that had gathered to watch what might happen. Looming over the mass of arms and legs at my feet, I again re-iterated what I had said the night before. "Anyone, ANYONE touches her, and I break every bone in their body, understand?"
"You just want to hold her for yourself. You want all the tail for your own damn..." was as far as the idiot made it before I tossed him overboard, head first. As he sailed over the railing, a cry of "GET HIM" came from the bodies still lying at my feet, which caused the fight to degrade into a free for all. People were throwing themselves at me, thinking they had a chance if all of them rushed me en mass.
They were wrong.
It was a brawl for several minutes, until I heard a cry from behind making me whirl quickly, forgetting a heavyset man with a moustache I had just kicked over the railing into the water below.
The first man that I had 'handled' had a large knife out, and was holding Chisai's arm in a painful overhand grip whle he waved the blade in front of her face like a snake. Now, you know how I get when life is on the line. Sure, I like fighting as much as the next guy, but when a life is in danger, I get more serious. Sure, the little snot annoyed me, but she was in danger, and I didn't have the time to be nice. Blurring forward, I grabbed Gendou's knife hand, and, yanking hard, heard the brittle snap of bones before throwing a open palm strike into the middle of his face. He went over backwards, a spray of blood pouring from his nose, and dropping like a sack of rice to the deck of the ship.
All motion stopped, everyone looking at the fate of Gendou. Most of them thought he was dead. I knew better, though. He would live, unfortunately. I looked down, noting that Chisai had a small trickle of blood running down her face from a small slash running across her forehead. The blade of the knife had evidently nicked her as it traveled up.
The captain, being drawn by the commotion, made his way to see what the fight was all about, noted Gendou, Chisai, and then my challenging glare.
"Go clean up Gendou, I want to talk to him when he wakes up. Lock those two up until the trip is done. We will figure out what the Chinese want done with them when we hit port." Understanding that this was the only way to prevent more bloodshed on board, I relented, and Chisai and I kept the cockroaches company in the forward hold for the rest of the trip to China.
*****
"He was SOOOO cool, I didn't know he cared so much about me, even back then!" Chisai gushed, her exuberance plain. By the time I had finished the story, it had grown to late afternoon, and the evening rush was beginning once again. Tae had wandered off, to be replaced by Tsubame, who laughed and cried in rounds at the story.
"Well, I think it's about time we started back, don't you, Sano?" Yahiko stated.
"Sure, I need to find an inn yet, anyway." I replied back to him.
"I will have no such thing. You will stay with us, and that's the end of it!" Tsubame chimed in. "You are an old friend, one who has helped us more in the past than I care to remember, and you will be staying with us." The steel, hidden behind her voice, was suddenly quite strong, and I smiled to myself before relenting and allowing myself to be dragged outside by Chisai, being followed behind by Yahiko and Tsubame.
*****
"So, what do you think of his story?" Tsubame asked her husband as they settled down for the evening.
"I don't know, it seems straight forward enough, and Chisai SAID that she met him on a boat... it just seems there is something else more to it than he is saying." Yahiko seemed deep in thought, something nagging at the back of his mind.
"Anata..." Yahiko was still distracted.
"Anaata..." The whisper of fabric on skin could be heard. Yahiko's eyes widened, turned, and looked.
"Maybe we could worry about it in the morning... Yahiko-chan?" Tsubame used her most coy voice, the one that set Yahiko off every time.
*****
The sound of yelling in the middle of the nigh brought Yahiko running down the hallway to the spare room, Tsubame close on his heels. Flinging the door to the spare room open, Yahiko noted Chisai sleeping peacefully in Sanosuke's bed, then noted Sano plastered against the wall, looking like a man who just found a naked woman in his bed.
Yahiko's left eye twitched...
To Be Continued
Authors Notes
I want to thank Nightman and chendo for their work in helping with this chapter. The comments and help have made this a much easier fiction to write than some of my other writing. I also want to thank everyone in #fanfic on irc.nabiki.com for their help and input.