I hitched up my cape and crouched down, the heels of my boots half in the water, and began to read the soil. It was pale-colored, sandy, its surface still faintly pocked by the rain that had fallen three nights previously. Ideal for tracking, even in the fading light. I softened my gaze, letting the tracks tell me their tale.
Kenshin had washed up here, where the water ran more slowly along the inner curve of the river's bend. Parallel drag-marks led up from the water's edge -- he'd pulled himself up out of the current and then lain there for some time. The sand was indented, much scuffed in different directions, recording motions overlaid in time. I could see the imprints of creased fabric, here a round depression from a knee, there a partial handprint.
He'd bled onto the sand. I edged forward to take a closer look at the darkened patch of soil, sacrificing the tracks closest to the water. I'd read those already; they had no more to tell me. I frowned, digging down into the sand with one finger. It looked like a lot of blood, but it was impossible to tell since it had mixed with an unknown quantity of water coming off of Kenshin's clothes as it soaked into the ground. Worrying. Nevertheless, he'd been in good enough shape to walk away. The sandal-print was proof of that.
The sensible thing would have been to follow the river back up to the bridge and then head for home along the forest path. Indeed, he'd started up in that direction. But the sandbar ended in a steep muddy embankment, too steep to climb and too high to jump. Kenshin had left scrabble-marks in the mud among the stringy exposed roots, drying now around the edges. I checked the moisture content of the soil. A few hours old, no more.
The far riverbank was less steep, but I'd seen no footprints on that side. I bounded back across the rocks to check. Indeed, Kenshin hadn't crossed the river. I frowned, looking back at the stones, kept wet by spray as the water broke around them. Kenshin is a good jumper; he could have made it across just as easily as I had. Unless he'd been hurt badly enough that he wasn't willing to risk it. I rubbed at the traces of blood still on my fingers.
There was one other obvious way to get back to the cottage. The steep embankment just upstream from the sandbar was simply the local manifestation of a shoulder of rock that runs along the mountainside for miles. The road down the mountain to the village below cuts through it, a mile and a half or so downhill from my cottage. If Kenshin couldn't climb the embankment here, he could certainly cross it on the road.
I recrossed the river and checked for prints leading into the woods. Indeed, Kenshin had headed that way. I nodded approvingly. I've made sure that he knows these woods like the back of his hand.
Under the trees it was already quite dark. The sun had disappeared behind the mountain some time ago, and now the sky had faded to a dull slatey blue streaked with dimming yellow clouds. I could smell the faint scent of woodsmoke from the cooking fires in the village at the mountain's foot.
Kenshin may have made it home in the time I'd been searching. In any case, I wouldn't be able to track him in the woods in this light, not without a lantern. I turned back toward the water, and something caught my eye. The wind was picking up again, sending yellow fans fluttering down from the ginkgos and tumbling something small and light across the sandbar. Indeed, this patch of sand held one more bit of information.
I picked up the piece of thread that had caught my eye and inspected it. It was blue, cotton, still kinked into a square zig-zag from being woven in fabric. Kenshin's shirt, almost certainly. It was the right shade of blue. And the ends looked like they'd been cut.
It was with raised eyebrows that I jumped back across the river and began to retrace my steps toward home. This meant two things. First, that Kenshin had cut up his shirt, presumably for bandages. Second, that he hadn't lost the training sword.
It had been four months after I brought Kenshin to live with me. I'd started him out on sword drills almost immediately -- it seemed to take his mind off of what had happened before -- and in that time he'd slowly built up the strength and confidence needed to start sparring.
At least, he'd built up the strength to swing a sword a hundred times. That didn't mean he'd learned how to hold on to it. The first jolt when my sword impacted his sent the training sword flying out of his hands.
"Rule number one," I told him. "Don't let go of your sword. If you lose your sword, you die."
His eyes were wide. "Sorry!"
"And don't apologize."
"Sorry!" he said again, and ducked to retrieve the training sword.
I shook my head, bemused. I supposed it must be hard for him, with such tiny hands. But the world won't go easy on you because you're small. No, it will pick you out as an easier target and go after you preferentially. That's the purpose of Hiten Mitsurugi Ryuu: to protect the weak, and to be a force for justice in the world. I think Kenshin realized that, even then. Perhaps that's why he's trained so hard, from the very beginning.
Kenshin had gotten back into position, his small fingers tight around the hilt of the training sword. We started again. He managed to hold on to the sword for an entire set. I raised my eyebrows, and ran through the prescribed moves a second time. Kenshin still had his sword. He didn't drop it again for the rest of the day, or the day after that.
On the third day, I started Kenshin's sparring lesson shortly after lunch. I'd been down at Junichi the farmer's place that morning, and he'd as much as ordered me to marry his daughter. The nerve! It wasn't as if I'd gotten her with child or anything. I'd told him to dream on, and he'd told me to shove off. Understandably, I was in a pissy mood.
I ran Kenshin through the set of moves once, twice. Kenshin seemed pleased with his competence, minimal though it was. That annoyed me. On the third set I interrupted the pattern ever so slightly, slipping in an extra quick motion: I flicked my sword downward and tapped Kenshin on the fingers with its blunt edge.
The training sword thudded to the ground. Kenshin had jumped back, clutching his fingers. He looked horrified.
"Idiot," I growled, feeling oddly guilty. "What did I teach you?" I resheathed my sword roughly. "If this were a real fight, you'd be dead." I turned away and started back toward the cottage.
"Shishou."
I glanced back. Kenshin had picked up the sword, and was standing ready to resume the drill. There was a kind of desperation in his eyes. What was he, I wondered, some kind of masochist? I sniffed dismissively and started to turn away again.
"Shishou, please. I won't drop it again."
I turned back to face him, annoyed again. "You want to learn how to hold on to a sword?"
He nodded, but there'd been a slight hesitation. He was scared. Good, I thought. I strode back across the training ground and started the same drill again, without any further words. I kept to the prescribed motions, watching Kenshin's reactions. When I reached the point in the pattern at which I'd whacked his fingers before, I saw him falter, just a tiny bit. He recovered almost immediately and continued as if it hadn't happened. The second time through he didn't flinch at all. By the third time he'd fallen into the rhythm of the drill.
On the second move of the fourth set I snaked my sword around and hit him on the fingers again, this time of his left hand. He jumped back, biting off a yelp, but he'd managed to keep ahold of the sword.
"Use the tsuba," I told him. "That's the metal thing between the hilt and the blade. It's there to protect your fingers. Or you can move the sword up or down, so I don't hit your hands."
He looked down at the sword, uncertain, as if he was trying to work out how to do what I'd just told him.
"Let's go," I said, and started the drill again. I kept up the speed and intensity, pushing him to the edge of his primitive abilities. Every few sets I went for his fingers. I kept it random, avoiding any pattern. He had to learn to see the unexpected, to see a strike as it came, to not be hypnotized by the rhythm of the drill.
By the end of the training session he was on the verge of tears, his fingers bruised and swollen. But he hadn't dropped the sword again. He'd even managed to block a couple of my swipes at his hands. And he hadn't asked me to stop.