Disclaimer: The usual, I do not own Peacemaker. Guess you know this by now...

Sakura Shinguji: Pleased you like Yoko. She's an innocent brat. As for Feathers, well, animals have been credited with predicting tremors, a famous example was in Hengyang China where the city was evacuated thanks to livestock acting abnormally before a quake.

Warning! A streaker in the onsen changing rooms! The horror, the horror...

Chapter 8: 3 Men and a Brat

"Wheehee!!" Yoko squealed as she did a cannonball. Warm water splashed over the Comedian Trio. "Daddy, daddy!" she swam over to her father. Shinpachi had failed to find a suitable minder for Yoko so…

"Shinpattsan, don't you think it's a bit hentai letting Yoko-chan into the men's bath?" Toudou asked as he adjusted his towel. "These towels don't hide much…" The men wore only towels to protect their modesty. Yoko was wearing her pink Hello Kitty swimsuit.

"Hei-kun, don't you dare get any hentai ideas about my daughter," Shinpachi admonished his friend. Yoko was merrily splashing about in a flagrant disregard of proper open air hot spring etiquette. She was oblivious to the fact she was the only female in the bath. "It's all a bit of father-daughter bonding… Just think of it like that movie 3 men & a baby, okay?"

"Hey, I thought we're into male bonding here? Not indulging our softer side…" Heisuke remarked as he looked up at the sky. "Anyhow, it looks like snow. Sano? Everything alright with you?"

Harada was resting with a towel over his face. His reply was muffled. Heisuke pulled the towel off his face… "Whoa! Sano! Your face looks like a boiled octopus!" Sano groaned. His face was bright red.

"I'm allergic to Mama Lemon brand face soap, okay?" Sano moaned. Yoko did another cannonball into the water. Heisuke was left spluttering.

"Sano, at least you got the marks off your face," Shinapchi sighed. "It's never failed me before… my only side effect was freckles." He wished his wife had not walked out on him. He has no control over his child at all. Even the normally accommodating Ayu-nee had refused to mind Yoko.

"This is where we're cracking jokes and gossiping about our superiors…" Heisuke complained.

"We still can. Heard the joke about the hooker and the sheep? There was this hooker…Oof!" Harada gasped as Shinpachi elbowed him in the gut. No dirty jokes anywhere near my precious baby's innocent ears…

"Hey, watch my wound!" Sanosuke had received a slash across the belly in a confrontation with a New Shimabara thug two months ago. "That bloody hurts!" He grabbed Shinpachi and wrestled him into the water.

Yoko chortled with delight at the sight of two grown men wrestling in the water. Then her eyes widened in wonder as two towels floated away from the combatants… Harada has Shinpachi raised above his head with both arms. Being tall, the water came only up to the giant's mid thigh.

"Hei-niisan… what are those? Does Hei-niisan have them, too?" She pointed and asked Heisuke innocently. Toudou's speechless for a few long minutes. Then he hollered.

"Shinpattsan! Sano! Don't you guys feel a breeze? Get fucking dressed!"

Both men realized they were nude. "SHIT!" Sano dropped Shinpachi into the water. Then he dived for the towel. After a fair amount of splashing and spluttering, a beet-root red Shinpachi surfaced. He was greeted by a Hello Kitty swimsuit in the face.

"Yoko!" Forgetting to retrieve his towel, he got out of the water after his now equally undressed daughter. Too late, a nude four-year-old cannonballed into the bath. Then she took off through the changing rooms. "Yoko!"

Aunt Makoto received a complaint from a guest about a short redhead pervert chasing after a little girl in the nude in the changing rooms. She ran to the storehouse and was troubled to find Tetsu gone.

Tetsu was checking the guest list at the front desk. After loads of struggling, he had finally gotten free. "DT Association…" He read the cult's false name from the list. "Tetsu! You weren't the nude guy running about the changing room, were you?" Hotaru surprised him.

"Yarargh! I'm only checking which group Okita-san's investigating!" Tetsu blurted out. Hotaru went starry-eyed at the name Okita. "Okita-san's here?" She gave a squeal and ran off.

"Hotaru-san! I didn't say… anything…" Tetsu watched in dismay as Hotaru ran from the front desk… Then someone pulled his ear hard. "Ow!" It was Makoto-san. Suzu was with her.

"He was sneaking about the front desk, like I said…" Suzu reported. Suzu, you traitor! Makoto tweaked his ear further, forcing Tetsu to yelp in pain. At least Tetsu wasn't the one running nude after some toddler…

"Yoko! Behave!" A spanking was overdue and Shinpachi knows it. The Trio and Yoko were now in their room. Being mistaken for a child molester and set upon by fellow guests and onsen changing room staff was not an experience Shinpachi would wish on even his worst enemies. It was only timely explanations by his two friends saved him from further pain.

"Want me to help you spank her?" Heisuke offered as he nursed a black eye from a stray punch. Shinpachi declined as he bent Yoko over his lap and hit her buttocks. Harada winced as Yoko howled. Then something happened. Shinpachi let go of the child.

"She fucking bit me!" Yoko pulled faces at the men and ran off in a streak of white and blue. She was wearing a child-version of the inn's yutaka. She ran into Okita in the corridor. "Nii-chan!" She hugged his legs before taking off down the corridor. She remembered their earlier encounter.

"Yoko! Get back here!" Okita turned quickly to face the wall as the Trio dashed by in pursuit of Yoko-chan. Thank goodness they did not pay any heed to the young man with long hair in a white yutaka. "Yoko, listen to your daddy now!" Shinpachi yelled. No wonder she looked so familiar. She's Shinapchi's daughter. Poor Shinpachi must've quarreled with his wife again.

Okita's troubles were far from over. "Okita-san!" A super-genki young girl hugged him from behind. Hotaru! Okita gasped as she kissed him. "Miss me?" He fought to maintain control of his voice.

"Miss, I think there's been a mistake. I'm Kichisaburo…"

"You're undercover? I know you gotta be Okita-san…" She smiled as she started running her hands down his back. "Can I help you like in those 007 films? James Bond…" Hotaru put her seduce Okita plan into action. She undid her hair and loosened her kimono… Okita was stunned. She gave him her come-hither-look…

Crap! Okita saw one of Maro's henchmen stepping out of the leader's room.

"Look, I've no time for this…" He tried to get away but Hotaru clung on. "Okita-san…"

Okita made his decision as the henchman approached them. He shoved her aside violently. Hotaru shrieked with alarm as she fell. Okita was a gentleman who will never hurt a woman. She got to her feet, disheveled and blinking away tears. She fled down the stairs. Gomen, Hotaru-san.

The henchman chuckled. "Kichi, you sure don't waste time finding fun things to do. Was she good in bed?" His laughter died when Okita gave him a malevolent glare.

"Don't you even think of touching her, understand?"

The man nodded. "Sure thing, not till you've got your fill as usual, right? By the way, Master Maro wants you to join him in the open-air bath. He wants to give you a relaxing massage or something…"

Author's notes:

Baby-sitting Yoko-chan is a nightmare for the Trio. (Bwahahaha! Yes, senbi's evil at times.) Poor Shinpachi. Getting mistakened for a child-molester... The onsen's in-house yutakas are blue with white patterns on the hems. (sound familiar?). Tetsu's loudmouth ways cause more trouble for poor Okita. Ne, Hotaru is a rabid fangirl.

OH NO! Okita's gonna take a dip with...

Wolfepaws: Yes, fear for Souji's safety. With the Trio, Tetsu, Hotaru & Maro's gang about, he has a lot of things to be worried about.