WARNING: Spoilers! If you don't know who Kenji is, please read at your own risk!
WITH DUE CREDIT: This fic was loosely spun off from two fics - "Over the Sting" by sasori and "Chronicles of a Rurouni", one of my earlier fics.
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Yesterday's Shadow is Tomorrow's Twilight
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Chapter 38: Two Conditions
Behind Hiko's little workshop was a large clearing. There was a kiln bigger than the one Soujirou had seen at the front of the house, hidden behind the trees. It was not currently in use, which was the main reason why neither Soujirou and Enishi had detected it on their way in. It was also very well hidden among the towering trees. Soujirou could not help but gulp at the thing. he remembered vividly Hiko's initial threat about throwing him into it.
"What the hell do you need all these big vases for?" Enishi's authorative, demanding voice jolted Soujirou from his train of thought. Turning from the huge kiln, Soujirou diverted his attention to the other two men in the clearing. Hiko was perched atop a fallen log that acted as a sitting bench of sorts. Enishi towered before the seated man, arms folded across his chest and brows knotted in silent determination.
After pouring himself a generous helping of sake, Hiko peeked at Enishi with an eye closed. "Is it any business of yours to know?"
Soujirou could literally see Enishi attempting to suppress the awful words that were almost making their way out of his mouth. After a painful pause, Enishi coughed slightly. And responded, "It is, if it's related to the Yuugure - and you know what I mean."
Hiko opened both eyes to regard Enishi carefully. He took a huge swig of the sake from the bottle in his hand. Then he set it aside, and stood.
"I'll have you know beforehand," the older man was saying, "that as a merchant, 'Kakunoshin Niitsu' stands on nobody's side." He paused, to observe the other two's reactions. Soujirou was smiling. Enishi was frowning. No twitch, no flinch, no nothing. Kids were getting better at hiding their emotions, thought the old master to himself. He continued, "Therefore to convince the merchant of revealing vital information, one has to have something of value to offer to the trade." He smirked at the duo, when their faces began to grow dark and clouded. "Something of practical value, of course."
"But Hiko-san," Soujirou was the first to speak up, "you know we don't have anything to give you."
"Practical things don't always have to be material," Enishi suddenly interrupted from one side. Both Soujirou and Hiko regarded him with mixed degrees of interest and curiosity. Enishi ignored them both, choosing to walk up to a huge vase and examining it carefully. "Hey old guy," he knocked experimentally on the mouth of the vase. A taut, hollow sound of flesh against glass was produced. "How /long/ do you take to make one of these anyway."
Soujirou was taken slightly off guard by the apparently off-topic question. But Hiko's smirk stretched wider - if at all possible, and he tossed part of his fringe away from his eyes. "A couple or in a day or two, greenhorn. That's the fastest you can get from anyone in Kyoto."
Enishi was silent. He knocked on the vase a few more times. "That's impressive," he stated dully. "But you're still doing it wrong."
"I am, aren't I?" Hiko was playing along, Soujirou could tell. The man had too much pride over his own work to admit any flaw in them. Not that they had many to begin with anyway, though. Soujirou walked up to a nearby vase himself and mulled over it. Perhaps he was just not artistically inclined enough. He failed to see what could be wrong about the beautiful looking vase.
"The Japanese style of molding isn't going to last on huge vases like these," Enishi explained in a pondering tone, when a long silence had occurred. "And it slows down the whole process." He looked at Hiko to see if he was following. Hiko was staring at him with an amused expression on his face, so Enishi blinked and continued, "Didn't the client tell you to use the Chinese method?"
Hiko leaned back slightly, smirk still plastered on face. "I think the client," he iterated slowly, "was too busy trying to avoid any association with the word 'Chinese', to have highlighted that point to me."
Soujirou's smile faded slightly. This seemingly out of place conversation was definitely leading somewhere big.
"Apparently your client doesn't really understand art, then," Enishi snorted. But there was a shadow cast over his features. He stopped feeling the rim of the mouth of the vase and now looked across the huge clearing, where many more vases of the same size stood. "And how many did he commission you to make anyway."
"As many as I can within this month," Hiko shrugged. "The pay comes accordingly."
Soujirou did not like the sudden, evil, mercenary glint in Enishi's eye. "What if we help you make more?" The enterprising ex-mafia boss sneered.
Hiko now locked knowing glances with Enishi for a long, long time. Soujirou was smiling. Really, he was. These two men were not up to no good. No, they were not. And they were not leaving him out of a secret joke on purpose. Of course not. How could they? Nevermind the fact that Enishi was using 'we'. Soujirou knew from experience that whenever Enishi stooped to using 'we', it usually resulted in much massive mayhem. Or excruciating embarrassment. Usually on the part of Soujirou. Although his sixth sense tingled, Soujirou refused to butt into the conversation just yet. Patience was a virtue. At least, that was what Yumi had always said. Shishio, of course, believed in no such thing.
"We split the pay for your batch of porcelain," Hiko eventually said, putting an end to the ranting in Soujirou's head. He pointed a finger at Enishi, "eighty-twenty. Of course, as middleman, I get the eighty," he smirked.
Enishi twitched. "Sixty-forty," he bargained.
"Eighty-twenty."
"Sixty percent of the proceeds something you never did sounds like a pretty darn good deal to me." A pause. "It's better than zero, in any case, isn't it? You can't buy sake with zero, you know."
Silence.
"You know how to drive a hard bargain, don't you?"
A snicker. "Sixty or zero. Not very hard to choose from."
"You're on," Hiko finally said, a big, wide smile on his face. "But I have two other conditions."
"Why am I not surprised?" Enishi muttered, glancing upwards at the darkened skies. "What is it this time?"
"Nothing to do with you, that's for sure," Hiko snickered. "You'd agree to anything to make your plans go through smoothly, wouldn't you?" He eyed Enishi seriously. Enishi's face was blank, but an onlooker could easily tell that he was suddenly sombre. "First of all," Hiko declared, "I want Soujirou to say that he will accept his new weapon." This statement was made with much fanfare. Hiko withdrew something from under his mantle and flung it towards the surprised Soujirou, who caught the mysterious item before it landed smack on his face. He lowered it, so that he could see it properly.
It was a bamboo sheath. With the hilt of his wooden ex-sword protruding from it.
A whirl of emotions and thoughts immediately invaded Soujirou's mind. "Hiko-san, where... where did you get this?" He asked, a bright ring of innocence in his voice. Hiko raised an eyebrow.
"Your esteemed partner asked the noisy ninja girl to pass it to me," the older swordsman stated, "with specific instructions as to how to repair the thing." Hiko was now settled back onto the log and grabbed his previously abandoned sake bottle in a fistful. "You didn't know?"
Soujirou's head whirled around at warp speed nine to stare smilingly at Enishi. Enishi suddenly found the starless night sky to be fascinating, and was examining it with great interest.
"Of course you didn't know," Hiko answered the question himself, with a nonchalant shrug. "Well, Soujirou? What do you think? You can say no," Hiko smirked, earning him a glare from Enishi and a puzzled look from Soujirou.
"Why would I say no to anything from you, sir?" Soujirou asked, when it seemed appropriate for him to. He took the hilt in one hand, and the sheath in the other. He was going to pull the blade out, when he hesitated. When he had grabbed the hilt, there was a noise from within the scabbard.
A noise he had not heard for a long, long time.
The unmistakable noise of metal blade against wooden sheath.
For a while, Soujirou was silent. His eyes were wide but unreadable. His smile had faded into a shadow of its former glory. "A real, metal blade?" He eventually asked. Very softly.
Hiko did not voice a reply, choosing to smirk knowingly at the bemused boy.
"I..." Soujirou lowered the hand that was holding the blade, his other free hand going up to ruffle the side of his head. "...I didn't know you forged blades, Hiko-san." He finally said, with soft, nervous laughter. There was a smile, that did not quite reach his ears.
"A true artisan can handle any form of sculpture with ease," Hiko replied offhandedly. "I've always wanted to try my hand at a weapon or two, anyway..." the older person stroked his chin gently. "I have great confidence in my skill, Soujirou," he continued, without a trace of modesty in his tone at all. "That blade will certainly be of great help to you."
"I..." Soujirou glanced at the weapon, still sheathed. "...hope so."
"But like I said," Hiko waved off Soujirou's hesitation easily, "whether or not you want the blade is entirely up to you. If you don't want it, just give it back," Hiko held his hand out, "I'll get rid of it for you. It could be worth a few weeks of good wine."
Soujirou was truly torn. He had guessed that Enishi would pull a fast one on him like this. That fast one being Enishi getting Soujirou a tool that would prove more useful to Enishi, than Soujirou. He only didn't think that his instincts would prove to be so accurate. He had truly hoped his instincts would have failed him this time.
Soujirou fingered the sheathed blade carefully. He closed his eyes in quick determination. Thereafter, he closed his other hand on the hilt of the weapon and slowly, surely, drew the blade out. The thing gleamed, though the moonlight was hidden. Soujirou adjusted it so that the light would not reflect directly in his eyes. He sighed inwardly. It was a beautifully sculpted weapon all right. The blade was sharp and new, beckoning to be used.
With a loud, conclusive 'shing', Soujirou resheathed the sword. He let his hand rest on the hilt, where the imprint of the Kamiya dojo still was. He studied the words carefully, every chip and scratch. Etched along with these imperfections were precious memories of the past which he held dear.
Memories that would be betrayed, he knew, if he shed but one more drop of innocent blood.
"It's not..." Soujirou began, surprised at how calm his voice was. Surprised that he was smiling again, without meaning to. "It's not that I have anything against real blades, or that I lack belief in your abilities, sir..." he glanced at Hiko, just to check if he was showing signs of being offended. When there was none, the wanderer continued, "...but this blade..." Soujirou stared at the weapon he was gripping tightly. "...isn't very appropriate... don't you think?"
Enishi got ahead of Hiko in the interrogation. "What do you mean?" He asked tersely, sounding neither angry nor happy. "It's not like your name is Himura Kenshin. It's not like you've taken some silly non-killing vow." He further continued, now with a slightly mocking tone to his voice. "You're not going to be of any real use if you continue walking around with a ten ton wooden sword," Enishi reminded him, "Remember what that sullen block of ice did to your previous one?"
"I understand, Yukishiro-san," Soujirou lowered his gaze to the ground. "But it would seem... strange... that a blade bearing the name of the living sword would be first and foremost lethal and dangerous," he smiled wistfully at his partner, "wouldn't it?"
Enishi took only a second to get over being stunned. He narrowed his eyes upon the other. "I don't know and don't care much about the Kamiya girl's living sword philosophy," he drummed out, voice scolding, "but you're not a student there. You're not anything to them. And if you were one, then you'd be a disgrace anyway," he spat. "The 'living sword' is what they call it, right? Then you fail terribly. If you can't even bring a sword to life according to your terms of usage, then you're not wielding any sword at all," Enishi's glance hardened. "You're just letting that sword wield you."
Something stirred within the younger wanderer. Soujirou stared seriously at Enishi. Deep within him, he knew vaguely that every word his friend had said was dead on target.
"True strength," Hiko agreed, a cup of rice wine mere inches from his mouth, "is how well you control your every stroke of the weapon. Will you slay or will you save?" Hiko emptied the contents of the cup into his mouth swiftly. He sighed from the drink. "If you're not the one in control, your sword is dead. And of course," Hiko smirked, "so will be the people you slash a dead sword with."
Soujirou did not know if Hiko was joking. He hoped the older man was. "Does this mean the advancement of our mission hinges upon my accepting of the sword, then?" He chirped, a bit of mood returning in the midst of his confusion.
"Yes," Enishi immediately answered. /And you will not say no, or else!/, was the underlying threat to Enishi's otherwise affirmative reply.
"Mm..." Soujirou mumbled something garbled, "...I dislike making decisions that will affect the future of the world."
"You're not quite there yet, world hero," Hiko snorted. "Agreeing to this'll only ensure you income and a roof over your head for the next week at most. What happens after that," he stood, "I make no guarantees."
Soujirou did seriously doubt why they suddenly needed a roof over their head and any form of income at all. He gave Enishi a sidelong glance. His companion stood tall and sure. Then again, when had he never? He knew distinctly that Enishi had something up his sleeve. Not that he questioned the intelligence of his partner, but he would have appreciated a briefing in advance, really. Soujirou sighed inwardly. Teaming up with Enishi was worst than a whirlpool shipwreck into the beyonds of the Japan Sea.
Still.
"I trust Yukishiro-san," Soujirou declared plainly. "I trust that I will eventually see the wisdom behind why he needs me to have a weapon thus, so..." He smiled. "Thank you for this wonderful gift, Hiko-san."
Hiko was evidently pleased with the response. He had closed his eyes, smiling like a proud, yet resigned parent. He had known the duo for many years, since they first stumbled upon his hidden abode that cold winter night a long time ago. Though he did not particularly favour brats who had anything to do with his stupid disciple, he continued to humour the two wanderers then.
Back then, they were lost and helpless. They were travelling without a destination. There was no expectation in their actions, no grit in their eyes.
Everything had changed, from since back then.
"Excellent," Hiko finally pronounced his pleasure. He looked purposefully in Enishi's direction. "Doesn't that feel good, having someone trust so much in you?" The rhetorical question made Enishi look up, but he said nothing in reply. Soujirou was back to smiling widely at nothing in particular, when Hiko continued, "But the second condition isn't going to be settled so easily."
"What would the condition be?" Soujirou was immediately curious. He had completely forgotten there was a second condition until Hiko mentioned it.
"I know," Enishi suddenly spoke up from where he had been keeping silent all the time. He eyed Hiko evenly. "You want to train him."
"Train him?" Soujirou echoed, not fully grasping the meaning until he had finished the sentence. His eyes widened. He turned to look at Hiko. "...Really, Hiko-san?" He tried not to sound too incredulous.
Hiko tossed his hair to the winds, and struck a pose. "The senile brat is right," he ignored Enishi's glares of protest in the background.
"I want to train Himura Kenji. In the way of the Hiten."
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... to be continued
10/12/04
tougenkyou . net / xd
a/n
ff:net no longer allows double returns in the main text of fanfiction T.Tx sorry if the formatting is a bit off!