Mysterious Rurouni
Part 15
By Mieren
It was nothing short of a miracle that Amiboshi was alive, and surprisingly still sane, when they finally reached the small village where the healer resided. Following several days of bubblehead speaking, there was clearly divine intervention since both of said dingbats were still alive. After questioning a few locals, they determined that the healer was something of a loner and locked himself away in a small house on the outskirts of the village with a cat named Tama as his only companion.
The party approached the small cottage, winding up a stone and dirt path to reach a wooden door that looked as though it had seen better days. The paint was peeling, the wood was splintering and for some ungodly reason, there was a butt-print on one of the windows. Since it was on the inside, they assumed that he had bid an unwelcome guest a rather unconventional goodbye.
After viewing the disheveled house and high-placed butt mark on the windowpane, they concluded that the healer was a very big man with a very small tolerance for visitors. The war between the seishi began again as to who would have to try to get the man to answer the door. Hotohori pulled rank again, leaving him out of the running. Nuriko threatened to beat the snot out of every last one of them, so he was out. Kenshin had only to finger the hilt of his sword and no one dared ask him. Tasuki was idly playing with his metal fan, flipping it to create tiny flames to deter anyone asking him. Chichiri just fingered his staff and mentioned something about newts. After hearing that, everyone moved away from the masked monk. This naturally left the battle down to Tamahome and Amiboshi. One fist and one flute were raised. The blue-haired warrior stole the flute and threatened to stuff it into unimaginable places if Amiboshi didn't submit. He gave in. Unfortunately, as he tried to move forward, Kenshin's sword somehow or another became tangled in Amiboshi's legs, tripping the teenager and introducing him to yet another concussion when his head smacked into the ground. Tamahome sighed dejectedly.
Edging towards the door, the blue-haired seishi rapped tentatively. There was no immediate response. He knocked louder.
"Hello?" Tamahome called in a falsely confident voice.
A huge mountain of a man answered the door, easily clearing six and a half feet. He was scruffy looking and rather dangerous in general, though the only one who seemed not to notice (or at least not to care) was the tiniest of the group. Kenshin, not far above five feet himself, was the first to approach and speak out since his companions were in a state of shock, smiling genially as he introduced himself.
"Hello, my name is Kenshin. I'd heard you were the healer of this area and I was wondering if you could help my… companion." He couldn't quite bring himself to say 'friend' under any circumstances. He gestured towards the boy he had just knocked out.
The giant man played along for now, not really relishing company but unwilling to turn away a plainly injured soul. "What happened?"
"He was cursed," Chichiri supplied, leaving out the fact that he had been responsible for the curse. Aided, of course, by Kenshin's evil tinkering of events.
"His name?" the huge man prompted. "I'm Mitsukake, by the way."
Tasuki was more than pleased to enter the conversation. "We call him Pididiot," he said solemnly. "But after passing out, he doesn't respond to his last name very well."
"Then what's his first name?" Mitsukake asked, going for the bait.
"Stu," Tasuki answered in a serious voice. The massive healer actually leaned over his charge and called out 'Stu' a grand total of once before his brain activated.
"What was his name again?" Mitsukake asked slowly. "What I picked up was Stu Pididiot. Tell me that isn't right." He received a number of grins over that and he sighed dejectedly.
"Trust me, it's close enough," Hotohori muttered.
"Name," he demanded.
"Ben Dover?" Chichiri suggested.
"I. P. Freely," Kenshin gleefully offered.
"Mike Hunt," Tasuki tried.
"Mike Rotch," Kenshin altered.
"Jack Cough," Tasuki returned instantly.
"Drew Peacock," the monk added gleefully. The three began snickering wildly.
Mitsukake sighed. Idiots. He was dealing with idiots. "Fine, I'll treat him. Just stop with the fake names. And tell me what he did that was so bad for the lot of you to have teamed up on him." The big man had figured out from the unanimous teasing that the unconscious teen wasn't their friend.
"His name is Amiboshi," Tamahome said before the Three Stooges could start up again. "And he thinks he's spying on us." He put emphasis on the word 'thinks.'
"Then why on Earth are you trying to help him?" Mitsukake asked, baffled.
"Because this way, we know where he is and what he's telling his little friends," Tasuki was kind enough to supply, in lieu of helping Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum make more stupid comments. Unfortunately, that did not prevent a recurrence of Bubblehead speech.
"Oro?" ('Think he has a mark too?')
"Da… no da." ('That would be too easy… so probably.')
Mitsukake looked up from his preliminary examination at the words exchanged between the two psychos. "What was that?"
"What we've been listening to for days now," Hotohori groaned.
"De gozaru ka?" ('Should we ask him?')
"Da." ('You do it.')
"Oro?" ('Why me?')
"Da!" ('Because I possess the staff of doom, idiot!') And how he managed to get off that much information in a single syllable is beyond even Bubblehead rationality.
"And they're saying what, exactly?" the healer inquired.
"Your guess is as good as ours," Nuriko griped.
"Oro… de gozaru?" ('But… what if he is one of us?')
"Da?" ('Huh?')
"Baka, de gozaru ka?" ('How do we explain to the idiot spy why we can't do the ceremony?')
"Da, da… no da." ('Right, seven… No clue.')
"Have they by any chance have found those nice colorful mushrooms on the hillside?" Mitsukake asked, entirely serious. Heads were shaken in the negative. Sighing, the beleaguered healer held his hand out over the concussed teenager and used his power to heal him, his palm flaring up with a bright red kanji, earning an automatic response from the observing seishi.
"De gozaru!" ('Lookit! Lookit!')
"Da… da…" ('So he has a kanji… don't rub it in…')
"What?" Mitsukake asked warily when he saw the unanimous speculation over his person suddenly.
"I guess you're coming with us," Hotohori said, preparing to launch into his grand 'seishi' speech.
"Like hell I am," the healer snapped. "With those two?"
"By all means, sedate them," Tamahome all but pleaded. "We just need you and one more person and then we can summon Suzaku and this whole thing can be over!"
"And if I refuse?" Mitsukake asked. He was greeted by a vision he had never expected. Kenshin was staring at him with gold-flecked eyes, his expression deathly serious for the first time since they'd met.
"Then my rival, a man much more dangerous than you could imagine, will have access to Seiryu. Either way, one of us gets access to a god," Kenshin said. He brightened up just as quickly, almost as though his scary spell had never taken place. "So, what's it going to be? Me, or someone that even *I* find scary?"
"We're all doomed, aren't we?" Mitsukake asked Hotohori.
"Yup."