Chapter 5: halfway to ending the world.
"I've had enough!" Furutaka roared, as Hotaru cowered over yet another spilled bottle of sake. "Get out! Get OUT!"
"But sir, where will I go?" Hotaru cried, trembling as big tears rolled down her cheeks.
"I don't care! But I never want to see you in this shop again!" Furutaka declared.
"It's a shame to throw out a servant in such hard times," Yoshida said coolly, appearing on the stairs. "We need all the helpers we can get, no matter how worthless they seem to be."
In Yoshida's shadow, Suzu frowned sadly. Worthless… was sensei talking about him?
"There are quite a few ronin holed up at an inn called the Kohagiya," Yoshida continued in his smooth voice. "I hear they're critically understaffed. I'm sure they can find a use for a girl like her."
"Fine! Send her to the Kohagi Inn! I just never want to see her again!"
"Suzu," Yoshida said, without turning his head to look at the boy. "Do you know the place I'm talking about?"
"Yes sir!" Suzu said eagerly. "I've taken messages there before." Suzu looked over at Hotaru, the plain, clumsy little girl that he tried to ignore as much as possible. "Come on, I'll take you over there," he said to her. His jealousy over the fact that his sensei had taken an interest in the girl's employment was overshadowed by his happiness at the thought of getting the annoying ex-spy out of his way once and for all.
Suzu led Hotaru to the front door of the Kohagiya and politely introduced her to the calloused old woman who managed the place.
"That's fine," the old woman said, nodding briefly in acknowledgement of Hotaru's humble bow. "My girls are being worked half to death. In fact, I doubt that any of them will have enough spare time today to show her around. Your name's Suzu, isn't it?"
"Yes ma'am," the boy replied, startled.
"You've been here before. Give Hotaru a tour of her new home, will you?" Without waiting for a reply, the woman bustled off down the hall.
Suzu sighed.
Battousai was sitting on the porch overlooking the garden, leaning back against one of the wooden posts that held up the roof. He was carefully cleaning his katana. Occasionally small groups of Choshu ronin passed by, chatting or arguing as they returned from a meal or an errand in town- but when they spotted the red-haired boy on the porch they all fell silent. No one spoke a word to him, and some people even changed their path, heading for a different door than the one closest to the legendary little hitokiri.
The red-haired boy was indifferent to this treatment. He didn't care if people avoided him- in fact, he almost preferred it. In the two weeks since his 'escape' from the Shinsengumi, he had been very busy, with assignments to complete nearly every night. But tonight, unless something came up at the last minute, he wasn't going to have to kill anyone. And that made him uncomfortable.
It was difficult to explain how he felt: it was a strange combination of feeling restless and listless, bored and yet hyperaware, tired and numb but also… edgy. He held his sword up in the sunlight, squinting at it. It was perfect. Not that it mattered. He lowered it again, catching a glimpse of his reflection in the steel as he did so. In the daylight, the wound on his cheek was bright and blood-colored. Surely it would become infected if it didn't heal soon.
Battousai sheathed his katana and held it across his lap, staring blankly into the garden. Feeling as tense and as restless as he was, he knew there was no way he'd be able to get to sleep tonight at a reasonable hour. So, he decided that he would go out later and occupy himself by getting drunk. He didn't actually enjoy getting drunk, and he wasn't very good at it. But it was something to do, something that didn't require any thought or emotion on his part.
Suddenly the door behind him slid open. "Hora!" exclaimed a giggly female voice. "They've got such a nice garden out here- with a koi pond too!" the musical, childish voice was an unfamiliar one, and Battousai turned his head just in time to see a brown-haired girl trip over the door track and come tumbling face-first onto the porch.
"Itaaai!" Hotaru whimpered, picking herself up. She managed to recover somewhat gracefully, tucking her legs beneath her and sitting up with proper posture. She looked over at the person she had nearly fallen on top of, and found herself gazing into a pair of wide… round… violet eyes. Bright, innocent eyes that possessed an almost mystical aura, a contradiction of danger and kindness. "ah!" Hotaru exclaimed, thoroughly surprised. Just like that, with just one look, she had fallen (literally?) in love. Her eyes shone with a multitude of quivering lights as she covered her mouth with her sleeve. "Sorry," she whispered, her heart pounding.
"Who are you?" Battousai asked, scowling.
"Hotaru," she said shyly, turning pink. "I, um, I just got a new job. Working here. I work here now."
"Well. Try not to hurt yourself," Battousai said quietly, looking away.
"Yes sir, I will," Hotaru promised breathlessly.
"Hotarusan?" called a somewhat annoyed voice from just inside. Battousai looked up in surprise once again as Suzu appeared in the doorway. Suzu did a double take. "Hi-Himura?" he gasped.
"Kitamura," Battousai acknowledged softly.
"So… you two know each other?" Hotaru asked timidly. Both boys turned to look at her and nodded in unison.
"What are you doing here?" Battousai found himself asking the white-haired boy.
"Yoshida sensei asked me to bring Hotarusan here," Suzu explained.
"It was Yoshida sensei who suggested that I come work here, even though I kept messing up at my other job," Hotaru said, obviously eager to be a part of the conversation.
"Yoshida's a jerk," Battousai said frankly.
"What?" Suzu looked like he'd been slapped. Battousai looked up at him, his expression rather cold.
"You heard me," Battousai said neutrally.
Suzu shook his head and lowered his eyebrows. "Yoshida sensei is a very kind person," he insisted.
"No kind person would send a young girl to work here," Battousai said. "It's very demanding work, for almost no pay- and it isn't safe. It may not be the worst place in the world, but… there's been some harassment of the girls here. That's why some of them quit." He looked back at Hotaru and his expression softened a bit. "I'm sorry, miss. Being sent here isn't a reward for you. It's more like a punishment. You're going to have to be careful."
Suzu felt a warm rush of anger. "Harassment? Yoshida sensei couldn't possibly have known about that!" he said, gritting his teeth. His eyes flashed. "Aren't you supposed to be a patriot? Yoshida sensei is a great leader, a great warrior, and a great man! He deserves your respect!"
Battousai leaned his head back against the wooden post, staring listlessly at the sky above the garden wall. Hotaru thought he looked especially adorable in that pose. "Whatever," he muttered. "If it offends you so much, forget about it. It's not important."
"No! I'm going to defend Yoshida sensei's honor!" Suzu declared. "Right here, right now!"
"I already cleaned my sword today," the hitokiri remarked. It was a simple comment, with no hint of malice in his tone, but it still managed to send a chill of warning through the other boy's blood. Suzu grabbed the hilt of his sword and gritted his teeth.
Hotaru looked back and forth at the faces of the two boys, her fists balled up worriedly under her chin. At last she couldn't stand it anymore, and she burst into tears. "Don't!" she cried out suddenly. Suzu and Battousai stared at her. "Please… don't fight!" she pleaded between sniffles. "It's… scary!"
The boys blinked at the crying girl, and then looked up at each other. "Um…" Suzu said awkwardly. Faint pink lines etched themselves across his cheeks, and he glared at the ground. "Well… never mind. I have to get back to Yoshida-sensei anyway," he muttered.
Battousai scowled, not at all fond of the idea of being left alone with the emotionally unstable Hotaru. "Yeah…" he said crossly. "And I've… got to go downtown." He stood up and tucked his katana through his belt.
"Downtown?" Hotaru asked, wiping away her tears. "Where downtown?"
"None of your business," Battousai said coldly, walking away.
Suddenly Hotaru found herself alone on the porch. She looked around, bewildered. Through the lovely garden and across the tranquil koi pond her tiny girly voice asked:
"Now what do I do?"
Across town, a thin, shadowy body was pressed against a wall, listening intently to the conversation beyond it.
Under its baggy black outfit, the thin shadowy body was swathed in messy bandages, through which dark blood had seeped in several places.
Susumu shifted his feet. One of his thick-soled ninja tabi was soggy with blood, and he was worried that he might leave a bloody footprint. Susumu ignored the pain of the multiple injuries he had received last night in his destructive collision with Hijikata's wall. Something important was happening, something critical, and he wasn't even sure what it was. He was supposed to be an information-gatherer, but at the moment, he felt that he was completely out of the loop. Why had that so-called, self-proclaimed, most-likely-an-impostor Yaminobu guy demanded to see vice commander Hijikata last night?
Susumu had woken up in the middle of the night and staggered out into the yard. He'd discovered Hijikata sleeping peacefully on the ground, and immediately suspected poison. But Hijikata's heart rate and breathing had been normal, so Susumu had left him alone and limped quickly into the night, desperate to figure out what was going on. He knew he had failed Hijikata once again, and now he was determined to make up for his mistakes. Susumu would get to the bottom of Choshu's latest plot, even if it cost him his life!
"Tonight's message is ready," a genteel voice said. Susumu recognized the voice immediately: Katsura Kogoro! At last, he had tracked down the slippery leader of the revolutionary traitors from Choshu, and now, surely, he would learn something useful.
"But who should deliver it? If you don't trust the kunoichi…" Susumu didn't recognize this second voice, which was gruff and masculine.
"Send one of those new boys," Katsura replied. "They just arrived in town, so it's unlikely that our enemies will follow them."
"But sir… they've never even met Yoshida-sensei."
Katsura sighed. Through the wall, Susumu's straining ears detected the warm fluttery sound of tea being poured into fine ceramic cups. "Just find someone who at least knows what Toshimarou looks like," Katsura said good-naturedly. "That should be enough. Yoshida-sensei will be waiting in the alley beside the safe house on Oike street at midnight. Make sure the messenger's on time."
"Yes sir," came the gruff reply.
Susumu heard the soft rustle of fabric and the shuffle of feet across the tatami, and then the sound of a door opening and sliding shut. The young kansatsu's brain was spinning furiously, and suddenly it spun up a brilliant plan. Breaking several rules of stealth, Susumu inhaled sharply.
Then, with admirable stoicism, the injured boy limped his way back to the Shinsengumi headquarters as fast as he could.
Later that evening, a certain red-haired hitokiri was staring morosely at his reflection in a dish of sake. Suddenly the reflection blurred as a large man practically jumped onto the bench across from him, bumping the table in the process. Battousai didn't have to look up to know exactly who it was.
"Hello hello hello again, my friend!" Sakamoto Ryouma exclaimed loudly, beaming at the grumpy red-haired kid. "What a coincidence, finding you here! Excellent!"
"Go away," Battousai mumbled, not caring what 'ekku-se-ren-to' meant.
"Whatcha doin' in this shady part of town, buddy?"
"Getting drunk. Away from people who recognize me," Battousai replied, glaring at the table.
"Oh ho!" Ryouma said, helping himself to the bottle of sake. In a way that suggested he might have had relatives in the Harada family, Ryouma drank right out of the bottle and wiped his mouth sloppily with the back of his hand. Battousai blinked several times, disgusted. "Well- I'm afraid I'm a little busy this evening, runnin' for my life and all, but I'm never too busy to cheer up a friend who's feeling blue. So what's on your mind?"
"Leave me alone." Battousai was still staring down at the table, his expression sullen, his eyes dim and unresponsive.
Ryouma refused to be dissuaded. "Come on, what's with that face? It's not the end of the world!"
"I wish it was," came the quiet reply.
"What?" Ryouma actually frowned. Then, when it became obvious that the miserable kid had no intention of expounding that statement, the charismatic naval enthusiast blinked and rekindled his smile. "Oh, oh, you mean, the end of the Tokugawa's world, dontcha? Ha ha! Very good!" he laughed for no obvious reason, and then drank the rest of the sake in the bottle. "Woooo!" he said, as his cheeks turned bright pink from the alcohol. Suddenly his voice dropped to a conversational level. "But you know, my boy, it'd be better if you'd think positively. Don't think of yourself as wanting to end the world. Think of yourself as wanting to SAVE the world!"
"What's the difference?" Battousai grumbled.
"Why, it's a WORLD of difference!" Ryouma declared, throwing his head back and laughing wildly again. "It's the difference between a positive attitude and a negative attitude! Remember the old riddle, 'how far can you run into a forest'? Even if it's a forest of corpses, the answer is still: halfway. Because after that, you're running out of it, whether you know it or not. And of course you'd never know it, if you couldn't see the big picture. Which is why so much depends on your point of view—you need to have a broad enough perspective, and of course, you just have to keep running."
"You're crazy."
"No, no, no, you just don't understand," Ryouma said kindly. "But that's ok. Just remember what I told you before- and don't lose sight of the fact that you're doing the right thing, even if you can't see it."
"How am I supposed to not lose sight of something I can't see?" Battousai asked angrily.
Ryouma laughed at the kid, pulling his rumpled hat onto his head. "You're a very smart boy!" he declared. Battousai looked vaguely offended by the garbled foreign words. "That was English," Ryouma explained proudly. "And I'll tell you what- if you'll learn just one English word, I'll be on my way. What do you say?"
"Whatever," Battousai muttered.
Ryouma grinned brilliantly. "Just say, 'hello!' –it's a greeting!"
"Heru," the boy said reluctantly.
"No no no! Hello!"
Battousai frowned, then concentrated. "hei… hehro. Herou."
"Outstanding!" Ryouma proclaimed. "You say that when you meet someone. Remember it! " He stood up and stretched his hands over his head. "AH! I better be running along! Looks like it might rain tonight. Well, thanks for the drink!"
Once he got out into the street, the tall man nearly ran over a slender, white-skinned girl with solemn, ink-black eyes. "Pardon me, pretty girl!" Ryouma said almost gleefully, tipping his hat. The girl nodded to him blankly, and continued gracefully on her way towards the establishment that he had just exited.
Author's note: Sorry this chapter's late! I'm way behind on reviewing stories I've read and on replying to reviews, too. But on an unrelated topic, I did submit some cosplay pictures of myself to the wonderful Shinsengumi HQ website, if anyone cares to see what this crazy girl looks like. Uh… if you have cosplay pics, send them in! I'm the only girl up there so far! Good grief. Anyway,lots of thanks to Umeko-sama for the idea of Kenshin thinking that Yoshida's a jerk. This wasn't the funniest chapter, but it was necessary to set up the conclusion. You'll see... eventually!
