Rurouni Kenshin © Nobuhiro Watsuki.
Chapter Two
His wooden geta sandals clacked loudly as he walked, the fading sun smearing the pale sky red.
'Okay. It can't be that hard. Lean forward slightly, small, dainty steps….'
It worked well enough until he took one little misstep and overbalanced. The resulting accident somersaulted him into a small bush.
Kenshin dragged himself out of the sharp branches, hastily checking his kimono for rips and furtively confirming that he could sense no other ki in the area. He really didn't want to have to kill Iidzuka for spying…well, maybe that one wasn't entirely true, but he didn't think that Katsura would take it well if he strung the other man's intestines around the inn like gory festival decorations.
Hm. That was a good mental image.
Abruptly, he sensed approaching ki and hastily brushed the dirt from his silk kimono. Katsura, Iidzuka and several other patriots were closing in, and he could feel the flickers of amusement in their ki. The bastards.
"Himura-san? Ano…"
Was it an offence to disembowel one's leader for laughing?
"You forgot your, uh, dancing fan…"
Screw regulations. He was going to flambé the bastard.
He took the fan and snapped it open. The others flinched.
"Maybe you shouldn't open it quite like that, Himura-san. It's a dancing fan, not a tessen."
Forget Katsura, he was going to make a permanent example of Iidzuka.
Another Ishin Shishi, a messenger from a different faction, chose that moment to walk into the clearing, and saw the lord of Choshu and one of his men being threatened by the sharp edge of a rather pretty young geisha's fan. Did they normally have yellow eyes? He wondered if it was some sort of trade secret.
She was pretty. Maybe she wouldn't object to a little sweet-talking.
Kenshin hastily snapped the fan back into his obi and furtively tried to get rid of the amber eyes, but sadly only succeeded in producing a rather nauseating shade of orange.
He shifted from one uncomfortable geta sandal to another, impatiently waiting for the fool to finish blathering about supply routes in Osaka. Katsura and Iidzuka managed to suppress their amusement for long enough to listen seriously to the message. The Choshu lord turned away to discuss the news with a lieutenant, leaving Kenshin, Iidzuka and the messenger.
'Don't say a word…not a word…'
"What's your name, beautiful?"
A wet choking noise erupted from Iidzuka, as though an entire hamster had just lodged itself in his throat. Several of the other Ishin Shishi began to gather round. Only maybe two had grasped that perhaps the pretty woman wasn't a geisha, but they didn't seem willing to delve any further. Standards for joining revolutionary armies weren't terribly high, after all. In fact, the ability to wave a sword around seemed to be the only prerequisite.
"Say, you seem a little…aggressive for a woman. But hey, I like that in a girl!"
Kenshin's hand very slowly began to rise to the very sharp, very painful pins in his hair.
"You aren't very friendly for such a pretty young woman."
The hitokiri slid a handful of pins from his hair and raised his head to reveal eyes that, through some strange trick of the light, appeared to be glowing crimson. "That would be because I am a man!"
It took twenty-seven minutes to drag him away from the bleeding messenger, and another thirty to persuade the victims to stop screaming in terror.
"Well, you do look very pretty like that, Battousai-san!"
"Iiiiiiidddddzukaaaaaaaa!"
"For the love of…Himura! Put that fan down this minute! And Iidzuka…just, just shut the hell up!"
Okami had belatedly returned to shape the chaos into some semblance of order. Kenshin subsided under the threat of hot wax, and sulkily allowed the innkeeper to confiscate the fan and the six hairpins that he had secreted in his clothing. Fortunately for him, she hadn't found the other seventeen pins and the wakizashi…
There was a moan from the corner where Katsura was sipping a cup of tea with a mild sedative in it, and fervently wishing for something stronger. Something like, say, opium.
The innkeeper glowered at the sulking hitokiri, "Himura! Repeat after me: for the next three hours, I am Hotaru, a shy young maiko accompanied by my dresser, Yamada, for modesty…"
"For the next three hours, I am Hotaru, a homicidal young maiko seeking revenge on my perverted dresser, Yamada…"
"Himura! You should- oh, dear, has Katsura-san bought some opium from the yakuza again? I suppose that I will have to take charge."
"You always do," Kenshin muttered.
"I'm subtle about it though, dear. Now where were we? Oh, never mind. Off you go!"
"But, Okami-san…"
"Please, Yoshida-san, just get rid of them. I don't care how. Just go. Oh, and could you drag Katsura-san into a corner or something? I don't want to trip over the poor dear."
"Okami-san! Our leader is-"
"Just fish him out of the koi pond, dear. He should be fine."
An only faintly conscious, half-drowned Katsura blearily wondered if it was the opium that was talking to him. He'd never hire such a bunch of misfits. Right from tomorrow, the Ishin Shishi would have a culling of the ranks. Beginning with Himura and Iidzuka. And that blasted messenger would be taken outside and shot. Or at least, there would be a culling when he could summon the will to live, let alone move.
Notes: Geta are wooden sandals worn by Japanese women. Geisha's geta, especially those that maiko wear are rather…difficult to walk in. Type in 'maiko geta' in google and you'll see what I mean…
Maiko- an apprentice geisha
Tessen- folding fans with outer spokes made of iron that were designed to look like regular, harmless folding fans and often used as discrete weapons.