The Trouble with Kits

Previously: Finally seeing the kit still, Sly bit the inside of his cheek to keep from swearing. "Rioichi?" he managed to say incredulously.

"That's me. How'd you know that?" the kit asked, leaning forward as much as Lady's hold around his waist would let him.

Sly's words failed him. Unfortunately, Lady's did not. "Wait…" She looked down at the bundle of trouble in her lap, equally disbelieving if her tone indicated anything. "This kit is the one who invents that fancy spire jumpin' trick of yers?"

Laying his ears back, Sly slouched a little, crossing his arms. "He grows up," he said defensively.

Lady rolled her eyes, putting her whole head in the motion so it was clear what exactly she was doing. "Time travel," she practically spat the words, her disgust obvious.

Rioichi squirmed in her lap. "Let go," he said demandingly, only to squeal. Sly eyed Lady, not sure what she did to earn that noise.

She ignored both males' looks, acting like Rioichi hadn't uttered a peep since Sly said his name. "What?" she asked innocently.

Sly snorted. "Peddle that elsewhere, I'm not buying it," he jeered at her. She snorted back at him, and rearranged Rioichi in her arms when he tried to make a bolt for it.

"I congratulate you, Lady-san," Karin's mellow voice came from the door.

Turning his head to look, Sly saw that she had two little girls, easily the same age as Rioichi, balanced on each hip. They at least looked tuckered out and quite ready to be in bed. Both had the same, lighter russet coat as their mother, and both had their hair pulled out of their faces with white paper ribbons at the nape of their necks, the little bit left hanging down to the middle of their backs. The only visible difference between them was one had a blue sash around her waist, the other red.

"Congratulate?" Lady repeated.

Karin smiled. "My son is not the easiest kit to catch for bed time. Let me put these two down and I can take him from you. My husband appears to have fallen asleep in his workshop again."

"No need, I've got him," Lady assured her, standing up. And true to her word, despite his squirming, Rioichi stayed caught. Sly knew what that meant from his own childhood. The female raccoon had experience with children. She followed Karin deeper into the house, carrying the whining kit with her. Since both females had their hands full, the door just stayed open.

Shaking his head, Sly reached up and rubbed the corner of his eyes. He was starting to feel the fact he hadn't even gotten one of his brief spurts of sleep in a while. Time to find a distraction. "Any luck with the Raccoonus, Bentley?" he asked, finding a problem that hadn't been dealt with.

"I'm afraid not," the turtle adjusted his glasses. "I've found the original kanji from when the section was added into the book, but it's slow for me to translate it. Japanese is not one of my more proficient languages, and it is made complicated by the age."

"Keep trying," was the only advice that Sly had for him. He tried to think of something, anything that he was forgetting. Really, everything else was going to require Karin to explain more about what was currently going on before they—meaning Bentley—could make a plan about where they needed to start poking their noses. The muscles in his lower jaw tensed, and it took all of Sly's attention to keep from yawning, even clenching his eyes shut. He didn't even notice when his eyes became too heavy to open more than halfway, and he couldn't keep his head up anymore. All he saw was what he thought was the moon, which made no sense, he was inside.

And then Sly Cooper was out like a light.

Lady caught Sly as he started to lean, lowering his shoulders to the floor. By the time his head was in her lap, he had already curled up like the kits had as soon as she and Karin had gotten them into their futons. She took off his hat and put it down next to her, unable to stop her snort at the awful hat hair she saw that it had been hiding. It and his staff would be in easy reach without making sleep uncomfortable for him.

She threw Bentley the capsule from the sleep dart she had stolen from his chair back in the van. She'd been hanging onto it since she'd gotten dragged along on this little adventure. At first, she'd planned on using it in some sort of escape attempt. That plan was gone as soon as she saw actual time travel was involved. (As science-fiction as that sounded, even in her head.)

But then she'd seen Cooper fighting a losing battle with exhaustion, one that she had picked up even that night at the ballet. And if some of his resulting crankiness was from that, well, far be it for her to not help.

Bentley stared at the dart in his hand in horror and then back to her. "What did you do?" he said, just short of wailing. "When did you get this? When did you get into the room?"

Barely, Lady refrained from snorting again. Apparently, Sly was the eyes, ears, and the sneaky side of this operation they had going. "I made the stupid male go to sleep like he obviously needed, back at the van when you were busy with the time machine, and right when stupid here was tryin' not to yawn."

As if he knew she was talking about him, Sly muttered in his sleep. Absently, Lady reached down and ran her fingers through his hair to sooth him and keep him asleep. The turtle was reaching for an inhaler, making her want to laugh, though she didn't quite dare.

"You might be sneakier than Sly!" Murray said in obvious awe.

Lady wrinkled her nose, even though she knew the hippo couldn't see it behind her mask. She wasn't sure if being able to sneak on them when their main thief was half-asleep counted as being sneakier than the last of the Cooper clan. But she would take the compliment, and preened a little.

Karin came into the room with the bedding that she had been gathering while Lady went on ahead. She paused for a moment, a slight smile trying to tug at her otherwise stern face, and then started to throw blankets and mats around. "You may sleep here until our type of morning," she said, keeping her voice down.

"I'll be stayin' up later, Coopergiwa-san," Lady said, looking down at her currently occupied lap and then back up at Karin.

"Are you certain you will not need rest?" the Japanese noblewoman asked, her brow furrowed over her violet mask.

"One all-nighter won' kill me," Lady promised, gathering her tail around her and Sly as an impromptu cover for his shoulders and her legs and feet.

Giving a slight snort, Karin grabbed a quilt from the pile that Murray was now sorting through to figure out his and Bentley's bedding and threw it over Sly. "Wait here," she ordered and left again.

Lady bit her lower lip to keep from laughing. She may have made Sly eat dirt, but apparently once she knew they were allies, Karin started mothering them all. The older female wasn't gone long, returning with something folded up. "Arms," she said firmly.

Agreeable for now, Lady extended her arms out. Unfolding the fabric, Karin revealed it to be the heavy fabric of a karaginu, the outermost layer of the most formal of kimono. It was only hip length, but that was long enough since Karin was taller than Lady and the garment was made perfect for the real noblewoman. Lady made a sound of protest, but Karin ignored it, slipping the silk up and on to Lady's shoulders. It was double-lined and heavy, and the sleeves were long enough that Lady's arms would be warm. "Thank you," Lady said softly, arranging the fabric around her so it wouldn't wrinkle.

Karin gave another snort. "I should be thanking you. You are looking after my young cousin, after all." There was a slight twinkle in her eye, hinting that it was more out of amusement than anything else that she was helping. She reached up and blew out the lantern, closing all the doors to insure that everyone would stay warm. Bentley was in his chair with a quilt to help him sleep, while Murray had needed every other bit of bedding possible, the quilts meant for slim raccoons rather than a hippo. He'd ended up layering them over him so it took three quilts to cover him completely. They both seemed content, though. Bentley made the occasional whistle, and Murray was quickly snoring.

Shaking her head, she looked down at the head in her lap. "How do yah sleep through this racket all the time, sugah?" she asked rhetorically.

But Sly stirred, making a distressed sound in the back of his throat. A nightmare, if she were to guess.

Lady mentally scrambled, trying to think what to do. Combing her fingers through his hair didn't work this time, even when she took off her gloves. She bit her lower lip and tried to remember what her mother would do in these situations. It was potentially embarrassing, but as long as she didn't wake the other two, it would fine…right?

She reviewed the last musical she had seen on Broadway, and found an appropriate song. "I don't know if You can hear me… Or if You're even there… I don't know if You would listen to a gypsy's prayer…" she sang, keeping her voice soft. And as she sang a song about outcasts deserving mercy, even if only from God, Sly eased back into an easy slumber. Mentally, Lady resigned herself to a long day. At least the screens would let in enough light to keep her from dozing off…

Lady's head jerked up as the screen leading to the main part of the house slid open. A little head poked in, and it took Lady a second to see the subtle (very, very subtle) differences to recognize it as the oldest of Karin's kits, Kaya. Today, her hair was still pulled back by a plain white ribbon, but she was dressed in a child's yukata of rust orange flowers on pale blue and an orange obi. She made wide eyes at Lady and then looked to the others before back at her.

Holding her finger up over where her mask's mouth was, she pointed at Murray and then at Bentley. Nodding her head, Kaya poked her head back out and then was back inside in a flash. Right behind her was her sister and middle child, Kiyo, looking nearly identical to her sister except her yukata colors were reversed—pale blue flowers and obi over rust. Kaya woke up Murray, while Kiyo went for Bentley. The girls were gentle, gentler than Lady would have been. The hippo and turtle yawned as they woke up, causing both little girls to shush them and then point to where Sly was still snoozing, his head in Lady's lap.

Bentley scowled, but Lady wasn't having any of it. She rested her hands protectively on his head, silently daring Bentley to try wake the male raccoon before his body was ready. Only her tail twitched as she stared him down.

She suspected it was her mask that scared him into silence. She wasn't that intimidating, if it weren't for the blank porcelain face that gave no clue to her expression. But the turtle fiddled with his glasses and adjusted himself in his wheelchair. The girls gestured for the boys to follow them. Feeling spiteful, Lady twiddled her fingers after them.

The two girls weren't gone for long. They came back, carefully balancing a tray between them. They set it down where Lady could easily reach each of the items—rice, miso soup, broiled mackerel, umeboshi, and there was a little pot with steam coming out of the spout and two cups. No doubt it contained green tea, which thrilled Lady half-to-death. If she couldn't have a cup of strong chicory coffee, she'd take hot green tea, if she had her druthers.

She gave the best bow she could with a full lap, and the girls returned it. "Haha-ue said she'll send a fresh pot every hour," Kaya whispered. "And a tray for Sly-san, once he wakes up."

"What hour is it now?" Lady asked.

"Half until Rooster," Kiyo provided promptly.

That took Lady a minute to figure out. Feudal Japan used a temporal time system, with six hours to a day and six hours at night, and then labeled each hour by an animal from the zodiac, starting with Rabbit at sunrise. That put Rooster at…sunset. Nodding her head, she patted the girls on the head. "Run along and help the boys where yah can," she told them and they took off, covering their hands to keep from giggling.

Rolling her eyes upward, Lady looked down at the still-snoozing Sly. Well, at least one of them got to sleep in this evening. Her mask took a little effort to undo, freeing her to actually be able to eat and drink. She carefully used the chopsticks to build a bowl she could snack on. She was skilled enough with them that she didn't have to worry about dropping a single grain of rice on the head currently cushioned in her lap.

She smiled a little around her first bite. If only Maiko-sensei could see her now. The Japanese squirrel had been a friend of her mentor, both a geisha and a lady thief. It had taken both of them to get Lady to where she was now in terms of manners and deportment. But she'd been interested in where Maiko was from, and that had resulted in Lady have a plethora of knowledge about Japan that was supposed to be moderately useless. Only now it was turning out to be quite the secret weapon…

Bentley fiddled with his tea cup in an effort to avoid finishing his breakfast. He wasn't quite able to eat the miso soup that Karin had put down for them. He just couldn't stand the taste of it. Beside him, Murray was looking morosely down at his tray, since he'd eaten everything on it already. Maybe he should have warned Karin about the hippo's large appetite… There was still no sign of Karin's mysterious husband, or of Rioichi for that matter. The girls, though, had been waiting outside their room and pointed them in the direction of the kitchen before going about some errand or another.

The two girls darted back into the room just then, reaching up to tug on Karin's pant legs on either side. "Haha, we told Lady-san about the tea like we promised," the one with the orange belt said.

"Arigato, Kaya-tan," Karin said, looking down at her daughter, though there wasn't really a smile on her face. "And for speaking English for our guests."

"Haha, Haha!" the other girl begged. "Can we please have a party? Pretty please? With tea and treats?"

"Hmm…" Karin hummed. "I am uncertain, Kiyo-tan. You have weapons practice to do still, and your other lessons."

"But those are lessons about being proper Coopergiwa ladies," the first girl, Kaya, said. Even Bentley recognized an honorific that meant "little" attached to the names Karin had said. "Shouldn't we be entertaining our guests?"

Uh oh. Bentley quickly put down his tea cup. "Karin," he said, only to gulp at the sharp look that the raccoon gave him. Uh oh again. As loathe as he was to listen to Lady, he couldn't risk offending their hostess. "My apologies. Coopergiwa-san," he corrected himself. She gave him a tense nod for him to continue. "We have our own business to see to in the town, when Sly wakes up." The reminder of their missing member just made the turtle all the crankier. "When that…female…lets us wake him up," he corrected himself under his breath.

"Hmm," Karin hummed. "One who waits patiently will catch a big fish, Bentley-san."

"What do fish have to do with anything?" he asked, adjusting his glasses.

"Old proverb. One my father-in-law is trying to teach my son," Karin said. Now there was a slight smile on her face. "In any case, I agree with Lady-san. Let Sly sleep. What business must wait for my young cousin to wake?"

"Well, Sly is usually the one who takes photos—instant paintings, I guess you could say—of things around the town so we know the conditions to make a plan."

Karin turned around from whatever she was fiddling with at her hearth. "I see," she said, tilting her head. "But he is not always the one? You said usually."

Trust a Cooper to notice that one. "Well… There was this one time where I had to do it…" Bentley admitted.

"Then you can do so again," Karin said with a firm nod of her head.

"But I don't have anything near Sly's skillset at getting around without all those warriors noticing me!" he protested.

Karin looked between Bentley and Murray. "I suppose you are lacking in one who has a certain…flexibility."

"Haha, what's going on…?" a sleepy voice asked from the door. There was Rioichi, looking sleepy with his tail in the grasp of one of his arms and hair rumbled and loose, still in his sleeping yukata. He rubbed at his eye with his free hand and yawned.

Now a smile crossed Coopergiwa's face that was enough to set the hair on the back of Bentley's hair standing straight up…if he had any hair. It promised trouble. "You are going to go on an adventure with Bentley-san, Rioichi-kun," Karin said slowly, like she was thinking out an answer to a problem. "You are going to have to help him, since there are places he cannot reach and people cannot see you reach them. Do you understand?"

That seemed to wake Rioichi up. "Really?" he asked, his ears perking up. "An adventure?" Karin nodded. The raccoon kit squealed and ran out of the kitchen.

"Ka—Coopergiwa-san!" Bentley protested.

She ignored him completely. "And that will insure that you and your sister can have a quiet party in your room," she said, not using a particular daughter's name. It didn't seem to matter, since they both squealed. "I can fix you up a tray of tea things, and I will see what we have for treats…"

"Manjū, Haha!" Kiyo pleaded.

"And daifuku!" piped up Kaya.

"And dango!" they said at the same time.

Karin held up her hand, calling for silence. "There is some higashi left over from when your grandmother visited," she said, keeping her tone firm. "Anything else will be fixed if, and only if, I have the time."

Both girls looked suitably chastised. "Hai, Haha-ue," they said in unison, ducking their heads.

Karin shook her head and waved her hands at them. The two girls scurried off, covering their mouths to hide their giggles. Shaking her head, she worked on something else where Bentley couldn't see.

That was the only opening he was going to get. "Coopergiwa-san, are you sure about letting Rioichi come with me?" he said nervously.

"It will be good for him." She turned back around, holding two curiously wrapped things in her hand. "And you," she added. There were two squeals from the hallway, and Karin raised her eyes up to the ceiling with a sigh.

Rioichi ran into the room and almost straight into the table in his hurry. "Ready, Haha," he said, tail twitching in his excitement and almost bouncing. He looked like he'd thrown his clothes on and run out the door in the same breath.

Karin snorted. "Pour a cup of tea," she ordered him.

"But—" One look from Karin was enough to make him snap his mouth shut. Rioichi hurriedly reached over and grabbed a cup, nearly having to stand on the table to reach and pour from the pot into it. He had just set it down when Karin pushed at his shoulders, forcing him to sit down. She set down what was in her hands in front of him—two rice balls—and then started fixing his rumbled appearance.

The kit whined at her fussing, but his mouth was too full to protest. "Do not eat so fast. You will choke," she reprimanded him as she tied his hair off.

Rioichi swallowed the last of his rice ball. "Hai," he said dutiful before rapidly draining his cup. "Now can we go?"

"Ask Bentley-san if he is finished with his breakfast," Karin ordered, walking back to the hearth.

Bentley suddenly found himself subjected to big, big eyes and a quivering lower lip. "Are you ready to leave, Bentley-san?" the kit asked, his tail waving behind him furiously.

Looking down at his still-full soup bowl, Bentley tried not to whimper. He couldn't say no to that face, he just couldn't. "Yeah, I'm ready."

Rioichi whooped, jumping in the air. The next thing Bentley knew, he was being pushed from behind as the kit chattered at him, asking questions and not leaving the turtle room to answer them.

Shaking her head, Karin wiped her hands on a towel. "And that gets him out of my hair for a little while," she mused out loud.

Up until now, Murray had been quiet. He was used to being forgotten, and passed off as not-to-bright. But he was smarter than he was given credit for, and he'd seen something that even Bentley might have missed. "You really are worried about Sly, aren't you?" he said.

Karin blinked, looking at the hippo. "Why, yes," she admitted. "The boy was ambushed last night, something that should be impossible for a Cooper, even by another Cooper of similar experience such as I. This, along with Lady-san's actions, suggest that he is much exhausted physically. And I can see the damage to his soul." She rubbed the line of her nose. "I was a miko, a priestess, for a time. Some of it stays with you."

Murray beamed. Finally, someone else who saw into the spiritual side of things! He too had seen Sly's spiritual state after the Egypt fiasco. Maybe here, with Karin and Murray to help, some of that could start healing.

"And besides, I think Lady-san's protectiveness and nurturing of my cousin is… sweet." Karin seemed a little flustered to admit that.

It took effort for Murray to keep from laughing. "I agree completely," he said…just as his stomach rumbled. He had the decency to flush.

Raising a brow, Karin offered him Bentley's untouched bowl of soup. It was a little bit to help his still empty stomach. While he slurped it down, she wiped down his tray and her own from earlier that morning before setting a tea set with...three?...cups on it. "Hmm," she hummed, looking towards the small room that Murray knew was her storage/pantry area from watching her fix up his and Bentley's breakfast. "Higashi is fine, and I think I could make some daifuku and dango easily enough with what I have." She looked at the hippo. "And some onigiri for you, hmm, Murray-san? I apologize, I was not aware you needed more for breakfast than one of my kind."

"I… You want me to help the girls with their tea party?" he said in surprise.

"I would appreciate an adult being with them," she agreed. "I have the garden to see to, and my husband practically lives in his workshop until I pry him out of it." She frowned a little. "Do you think you can handle them? They are not quite the handful as their brother is…"

He puffed out his chest proudly. "I'll have you know that the Murray is a highly skilled geisha. The Murray got mad skills."

Karin smiled. "Good. Perhaps you can teach my girls such etiquette and manners, as well as conversation tactics. I will admit, the last is not my specialty."

Murray was confused for a moment, until his little bit of history reared up. That's right, geisha were performers but not as…risqué…during this time period as they had been when he pretended to be Madame Geisha. He smiled back at Karin. "Alright, so, what do you need me to do?" he asked eagerly.

Bentley was sitting in a safe alcove just outside the main fields for the village. "First I think I need pictures of what damage is currently being blamed on your mother," he said to his little companion.

"The big ones are a bunch of dams that are making irrigation to the fields bad, and some valuables that turned up stolen," Rioichi informed him, wrinkling his nose. "Though I think I know who really has those. He's a meanie."

Bentley hummed, rubbing his chin. "So pictures of each of the dams—"

"Are you going to draw the pictures, Bentley-san?"

"What, oh, no," he said, pulling out his binocucom. "You see, I hold this up to my eyes and can look through it at things, using these buttons to see closer, and if I hit this one, it will take a picture." He held it so Rioichi could see what each of the buttons were that he meant.

Rioichi craned his head over the wheelchair side. "So you need pictures of each of the dams?" he repeated. "Hai, Bentley-san!" He snatched the binocucom from Bentley's hands.

"Wait!" Bentley cried out, but it was too late. Rioichi was already walking across the narrow paths of the dykes between fields. Too narrow for Bentley's chair, even if he hovered. "Oh dear," he murmured. What was he going to tell Karin if something happened to her son? He used his controls to start navigating the paths he could, trying to keep the little ninja in sight…and not have a panic attack.

karaginu—Japanese, the outermost layer of the most formal of kimono
obi—Japanese, the belt part of kimono and yukata type garments
miso—Japanese, a paste made from fermented soybeans and barley or rice malt, common in Japanese cuisine
umeboshi—Japanese, pickled ume fruit (ume is commonly translated as plum in English, but in actuality, this fruit is more closely related to the apricot)
Haha/-ue—Japanese, Mother
-sensei—Japanese, teacher
geisha—Japanese, traditionally they are entertainers and courtesans, skilled in conversation, arts, music, and tea ceremony (the prostitution is a different thing, ya'll)
Arigato—Japanese, thank you
-tan—Japanese, title for female children
-kun—Japanese, title for males that indicates familiarity or a child
Manjū—Japanese, commonly called a Japanese steam cake, it's different types of fillings (such as sweetened red-bean paste) encased in a shell of flour, rice powder, and buckwheat
daifuki—Japanese, a small round of glutinous rice cake stuffed with sweet fillings (such as sweetened red-bean paste)
dango—Japanese, dumplings made of rice flour and sweetened served three or five on a skewer, sometimes with fillings, flavorings, or sauces
higashi—Japanese, types of Japanese treats that are dried and contain very little moisture, they are usually served at tea ceremonies
miko—Japanese, a Shinto priestess
onigiri—Japanese, rice balls with usually some sort of filling and a dried seaweed decoration