Here's part two of the two-chapter release. ^-^ Please enjoy and review.
Kagura was sitting cross-legged on the ground in the park the next morning when Okita walked by.
"Greetings," she said, saluting him, "Captain!"
"Since when did you start calling me Captain?" he asked, bored.
"After you saved my life that other time, Captain!"
"I saved your life?"
"Yeah, you gave me that pork when I was so hungry, Captain!"
"That was intended to be torture," he remarked.
"Don't go getting uppity, Captain! I'm still older than you, after all." she pronounced, saluting.
"I'm way older than you." He informed her flatly.
"How old are you then, huh?" She asked.
"You tell me first," he demanded.
"How come? That's cheating!"
"Because I'm older."
"Something is fishy about that..." Kagura was trying to remember why she couldn't accept that argument.
"Then because I'm the Captain."
"Roger! Captain!" Kagura saluted. "...Wait, no, Captain, I mean..."
"Too late, subordinate."
"Fine then. I'm..." she thought about it. How old was he? Maybe he was 16? Just to be on the safe side... "I'm 82." Okita almost fell over from the shock. But he wasn't going to lose here.
"Well then, I'm 83!"
"No way, kid!"
"Shrimp!"
"Chibi!"
"Pipsqueak!"
"Hmph!" said Kagura. "If I appear to be shorter than you, it's just because of my old age," she croaked, using her umbrella like a cane. He was amused; she was stooped over and hobbling around like an old man. Where was his camera when he needed it? But then he noticed her eye. An evil, yet victorious glint shone from it. "...Yes..." she said, " so many things I have lost in my old age," Okita began to feel a sense of foreboding, "including my sharp sense of memory.. yes.. it's coming back to me. I had forgotten how old I was. Indeed, how old am I?" she began to count on her fingers, then turned slowly, "Yes. Three-hundred and five."
"Three hundred and five!" He dropped his katana. Okita was amused, "How do you forget that many years of your life?" Kagura looked nervous, then, smiling evilly,
"Well, these things... the memory loss, is crazy. You youngsters wouldn't understand."
He had been topped. They were going to start playing the ending and roll the credits if he didn't do something, and fast. No! He would not give in. He would win.
It was time to pull out the big guns. Literally. He reached around behind him and pulled out his bazooka, using it as a cane himself.
"Really, kids these days.." he rasped, slowly, as if each word were unimaginably difficult for him. "Think they understand us. But, I have indeed suffered the same memory loss. I am actually four hundred and six."
"Oh ho!" Kagura laughed (in an old-man sort of way) at his feeble attempt to copy her. "Is that so, kid? Well, I can't believe that, I'm afraid. You just made that up, after my real memory loss. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattening, after all."
"It's flattery." he corrected. "But, no, you see, the reason I remembered after you was: I had forgotten that I had forgotten my real age."
Kagura fell to her knees. The knockout punch. She saluted him. "Good fight, Captain," she acknowledged, tears streaming down her face. "You win this time, but next time, I'm going to flatter you!" With that, she turned and hobbled off like an old man.
"No, I'm pretty sure you meant flatten that time."