He's...unreal! Kaoru thought desperately. Fighting Kenshin had been surreal, he seemed everywhere and nowhere at once: inhumanly fast, light, and strong. His diminutive frame seemed to defy all rules of gravity, natural law, and logic. An hour into practice and Kaoru was nearing the end of her strength, sweat-drenched, and nursing a rapidly diminishing confidence in her own sword skills. She was too exhausted to be properly angry that Redhead had easily evaded all her whole-hearted attempts to kill him. Kaoru had held nothing back and saw no reason to: she had been incapacitated, date-raped, and was now imprisoned and as far as she was concerned, it was her rightful duty to make sure Kenshin was as dead as she could possibly make him. However, most infuriatingly, Kenshin was still very much alive. In fact, except for a trickle of sweat running down his face and a slight increase in his breathing, he showed very little sign of exertion, in stark contrast to Kaoru's drenched clothing and heaving lungs.
"Having fun, are we now?" a sardonic voice filled the room. Kaoru whipped her head around to see a tall, heavily muscled man wrapped in a white cloak standing in the doorway, gigantic arms folded across his chest. Without thinking, Kaoru gathered what little strength she had and flew at him, sword aiming for the kill.
"Now, now, enough of that," the man responded irritably, waving a languid finger. Kaoru stopped midair as if she had collided with an invisible wall. She fell to the ground slightly stunned and from her vantage point noticed Kenshin startle and make towards her with a concerned look.
"Leave her, baka," the man snapped. "You took plenty of beatings from me, and I don't intend to spare her. She's a swordswoman, she can stand it. Leave us. You have plenty of chores to do."
Kenshin's face contorted but he bowed slightly, then left the room. Kaoru pulled herself to a sitting position, glaring at the man and wondering how to plan her next attack.
"Good, you have enough brains to not to try the same thing twice when the first attempt did not work," the man grunted. "Much more than I can say for my previous deshi, I don't think any master was as burdened with such a stupid pupil as I was."
Kaoru was suddenly seized with an irrational desire to defend Kenshin. "He's a jerk but you're the bigger bastard of the two of you!" Suddenly Kaoru gave a yelp as something fiery slid across her arm. "Ow!"
"Manners," the man rumbled. "Like it or not, you are in my house and under my authority, and I don't tolerate insubordinance. You will also listen to my baka deshi as well, for both of us will be training you."
Kaoru waved her arm trying to cool it. The fire had subsided, leaving no sort of mark behind, but her skin still tingled with pain. She glared at the man who returned her stare with a look of mild amusement. "Oh yes, you seem smarter than that idiot who is now puttering around my kitchen but I expect that you will be much more obstinate. Very well. All that stubbornness will serve you well in the future. You will be a fine Air Master, of that I have no doubt. As far as sword skills," he cocked his head, "We shall see. I doubt you will reach the level of my other deshi but," he shrugged, "time will tell. And now," he brought his hands together with a firm clap, "We begin."
Tiredness was settling into Kaoru's limbs, and the fight was dying in her. Right now, she knew the best course of action was to simply comply and meanwhile hope like hell an escape plan materialized. "Fine," she sighed in resignation, "Well, Master, what do want me to do?"
Owie, owie, ow! Kaoru thought to herself as she lay sprawled out on the dojo floor. Every muscle ached from the combined six hours of practice, she, Kenshin, and Hiko had put her through that first day. Mercifully, Hiko was letting her rest. He was sitting cross-legged on the floor, sipping some tea Kenshin had brought him.
As Kaoru examined the tatami matting closely with her face, her exhausted brain formulated a rather important question. "Why sword skills?" she muttered.
"What?" Hiko rumbled.
Kaoru rolled over on her back, not bothering to look at her new "master". A little louder, she voiced a question that had been nagging her for hours. "Why bother with a sword when you are an Elemental Master?"
"For the simple reason of cross-training," Hiko said as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. "Elemental magic is far from infallible: a weak magic wielder can lose to an excellent swordsman with no magical ability whatsoever. In fact, there are those who are curiously immune to the influence of magic. Both myself and my idiot apprentice have faced armed opponents who simply sidestepped our magic and had we not been Sword Masters, we would have fallen under their hands. Also, not all evil men and women in this world are magic wielders. It is...prudent in those cases to seek...ah, alternate means of stopping them. After all, a coroner has a much easier time determining the cause of death when a body is missing its head as opposed to when magic was involved. Using a sword often leads to far fewer questions."
Kaoru digested this. Hiko continued, "Many Elemental Masters don't bother to learn any alternate fighting techniques whether out of hubris or laziness or lack of natural talent. It is quite rare for someone to have the talent to become both an Elemental Master and a Weapons Master, even rarer for someone to achieve complete mastery in both as I have done." Smugness caressed each word, and Kaoru had the overwhelming desire to throw something at him.
"In fact, that is why I took on Kenshin," Hiko continued. "Had he possessed only one ability, I would not have bothered but it was clear that mastery of both fire and the sword were in his reach." Kaoru had the feeling that this was as close to praise as the rude man ever reached. "Conversely, this is also why you were chosen."
Kaoru rolled over to face him and grudgingly pulled herself up to a sitting position, every muscle clamoring in protest. Hiko sniffed, "In fact, I've had my eye on you quite awhile, you know. Someone with your natural abilities could not hide long from an Elemental Master. However, I have not been precisely certain about what to do with you exactly. In the meantime, I had settled for casting certain spells about you to cloak your abilities from other Elemental Masters who might take notice of you."
Kaoru stiffened in anger and opened her mouth to protest. Hiko beat her to the punch, "Know that I did so purely out of my own generosity and goodness of heart. I could have left you to the wolves, as they say. Eventually another Master would have sensed you, and the results might have been quite different from the situation you are in now."
"Oh, you mean the whole 'kidnap, rape, and imprison' thing? Like there could be worse situations to be in?" Kaoru snapped sarcastically.
"Rape?" Hiko snorted. "Little fool, it took very, very little, ah, manipulation on my part to bring you and Kenshin together. Your youth, your chi patterns, your complementary abilities, all a recipe for romance. Of course, don't bother asking me for further advice, I have little interest in the subject. But I daresay you will work things out nicely between the two of you. As far as kidnapping and imprisoning, dummy, I could not in good conscious let you loose in the normal world again until you learned how to control the powers that have recently awakened in you. You would end up accidentally calling up a freak tornado or blowing away a building if provoked, all of which would alert an Elemental Master and you would easily find yourself imprisoned by a less accomodating host. For now, you are staying here, but I promise it will not be permanent. Eventually you will have the control and strength to move about as you choose."
"No I won't," Kaoru said slowly. "If given my choice, I would choose not to have this happen, choose to give up these magic skills. I sure as hell don't want them. I want my life back and things to go back to normal. But..." she looked narrowly at Hiko, "I imagine that is not possible anymore."
"Precisely," Hiko responded. "I'm glad to see you are taking this so well. Now," he set his cup down, "Since you are rested, you have magic skills to practice."
Kaoru's stomach grumbled, "I'm hungry," she complained. They could force her to train but they couldn't force her to be helpfully obedient.
"Too bad," Hiko said. "I am your master and I will decide when you eat or sleep. Now, listen to me..." Kaoru risked making a face at him, then reluctantly moved forward for her first magic lesson.
Author's note: Whew, three chapters banged out in two days! Please review! I am on break for the holidays and hopefully will be finishing this soon. I am so glad to have a decent fanfiction plot percolating in my brain.