Chapter Seven

Kenji lay on his futon, staring at the ceiling. He'd cracked a rib when he had lost to Yahiko, and Megumi had confined him to his room for a week, three days of which remained. He'd spent the time thinking.

At the front of his mind had been the burning question why did I lose? He was just as good as Yahiko, and he was faster. He should have easily dodged the attack, but the fire in the dark-haired warriors eyes, and his presence had slowed Kenji's movements with trepidation.

Yahiko is a warrior. Kenji realised with a start. The Dojo's instructor was a true samurai, not merely skilled with the blade. That was why he had lost. He bit his lip, adjusting his blankets slightly so that they did not press on his rib. Shinya had a glimmering of that spirit – refusing to acknowledge defeat, refusing to give up his goals and pursuing them with all his strength.

His father had a banked flame in his world-weary purple eyes as well, even Shinko had it – moreover, hers was stronger than Shinya's, nurtured in adversity...

There was a flash of pain as his teeth penetrated the flesh of his lips. He pressed a hand against them, feeling the hot wet blood. Shinya called him cold, and he was right. Kenji let a faint, rueful smile quirk his bitten lip as he admitted Shinya being right about something. He was too cold, too uncaring, to have the flame of conviction.

"Hey! Kenji!" Shinya ran into the room, a wide grin on his face. "Misao sent us a pigeon from Kyoto – Shinko's there, she's fine." He waved a small piece of paper around, his yukata sleeve falling away from his arm, revealing a fading yellow bruise from his fight with Kenji.

"May I see?" Kenji asked, standing up and holding his hand out. Shinya nodded, his rivalry forgotten in his excitement. He'd put a cheerful face on it, but he had been as worried as his parents about his twin sister.

Shinko arrived here last night, she's healthy and cheerful, but doesn't want to come home yet.
- Misao

"Are you sure she's still in Kyoto?" Kenji asked Shinya, but the boy was too excited to hear.

"We're going to Kyoto in two days time – haha needs to get someone to take care of the Akabeko while we're gone. We're going to catch a train. I can't wait to see her; I'm going to tell her all about how chichi whooped your butt. She's in so much trouble though..." Shinya continued to blather on.

"Can I come?" Kenji asked. He was forced to repeat his request, louder, before Shinya heard him.

"What, why do you want to come?" He demanded, his eyes narrowing and a hand falling to his shinai. "You don't have any... dishonourable intentions towards my sister do you?"

Kenji didn't quite trust himself to answer, but treated Shinya to his most withering look.

"True. I guess you don't have the range of emotion required to entertain dishonourable intentions to anyone." That stung slightly, considering the recent realisation Kenji had just come to.

"I want to train with Shinomori-dono for a while."

Shinya regarded him suspiciously for a moment longer, before nodding. "I'll ask haha" he said, turning on his heel and exiting the room, plucking the note from Kenji's hand as he did so.

Kenji sat down on the futon, and found himself hoping that Shinko would be in Kyoto, despite his main reason for going being his desire to get away from the Dojo, and maybe learn about what made him a swordsman, rather than a warrior, from a man who had once frozen his heart for revenge.

*****

Shinko woke up as she heard someone tapping on the door of her room at the Taheki's inn. Groggily shuffling over to see what they wanted, she realised that it was still only an houror so after sunset – after arriving around noon, she'd spent the entire day training, and consequently, was exhausted.

"Mrfgh?" She asked, rubbing the back of her head and tugging slightly at the loose sleeping robe she had on.

"Ano... Shinko-sama, my father got a pigeon from a lady named Misao, with a note for you..." Taheki Hiro's voice came hesitantly through the door.

"Really..." Shinko opened the door and held out a hand for the note. "Thanks for that Hiro-kun..." She took the note and Hiro bobbed his head before darting off, red-faced. Shinko, having spent years playing in only her underwear had little regard for modesty, and in her sleep-befuddled state, had taken the note with the hand that held her robe shut, revealing a significant wedge of chest (not much cleavage though, as her figure was almost as boyish as her haircut). Walking back to the bed, she lit a small lantern – the village was too rural and small to have electricity yet – and began to read the note, written in tiny handwriting that was still, unmistakeably, Misao's.

Who would have thought that you'd be staying with the Tahekis? Taheki Kotaro was pre-Meiji Oniwabanshu... anyway, I thought you might like to know that your family are ...Shinko paused to turn the scrap of paper over ...on the way to Kyoto to see you. And Kenji's coming too, do I smell romance? I'll let you decide whether or not you come see them, they'll be here in three days. Misao.

Shinko clutched the note tightly, feeling sick. She'd never thought her family would come to see her – Misao mustn't have mentioned the fact that she'd left Kyoto before the pigeon – and now found herself torn between the possibility of visiting her family on neutral ground, where she would still be free to keep travelling afterwards, and the likelihood of them being able to persuade her to return home before she'd found out why she wanted to be able to fight. But she did want to see Kenji, even Shinya... She just couldn't face her mother, yet, not without gaining something worthwhile from her travels (other than an ancient apprentice)

She scrunched up the note as she realised that it would mean three days, including this one. Even if she left now, she wouldn't make it back before them...

*****

Kenji sat on the train, feeling it bump and rattle under him, jolting his still tender rib, the ocean moving past him out the window to his left. Shinya, sitting opposite the red-haired young man, was also staring out the window, watching the tracks blur past under the train's dozens of wheels. They'd gotten on the train early that morning, so as to be at Kyoto by late afternoon.

"How long are you going to stay in Kyoto, Kenji-kun?" Yahiko asked suddenly, leaning back in the seat next to his son.

Kenji shrugged, his dark blue eyes cloudy as he touched his still bruised and aching side. Megumi had let him leave his room a day early since she didn't think that he'd be able to get into much trouble on a ten hour train ride.*

"I don't know. I wish to learn from Shinomori-dono, so I shall stay there as long as it takes, or as long as they'll let me."

"I should be offended. I've been trying to teach you for ten years, and instead you just run off to Aoshi-san instead." Yahiko smiled ruefully, ruffling the hair that he still wore in the same style as Shinya, although his was a shade darker than his son's.

"You... you beat me, Yahiko-sensei, you showed me that I still had many things to learn, but Kamiya Kasshin is not the style that I shall master."

Yahiko regarded him for a moment longer, before nodding, satisfied, and turning to Tsubame, who was sitting next to the young man, and engaging her in conversation, as Kenji returned his gaze to the ocean, idly listening as they discussed their daughter.

"I've been so worried about her, Yahiko, but what are we meant to do?" Tsubame asked, twisting her hands in her lap.

"She's growing up – when I was her age, I had completed genpukku, and was already known as 'the one who had caught a thousand blades'. Kenshin was a hitokiri at fourteen, and Misao was an accomplished, if boisterous, kunoichi." He shrugged, leaning over to take Tsubame's hand. "We need to talk to her before we decide what to do."

"She's fifteen! This isn't the Shogunate anymore, Meiji is the age of enlightenment. Children shouldn't have to grow up by the time they're fifteen."

Kenji sighed to himself, leaving the couple to their bickering. It amazed him that no-one else had seen the independence and determination that had always smouldered in her eyes. If they had, they would never have tried to change her into a demure Japanese flower in a kimono.

*NB On Train: This is an estimation. I haven't seen the anime, so I'm not sure if they give actually times, but the first train trip from Tokyo to Yokohama took nearly an hour, and by looking at a map, I figured the distance to Kyoto was about eleven times that. If anyone knows how long it actually took, then I'd be glad to know.

*****

A/N: I'm not going to be updating for about a week, since I'm going down to the coast, and after that, updates will be considerably slowed, since I'm running out of pre-written material, and have to go back to school.