Chapter Ten

Shinko spent the night in a small dingy inn by Kyoto's docks, tucked into a corner with her meal, trying to focus her concerns on her rapidly dwindling supply of money, rather than the rude comments of the various sailors, who, after they had worked out that she was a girl, had been torn between mocking her for being a washboard-figured cross-dresser, and suggesting she might be there looking for company. Of course, she would rather focus on that any day, rather than the meeting with her mother.

"Why are you tucked up there, sweetheart? Aren't we good enough for you?" One of the drunker sailors said, standing up from the bar. Shinko ignored him; as soon as she had let he mind wander back to the garden, she couldn't tear it away, and Tsubame's voice echoed through the memory, the simple way that she had said Shinko drawing pangs of home-sickness from where they'd lain dormant.

"You won't even answer me? What kind of behaviour is that? Didn't your mother teach you any manners?" The last question cut through Shinko's reverie, and in an instant she was on her feet, chopsticks splashing into her small bowl of watery miso soup.

"Shut up." She hissed, pulling one of the bokken out of her bag. "Go away."

"I hit a nerve," the sailor said jeering. He was large and well-muscled, like many of his kind, but he was staggering slightly, even from the effort to stand. "Why, was your mummy a street-walker? Is that why you have no manners?"

"Hey, Kimichi – go easy – maybe she's an orphan..." muttered another sailor, suddenly uncomfortable. The first man had just uttered a grave insult, in any situation, culture or language.

Shinko took a deep breath, anger icy in her veins as she stepped away from the table. She could see her hands shaking, but forced them to be still around the bokken as she faced Kimichi, impassive.

Shinko... Tsubame's voice ran through her mind again, warning, but she ignored it.

"If I had a blade, I would kill you where you stand for saying that." Even though she spoke quietly, the room echoed with her words, silenced by the icy aura emanating from her.

Nervous laughter rippled through the tavern, dying quickly. Somehow, no-one could bring themselves to doubt her; even Shinko – with the tiny part of her mind that wasn't overwhelmed with this cold, burning anger – knew that she meant every word, and was terrified by it.

Kimichi took a step back, nearly toppling over and bringing his fists unsteadily up in front of him. Shinko ignored them. She moved slowly, judging each movement in her mind as she made it, only at walking pace, until, just out of the reach of a single swing, the sailor watching her nervously, she stepped forwards with her left foot, swinging her blade up and through.

Even though there was little momentum to her attack, she threw all of her weight behind it, and the sailor, who was too drunk to do anything but stagger, felt it, as the wooden bokken slammed into his side, pushing him back several steps, until he teetered and fell.

The inn was silent, as every eye in the place stared at Shinko in horror. She been moving slow enough to easily be intercepted, but in the instant of the attack, it had seemed impossible, and now that it was over, no-one quite knew what she had done.

Shinko left the tavern, climbing up the stairs at the back to the room she had rented. As soon as she was out of sight, she felt her shoulders begin to shake, and she sank to the floor, leaning against the wall, staring at nothing as the emotions of the day, as well as exhaustion, fatigue, pain from her injured palms and horror at herself overwhelmed her, mixing with the agony of indecision left from the meeting with her mother.

Biting her lip and feeling her eyes blur, Shinko made her way quickly to her room, locking the door before she collapsed onto the futon, shaking as her breath escaped her in sobbing gasps.

She just wanted it to be... simple.

Shinko...

*

"Tsubame-chan, matte!" Yahiko caught his wife by the shoulders, holding her gently but firmly. "You can't just run off, how could you even find her?" He forced her to look into his eyes, ignoring her attempts to pull away.

"We have to find her! You can't just let her wander through Kyoto! It's bad enough she's been out there all night!" Tsubame shrieked. "You persuaded me to wait here for her to come back last night, but she didn't!" Tears began to slip down her eyes. "You knew she was here! And you told me that you'd run after some boy you mistook for her! She was injured!"

"Haha! Calm down!" Shinya ran to stand beside Yahiko, dropping the shinai he had been training with. "She was fi-" Shinya broke off as Tsubame glared at him.

"You be quiet!" Tsubame snapped, pointing a finger at Shinya. "You are grounded! And so are you!" She snapped at Yahiko, her eyes narrowed as she began to walk towards the door, ignoring the two's protests.

"Tsubame-chan?" Misao walked in from the garden, hair still undone after sleeping. "Don't you think that you're overreacting?"

Tsubame glared at the slightly older woman. "What would you do if it was Yuki?" she hissed, clenching her small fists.

"Ah..." Misao paused, before her face softened with understanding. "Well, in that case, Tsubame-chan, a little bird told me about a young girl who managed to take down a big brawny sailor twice her size by walking up to him and hitting him with a stick."

"Where?!" demanded Tsubame, rounding on Misao. "Where is she?"

"Dockside – small tavern called Umenemu-ya," Misao said, stepping back slightly. "I could go with you if you waited for me to get dre-" Misao didn't have time to finish her sentence before Tsubame ran out of the Aoi-ya, her sandals clattering on the cobbles.

"Come on Shinya," Yahiko said, pulling on his sandals. "She's very obstinate, I don't want her to hurt her hand on someone's face."

"But she's-"

"When I first met her, she was all of the things you were about to say. Now she's a mother." Yahiko tugged lightly on one of Shinya's spikes of hair. "Hurry up."

*

When Shinko woke up, the first thing she did was pull the blankets over her shivering, still-dressed form. The second was recall the previous day, and wonder that it could all fit into the space of a single afternoon and evening. This took less than five seconds, and then she managed a third thing – she heard screaming from downstairs.

"Where is my daughter?!"

Shinko let a stream of swear words escape her lips she had picked them up from uncle Sano, and pretended not to know them ever since. But they seemed appropriate as she heard her mother's banshee wail begin what promised to be another horribly eventful day.

It may have been the hardest thing she had ever done, but her duty as a Rurouni sent her running downstairs to save the stupid sailors that last night she would have gladly maimed...

"Haha!" Tsubame, flanked by Shinya and Yahiko, was facing down the innkeeper and a lot of foul-tempered, hungover sailors. The aura emanating from her would easily match Yahiko's when he was in a really foul mood.

"That's her mother?" One of the patrons asked weakly. "No wonder..."

"Shinko..."

"Haha... I'm fine. You don't have to scare these people..." Shinko said gingerly walking towards her mother and placing a hand on her shoulder. "I'm sure they have good points..." Yahiko placed his hand on Tsubame's other shoulder, and they guided her out, red-faced and quivering with pent-up emotion, her hair dishevelled.

"I wanted to hit them..." she said faintly.

Shinko almost laughed, wanting to add 'and I wanted to kill them', but it didn't seem appropriate. And the fact still scared her.

"They have their bad points too," She said instead.

"Why did you run away again?" Shinko froze at the question, not wanting to answer. She wasn't even sure that she could answer, but with her entire family standing around her, waiting for an answer, she could hardly refuse.

"Well, I... I didn't like wearing kimono, and not being allowed to practise kenjutsu, or do all the things that Shinya and Kenji could, and... I wanted to do something different... like Kaoru learning ikebana, last year, but more drastic..." She knew it was a lame explanation, but it was the best she could come up with..

"Running away, halfway across the country, is like learning how to arrange flowers?" Shinya asked in disbelief. "Maybe I should get lessons."

"Anyway, I like travelling. It's not like the roads are really dangerous, and I'm sure I could outrun most of anything that came my way... and I can help people. I helped Gohei – fatso-beard. He was a baddie, and now he – should – live in a nice inn and help people... of course he did try to steal it less than two weeks ago... And I beat up a heap of bandits who were charging a toll..." Shinko choked on her sentence, as she realised that the next phrase out of her mouth was going to be 'but they got a replacement who shoots at people'. "Anyway, please don't ask me to come home, or I'll just run away again..."

Tsubame stared at her daughter, open-mouthed, completely at a loss, as usual. After a moment she turned to Yahiko, who looked thoughtful.

"You'll still fight me in a week, that's the longest we can leave the Akabeko. Until then, you'll be training with Shinya and Kenji, as well as any other swordsman in the city who will train with you. If Tsubame deems you good enough, then we'll let you go."

"What? I'll never be allowed to-" Shinko broke off, seeing Tsubame's expression.

"Let's go back to the Aoi-ya. You and Shinya are still in trouble, Yahiko. And Shinko, even if I do let you go-"

"-which you won't-"

"- I expect you to send monthly pigeons. No excuses."

"But I-"

"We're going back – I can't be seen in public like this, and you, young lady, need a bath."

The patrons of the tavern had crowded at the door to watch the exchange, all except the barkeeper.

"I should really go pay my mother a visit..." muttered one as the four Myojin's left.

"Mine's dead; but I'm going to put some flowers on her grave – as soon as the sakura come out, or this afternoon... bye."

The innkeeper crouched behind the bar, a phone that was thoroughly out of style with the cheap decor, pressed to his ear.

"Tanuki-sama, the girl I told you about last night, the one who took down Kimichi last night, she just left – said she helped a man called Gohei, and beat up bandits. Yes, she's probably the same girl. She just left with her family – her father is Myojin Yahiko, no I don't think he's staying in Kyoto. HE said something about leaving after a week... wakata Tanuki-sama." The tavern keeper put the phone down, before standing up and announcing that he'd be opening the bar early this morning.

*

NB About Amekakeru no Hirameki: Now, we all know that Shinko isn't good enough to use Amekakeru in reality, but it's not unreasonable to assume that she knows the technique, since it was Kenshin's most impressive, and indeed, even in the very beginning, it was mentioned. However, this very slow-paced version, which one would assume would be easy to avoid, is actually not. It is actually very similar to an attack in the Italian fabris school of rapier (attack by resolution), when one approaches the enemy slowly with the point down in front of them. When just out of distance, the attacker steps forward with their favoured foot, raising their blade under their opponents to skewer the hapless fellow, while stepping forwards and to the side with their off-foot, and there is bugger-all he can do about it. This would be even truer if the opponent is too drunk to stand up straight.

And Tsubame must have become a little more assertive – she owns a restaurant and is married to Yahiko with Shinya and Shinko as children. They would have eaten her if she hadn't toughened up. Also, the goal is to update about once a week, within a day of Monday... So, for the last five minutes of sunday...

*