"The difference between 'involvement' and 'commitment' is like an eggs-and-ham breakfast: the chicken was 'involved', the pig was 'committed'."

(Unknown)

Rurouni Yahiko

A Rurouni Kenshin Continuation fic
by Chester Castañeda

Here's more Chicken Madness.

Disclaimer: All characters used in this fanfic (save some others) are the rightful property of Nobuhiro Watsuki and Sony. Don't sue me please, I'm very poor.

Chapter 8: The Peculiar Peculiars

It appeared that Chizuru was not amused. And neither was Gan, especially after the Raikouji woman unceremoniously kicked his shin. Being an indubitably straightforward guy himself, he surmised the obvious, stating, "You really hate that name, huh?" as he hopped about on one leg.

Chizuru merely turned her head away from the hoodlum and indignantly flipped her hair in one motion.

"Actually," came Satoru's timely interruption that, by chance, caught everyone's attention once more, "regardless of ambiguous 'vents', I have no doubts that Gan-san's chicken is a rooster that looks like a hen. Or an Onnako, if you will."

"Ah, I see. Yes, yes, of course!" Gan chimed in, nodding vigorously as he hobbled towards the somewhat startled Satoru and slung his meaty arms over him. "Imagine! A rooster that looks like a hen! Ah, hell, I guess that makes sense. He's a mighty fine rooster if I do say so myself. Good for cockfighting and stuff! Don't you agree, Mister Sakaguchi?"

"Huh?" Satoru stammered in stupefaction, which the burly lout took as a signal to continue his wheedling.

"In fact, I bet my rooster will soooo help me pay off all the food bills I owe your wife and then some! So what do you say, sir? If you'll just let both me and my rooster go right now, I'll make sure that..."

"Now wait just a minute!" Chizuru and Yahiko protested in unwilling chorus, or perhaps chorused in very willing protest, which made them glance at each other in surprised incomprehension.

Whichever the case, Chizuru recovered first, pinching Gan's right earlobe and recommencing, "That policeman and husband of the woman you just conned is the last person you should try to swindle, bandanna man! He'd sooner throw you to the hoosegow than risk having your payment go down the drain because of your serious gambling addiction. You can bet on that, at least."

"Ulp," Gan ulped. He then took his arm off of Satoru and adjusted the older man's collar and coat. "Heh, heh. Um, sorry about that, officer."

"Besides which, I think father is mistaken about that chicken." All and sundry turned towards the latest person to walk into the bizarre conversation's spotlight, which they all thought was Kyoko, but she merely shook her head vigorously and proclaimed, "That wasn't me!"

"Good afternoon," Nonoko Sakaguchi bowed, waved, then playfully took out a leek from her basket of groceries and twirled it around like a baton. Cue the expected spit-takes and facefaults.

"W-What are you doing here, Nonoko-san? And since when did you get here anyway?" Yahiko queried hotly, more flustered than annoyed.

"I've been here since you and our unpaid customer-san arrived here, Yahiko-kun," Nonoko answered blissfully as she set aside her groceries on the nearest table and took a seat. "I'm guessing that the chicken outside is part of Gan-san's payment, eh? Wow, how thoughtful!" Yahiko inwardly groaned at that last statement.

Gan started to think of something to say to acknowledge his own presence to Nonoko... perhaps a greeting, or even an apology... but his instincts told him that the pushy, tactless Chizuru was just going to interrupt him anyway, so he didn't bother.

"You've been here the whole time? Why didn't you even try to let us know you're here?" True to form, Chizuru admonished Nonoko's sudden appearance, her hands on her hips, more annoyed than flustered.

"Oh? I was so surprised and happy that my dear husband has come home after such a long time that I wanted to greet everyone from the start, but I thought it was rude for me to interrupt your interesting little discussion," Nonoko justified, adding, "So I basically waited for the opportunity to be part of your conversation. It's the polite thing to do, I believe."

Chizuru bemoaned Nonoko's reasoning with a look of utter exasperation on her face, giving Kyoko a meaningful glance that stated, "Now do you understand why we had that little argument a while back? Why your mother was duped by a harebrained scheme from an overeating gambling addict? This is the reason why."

"Well, I don't quite understand what's going on, but if that's the case... I'm back, Honey! I'm so happy to be able to return to my home sweet home after such a long time and see that nothing has changed! Come, join our little dialogue. Debate on it to your heart's content," Satoru hailed as he took his wife by the hand and kissed her on the cheek.

"Welcome home, dear! I'd love to fix you an early dinner, but I'm still wondering whether or not I should make chicken stew, chicken soup, or fried chicken," Gan shook his head forcefully at all of Nonoko's suggestions, "or maybe I should just save it for later and have a vegetable stew for now, just so we can wait for her to lay her eggs. Raw eggs go great with Tanuki Udon, don't you think?"

"I love your Tanuki Udon almost as much as your Extra Large Special Soba! I'll look forward to it, Honey. Oh boy, I knew coming home to Shinshu was a great idea," Satoru enthused, doing his silly little jig of ecstasy that sent nearly everyone else to the floor, their limbs a twisted mass of vexation. "But setting all that aside... Mother, I think you're mistaken about one teensy little thing."

Nonoko tilted her head in askance as an unseen flash of light struck her right between the eyes. "Oh? And what's that, dear?" Her sweet voice belied a disconcerting sharpness that made Chizuru, Kyoko, and Satoru flinch; their minute reaction went over both Yahiko and Gan's heads only because, as outsiders to the Sakaguchi circle, the pair wouldn't know better. "Well? What's that one teensy thing you're talking about, father?"

"Uh, well, you see..." Satoru's eyes darted around the room as he struggled for an appropriate reply, then found the resolve to condescendingly answer, "I'm sorry, but you're wrong. The chicken outside is obviously a rooster. After all, it just crowed a while ago."

Satoru's sudden burst of assuredness was backed by recalling the culture-conditioned belief that the Japanese Patriarch should always have the final say-so in most any family discussion.

Still smiling her sugary smile, Nonoko begged to differ, maintaining, "But you're the one who's confused, dear. It most certainly is an Otome: A hen that looks like a rooster."

"First time I ever heard 'Otome' used that way," Chizuru whispered, not said aloud, because even though Nonoko had always been the epitome of the typical submissive Japanese housewife, that fiery, stubborn look she currently sported was something to be reckoned with.

'Huh. I guess I'm a bad influence to her after all,' the Raikouji Heiress admitted to herself.

"Huh. I guess you're a bad influence to the soba lady after all." Of course, true or not, Chizuru still didn't want to hear that same sentiment from Gan, of all people. "OW! Stop kicking me on the shin, woman! I just went through an impromptu marathon, y'know!"

To Nonoko's chagrin, Gan wasn't the only one inadvertently reiterating Chizuru's tart remarks. "Come now, mother! That's the first time I ever heard 'Otome' used that way! That sounds completely redundant! You're obviously making up new meanings to words, because 'Otome' doesn't mean what you think it means!"

"Well, at least I'm not outright making up words! 'Onnako' is definitely not a word! Have you been drinking again?" Nonoko accused in rapid-fire succession, her eyebrows firmly furrowed together in spousal disapproval and disappointment.

"N-No, of course not!" Satoru defensively sputtered, taken aback by his wife's sudden change in temperament and her harsh non-sequitur. Claiming a rooster to be a rooster was nothing to be angry about, dammit! Or so he thought, anyway.

"Then what makes you say that that hen is a rooster? Have you ever seen a rooster with feathers like this?" Nonoko disputed as she picked out the chicken feathers stuck on her kimono's sleeves and thrust them at her husband's face. To think that he'd question her judgment as though she were only jumping to a spur-of-the-moment conclusion! How rude!

Earlier, while the five of them were chitchatting desultory topics about this and that inside the soba shop, the Sakaguchi Matriarch had secretly examined the odd bird for herself. She had inspected it thoroughly and was quite certain that it was a she and not a he... hence the feathers on her sleeves.

"Listen. My father and I have handled fighting roosters since I was a little boy, unlike you and your swordsmith father. If this were a discussion concerning swords and metal forging, I'd take your word for it, but as it is, you know nothing about poultry!" Satoru commandingly snapped, his livid face becoming red enough to give credence to Nonoko's previous allegations of drunkenness.

Before Yahiko, Gan, Chizuru, and Kyoko realized what had happened, both husband and wife were now arguing about the chicken all by themselves. The four of them watched in engrossed raptness as the train wreck of a lover's quarrel concerning fowl gender declined into unpleasant and immature nonsense... from two adults that should know better, no less.

"Is this what we get for including you in the Sakaguchi family register? You ingrate! How dare you insult my father's occupation!"

"Who's insulting whose occupation? You're twisting my words! I'm just saying that the son of a gamecock breeder knows more about chickens than the daughter of a swordsmith!"

"Heh. He said cock... OW! MAN! Can you at least kick the other leg, Kaori-OW! NOT NOW!"

"Yahiko! Do something!"

"Nu-uh."

"Enough about my father or your father! They have nothing to do with the fact that that chicken is a rooster!"

"Father? Mother?"

As the foursome turned their heads back and forth from Nonoko to Satoru while the ping-pong exchange escalated, they silently pondered to themselves, "..."

Soon, Nonoko was crying. As Kyoko and Chizuru knew, she always cried whenever she argued with her husband. "You know full well that it's a hen," the middle-aged woman sobbed petulantly. "You're just being mean and stubborn. To think I was so excited about cooking you a Tanuki Udon, and then you pull a stunt like this! Anata no baka!"

Distraught, Nonoko went straight for her disconcerted daughter and wept on her shoulder. As Kyoko awkwardly comforted her mother, she herself looked like she was about to cry, though for an entirely different reason.

"I'm sorry," Satoru apologized, "but I know a rooster when I see one." Then he gently eased Kyoko out of Nonoko's grip and tenderly put his arms around his trembling wife, calling her cheesy names like my Princess Kaguya, my Izanami, and my Tamamo-no-Mae, because he always did that when she cried.

Yahiko and Gan felt rather embarrassed/upset/guilty/queasy for witnessing (and indirectly causing) such a private and tender moment, so they decided to sneak out to the back of the restaurant without another word... which was a wise and self-preserving thing to do, bearing in mind that Chizuru was already cracking her knuckles in righteous female indignation.

Curiously enough, it was Kyoko who intercepted the two browbeaten males just as they were fetching their tied-up, androgynous chicken. Yahiko had never seen the Sakaguchi girl so irate since... well, he first met her, truth be told, but that was when she was still suffering from residual trauma caused by the fake Battousai Group's deceased leader, Keisuke. It looked like the good graces he had just earned from her after surviving the hellish Soujiro Seta fight had come and gone like sea foam.

"You're not mad at me, are you?" Yahiko cautiously probed as he wiped his sweaty brow, his pleading eyes subtly reminding the girl, 'I kind of, sort of saved you from Psycho-Kid; that counts for something, right?' He pointed at Gan, debating, "You should be mad at him! Well, er, what I meant to say was... I'm sorry about... him. Real sorry. He's sick, you see. Leprosy of the brain. OUCH!"

"Just because I can bear that kind of abuse from Kaori-neechan doesn't mean I'll let you off the hook when you do it, Yoshi-boy!" Gan grumbled after conking the boy with his wrapped-up metal bat. "Seriously! Give a person a hand, and he'll take your whole..."

A sudden shout of "ENOUGH!" shut the both of them up.

Glaring daggers at Gan, Yahiko, and the hapless rooster/hen, Kyoko gently warned, "Please don't come anywhere near the soba shop with that chicken of yours. If you want to pay your bill, pay us with something else, preferably cash," which roughly translated to "Don't you dare make my parents argue again. This is the first time I've seen my father in months, and I want a happy family reunion. Do this because me and my grandfather's sword cane said so." With that, she brusquely turned and slid the shop's backdoor shut right in front of the two men's shocked faces.

For a long time, the two supposedly macho warriors just stood there, completely flabbergasted. The sunset came and went, minding its own business.

"Hey, Yoshi-boy."

A pause. "Eh?"

"What just happened?" A stray dog howled in the distance.

Yahiko put a hand over his obi and slid Takae's kabuto over his spiky hair. "Who knows?"

"Jeez. I'm just glad to be out of that restaurant, to be honest," Gan confessed, his presently genderless bird and token big blunt object in tow. "There were way too many people in that room that I couldn't cut in on the conversation in the later parts. It made me feel like an extra in a Kabuki show. And a family feud even erupted from out of nowhere, for Buddha's sake! I also had less 'screen time' than I would have preferred."

"Huh. The comic relief wants more 'screen time.' That's rich," Yahiko mumbled.

"What did you just say?" Gan brazenly confronted.

"I said I know who can settle this question," Yahiko replied... lied, actually... ithout missing a beat.

"What question?" Gan inquired, scratching his head.

"MAN! You really are too dumb to live! Are you even paying attention?" was what Yahiko was supposed to say had Gan not put him in a chokehold after the "too dumb to live" crack.

Luckily for them, the unattended chicken itself was too dumb to live, staring soullessly at the whole scene when it could have just escaped. "GEE! SORRY FOR BEING TOO DUMB TO LIVE! OOPS! ME SO DUMB ME ACCIDENTALLY BROKEN YOUR NECK!"

Yahiko's "Didn't you want to know whether that chicken is a rooster or a hen?" came out as "Hgggk ykk wgak ta nu wrggak chork su a gurkle ora hrk!" but somehow, thankfully, the allegedly Dodo-brained Gan was able to somewhat decipher the statement.

"Oh, so that's what you meant. Why didn't you just say so in the first place? You're the one who's too dumb to live, moron!" The thuggish brute let the sixteen year old go, but then balked, querying, "Hey, you okay, Yoshi-boy? What are you doing there on the ground? Hey! Hang on!"

After gasping for air for what seemed to be hours on end while the Unnerved Gan unknowingly worsened his condition by violently swatting him on the back as though he were choking on something, the blue-faced Yahiko was able to recover his health and wits. Barely.

"L-Like I was saying... (cough) I may know someone who can tell the difference between a rooster and a hen better than squabbling spouses can."

Gan skeptically raised a bushy eyebrow as he gently took hold of the chicken in question, which surprised Yahiko to some extent. "Oh no. I'm through with trying to find out whether this chicken is a chick or a cock! Who the hell cares anyway? Let's get this over with and just go to the cockpits already!"

"Hmmm. That... actually sounds fair. Wow. I take back what I said about you being too dumb to live." Yahiko nodded, impressed. "Though I'm still morbidly curious whether or not I'm right about this chicken's gender... and I certainly don't think a hen should compete in a cockfight... why the hell not? Nobody can tell the difference anyway. You're right. Let's get this over with right now."

"Hey, hey! Can't we give this rooster a name, Yoshi-boy? I'm kind of sick and tired referring to it as 'the chicken' and shit all the time. Let's give it a better name, okay?" was Gan's off-topic request, feeling as though he "owed" Yahiko enough to ask for permission.

Yahiko made a face. "What is it with you and naming things, you weirdo? Focus for a minute, okay!"

Well, Gan was focused, but on an altogether different topic. "Oh, I know! Let's name him Sanosuke! That's a great name, right?"

The spit-take Yahiko did was so priceless, it was indescribable. "What?"

"Oh, so you know about Sanosuke too?" Gan stuck out his barrel chest and thumped on it proudly. "Harada Sanosuke: The Tenth Unit Captain of the Shinsengumi. A man's man whom even Vice-Commander Hijikata trusted and respected. One of the key players involved in the eventual assassination of the madman known as Serizawa Kamo. You really must know your history, Yoshi-boy! That's very good. Not many Meiji brats know about these things." It was the brawny man's turn to nod in admiration.

Yahiko hastily wiped the abnormally large drop of sweat at the back of his head. 'Who the hell is Harada Sanosuke? Ah, whatever. Still, a 'rooster' just got named after 'rooster head', and I wasn't the one who did it. How bizarre. What an amusingly strange guy you are, Gan,' Yahiko summed up to himself as he privately chuckled. "Fine, fine. Our tomboy hen's name is Sanosuke. So as I was saying..."

"So who's that person you were just talking about? The one who can tell Sanosuke's true gender?" Gan cheerfully resumed.

Yahiko extricated his face from the ground. "YOU WERE JUST SAYING THAT WE SHOULD LET THAT MATTER DROP AND GO TO THE COCKPITS, MEATHEAD!"

"Hey! Come on! You just said that you were morbidly curious about whether or not you're right about that chicken! Want to bet on it?" Gan smilingly offered. Yahiko glared at Gan. The beefier man cleared his throat.

"Besides which, I've already changed my mind. Keep your shirt on, kiddo," the hoodlum defended, having enough clueless gall to be befuddled by Yahiko's reaction, of all things. "A rooster named Sanosuke just has to be the strongest, most macho rooster of all time, so there's no way it could be a girly little chicken."

'Can that even be called a reason? This guy is giving me a splitting headache just by existing. Jeez.' Yahiko waved Gan's blather off. "Fine, fine. Just make up your mind already!"

"So?" Gan playfully nudged Yahiko's shoulder. "Who is it?"

"We're going to see the father of a friend of mine," Yahiko stated as he instinctively petted the newly christened "Sanosuke" on the head. It pecked his fingers in return.

Grumbling and shaking his throbbing hand, Yahiko continued, "Before getting into the silk-weaving and thatch-sewing business, he was also involved in cockfighting and a host of other questionable professions that he doesn't bother mention. He's a man of many trades. I swear, you can throw him anywhere in Japan, from Okinawa to Hokkaido, and he'd still survive. He lives downtown in Shinshu."

After a significantly long period of uncomfortable silence, Gan groused, "So?" as he tapped a calloused foot impatiently. "What's his name, this Anywhere Man?"

Yahiko ground his teeth together. He wished that Sanosuke Sagara's (nee Higashidani) father's name was Anywhere Man. For once, the boy actually understood Gan's mania of giving everyone he met "better" names. It was just that... well... the name Higashidani was already a tongue-twister in itself, but to couple that with a silly name like Kamichu... Monkagisho... Goemonshiga... 'Dammit, I couldn't even pronounce or remember it in my mind!'

"WHO IS ANYWHERE MAN?" Gan queried dramatically, shaking the distracted Yahiko by the shoulders.

"His name is... His name is..." Yahiko was sweating bullets by this time. "Kamigoe..." he mumbled.

"Minoe?" Gan queried.

"No, no!" Yahiko stared vacantly at Gan, blinking in idle surprise. "Eh? Minoe? Are you kidding me? That eye-patched weirdo is the last person I'd ask about the time of day, much less that chicken's gender." He stopped himself halfway through his thoughtless diatribe, pensively deducing, "He's standing right behind me, isn't he?"

"And he's crying too," Gan confirmed, which made Yahiko cringe and wince.

'I knew it,' the younger man surmised in resignation.

"You're being mean to me for no good reason, Yahiko-chi!" Minoe sniveled, tears streaming down his reddened cheeks through both of his eyes... patched and un-patched... which made Yahiko wonder if the eye patch was just ornamental.

"You may complain about the names Gan-chi gives to people or how strange I may act, but you yourself have a way with words! Don't you know what daggers and knives tactless words can be to the human heart?"

"S-Sorry about that," Yahiko stumbled, scratching his head at the pitiful scene. "I-I didn't know you were behind me."

And so yet another unthinking, double-entendre faux pas entrenched itself inside Minoe's glass heart, making him wail even louder. "I didn't mean it that way! Come on!" the spiked-haired lad protested.

"The jerk store called. They're running out of you," Gan heckled in retaliation, suddenly appearing beside the crying Minoe in order to gang up on the ingenuous Yahiko. To the young man's mortification, even the chicken itself looked at him disapprovingly.

"OKAY! I get it." Yahiko guiltily bowed low in front of them. "I'm sorry. Terribly sorry. It's my fault. I won't do it again. Probably."

The trembling, pathetic look that Minoe presently sported told Yahiko that his cordial apology wasn't quite enough to appease the sensitive man. So, in order for him to get things over with and manage a Japanese-approved way for the blubbering fool to save face, he did something he just knew he'd regret later.

"So how would you solve this chicken dilemma, Minoe-san?"

As though he hadn't just bawled his eyes out, Minoe perked up like a sugar-high toddler, recovering his composure in record time. "Now that I've discovered that no one man can solve your problems, I've now decided to contribute to them!"

Yahiko palmed his face and shook his head, feeling as though he had just been had.

Three weeks ago, in Jusanro Tani's old mansion outside Shinshu...

"You look well," the glasses-wearing middle-aged man greeted the boyish twenty-something that just entered his room. "You were all sweaty and tired yesterday, collapsing unto your futon in exhaustion. However, you looked quite happy, from what I can see."

The older man clasped his hands into a steeple and rested his face on them, the glint on his spectacles obscuring his impenetrable expression. "Did something interesting happen, Seta-kun?"

Soujiro smiled and chuckled gaily. "You can tell when I'm happy? I'm impressed, Akahori-san. I truly am."

"You're slightly hobbling in your step," Tetsuo Akahori appraised, his eyes narrowing slightly. "Did you really have such a hard time with that fake Battousai Group or was your report false and you already engaged in a fight with the real Battousai Group?"

"That's not it," Soujiro smilingly waved off as he approached his hawkeyed employer. "Like I said in my report, nearly all of the doppelganger hoodlums were wiped out by the time I arrived, save one who was, bizarrely enough, castrated and left to die of blood loss. I mercy-killed him for his own sake."

Akahori knew that Soujiro was lying through his teeth with his last remark, for he was quite aware of the boy's relationship with the Sakaguchis' only biological daughter, Kyoko, and her connection with the castration victim, but he gave it no heed.

"Take note of that castration. It reveals a little something about our enemy's motive and psyche that we can use later on. The man who was castrated was a known rapist and murderer, was he not? That may have something to do with it... an instance borne out of a twisted sense of justice, if you will."

"Yes, sir," Soujiro assented, his smile unchanging. "I'll take note of it, sir."

"Is your fight with the Myojin boy the reason why your legs are cramped up? You said he was of no consequence to your mission, but you bothered to report his presence nonetheless," Akahori probed further, his deadpan eyes, stony features, and clinical tone betraying nothing of his own opinions.

Soujiro felt as if every meeting with Akahori played out like an intense game of poker, what with them sporting pokerfaced expressions during their sessions of roundabout question and answer and all. "That's not it either. I got this slight cramp after the fight, when I ran back to the mansion to... exercise. The boy himself was of no threat to me."

"Sit," Akahori ordered, and then evaluated, "Everything has a cause and an effect... a motive and an opportunity to act upon it. You just had your katana broken during a fight; something that hasn't happened in years. The only other person to accomplish this feat was the first person who had ever defeated you in a swordfight.

"Although you didn't even have a scratch on you after fighting this Myojin Yahiko, the truth that he'd bested you, however slight, has made you wary or even excited. I believe the fact that this boy has ties to Himura Battousai has something to do with your actions. You must've been thinking, 'Why couldn't I finish him off?' or 'How does he keep on catching up to me?' leaving you intrigued and bothered.

"That's the reason why you did something as careless as wasting your energy by running from the outskirts of East Valley to this mansion outside Shinshu using your full Shukuchi. It had nothing to do with being late for your daily report. You wanted to see your current limits for yourself, because the boy had nearly discovered them for you."

Soujiro laughed out loud in his seat, his hand scratching the back of his head in seeming sheepishness. "You got me, Akahori-san. Nothing escapes your razor-sharp wit and steel-trap intellect."

For once, Akahori wasn't quite able to figure out what Soujiro was thinking... whether the young man intended his praise to be sincere or sarcastic.

There was a pregnant pause. "How did Yahiko-san manage to catch up to me, Akahori-san? Was it my fault? Was it a fluke?" the former Ten Ken ventured after some thought.

"A trapped, desperate man that had everything on the line will take advantage of absolutely anything at hand to get out of his dead end, whether consciously or subconsciously. In Myojin-kun's case, I gather that he must have taken advantage of your sudden bursts of excitement and continuing vexation, using them instead of murderous intent to predict your next move. He was able to discover a weakness that you yourself weren't aware of."

Akahori sat up and morosely looked through the western-styled glass door leading to the balcony, his back turned at Soujiro. "In other words, he used the same tactic Battousai used to get into your head, making you defeat yourself yet again."

Soujiro lowered his eyes in outwardly jovial contemplation. "I see."

Akahori turned and looked directly at his charge, his eyes burning with a depth and passion that the boy had never imagined he possessed, making him look like a totally different person.

"Don't be careless. I need your strength at this critical time. I have time and again pointed out to you the weak points of your Shukuchi and your own fragile heart: weapons that our enemies can use against you. That's all I can do. It's entirely up to you to overcome them. Do this, and become stronger. Unleash the true potential of the Ten Ken, and you will find the answer you've been searching for that neither Shishio Makoto nor Himura Kenshin can provide."

Soujiro stood up and bowed obediently. "Thank you." He took his leave.

Three weeks later, in Shinshu...

"Before anything else, before you say even one word," Yahiko cautioned, his finger pointed steadfastly at Minoe, "please do tell me how you were able to survive that entire fleet of bats. I really am curious about that."

Minoe gave Yahiko a peaceful, sparkling smile that would have rivaled Soujiro's vacant one or Yutaro's flirty one. "Well, now! Let's not get too engrossed with the details, Yahiko-chi, or else we'll all grow old real fast! Hihihihihi!" Disturbingly enough, a pair of large batwings sprouted from either side of the eye-patched man's head, like something out of a horror story.

"AAAAH! A succubus! I mean, incubus! I mean, youkai!" Gan bellowed as he swung his big metal bat at an oblivious Minoe, scaring "Sanosuke" so badly that a haggard-looking Yahiko had to tiredly trudge forward to catch the frightened bird, unmindful of the chaos around him. "Patches has been possessed by mutant Mononoke-Oni hybrids! I'll save him by baking his brains with the heat of my fury!"

"GEEEH! What are you talking about, Gan-chi? Now you're being mean to me for no good reason!" the one-eyed man cried as he stumbled away pitifully from the beefy thug's attacks, clumsily avoiding the wild, crater-generating bat swings by the hairbreadth as the batwings on his head flapped and fluttered about. "Huh? Hey! What are these things doing on my head? WAH! I've turned into a vampire!"

The large bat from a while back, which Minoe dubbed as "Kitsune-chi", revealed itself to everyone by crawling up from behind its target and biting his forehead. The pirate-looking man-child scrambled and scampered about in understandable alarm. Then, out of the crevices of the nearby trees and houses, a whole swarm of the hateful mammals emerged, engulfing their victim's face with acts of animalistic violence.

"OW! NOT NOW! THIS IS JUST SO RANDOM! WRRRRYYYYYYYYY!" Thud. There was an incredible jolt of pain, and then it all went dark.

Okay, so it wasn't completely dark. A moment later, Minoe could see light from the stars coming in through his haze of suffering, but these were considerably dimmer than the sea of pyrotechnics where his head was swimming in at the moment. He scratched his disheveled toupee. "Are they all gone now, Yahiko-chi-tachi?"

And everybody just stared.

"Eh?" Minoe spluttered. "What is it? More bats?"

"Um, hey... your wig is all crooked and stuff, and so is your eye patch. You ought to fix that," Yahiko pointed out quietly, handing the Sanosuke chicken back to Gan without taking his eyes off of Minoe. Gan received the bird in a similarly shocked manner.

"Ahehehehehe! Mochiron!" Minoe straightened his hairpiece and fixed his eyepiece, spreading large bits of perspiration, anxiety, and discomfited awkwardness all over the place. "Er, aren't you going to ask...?"

Gan and Yahiko both shook their heads and waved the matter off. "We don't want to get old real fast. Meaning: Screw the details, we just don't want to know," confessed the latter.

"Ah, I see! Mochiron! Mochiron!" Minoe quipped, clapping giddily. "Thank you for your thoughtfulness and understanding, Yahiko-chi-tachi!"

"Yeah, yeah, sure, but can you please stop it with the cutesy talk? Adding 'chi' to people's names and crying at the drop of a hat... Honestly! You're a grown man! That doesn't look right on a grown man! It's downright creepy, even!" Yahiko insisted as he worked himself up to a storm. He figured that since nearly everybody he'd met so far had gone through at least one fit of craziness, it was about time he filled in his allotted quota.

"Now, now, Yoshi-chi!" Gan mocked as he familiarly slung his arm over the younger man's shoulder the same way he did to Satoru earlier, "Stop crapping bricks about small things. We were just talking about you and your bad manners, short temper, and foul mouth. Being honest is great, but knowing when to shut your trap is a hell of a lot better!"

"I'm okay with that, but..." Yahiko conked Gan on the noggin. "Even when you're imitating Minoe, you still can't get my name right!"

Minoe giggled girlishly... not effeminately, girlishly... at the duo, which subsequently sent chills down their respective spines. "You guys are the best! I can just watch the both of you talk for days on end and never get tired of it. It almost makes me kind of glad that Gan-chi ate all of Raedo-sempai's meat buns. I would have never met you two otherwise!"

"Er, I'm glad you feel that way!" Gan crookedly smiled. "Say, since I've been having enough trouble with my tab with the Sakaguchis, I was kind of wondering if you could...?"

"No dice, Gan-chi." For an emotionally imbalanced and thin-skinned person, Minoe did a rather impressive deadpan.

"Come on! What happened to you was an Act of God, so I'm not liable for it in any way," Gan rationalized, putting his hands up in defense, which naturally led to the escape of his prized chicken. Yet, oddly enough, Sanosuke did no such thing. Instead, it flew right into Minoe's waiting arms.

Blinking in surprise, Minoe shook his head briefly as he took stock of his bearings. "Oh yeah. I almost forgot. Silly me. I was supposed to find out the chicken's true gender. My bad."

"Aho! Aho!" a couple of crows cackled as they perchance flew away from the nearby rooftops. Gan exhaled in relief, wiping his damp forehead. Meanwhile, Yahiko leaned on a nearby fence, using it as support to save himself from falling due to escalating aggravation.

'These guys defy all logic,' Yahiko hissed to himself. 'Well, at least we can finally identify whether Sanosuke's a rooster or... Like hell we are! Minoe knows nothing about that!'

"So what name did you give to this fine bird?" Minoe asked Gan as he gently stroked the chicken's feathery mane. "You did name it, right?"

Gan grinned. "We sure did! We call him Sanosuke now! My prize-winning meal ticket should have a warrior's name, and you can't get more kick-ass than Harada Sanosuke!"

"Indeed! WAI! What a lovely name you have, Sano-chi," Minoe cheered for the chicken's sake, nose-kissing its beak before muttering a little too loudly, "You poor thing; having people wonder whether you're a girl or a boy. I know exactly how you feel."

The fence didn't save Yahiko from falling to the ground this time around. 'I knew it. More nonsense.' To Minoe, the Tokyo Samurai Descendant retorted, "Again, too much information. More importantly: FOCUS. Please. Just. Focus." He got up and dusted his hakama edgily.

"Spoilsport," Minoe pouted, then stuck his tongue out peevishly at the sweat-dropping Yahiko. From there, the toupee-wearing, buccaneer-like nonconformist started his discourse on the sexual orientation of ambiguously gendered fowls.

Munenori Minoe was a mysterious, if somewhat strange, man. Yahiko didn't think that the eye-patched eccentric was the kind of person who could solve such an unusual problem. Soujiro Seta smiled a lot. All three of the previous sentences were understatements.

In any case, the spiked-haired young man soon found Minoe to be a regular "philosopher" of sorts; not the good kind, even. Simply put, he was a man who explained his strange views with even stranger reasons.

For example, just now, Minoe revealed to them through his aimless tirade that he frowned upon cockfighting, much to Gan's dismay. Nevertheless, that was a fairly reasonable stance. Many people objected to the bloodsport, their reason being either that they thought it was too cruel or they thought gambling was bad.

Alas, neither of these was Minoe's reason. For him, cockfighting was a waste of time because it had been proven that one gamecock could beat another.

Yahiko was banging his head on a nearby tree at that point. "So," the boy with the candid tongue, thinning patience, and lack of etiquette stressed as he tried very hard not to give in to any of his bad inclinations, "is this chicken a male or a female?"

"That is a question that should concern only another chicken," Minoe replied.

Gan steadfastly held the berserker Yahiko back by grabbing onto both of his hands before they could reach Minoe's neck. "Easy, Yoshi-boy. Easy. Wipe that white froth off your mouth. Let's try a different approach this time, shall we?"

Once Yahiko calmed down a bit, Gan hazarded, "Look, Patches. Me and Yoshi-boy happen to take a special interest in this particular chicken."

"Special interest" meaning "cockfighting to pay the bills", of course, but the burly hooligan dared not reveal that to the animal-loving Minoe. "Please give us an answer. Just say 'yes' or 'no'. Is this a rooster?"

"It does not look like any rooster that I have ever seen," answered Minoe.

"So it's a hen, then," Yahiko concluded.

"It does not look like any hen that I have ever seen," was the reply.

Gan and Yahiko were dumbfounded. For a long while, they remained speechless. Then Minoe asked, "Have you ever seen an animal like this before?"

The both of them had to admit that they hadn't.

"Then how do you both know it's a chicken?"

"Well, what else could it be?" Yahiko asked in return with a touch of impatience.

"It could be another kind of bird."

"..."

And so Yahiko wordlessly took Sanosuke off of Minoe's hands and turned his back on him, moving away in the opposite direction. Gan, after recovering from his own thunderstruck astonishment, followed suit.

"Wait! Where are you two going? Yahiko-chi! Gan-chi! Come back!" Minoe sniveled as he melodramatically groveled on the two flabbergasted men's feet, grabbing onto the sleeves of their hakama for good measure. "My deduction was brilliant! Perfect! And yet you still go. You both think I'm a complete dunderhead, don't you? Well, it's been proven time and again that genius is always unappreciated when it's ahead of its time!"

Yahiko had had enough. Bad manners aside, unwarranted bluntness aside, and rudeness aside, he fumed, "No, 'genius'. We think you're a moron because you're incapable of learning, incapable of seeing reason, and incapable of discussing things in a give-and-take manner. All you do is throw a fit, pout, and spout nonsense. Then you cry foul when we call you on it. Sorry, but that's not our fault."

"How harsh! I was only trying to help," Minoe whimpered as he did the "scorned lover" posture, complete with outstretched hands and fluttering eyelids. Yahiko and Gan suppressed the urge to shiver. "You're being too cruel for your own good, Yahiko-chi! Don't you think so, Mister Gan-chi-chan-sama-taicho-sir?"

Even as an obsessive-compulsive maniac when it came to naming things, Gan had to draw the line somewhere and recoil at the flowery, honorific-laden appellation that Minoe gave him. "I'm sorry, Patches, but I have to agree with Yoshi-boy this time. You're nuts, and you're not coming along with us."

Minoe bit on his gi's collar and went teary eyed on Gan, to the latter's embarrassment. "How could you say that when it's your fault that I'm in this situation in the first place? Had you not done that thing you did to me, sempai wouldn't have... I would have... I would have LIVED A HAPPIER LIFE! Give me back my happy days, GAN-CHIII!"

A couple of middle-aged mothers walking down the street looked at both Gan and Minoe suspiciously, then walked away, murmuring gossip. The eye-patched man was referring to Gan's meat bun thievery, of course, but to the casual observer, the outburst looked like another thing entirely.

Well, if begging didn't work, then outright guilt-tripping and highly inappropriate misinterpretations from strangers might help, Minoe reckoned.

"Fine! We'll let you go with us! Just don't do that disturbing thing you just did ever again!" The Exhausted Gan sighed in utter defeat. "Let's bring him along, Yoshi-boy."

Yahiko crossed his arms is disappointment. "Humph. I knew you'd say that. Wimp."

"So where are we going?" Minoe chirpily inquired, quickly recuperating from his recent crying fit in a way that induced Gan and Yahiko to grovel at his feet for reasons other than begging.

"To Kamigoemon... Kamogawa... To Sanosuke's old man in Shinshu!" Boy, did Yahiko hate Sanosuke's father's given name.

"Bukurk?" Sanosuke the Wonder Chicken bucked at Yahiko in surprise.

Minoe nodded sagely as Gan did a double spit-take. "Of course! If we went and found Sano-chi's father, he'd tell us whether Sano-chi is his daughter or his son! Or maybe we should ask its mother instead?"

"THAT AIN'T IT! I'm talking about some other Sanosuke's father, okay?" Yahiko screamed, already having apprehensions about bringing the weird toupee-wearer along.

"So what would another Sanosuke's father know about our Sanosuke's gender? Honestly, Yoshi-boy. You're beginning to channel our one-eyed friend's stu..."

Gan choked upon seeing Minoe's puppy-dog eyes... or puppy-dog eye, as the case may be... aimed at him. "...Stupendous intellect. Yeah. Both of you geniuses are two of a kind. U-huh." The burly man suppressed a guffaw.

"Old man Higashidani may not be an ornithologist or your chicken's next of kin, but seeing the alternative, I'd rather take my chances with him than with either of you guys." Yahiko harrumphed, inwardly cringing.

'Let's do that, or I could just go back to Tokyo and forget this improving myself crap, which is what any sane person would do. But now that I'm trapped in fools' company, logic has no place in my life anymore. Son of a bitch.'

A few hours later, in Shinshu...

While picking his nose, Gan idly remarked, "So we're going to take this rooster of mine to the family of a friend of yours, and they may or may not know what I already knew from the very start; that this here chicken is a rooster. And said family is apparently a bunch of cuckoos with an unpronounceable family name, a cantankerous old man that went through nearly every profession in existence, his overprotective dragon daughter that can give Kaori-neechan a run for her money, and a cripplingly timid, First Dan kendo boy that just happened to be studying under you. Huh. Small world."

Yahiko gave Gan a puzzled look as they continued to make their way into the dustier roads of Shinshu. "Why are you repeating everything we've talked about just now? Stop it already. It's irritating. If this were placed on a stage play right now, it would appear like a forced recap."

"Thank you for the forced recap, Gan-chi! I'm still a little lost on what we're supposed to do right now, so your speech was... Oh, the stars look pretty tonight!" Minoe twittered enthusiastically as he steadfastly held onto the legs of Sanosuke, Gan's ambiguously gendered chicken.

It still amazed Gan and Yahiko how often Minoe would innocently say those very same words after hearing Gan's constant needling/"recaps"; the effeminate man had an attention span that rivaled a pond koi's, they'd bet.

Gan snorted as he flicked the large snot off of his finger. "And Yoshi-boy's apparently annoyed at me for repeating what we've just been saying these past few hours or so while we walk straight for the dark, unlighted roads of Shinshu's ghetto... just because you've always been an irritable little prick."

"Mochiron," Minoe nodded in agreement, not helping the situation in any way.

"What, are you two picking a fight with me or something?" Yahiko snapped as he swung his cloth-wrapped-and-sheathed sword at Gan's head, which the latter deftly avoided with surprising dexterity.

The Tokyo Samurai Descendant had tried ignoring the burlier man's relentless goading, but knowing him... Well, to illustrate, the sixteen year old had been faithfully hitting Gan over the head so many times now that the hooligan could now see the strike coming from a kilometer away.

"I swear, if I weren't so hell-bent in improving my sword skills now that I've come of age, I wouldn't even be putting up with you two!"

"Whoa, really? You could have fooled me, dude!" Gan laughed. "'Come of age' my big, tight, hairy, beauty-marked butt!" Even the ever-clueless Minoe had to balk at the uncomfortable mental image.

"See here, Yoshi-boy. You keep trying to act all tough and mature for everyone to see, but you also keep on failing spectacularly in doing so! You're just like that Kaori chick from the soba shop, except of course you're a guy. You're both all bark and no bite when it comes to being mature, because you're both babies deep down inside! So let me just say that if you really want to commit to your genpuku thing, then get it over with in just one stab... trying too hard makes you look too insecure, and it'll leave too much of a bloody mess behind to boot."

Yahiko just looked blankly at Gan for a few moments before he, with the same deadpan expression on his face, successfully bonked the muscle-bound lout on the noggin by suppressing his malicious intent with sheer exasperation. "You're talking about seppuku, you dyslexic moron! Seppuku and genpuku don't mean the same thing!"

"Oh. There's a difference? Huh." Gan scratched his chin in reflection. "So tell me, which of the two does a person get forced to do all sorts of crazy things for the sake of honor: genpuku or seppuku? Or which of them means that, once you come of age, you slice your willy up or something? Wait, wait, wait; does genpuku, seppuku, and circumcision all mean the same thing?"

Yahiko simply palmed his face, offering no response. Obviously, Gan was making fun of him and his "Coming of Age" complex. Either that or the unbearable thug really was too stupid for words.

"Guys, we're here," Minoe announced decisively before Yahiko and Gan's argument about... well, basically nothing at all... escalated any further.

Minoe shouldn't have known where the trio was supposed to be going (this part of Shinshu was Yahiko's turf, after all), but he was helped out by the sudden and unexpected appearance of a largely unassuming yet strange little boy who was holding up a literal welcome mat... i.e., a thatched mat that had the word "welcome" stitched right onto it... above his head.

"Well, if it isn't my other favorite student, Outa! How's life treating you, kid?" Yahiko cheered his only other Kendo student aside from the scrawny, what's-his-face cop (and "Shinichi Kosaburo" was his name-o; so perhaps the "favorite student" comment applied more to Outa than the other guy, since Yahiko at least remembered the little boy's name... somewhat) as he familiarly ruffled the young child's head.

"Hey, everyone! This is the son of the old guy I was talking about... Outa Higa... Outa. Just Outa. Say hello to everyone, Outa-kun."

The twelve-year-old waved bashfully at the two strange men and mouthed a silent "Hello, nice to meet you," at them. With large, mortifying droplets of sweat falling on the back of their heads, Gan and Minoe weakly waved back.

"Um, does your little friend have laryngitis or something, Yahiko-chi?" Minoe dared to venture.

"Nope, he's always been like that." Yahiko scratched his own head and sighed. "Sure, Outa's way shyer than, say, Tsubame or even Sakaguchi Kyoko, but looks can be very deceiving. In a way, that makes him just like his big brother, Sanosuke: both don't look very tough at first glance, but they're surprisingly strong when push comes to shove."

The Son of Tokyo Samurai was mostly talking to himself, of course, for he knew that there was no way for him to convince his two motley compatriots of his justifications save for an actual demonstration.

"Well, whatever, Yoshi-boy. All I know is that he's the cutest little wimpy kid I've ever seen in my life! C'mere, you pansy! Come to Big Poppa Gan for a manly bear hug!" Gan gruffly offered as he spread his arms wide in what he thought was a friendly gesture and went straight for the wide-eyed little boy. Outa dropped his welcome mat just as soon as the large thug's shadow completely enveloped his diminutive form.

"Wait! Gan, you idiot! Don't scare him like that!" warned Yahiko a bit too late.

To fully understand and appreciate the events that soon followed, one should put oneself in Outa's sandals at the time. Already morbidly introverted around people in general, the mere presence of a scary, beefy, and hairy stranger was almost overwhelming to the poor boy's timidity from the get go.

Couple that with the fact that Kamishimoemon, his father, told him in explicit, disgusting, and unnecessary detail what some scary, beefy, and hairy strangers did to cute little wimpy boys like him (for the boy's own good, he reassured his overprotective daughter) sealed Gan's fate... and perhaps Gan's ability to father children as well, since this was the second time today he was felled by a low blow.

"Aw jeez, Gan! I told you not to scare that little tyke! The First Dan in Kendo may not sound much, but the Kamiya School has actually been holding Outa back several grades because he can seriously injure some of the older kids in the higher rankings because of his latent skill and chronic shyness!"

Yahiko then wagged a finger at Outa while lightly smacking the kid's wrist. "Don't just crotch people at the drop of a hat, Outa-kun. That's bad, and you should know better. Who could have taught you such a thing?"

Outa tilted his head at Yahiko in utter puzzlement and curiosity. The Forbidden Technique of "The Wrath of the End of the Era"... the crotching move that the boy used against Gan... was one of Yahiko Myojin's signature moves! How could his own teacher not know who it was that taught him that maneuver? How silly of him.

"YOU COULD AT LEAST SHOW A LI'L MORE SYMPATHY TO THE ONE WHO'S INJURED, YOSHI-BOY!" Gan complained at Yahiko's sandals, which was completely reasonable considering his present vantage point.

To be Continued...

Next: The Higashidani Family.

I have nothing significant to add here. Save, of course, that RY's moving along pretty decently after a nigh-decade hiatus. Wonders never cease and all that. Oh, and Yahiko's sense of "giri" (duty) and "nakama" (comradery) are the only things keeping him from running for the hills in regards to Gan and Minoe's zaniness. Any self-respecting anime fan (oxymoron?) knows about the Japanese sense of honor, right?

Salamat sa pagbabasa!
Abdiel