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Tanabata Jasmine: Chapter 3 - Foreboding

by Nekotsuki

Kamiya Kaoru glared at the chopping board and brought the knife down again, muttering.  Yahiko watched her nervously from the door.  There was a certain vicious streak to the way she was murdering the radishes that warned him not to open his mouth – much less insult her cooking the way he usually did.  He could barely hear what she was saying; her voice was drowned out by the stabbing of the blade into the wood, over and over again.

He had picked out a few words – 'Kenshin', 'baka' and 'late' being the most popular.  Wincing as he tiptoed away from the kitchen, he slipped away from the house on his way to the dojo. "Kenshin," he muttered, "wherever you are, don't come back while she's holding that knife."

A voice came out of the gathering darkness.  "What are you blathering about?"

Ack! He all but fell from the landing, and then turned around with a snarl on his face as he recognized the speaker.  "Oi, Sanosuke!  Quit doing that!"

"What?" The ex-gangster closed the gate behind him and sauntered through the yard, hands in pockets, white gi in stark contrast with the gloom.  "Can't I come by and say hello?  Where's Kenshin?"

"Where's Kenshin?" Yahiko mimicked.  "Pfft.  You're just here to freeload!"

Sano grinned. "Hey, I'm here to see friends.  What's a meal between friends?  It's hospitable and all."

They stared at each other for a moment; the man grinning, the boy glaring.  The silence was punctured by the steady thunk of dying vegetables.  They listened idly to the sound for a moment.  Eerily, Kaoru's next sentence drifted quite clearly through the oncoming evening.

"I'll give YOU 'oro'."

They stared at each other in shock as a malicious cackle came from the kitchen.  Yahiko almost laughed himself, watching Sano's face fall as he put two and two together.

"Kenshin's not here?"

"He went out for tofu ages ago," Yahiko snapped.  "He hasn't come back.  And that means Kaoru's cooking.  And the way she's going, we're going to have our food full of splinters."

Sano glanced to the kitchen, then back to Yahiko with an odd look.  "He's late, today of all days?  No wonder she's steamed.  But even Kenshin's not that clueless, surely." He hesitated.  "Oh, well.  If Jou-chan's cooking, I'd hate to put her out.  I'll come back some other time."

Yahiko smirked nastily.  "Whaddaya mean?  You should stay.  As you said, what's a meal between friends?"

"Don't be a wiseass," Sano said absently.  "That's my job."

"Hah!"

"I'll go find him.  Cooking aside, it's not like him to be late on a day like today.  Tell Jou-chan I'll bring him back in a bit."

And with a casual backhand wave, Sano let himself out the way he'd come.  Yahiko glowered after him.  Great.  Leave me with the hard job.  In the silence, Kaoru's voice floated through the air once more.

"Kenshin no baka!"

---------

The night had arrived in earnest by the time they reached their destination.  The sky, overcast, gave no light bar the faintest shadow of the full moon behind the clouds.  The breeze had picked up enough to flick his hakama constantly around his ankles, and the air seemed moist.  Idly, Kenshin wondered if it would rain.

As if his thought had been heard, Senzo glanced at the sky. "I hope I don't inconvenience you by doing this, Himura-san," he said cheerfully.  "I would hate for you to be drenched on your return home.  I'll loan you a lantern to make your way back."

Indeed, the cottage could barely be picked out ahead.  They were perhaps thirty minutes from the main streets of Tokyo, and had met nobody else on their journey.   That didn't change the fact that there had been people following behind them. Kenshin had spotted them once.  Alerted by his intuition, more than anything else, he'd glanced back and gazed into the trees lining the path.  Two of them, moving quite stealthily through the bushes.

Their presence, their ki, did not seem particularly hostile.  More … wary.  And as darkness fell, he lost sight of them.  Finally, as they caught sight of the cottage, their presence slipped away from his senses entirely.

Odd.  He supposed it was possible that the two men – both fighters, from the way they carried themselves, he was sure – were merely heading in the same direction for a different purpose.  More likely, he thought, that they are thieves following a merchant in the hopes of robbing him, but perhaps a swordsman's presence deterred them.  I will make sure they are gone before I leave here.  Senzo Karanai had seemed oblivious to their presence.  With care, Kenshin decided, he would remain so.

Senzo fumbled at the door for a moment in the dark, and then swung it open with a creak.  "K'so, but it's dark," he muttered.  "Ah.  Here we are."  Light flared as he held aloft a candle, illuminating a small, one-room cottage cluttered with boxes and timber.  A futon was folded and stashed rather haphazardly against the wall in one corner, and a larger piece of wood had been placed carefully across a crate as a table.  Apart from that, there was no sign that the cottage was used as anything more than a storage shed.

"You live here?" Kenshin asked, confused.

"Ah, iie," Senzo said cheerfully, lighting a second candle with the first and placing them both on the table.  "I only pass through on occasion.  The lady who owns this cottage is nice enough to allow me to stay here when I do.  She has better lodgings in town, now.  Apart from my presence, this place is rarely used.  …Ah, you can leave your things on the table, if you'd like."

He nodded, and carefully lowered first the bouquet, then the tofu bucket, onto the wooden plank.  Some table this is.  "How long are you staying?"

"Well, that depends," said the merchant, crouching down by the futon.  His fingers closed around a length of bamboo.  "Once my business is done, I suppose.  If all goes well, I could return to Kyoto tomorrow.  Here, catch." He threw the shinai almost carelessly across the room.  Kenshin snapped a hand out and caught it above the hilt.  "Will you be able to fight in the dark?"

There was a lengthy, cold silence.

"Gomen," Senzo broke it at last, in a quiet, regretful voice.  "I recognize your face, but should have remembered your history.  Of course you can."

"It is alright, do gozaru yo," Kenshin said quietly.  "But sessha has people who will be worried about him, now.  If it suits you, let us begin."  He slid the sakabatou from his waistband and propped it against the wall by the door, then walked outside without a second glance.

Senzo's eyes lingered on the sword curiously for a moment.  Was that trust?

No.  Confidence.

Even arrogance.

He grinned again. "Hai, Kenshin."

A moment later, the cottage stood empty.

---------

From where the man sat in the tree, the faint light emanating from the cottage could barely be seen.  His keen eyes picked out the first man, then the second, to exit.  They walked several feet in either direction, and then turned to face each other.  Each held a shinai in hand.

Each combatant bowed to the other, then assumed fighting stance.  The man thought he saw one – the merchant? – tap the edge of the shinai briefly to his forehead in salute.  Then, with a cry, heard faintly from the treetop, he charged the ex-hitokiri.

"Are they fighting yet?"

He drew his gaze away from the ensuing battle and without replying, dropped from the branch to the ground, and rose from a crouch to face the newcomers.  Two men lately engaged in following Himura Kenshin from the market.

"Aa," he said simply.

"And now?"

"Now, we wait.  Battousai will win, shortly.  After that … he will run.  And we will strike."

"Are you sure he'll run?"

"Aa," he said again, lips curling back into a mocking smile.  "He won't have any choice.  Get the others."