[FFML] [fic][rk][cont][rewrite] Rurouni Yahiko Chapter 6: Enter the Tiger

[Abdiel]

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Rurouni Yahiko
A Rurouni Kenshin Continuation fic
By Chester Castañeda
chester.castaneda at gmail.com
gabriel_gabdiel at yahoo.com
http://www.fanfiction.net/~abdiel

Man, it's about time this chapter got released.

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Chapter 6: Enter the Tiger
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Gan gave Yahiko a livid look before exploding in boisterous laughter.
"You jest, punk. Go home."

Whispers and jeers soon followed.

"Yeah, go home, punk!"

"You should go back to your futon and rest, instead of straining
yourself unnecessarily, young man!"

"GO HOME!"

Yahiko wasn't quite sure what to make of what was happening. However, he
still looked irately at the gathered crowd with half-lidded, skeptical
eyes.

'Great. Figures. Here they go again. The whole Battousai incident just
happened three weeks back, and they already forgot about it. What a
bunch of ingrates.' To Gan, he remarked, "Look, Mister... Gang or
whoever, I don't--"

"WHAT DID YOU JUST SAY? What did you mean by 'Afraid you'll lose because
you can't take another serving, lard butt?' WHO ARE YOU CALLING A LARD
BUTT? This means war! Waitress! Another serving for me and this
upstart!"

The crowd groaned as they moved away from the pair, unwilling to make
any more bets, but the Great Gan had it all covered. "Make your wagers
now, folks! It's going to be all or nothing this afternoon!" 

The rowdy man pretended to grunt as he rubbed his abdomen. "I don't
think I can eat another bite. What do you think?" Gan's stomach did
groan in agony, much to his surprise, but he chose to ignore it amidst
the wild cheers of his audience. After all, the Great Gan was about to
make himself more money.

Sickening soba soup be damned, Gan _was_ still able to hook another
prospective sucker into his scam, so what was there to lose? 'Just one
more meat bun and I'm through! No. Soba. SO-BA. I meant soba, not meat
bun.'

Yahiko dumbly sat at his stool as Kyoko subtly replaced his half-eaten
food with a fresh and significantly larger bowl full of soba. "What the
hell's going on?" was all he managed to say.

"You don't know what you're doing! He wiped out half of those 'patrons'
of ours during the last hour! That guy's a monster!" Chizuru murmured as
she put down Gan's bowl of noodles.

"I DIDN'T MAKE ANY BETS WITH HIM! He's lying! He started saying some
crazy stuff and now I'm stuck with a stinking bet that I didn't make in
the first place! And nobody's--"

The cheers of the crowd drowned out most of Yahiko's objections. "--even
listening to me." The boy sighed in resignation. 'Wonderful. Damn it all
to hell.'

"LET THE CONTEST BEGIN!" Gan roared as he parted his chopsticks with
fanfare usually reserved for Kabuki. "And now... LET'S EAT!"


***


A petite young man with an overly large eye patch covering most of his
left face hummed a merry tune as he made his way through the unusually
busy streets of Shinshu, a tray full of freshly steamed meat buns at
hand. "The smell of fresh meat buns in the morning should be enough to
soothe the troubled and terribly irate souls of Raedo-sempai and his
men!"

"What the hell are you blabbering about, you moron? It's already three
in the afternoon!" a passerby helpfully divulged.

The eye-patched man blinked innocently. "Really?"

A second passed, followed by a minute.

"Dear Kami-sama in heaven! I'm LATE!" the frail-looking man cried in
utter despair as he ran as fast as he could towards his destination,
clumsily trying to balance his tray of goodies. "Feet, don't fail me
now! I hope sempai and the guys won't beat me up... much."

And so, the eye-patched man was off.

"Who was that weird guy?"

"Why didn't he just wrap all those meat buns up instead of putting them
on a tray?"


***


'I feel like puking,' Yahiko mused to himself, struggling to take
another bite out of the wound-up noodles on his chopsticks. He glanced
over the Great Gan's direction. Sure enough, his opponent was nearly
done with his bowl of soba. 'I can't eat another bite. Only the likes of
Sano could finish off Sakaguchi-san's extra large special! Come to think
of it, it is kind of strange for him to be as thin as he is.'

Yahiko took a look at his bowl. To his surprise, it was nearly empty.
'Oh man, I really was hungry, wasn't I? Maybe I could win this after
all.' Another wave of nausea threatened to overwhelm him. It took nearly
all of his high-level kenjutsu training on concentration techniques to
quell his urge to gag and vomit. 'Or maybe not. Damn, I only have a few
more bites to go!'

'My losing streak has finally ended!' Gan considered gleefully as he
gorged upon the remaining soba in his bowl. 'After this, I can now
collect my winnings and prove myself to be the man! No more begging on
the streets or performing old folk songs for loose change! The Great Gan
is no longer a loser like... What's that I see?'

A heavenly, eye-patched angel suddenly swooped down the soba shop
entrance, carrying the tray of delights that the Great Gan so longed
for: white, tender, and steaming-hot meat buns just _begging_ to be
munched upon.

"SEMPAI! I'msosorryI'mlateIdidn'trealizethetimebut...! Wait, what's with
the large crowd? Where'd Raedo-sempai and the others go? Uh, hello,
mister...? Hey! Those aren't for you! What are you...? AHHHHH!"

The eye-patched man numbly held the tray of steaming pork buns at arm's
length as the Great Gan charged. The burly man attacked the plate with
deranged gusto, snatching the savory foodstuff and cramming them into
his mouth in a frenzy of motion and sound. He savored the tasty,
flavorsome treats, at times swallowing some of the meaty delights whole
before relishing their sheer delectability as he chomped on them all at
the same time. Their meaty, porky goodness melted in his mouth,
caressing his taste buds like nothing else.

"WAH! I can't believe you ate each and every last meat bun on the tray!
That wasn't very nice at all! Raedo-sempai isn't going to like this one
bit!" the eye-patched man whined and whimpered pathetically.

'Hmmm. It somehow feels like I'm forgetting something important,' the
nikuman fanatic pondered in the middle of his gluttony.

"Aaaaahhh..." came the contented sigh of a very satiated Yahiko. "I
never thought I'd actually finish off one of Sakaguchi-san's extra large
specials! I almost threw up on that last bite!"

A thunderous roar of approval and congratulations surrounded the young
swordsman.

The Gawking Gan could only stare and gape, dumbstruck and ashen-faced at
the heartbreaking scene before him.

"What an upset! I won back all the money I lost before!"

"Ha! I won that and a little extra!"

"Dammit, I thought the big guy was going to win."

"Tough luck, Wataru-kun."

"Heh. Hey, kid. You're all right. Here's your share of the winnings."

"Whoa. I won some money too? Gee, thanks! WOHOOO!" Yahiko cheered as he
pocketed the amount given to him. "To think, for a while there, I
thought I was going to go into debt!"

"WAIT A MINUTE!" Gan shouted in between mouthfuls. "Best two out of
three! I can still lick this!"

"HA! You don't have any money left on you, you big galoot! You're the
one that betted 'all or nothing'. What will we bet on next? Your pants?"

"You're on!" Gan agreed as he began undoing his slacks.

"You will do no such thing in front of my daughter!" Nonoko admonished,
incensed, as she covered Kyoko's eyes.

The gathered multitude laughed jocularly as they started to make their
leave.

"Hey, wait... You! Wataru-san, right? Don't you want to earn back all
that money you lost?"

"No way! Uh-uh. I lost enough money as is."

"You're the one who blew it, now face the consequences."

"Aw! Come on, guys! Wait! Come back!"

But by then, most everyone in the crowd was already gone.

"...."

Gan heaved a dejected and miserable sigh. 'Not again. This always
happens. Just when I think I've already won, this happens.'

"Well, no use crying over spilt milk," the over-muscled man consoled
himself, immediately perking up from his brief moment of utter
melancholy. "I'll just have to pick myself up and move on. Like I always
do." He grinned carelessly. "Besides, I did get a free meal or two out
of the whole betting thing, so I'm happy. I should get going."

Insistent coughing caught Gan's attention before he made his exit. "Uh,
yeah? Miss...?"

"That's Miss 'friend-of-the-restaurant-owner-you-mooched-from' to you,
bud. Now what's that I hear about a 'free meal or two'? Hmmm?"

"Ahehehehehe. Oh yeah." Gan sheepishly rubbed the back of his head
before altogether waving good-bye, stating, "Sayonara!" and making a run
for it.

"HEY! You can't just eat and run! YAHIKO!" Chizuru beckoned.

"Eh? What now, old hag? OW!"

"Don't you go calling me 'old hag', young man! Now shut up and go follow
that big, dumb oaf! It's the least you could do for getting free
lodging, food, and treatment from the Sakaguchis! Now GO!" Chizuru
insisted as she relinquished her hold of Yahiko's ear and pushed him
towards the direction the Galloping Gan went.

"What? You've got to be kidding me!"

Unnoticed by the rest, the eye-patched man piteously whimpered,
"Sempai's meat buns... all gone..." over and over.


***


Yahiko woke up, quickly realizing he was sucking on a dead fish.

He spewed the vile thing out, resisted the urge to vomit, and looked up.
A hundred pairs of eyes inquisitively stared back at him; soulless bat
eyes that glinted crimson underneath the blanket of shadow before him.

Yahiko closed his eyes, calmed himself down, and carefully thought
things through. What'd happened to him this time?

Well, for starters, he was feeling quite nauseated with dizziness, which
was probably caused by the cramped, tight space his head was currently
stuck in. The rest of his body was located on the other side of the 
rock wall he was jammed onto.

What else? Oh, his mouth was saturated with the taste of raw fish that
_wasn't_ sushi or sashimi, and there were hordes of fanged, leathery
monstrosities hanging above his head--a veritable arsenal of creepy
Swords of Damocles glaring back at him.

However, knowing his oriental circumstances, Yahiko wouldn't know what a
Sword of Damocles was even if it happened to cleave right through his
scalp. But with one look at his reaction to the bat pack, it was a safe
bet that he had a pretty good idea.

There was a lesson to be learned here: next time Chizuru bullied Yahiko
into doing something he didn't want to get involved with in the first
place, he would damn well tell her to stick her nose right up her--

Yahiko blinked as something else occurred to him. It just so happened
that Chizuru's fool errand involved chasing after a certain man--a big,
bulky, hairy, gluttonous, and thuggish type of man, to be exact. 

"Gan?" he cautiously whispered. "Minoe? Anyone?" He paused, rolled his
eyes, then tried again. "The 'Great' Gan? Soba King? The Round Mound
of...?"

"Right here, Mister Yahiko," a voice murmured back.

"Gan?"

"Uh, no."

A pause. "The 'Great' Gan?" He struggled to move his head towards the
sound of the other person's voice. 

"I'm afraid not. It's Minoe. Minoe Munenori. Remember me?" 

Ah, yes. It was the eye-patched, pirate-like, insane, and effeminate
young man with the purplish getup and long front-and-side bangs. Minoe
was stuck at another junction of the crevice or crag or whatever, just
right beside Yahiko.

"Uh, yeah. Very good." Yahiko sighed forlornly and swallowed. "There are
a lot of bats over us, huh?"

"Please don't remind me, Yahiko-chi," the eye-patched man implored as he
involuntarily shivered his timbers.

Yahiko bit his lip. "They're _looking_ at us, Minoe."

"They sure are. Still, in the right light, I'd bet they'd look so cute!"
Minoe enthused effeminately--no, scratch that--femininely. Gaily even,
for Yahiko had never seen a happier man. "I mean, look at the expression
of the third one to the left! From this distance, doesn't he look like a
cuddly little fox?"

Yahiko looked at Minoe oddly, almost worriedly, then quietly edged away,
or at least did the best he could to do so given his circumstances. "Do
you mind, Minoe?" he hissed once the bats started to stir, even the
third, "cuddly little fox" one to the left--_especially_ the third,
"cuddly little fox" one to the left, ironically enough.

Minoe flushed. "Real sorry, sir. But they just are."

"Yeah. They're regular 'lost, upside-down little puppies', they are,"
Yahiko mumbled.

"Well, well, well; look at what we have here," another voice boomed from
behind the Tokyo Samurai Descendant and his buccaneer-like companion.
"It's Yoshi-boy and Patches, out to hunt me down. Well, I guess the
tables have turned, eh?" The arrogant, boisterous voice couldn't
possibly be mistaken for anyone else's.

The Garrulous Gan's unexpected arrival was _at least_ a good start in
uncovering whatever mystery was behind Yahiko's predicament. And if not,
this was a good point to make sense of it all, at the even lesser least.
But at the least of the lesser least, it was more interesting at the
moment than anything else.

How did everything come to this? How did events conspire against Yahiko
in such a way that he'd be left in a rather compromising position? Who
was this Minoe fellow and how did he meet him? Why was he acting so
"chummy" with him in the first place, like he already knew him from the
start? And what was with that ridiculous, oversized eye patch anyway?

Come to think of it, what about the "Great" Gan? Wasn't there supposed
to be a chase going on, where Yahiko was the pursuer and Gan was the
pursued? And for goodness' sake, what the hell was a fish doing in his
mouth?


***


Meanwhile, three months later, back in Tokyo...

"Oops," Tsubame muttered as she put down the pieces of paper she was
holding. "Wrong page."

Droplets of sweat trickled down on all the foreheads of everyone present
in the Kamiya Dojo's living room.

Kaoru shook her head clear of the bizarre mental image that featured the
Kamiya Kasshin School's Acting Master sucking on a fish and having an
army of bats hanging over his head. It was easier said than done.

"Oro, you left off during the part where the bandanna-wearing tough guy
ate-and-ran. My wife's long-lost sister then ordered Yahiko to run after
him, and Yahiko begrudgingly obliged."

"Thanks, Kenshin-san!" Tsubame thanked as she scrambled for the pages
she obviously skipped.

There was a brief pause, followed by a shinai whack. 

"Very funny, dear. Long-lost sister _my foot_."

Kenji's snoopy, six-year-old head popped from behind Tsubame's shoulder
like a blossoming pansy, quickly catching the older girl's attention.
Both of them eyed each other suspiciously for a few seconds.

"I won't twouble you with anymo questions if you'll wead the west of big
bwotha's lettas weal good," Kenji proposed.

"Deal," Tsubame beamed as she shook on the casual verbal agreement using
hers and Kenji's pinky fingers.

With a soothing sigh that calmed her initial bewilderment, Tsubame
gathered all of the pages of Yahiko's letter, put them in the correct,
chronological order, picked up from where she left off, and started
reading them again.


***


Three months before, back in Shinshu...

It had already begun. The circular black-and-white go pieces were at
last arranged on a grid-like battlefield; or, if shogi were more to your
taste, then the pentagonal shogi pieces were finally setup upon a
checkered war zone. The meat buns had been steamed to perfection, the
udon was ready for serving, the director was bracing himself to scream
his lungs out, and the overacting Kabuki actors were all awaiting their
respective musical cues.

The wind blew softly through the woods, making the leaves on the ground
scatter in an assortment of reds, yellows, and oranges. There was also a
delicate chill to the air; cold enough for a person to notice, but not
so cold that he couldn't bear it. Autumn was starting to relinquish its
hold on the weather, it seemed.

As the gust continued, it blew leaves onto a path that went through the
forest. Though this trail was usually well-used, today it only held two
people: a young man and a slightly older man. 

The unlikely duo wore striking outfits that differentiated them from
each other even from a great distance. The younger, bandaged one wore a
white hakama and blue gi while sporting a wrapped-up bundle at the
side of his cloth belt and a flat straw hat atop his head; the other
wore an off-white bandanna that covered his entire scalp, a red top that
proudly showed off his upper-body musculature but hid nothing of his
abdomen's slight stoutness, and well-worn olive pants.

Both of their sandals looked frayed as well, but with good reason: they
were presently chasing each other across the countryside in a rather
frantic pace.

Yet another gust of wind caused the two men to quiver. By chance or pure 
coincidence, they stopped simultaneously and looked at each other and
the ten-foot gap between them for a minute, seemingly checking their
current progress. Afterwards, they wordlessly started running again,
this time quicker than ever before. 

And so the chase ensued. Gan and Yahiko traveled many miles within a
mostly barren area while passing by the occasional rustic hut or two,
kicking off a cloud of billowing dust that trailed after them like a
filthy war banner of sorts.

When the Tokyo Samurai last visited the rural province... the hometown
of one of his two star pupils, Outa Higadishisomething-or-the-other,
y'know, Sanosuke Sagara's little brother and their hard-to-pronounce
family name... Shinshu was still the definition of a backwater province:
there were lots of trees, and shrubs, and dust, and rocks, and dirt
roads, and shanties ad infinitum. He wished he could say more, but that
was about it.

Now, despite appearances to the contrary, a lot of things could happen
in six years. Why, Outa himself was once upon a time a shy, silent young
brat who constantly hid underneath his sister's skirt for protection
whenever trouble was afoot. 

Lately, although the boy was still as shy, still as talkative, and still
as influenced by an overprotective sister as ever before, at least he
now had a nifty "Aku" sign at the back of his shirt like his older
brother did, and he could kick the "Aku" out of anyone below a First Dan
in Kendo. Certainly impressive for a thirteen-year-old boy who was as
noisy as Kenji Himura was quiet.

In regards to Uki, Outa's sister, there was no way in hell Yahiko was
going to meet up with that obsessive-compulsive, domineering, and
mountain-peak-haired (think widow's peak, except it's in the shape of
Mount Fuji) crazy girl even if she lived just a few kilometers away from
Chizuru and Kyoko's quaint little village. 

He'd rather have a lecturing care of Kaoru's long-lost twin sister or
awkward moments of stillness with the sword-cane-toting girl than spend
even just _one_ minute with the manic Hi... Hida... Higashidani (HA!)
woman. Even Yahiko's patience had its limits. Speaking of stretching the
limits of one's patience...

The spiked-haired teenager groaned, tipping his recently acquired woven
straw hat up and staring at his sandaled feet after realizing that he
had just stepped on a pile of dog feces. Once again, as he wiped the
intestinal catastrophe on the dirt-filled ground, he secretly longed for
his comparatively uncomplicated life back in Tokyo.

The bottom line was that Shinshu as a territory had developed quite a
lot from being the infamous Zanza's one-horse hometown to a bustling, if
still a bit remote, community center for trade and commerce. They
rebuilt this province on rock and roll. And mortar, and bricks, and
cobblestones. Wood too.

The proof in the tofu? The recently established wet market in between
the "Outa" village and the "Chizuru" village that currently sold a
variety of goods and foodstuffs from vegetables, to fish, to poultry
and meat products. It was a wonderful turn of events for a formerly
impoverished region whose main livelihood was silk-breeding.

"Come back here, Gan!" Yahiko shouted at the bulky man as they pursued
one another in the maze-like junctions of several rice paddies, sparrows
flying off in their wake. "If you're not going to pay for your food tab,
then at the very least _work_ your debt off, you bum!" To himself, he
fumed, 'This is the sort of advice that I'd give to rooster head, but
this big, fat lout needs it more.'

"Sure thing, Yoshi-boy. I'll stop just as soon as I lose all of my
common sense and do whatever it is strangers tell me to do!" Gan
mischievously hollered back, his hefty mass undulating as he ran a good
ten feet away; he was surprisingly fast for a portly person, Yoshi
reckoned. They were nearing the aforementioned wet market now, and even
from afar, they were quite the sight to behold. 

"HEY, wait a minute! Yahiko! My name is Yahiko! YA-HI-KO!" Yoshi
admonished both the unseen narrative prose and the Grubby Gan in sheer
exasperation. But before he broke the fourth wall any further, he
screamed at his immediate target, "Who the heck are you calling 'Yoshi'?
And what the heck's a 'Yoshi' anyway? I don't look like a 'Yoshi'!"

"But you do look like a 'Yoshi' to me, Yoshi-boy!" Gan conversationally
yelled out as he barreled into the fresh meat section of the wet market,
to Yo--shiko's chagrin. And while _Yahiko_ glared... at nothing in
particular, Gan tilted his head just to the left of the furious teenager
and queried, "Doesn't he look like a 'Yoshi' to you, mister pirate?"

To Yahiko's surprise, an eye-patched, boyish-looking young man suddenly
appeared jogging beside him from out of nowhere and gave him a quick
once-over. "Y'know what, Gan-chi? Yeah, he does look like a 'Yoshi' to
me," the man appraised with a sage nod.

"WHO ASKED YOU? And while we're on the topic, who the _hell_ are _you_?"
Yahiko demanded, bewildered that the one-eyed man could still keep up
with the frenetic pace of his sprint without even breaking a sweat. 

"My personal name is Munenori and my surname is Minoe, and every time
you meet me, you'll meet someone new!" Minoe introduced himself readily,
his long bangs and loose clothes bouncing in cadence with his
inexplicably relaxed gallop.

"Uh..." Yahiko wittily rejoined.

"Oh, that didn't come out right. Let me try again. Hello, I'm Minoe
Munenori! In this wonderful nineteenth century, how is everybody
feeling today? What's your name? How old are you? What's your favorite
color? What's your favorite animal? Do you like drawing?"

Startled by the rapid-fire questionnaire, Yahiko meant to say, 'What
is this, Twenty Questions? Go away!' but it somehow came out as, "Um,
Myojin Yahiko, age sixteen, elephant, and I'm terrible at drawing."

Minoe whistled. "Your favorite color is elephant? Well, you like what
you like. Anyway, so sorry that I startled you, Yoshi-chi, but I'm also
glad that I did; it means that my concealment technique is actually
working! I'm so happoof! MMMPH!" the eccentric oddball enthusiastically
blabbered before giving the marketplace's sticky cobblestone floor an 
inadvertent kiss after he slipped face-first onto it.

Yahiko groaned as he stopped and helped Minoe get up on his feet. 'And
he was doing so good with his impressive jogging too! Too bad he's a
complete and total klutz who's incapable of doing two things at the same
time,' the teenaged swordsman evaluated in his head, adding, 'What is
with that concealment technique crap of his anyway? Does this guy think
he's some sort of stealth ninja trapped in a sea pirate's body or what?' 

At the back of Yahiko's mind, he noted to himself that Minoe seemed like
a mediocre fusion of Takae and Soujiro. Unconsciously, he fingered his
still-fresh sword wounds and flat straw hat in remembrance. He then
bristled in seething anger. 'No need to remind myself of good ol'
Psycho-Kid. I have enough scars to remember him by for a lifetime.'

"Ugh. That was gross. But anyway, time to go! Ninpou: Kakuremi no
Jutsu!" announced the aghast and befuddled Minoe once he regained his
vertical base. He straightened himself up as he put his hands together
in a bizarre gesture and concentrated hard in making his entire body
disappear into unseen obscurity using only his purposeful willpower. The
repetitive redundancies, of course, were beside the point.

Through savvy use of the dull hues of his clothing--in colors that could
absorb as much light as possible and complement his supposedly feline
reflexes--Minoe _should_ have been able to execute an undetectable
camouflaging skill that didn't exclusively depend on shadowy
concealment. His dark wardrobe and stealthy actions themselves would
serve as his mantle of invisibility.

That was the idea, anyway; besides, it wasn't as if Minoe were executing
a perfect replica of Takae's Minamo Gakure trick. With half-lidded eyes
and a raised eyebrow, Yahiko deftly caught the completely visible Minoe
by the scruff of his shadowy hakama and tugged the pirate-ninja hybrid
backwards. "And just where do you think you're going? Honestly, moving
like an epileptic flea while covering your head with your top as if it
were about to rain..."

"AH! Oh no! You can see me? My goodness, I'm so embarrassed! You weren't
supposed to see me, you see. Or maybe you don't see, but then again,
you did anyway. It's all so confusing," Minoe blubbered pitifully as he
worked himself up to a storm, scratching his head and checking his quite
opaque and dense self from top to bottom for any signs of transparency.

"This is so surprising! Raedo-sempai and the others assured me that I
went completely invisible whenever I used this technique. Although they
_did_ keep asking each other what the difference was otherwise...
Anyway, please, you've got to believe me! I was invisible, right?
Right?"

Not knowing how to respond to Minoe's rhetorical questions and run-on
sentences, Yahiko opted to stick with the most relevant subject and
reply, "Just because you press your hands together and call out,
'Kakuremi no Jutsu' doesn't necessarily mean that you'll just--"

Somehow, even with what Yahiko deemed as a logical, sensible answer,
Minoe maintained his specious, spurious, and non-sequitur edge on the
nonsensical conversation. 

"Hey, I know! How about I strip my clothes off? Then we'll see if my
Ninpou powers do work!" the one-eyed weirdo suggested to Yahiko, but by
the way Yahiko's eyes glazed over, Minoe might as well have been talking
to thin air. All the same, he made good with his threat, fiddling with
his hakama's tightly knotted belt and...

Exhaling irritably, Yahiko straightforwardly interjected, "Have you ever
been punched in the face?" before the peculiar little screwball got any
further with his dubious plans.

"Not since this last hour, why'd--OH GOB, MY NOWSE! NOB AGEYN! WRY, GOB,
WRY?"

'Maybe that's why he has the eye patch: to cover up the black eye he got
for not shutting up,' Yahiko fumed as he shook his clenched fist in rage
at the howling Minoe. "Stop following me and the Gross Gan, you, you,
costumed clown! You're distracting me! I still have to catch that
ballooned-up food bandit and--Oh, shiitake mushrooms, I almost forgot.
GAN!"

As if on cue, a nearby vendor irately screamed, "HEY! Give that back,
you ballooned-up food bandit!" just as Yahiko roused himself from his
extensive musings. The young samurai looked up, only to see that Gan 
had already dashed a good distance away from him, heading towards
another forested area.

"Catch me if you can, Yoshi-boy!" Gan gibed, wiggling and slapping his
posterior in a mocking manner. Yahiko took umbrage at both the taunt and
his newest moniker--which he swore was just inches away from overtaking
"Yahiko-chan" on the top of his list of annoying nicknames--but stopped
himself cold. Gan was counting on him to do that, he reckoned.

Actually, Yahiko had Gan's simple plan all figured out. Even though he
let the wildcard Minoe distract him for quite a bit, his legs did get
the unintentional benefit of rest. Besides, the overgrown oaf was still
in sight; in the corner of his eyes, at least. 

Furthermore, Gan, being Gan, acted on his natural instincts and usual
modus operandi when he stole yet another food item from one of the
stalls in the wet market. With him acting so predictable, it was only a
matter of time before Yahiko caught the troublesome ruffian.

Nevertheless, though he might not look much, the Goofy Gan was quite the
street-smart thug in his own right. If he had succeeded in angering
Yahiko, the Tokyo Samurai would have called him out and inadvertently
made themselves look like accomplices to the nearby vendors, thus
delaying their already drawn-out chase even further. The oafish boor
almost got away scot-free. It was an admittedly devious but ultimately
futile plan.

Cautiously, Yahiko opted to distance himself from the crying Minoe and
the gathering crowd as he ran around the back of the wet market to head
Gan up at a nearby pass and herd him into a rock-walled dead end.
Although he barely visited Shinshu anymore, he still knew this
particular area like the back of his hand. He was the man with the plan;
the guy who was always one step ahead of his opponents.

Because of the multitude of adventures he had with the infamous Kenshin
"Battousai" Himura, Sanosuke "Zanza" Sagara, Kaoru "Tanuki Girl" Kamiya,
and Megumi "Kitsune Lady" Hayashibara... no, Oogata... no, Takani...
yeah, definitely Takani... he already had a lifetime of fight experience
under his belt at such a relatively young age. Hell, he _was_ (more or
less, give or take) able to defeat the "Ten Ken" of the Juppon Gatana.
This "Great" Gan should be a cakewalk in comparison.

Soon enough, as Yahiko predicted, Gan had already arrived at the
aforesaid junction; by his estimations, with just a few sword swings and
his notorious forbidden technique, the "Wrath of the End of the Era",
Gan was as good as caught.

Then again, no amount of preparation could have prepared Yahiko from
being bitch-slapped by Gan care of a very large fish.

The hooligan didn't even give Yahiko a chance to breathe, much less
recover. "You will NOT GET MY BABY!" the Great Gan enigmatically
screamed as he stuffed the big fish into Yahiko's mouth, grabbed his
head, and slammed it against the nearby wall hard enough to cause him to
see stars and put a ragged hole onto the rocky crag.

Apparently, Gan's maternal... paternal... _parental_ instincts kicked in
and he was now defending the supposed life that he, er, carried. Mo one
could fight desperately for his or her child like a parent. The last two
sentences made absolutely no sense whatsoever even when considering the
context, just like Gan's puzzling motivations.

Anticlimactically, Yahiko heard somebody suddenly scream, "Don't worry,
Yahiko-chi! I'll save you! Ninpou: Bunshin no Jyuurk!" followed by a
crashing sound on the wall he was stuck in. Before long, the dusty,
rubble-strewn, and eye-patched head of Munenori Minoe accosted the
sixteen-year-old with a lucid yet paradoxically incoherent, "Things are
looking bleak, but we can still burn the river once we cross that bridge
over the rainbow-colored bush with the two birds in glass houses," rant
before fainting altogether.

What with the fish in his mouth, the rock wall around his neck, the
insane food thief behind him, and the ninja/pirate/idiot-savant just
beside him, Yahiko couldn't help but follow suit and lose consciousness
as well. It was only natural.


***


Shinshushin... "Shinshu", in short... wasn't just well-known for its
Shinshu Soba and Silk-Weaving. Well, actually, it was just well-known
for those two things; more for the type of soba than its other export
product by many an average Japanese. 

In any case, even though this remote region that had _just_ recently
learned the potential of commerce and industry was well-known for only
those two exports, the things it wasn't known for--some questionable,
some mundane, some innocuous, some controversial, and some even
outright illegal--were still quite the popular pursuits nonetheless.
More on this later, though.


***


Three months ago, in Shinshushin, Kamiminochi District, Nagano 
Prefecture, Japan...

To be even _more_ specific, in the dead end inside the woods near the
marketplace in between the towns of Suwa and Nojiri...

Something was wrong.

Yahiko could sense it; a contorting, anxiety-inducing feeling in his
gut; a forewarning, almost. It wasn't the same awareness that he used as
a swordsman--the sensitivity he'd cultivated that alerted him of his
enemy's intent or attacks during battle. It was more of a...

Dammit. It was on the tip of his tongue. It was... an impression of an
imminent catastrophe; a suspicion that something was amiss. A feeling
like, at any moment now, his world would turn upside-down.

Perhaps it was just the disgusted feeling Yahiko got from sucking on the
salty, fishy taste of, well, _fish_ that left him so... discombobulated.
Yeah, that was probably it. Or maybe he was just exhausted. Whether it
was the aftereffects of his battle three weeks ago or massive internal
bleeding, Yahiko couldn't tell. He simply felt tired, weak, and
otherwise kaput.

So he spewed the fish out, gagged a little bit, and then opened his
eyes. Hundreds of bats looked curiously back at him. To say there was an
awkward pause would have been a grand understatement.

Yahiko shut his eyes, counted to twenty, stopped his hyperventilation,
and then took stock of the situation. He seemed to be alive. From the
motion he could feel, he was either lost at the endless sea or feeling
very nauseated with lightheadedness thanks to the cramped space his head
was currently wedged in. He guessed it was more the latter reason than
the former.

What else? Oh, his mouth was filled with the taste of raw fish that
_wasn't_ sushi, sashimi, or pleasant. There were also hordes of scary,
grisly bats hanging above his head, but he ultimately decided to handle
things one problem at a time. Anyhow, he wanted to wipe the sickening
taste of cold-blooded aquatic vertebrate out of his tongue, but his
hands and arms were presently "out of reach" at the moment.

There was a lesson to be learned here. Next time Chizuru Raikouji
bullied him into doing something he didn't want to get involved with in
the first place, he would damn well tell her to shove her nose right up
her butt. Yep, he really thought that, because he was "hardcore". 

He stirred as another thought came to mind. It just so happened that
Miss Raikouji's orders involved pursuing a certain target--a huge,
hulking, shaggy, voracious, and brutish type of target, to be more
specific. "Gan?" he warily whispered. "Minoe? Anyone?" He stopped, took
a breather, then tried again. "The 'Great' Gan? Soba King? The Round
Mound of...?"

"Right here, Mister Myojin," a voice whispered back.

"Gan?"

"Uh, no."

A pause. He struggled to move his head towards the sound of the other
person's voice before letting out his barrage of name suggestions.
"Mister Muscle? Meat Bun Maniac? Man-Tits? Sperubin Jorju? Yamada Taro?
Nanashi-no-Gombee? Puringe Warutaru? The Paper? Lizard King? Mister Mojo
Risin? Isumisee Aran? Dozaemon?" 

"Er, I'm afraid I'm not any of those gentlemen, sir."

"Heh. I got a bit carried away there, huh?"

"Monchiron." The yet-unidentified man coughed primly. "Anyway, it's
Minoe, sir. Minoe Munenori. Remember me?" Ah, yes. It was the eye-
patched, pirate-like, ninja-like, weird, wimpy, slightly deranged, and
definitely effete young man with the gaudy wardrobe and long bangs of
fake-looking hair. Minoe was stuck at another junction of the crag or
crevice or whatever they were lodged in, just right beside Yahiko.

"Uh, yeah. Very good." Yahiko looked up and gulped. "There are a lot of
bats over us, huh?"

"Please don't remind me, sir," the eye-patched girly man implored as he
instinctively trembled in dread.

"They're _looking_ at us, Minoe."

"They sure are. Still, in the right light, I'd bet they'd look so cute!"
Minoe cheered, his eyes gleaming with childlike wonder. "I mean, look at
the expression on the third one to the left. From this distance, doesn't
he look like an adorably charming vixen?"

"Um, do you mind, Minoe?" Yahiko shushed after the bats started to move,
even the third, "adorably charming vixen" one to the left; _especially_
the third, "adorably charming vixen" one to the left, fittingly enough.

Minoe wasn't listening, though. "I'll call you kitsune-chi, and I'll
have you and hug you and love you because you're my little kitsune-chi,
kitsune-chi!" The eye-patched man giggled.

Yahiko looked at Minoe bewilderedly, almost nervously, then silently
edged away from him, or did the best he could given the circumstances.

Meanwhile, the third bat to the left shrieked happily in response to
Minoe's cooing and name-calling--either that or it was simply showing
how much it loved the possibility of chewing their noses right off their
faces and sucking them dry.

"Well, well, well; look at what we have here," another voice boomed from
behind the immobilized Tokyo Samurai Descendant and his brigand for a
companion, which would mean that the owner of the aforesaid boisterous
voice was currently talking to their backsides. "It's Yoshi-boy and
Patches, out to hunt me down. Well, I guess the tables have turned, eh?"
The arrogant, egotistical voice couldn't possibly be mistaken for anyone
else's.

"Gan," Yahiko fumed through grit teeth as he fiddled with the hilt of
his inheritance--Kenshin's sakaba blade. Then, with a grand flourish
that would've made the ex-rurouni proud, the trapped young lad
insolently asked, "What is with you anyway? Are you really _this_
desperate to skip your food tab? Even if you did eat your own body
weight in soba, this is just too much! What's your motivation?" knowing
full well that those series of questions were _exactly_ the type he
needed given the present state of affairs.

Taken aback by his quarry's gumption, Gan went silent before answering,
"I'll pay you the tab when I get the money! You know I'm good for it!
Look into my eyes. They're as clear and cloudless as the midday sky, I
swear!"

Yahiko couldn't exactly follow Gan's request... what with his head
currently stuck to a wall and everything... but he'd bet good money that
the massive thug probably had the cloudiest, most unclear eyes he would
ever see in his lifetime. 

"Uh, okay, so don't look into my eyes. But still, the money's coming, so
stop bugging me about it, Yoshi-boy!"

"You don't fool me at all, Gan. If you're good for it, then hand me the
cash _now_! I wasn't born yesterday," Yahiko sneered, egging Gan on with
an exaggerated gangster tone as he called the older man's bluff.
Formerly being part of the yakuza, even as a mere street-rat pickpocket,
had its benefits. At quite an early age, the boy had learned to smell
bullshit from a mile away.

"Oh, come on, Yoshi-boy! Have a heart. Besides, I'm... just on my way
to, uh, get the money to pay you and your friends back! Yeah, that's
right!" Another transparent lie; Gan was already falling apart in panic.
"Okay, okay! I'll cut you a deal with my precious baby, but you've got
to understand my situation! Y'see..." 

Hook, line, and sinker--because of Yahiko's special "interrogation
technique", he'd cunningly made the wily Gan confess his sob story of a
life in just a few minutes. He was _that_ good. It was just a matter of
time now.

Adjutant Master--or if you'd prefer, "Mistress"--Kaoru Kamiya drilled
into her premiere and, during a certain period of time, _only_ students
(the both of them) the importance of being observant during and outside
of combat. Yahiko, being such an ever-diligent and well-versed pupil of
Kamiya Kasshin Ryu, was indeed very observant; observant of Kenshin's
past battles as well as his mannerisms, quirks, techniques, and maxims,
much to the irritable Kamiya Matriarch's chagrin.

"If you're really _that_ fascinated about Kenshin and Hiten Mitsurugi
Ryu, then you should have married him before I did, YOU FRUITY KAMATARI
WANNABE!" the raccoon woman would retort whenever Yahiko gushed about
most anything Kenshin-related and pointed out how much cooler Kenshin-
related topics were compared to Kaoru-related ones.

Ergo, Yahiko long ago learned from _Kenshin_ the importance of knowing
how to defeat your enemies before the fight even started. The mental and 
psychological edge that people like, say, Soujiro "Psycho-Kid" Seta had
over their enemies was nothing short of mind-boggling, pardon the pun. 

"Tell me why you are doing this (and variations thereof)," was _the_ key
sentence in any critical face-off against villains, thugs, bandits,
corrupt authority figures, most any arrogant, higher-than-thou snobs,
bigots, and whatnot; those seven little words, exaggerations aside,
could conceivably save a person's life.


One might retort, "That's a completely stupid idea that only works in
old wives' tales and rural folk songs, you gullible mouth-breather!"
Well, as "stupid" as the concept might sound, stroking your enemy's ego
by humoring their eccentricities and imploring that they reveal their
secret motives and agenda behind their dastardly actions such that
they'd voluntarily give you information they wouldn't give otherwise was
a sound, _non-stupid_ strategy.

Villains, i.e. The Great Gan, when given the opportunity, would often
take a moment to gloat in front of the hero, i.e. Yahiko, whom the
villain believed would soon meet his demise and defeat. Commonly used
in union with the deathtrap, villains had a nasty habit of pontificating
about how their victims were as good as dead. They might also give away
details of their evil plots, on the rationale that the hero would die
soon. This speech almost always resulted in giving the hero time to
escape the trap, providing him the critical information he needed to
defeat the villain, or filling in background plot that had not yet been
revealed to him.

Occasionally, villains would have motives for their speeches: they felt
the hero regarded them as inferior and wished to point out, in detail,
the marks of their superiority, or they desired to have their plan
admired by the one man who could appreciate the cleverness involved.
Most of the time, however, villains just liked hearing themselves talk.
In any case, Yahiko had every intention of exploiting this convention--
um, weakness.

"...thinks I'm a no-good, worthless buffoon! So I've made it my life's
quest, if you will, to prove him wrong and make something out of myself.
But he still thinks I'm a failure! I try, and try, but nothing is ever
good enough for him! Is getting his approval just too much for me to
ask? Tell me that, tell me!" the Great Big Blubbering Gan whined,
prattling continuously while trying not to think about the absurdity of
ranting to some guy's wiggling butt.

'Damn,' thought Yahiko; Gan was already near the end of his miserable
soliloquy, and the boy had just nearly missed it. The Acting Master of
the Kamiya Kasshin School had been far too busy thinking about the
virtue of tricking villains into doing monologues that he had just
distracted himself with his own internal monologue regarding villainous
monologues. 'The irony of this situation is just sickening.'

Worse, Yahiko was fairly certain that Gan had just related his life
story to him when he wasn't listening. Missing out on that would be
truly awful since there might have been something in the man's past to
point out to him the error of his villainous ways. That sometimes
happened with disinclined villains who eventually went over to the side
of justice.

Nonetheless, Yahiko lent an ear to the burly man's plight and caught the
last few parts of his speech. "All I wanted in life was four square
meals a day, a soft futon, the ability to stomp anything to the ground--
specifically to get meals and a soft futon--and _approval_ for my kind
of lifestyle! To seek adventure and excitement and really wild things,
but not _this_ wild! Not 'Some debt collector wearing a funny hat and
his eye-patched pirate friend are chasing me into the wilderness for
some funny business' wild!"

Yahiko just... bent over quietly for a brief moment before shaking his
head in bewilderment. Screw the monologue, the hooligan was obviously a
moronic buffoon who loved to blather utter nonsense! What the Tokyo
Samurai Descendant needed was to act and act _now_. 

Subtly slipping his sheathed weapon out of his obi and using it to pry
his head off of the small fissure, the young boy successfully freed
himself from his embarrassing posture, picked up Takae's kabuto on the
ground and wore it on his head, and made a beeline towards his hefty,
preachy quarry.

Unbeknownst to the spiked-haired young lad, the admittedly forgotten
Munenori Minoe had also been freed from his hole in the wall care of
Yahiko's effort, but was in a state of panic and distress because of the
fact that their sudden escape had caused some considerable damage to the
home of their bat friends.

"Oh no! I'm so sorry, my poor little bat friends! Let me help you fix
your considerably damaged home!" came Minoe's heartfelt--although
stilted and seemingly scripted--pledge.

The small cave ultimately collapsed into dust care of Minoe's well-
intentioned yet clumsy ministrations. "Er... Ehehehehe. Perhaps you'd
rather move into a nice birdhouse instead? OW! BATS! BATS ALL OVER MY
FACE! STOP IT! STOP WITH THE SCRATCHING! I THOUGHT WE WERE FRIENDS,
KITSUNE-CHI!" Led by "Kitsune-chi", the flying mammals swarmed the one-
eyed goofball's face with vengeful frenzy.

Meanwhile; "...Sure, I drink a lot, eat a lot, gamble a lot, get into
debt and fights a lot, and a few other unmentionable things that a
little kid like you has no business in hearing, but still--Hmmm. I seem
to have forgotten the point I was trying to male," Gan obliviously
carped, unaware of the charging Yahiko in front of him.

"Shut up, shut up, SHUT UP!" Yahiko groused as he quickly unsheathed his
reverse-edged sword and prepared to wallop the hoodlum from here to
Sunday. "I haven't even heard half of what you're saying, and I'm
already tired of listening to it! So if you're not going to go _quietly_
with me, then I have no choice but to beat you senseless and force you
to go back to the Sakaguchi's Soba Shop!"

Just as Yahiko was about to make a short leap towards the Great Gan for
a Ryu Tsui Sen strike on the head, he abruptly bumped face-first into
the man's massive girth. The boy reeled from the unexpected move, more
surprised than hurt. "Wha...?"

He then felt it; a sense of foreboding. Because of his extensive sword
training, battle aura and violent intentions were like signal flares for
him, and he was getting a very familiar tingle between his eyes that
told him that he needed to get away from the muscular man as soon and
as far away as possible.

The relative calm of the forest was disrupted by, well, Minoe's frantic
screams as a flock of bats continued to scratch and claw at his face
_and_, more importantly, a resounding boom from a fist that completely
obliterated the ground where Yahiko was standing on just a second ago.

"Hoo boy, that was close," the young samurai muttered, wiping the cold
sweat off of his brow.

Once the dust settled, the Son of Tokyo Samurai couldn't help but laugh
at what he saw; Gan's arm from the elbow down was now stuck on the rocky
earth as though wedged in a foxhole. "HA! Gotcha! Karma strikes again!
Now it's _you_ who's stuck in a compromising position! You're a strong
lummox, I'll give you that, but you're none too bright. And you're now
wide open." Yahiko chuckled as he leveled his sword at the erstwhile
threat.

"Oh really now, Yoshi-boy? That's interesting," the Grinning Gan
passive-aggressively scoffed at Yahiko's insinuations with a self-
satisfied smirk of his own. "If I were you, I'd be careful with where
you're pointing that toy sword of yours, lest you suddenly find yourself
choking on it."

Yahiko countered Gan's self-satisfied smirk and scoff with a dismissive
snort and a Kaoru-esque roll of the eyes. "Like I'm afraid of a yapping
little Spitz's bark." He subsequently made a grand show of sheathing his
mostly blunted blade back into its scabbard. "Besides, it's unbecoming
of a proud descendant of Tokyo Samurai like myself to strike an unarmed
man down--relatively speaking, of course." 

"Heh. Don't make me laugh. Like I was actually 'armed'... literally
speaking, of course... when you first tried to nick me with that kitchen
knife of yours. Give me a break. You're seriously becoming a
hypocritical prick, Yoshi-boy." Gan raised Yahiko's derisive snort and
Kaoru-esque roll of the eyes with a knowing look of utter smugness and
an eyebrow raise to end all eyebrow raises. 

"Fine. Sorry about that. To make up for it, I'll just sit here and wait
for you to come at me when you're ready," Yahiko obtusely offered as he
yawned, squatted on the ground, and crossed his arms in open, double-
dog-dare challenge.

"As you wish, your highness," Gan mocked as he let out a feral grin of
the I-know-something-you-don't-punk-so-nya-nya variety. From there, the
ground shook and rumbled as he shifted his weight to one side.

With a loud grunt and a mighty pull, Gan yanked his arm free from its
earthen prison to reveal a large, long, vaguely phallic, cylindrical,
and tarp-covered something in his hand that was buried in a shallow
grave of sorts. Because of the large man's violent exertions, the
ground burst out, sending dozens of debris and hundreds of sharp small
stones everywhere. 

Yahiko observed in shock as the onslaught threatened to smash every bone
in Gan's body... but didn't. The fragments harmlessly pelted the
recently retrieved weapon that the powerful thug whirled in front of him
like a windmill amidst a monsoon gale.


***


Next: A cock's tale.

In regards to what's coming up: No, it's not a lemon chapter
involving Sanosuke. Jeez. Also, I've added several quips taken
from the ever-hilarious "8-Bit Theater". I love that webcomic.

Note to self: Please include Outa Higashidani and Shinichi
Kusaburo in future chapters. Not that I forgot to include them in
the earlier chapters, it's just that the Kamiya Dojo was closed at
the time. For cleaning. So they couldn't attend classes and stuff.
Yeah.

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.

Salamat sa pagbabasa!
Abdiel