Rurouni Kenshin Fan Fiction ❯ Enigmatic Travels ❯ Shukuchi and Women ( Chapter 5 )

"What? Don't want to fight, wench?"

Soujiro and Keiko watched on to, the start of what seems like, a fight with about 15 drunk men, against a 17 or 18 year old woman. The woman had said something about Soujiro being weak, even though she didn't know his name, and the men, drunk as they were, shifted their focus onto him.

"Who, that moron? You want us to beat the crap outta him?" one of the men shouted at her, and then he smiled, "Sounds like fun! 'Never really wanted ta hurta weak bitch-like you, but he'll be fun ta kick tha shit outta!"

Soujiro immediately thought with a nervous expression on his face, 'how did I get myself into this again? Oh, that's right...'

Soujiro had been escorting Keiko for two days since they had left Matsumoto now, and things were generally going well. Keiko had opened up slightly more, and Soujiro became more sociable with her, until the point where the two of them were able to make small talk like normal friends.

Even though Soujiro had his doubts about friendship, he was starting to enjoy being with Keiko. More along the lines as a traveling partner, more than anything else at least. He admitted to himself that he is a little naive, but he knew that Keiko is a little on the young side.

If Keiko was anything to him, which he half-hoped that she wouldn't turn out to be anything, then he figured that he would be how Yumi-san had treated him. He didn't quite know how to label that relationship. He thought it could be a brother-sister type of relationship, but he doubted that idea. He rationalized that, 'Yumi-san was just being thoughtful,' and she wasn't acting like a big sister.

'If she was,' he thought, 'then wouldn't she act like my brothers? After all, those are the only brothers I've ever known, so why shouldn't Yumi-san act like them? Why was she different?'

He sighed, 'I should stop doing this, Keiko-chan's probably getting bored, and I can't ask Yumi-san those questions now, even though I want to know.'

"Soujiro-kun?" Keiko asked quietly. She could tell he was thinking deeply again. She mentally counted the amount of times this has happened. She didn't really care about the exact number, and al she needed to know was that this was happening much too often for a normal person. 'He seems lost,' she thought and then chided herself mentally, 'what am I thinking? How can he be lost? I'm lost, and he's guiding the way for me to b found; so how can he be lost also? It doesn't make sense.

Anou...I'm kind of worried though. What if he really is lost? What do I do? If he's lost then is he really guiding me like Mae-san said he would? Or is he guiding me to becoming even more lost? Now I'm not making sense, I wish...'

"Hai, Keiko-chan?" Soujiro answered, which successfully broke Keiko's chains of thought.

Not wanting to seem impolite, or seeming like she trailed off, she responded with the first thing that came to her mind, "why don't we rest at the next town?"

Soujiro looked back at her with a confused expression, "how? I don't have any money."

"I do," Keiko responded; it wasn't much, but it was enough for a night or two.

"Save it," Soujiro said, "who knows if we may need a room to stay at during a storm?"

"That's a good point," Keiko agreed.

She looked up to the gray sky and pondered, 'Now that he mentioned that, it does look like it's going to rain soon. The clouds have been becoming darker over since yesterday. I never noticed, maybe he's been wandering longer than I thought, which was less than a year. Oh well, it'll be nice to be able to sleep in a futon soon.'

They reached a town by midday and they both decided to rest for the rest of the day. This town was larger than the town that Soujiro had met Tetsuya, but it was still a little small.

'That reminds me...I wonder how Tetsuya's doing? Wait, why did I just think of Tetsuya right now? I'm treating him like he's a close friend, is he one? What am I thinking, of course not. I can't and won't let that happen. If I did, then wouldn't my search be in vain? Yes, I need to find these answers for myself. As much as I like their company, I can't bond with Keiko and Tetsuya...'

"Now you listen here, you stupid wench!" a man had yelled, and Soujiro looked in the direction from which the voice came.

"No, asshole!" a woman yelled back. She was about Soujiro's height, and she had shiny black hair that was cropped a little lower than her shoulders. She was pretty slim, and she would've looked quite pretty- at least in Soujiro's humble, and most of the time meaningless, opinion- had she not been really pissed off, and red in the face with anger.

Soujiro glanced at Keiko, and she seemed to be a little worried, about what he didn't completely pick up, but he did know it had to do with the fight in front of them. He wasn't quite sure what he was worried about more, the men or her.

The men brought themselves to his attention as they started to approach him and Keiko. He subconsciously widened his lips into a smile, and he looked at Keiko, "don't worry, just please go over there, by that shop over there, okay Keiko-chan? I don't really want you to be injured, okay?"

She looked at where he was pointing, and the shop was about 15 meters away from Soujiro and the approaching men. She couldn't help but ask in a confused manner, "Uh...Seta-san? Why in the world are you smiling right now? Shouldn't you be a little more serious?"

"I'm smiling? Oh well, I'll tell you later okay?" Soujiro said. 'Damn,' he thought, 'why do I have to be smiling now of all times? Why not later? Hopefully, Keiko will forget about that question later. I really don't want to scare her, she's too innocent to have to know about murderers like me. Oh, well time to focus, they're about to attack me...'

They had all stopped about 20 feet in front of him, and one of them said, "Oi, weirdo! What the hell's with that smile?"

Another man ordered, "hmm...everyone draw your swords! He could be dangerous! Don't underestimate him!"

'Pretty smart for being drunk,' Soujiro thought ironically. He glanced at the woman and she was staring right back at him, almost as if she were judging him. Soujiro oddly got the feeling that he should impress this woman. He didn't know why and he reasoned that maybe she needed to be impressed, maybe to pacify her anger? Or he could be looking for attention? Those were two reasonable answers, 'but why? Why am I feeling this way? Well can't think about it now...'

Soujiro got into his typical Battou-jitsu position, and he rushed towards the men in less than a blink of an eye. It took him even less time to weave about the men, and he decided to destroy all of their swords, hoping that would leave an impression for them to flee. He made sure that he precisely cut the lowest part of the blades as possible, so as only the hilt of the sword was left. Just for an added effect he decided to stop right next to the woman and look at her,

His smile widened when the men received the shock of realizing that all of their swords were broken and he was standing next to the woman; all done in less than a second. His smile widened even more when the woman became shocked, and he noticed that Keiko was completely speechless as well.

'Hmm,' Soujiro pondered as they started to get over their shock, 'this kinda feels good. I'm not sure why it feels good, but it does. Shishio-sama, or everyone else I knew for that matter, never acted that way in the rare amount of times I felt like I wanted to impress them. I guess because they were used to seeing me use the Shuku-chi to notice any difference.'

A whistle blew in the distance, which meant the police were arriving. Soujiro became a little tense as he saw the figure of a policeman running towards him, 'I really hope the police don't recognize me as Tenken no Soujiro. I can't go to jail yet, I still need to search, and escort Keiko-chan.'

Keiko, the woman, and Soujiro- tense and nervous as ever- all looked to the police officer as he spoke, "What happened here?"

Before Soujiro could answer, the woman blurted, "I got in a fight, and he was a good distraction for me to beat them."

The policeman took the information in, and asked Soujiro, "Does she speak the truth?"

Soujiro was nearly sweating with nervousness, and he shakily responded, "h-hai."

The policeman looked at him a little longer and shrugged. He said, "good work, just be sure to stay out of any more trouble miss," and he left.

Soujiro watched him leave, mentally sighing in relief. He felt a presence and looked to his left. He found Keiko there, staring up at him, "How did you do that?" she asked in pure awe.

"Yes, we would both like to know how you did that," the woman chimed in; and her tone softened slightly, "by the way thanks."

"For what?" Soujiro asked naively.

"For agreeing with me, idiot," she said, quickly changing back top her normal tone, "normal people usually defend themselves you know. By the way, what made you so nervous?"

"Uh, nothing," Soujiro responded quickly.

"Bullshi..."

"Please stop, ma'am," Keiko interrupted in a quiet tone.

"Who are you? His girlfriend or something?"

Keiko blushed, and Soujiro said evenly, "please ma'am that's enough. If it means that much to you, I'm not in any relationship with her other than being an escort."

"And where you be escorting her?" the woman asked snidely.

"Tokyo."

"Okay," she said, she thought for a moment, and continued, "if you're escorting her, then I'm coming along."