[FFML] [fic][rk][cont] Rurouni Yahiko Chapter 8: The Peculiar Chicken

[Abdiel]

When a storyteller sat down to tell a story, a story of heroes and
legend, there was an assumed convention in place known as time
compression.

The rule worked like this: Nobody wanted to hear three hours of prose 
poetry sung to a lightly strummed biwa--a Japanese version of the lute--
that could be summarized as "And then they rode from City A to City B,
and the trip took three weeks." In general, an audience wanted to get to
the good bits, like the bloody swordfight that happened in City A and
the damsel in distress who was wooed into questionable activities in
City B, before being dumped so the hero could sneak off to City C.

But what this convention denied was the quiet times in between City A
and City B. A time when everybody could unwind, enjoy a nice repetitive
and dull as six-year-old nails trip, and be nice and rested for the
incredible battle they had to survive in City B. If heroes really had
to bop from place to place at rapid fire and do heroic deeds in both,
we'd have fewer heroes, or more heroes with post traumatic stress
disorder, neither of which made for good stories.

Besides, a lot of interesting things could happen en route to uncertain 
destiny, so it'd be good to enjoy the trip while it lasted...


________________________________________________________________________


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

I needed to write this more 'lighthearted' chapter, 'coz I just wrote a
rather depressing Shonen Chapter, for goodness sakes. Ah, Shonen.

________________________________________________________________________

Chapter 8: The Peculiar Chicken
________________________________________________________________________



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
backwater region that had _just_ recently learned the potential of
commerce and industry was well-known for only those two things, 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.

"Well, well, well; look at what we have here," a voice boomed from
behind the immobilized Tokyo Samurai Descendant and his brigand for a
companion, which would mean that the owner of the aforesaid booming
voice was currently talking to their posteriors, "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.

"Gan," Yahiko Myoujin seethed through grit teeth as he fiddled with the
hilt of his inheritance; Kenshin Himura's sakabatou. Then, with a grand
flourish that would have made the ex-rurouni proud, the wedged 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
fully well that those series of questions were _exactly_ the type he
needed given the situation.

Taken aback by his quarry's gumption, Gan went silent for quite a bit
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!" 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 a 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 leer 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 already 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 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. And Yahiko, being an ever-diligent and well-versed pupil of
Kamiya Kasshin Ryu, indeed was 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 subjects.

As such, 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_ policy.

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, who the
villain believed would soon meet his demise and/or defeat. Commonly used
in union with the deathtrap, villains had a nasty habit of pontificating
on how said victim would soon die, and might also give away details of
their evil plots, on the rationale that the victim would die soon. This
speech almost always resulted in giving the hero time to escape the
trap, providing the hero critical information he needed to defeat the
villain, or filling in plot background that had not yet been revealed to
the hero. 

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, drunken 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 fumed,
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 is just sickening.'

Worse, Yahiko was fairly certain that Gan had just related his origin
story to him when he wasn't listening. Missing out on that would be
really bad since there might be something in the man's past to point out
to him which would turn him into a good guy. That sometimes happened
with reluctant villains that switched over to the side of justice.

Nevertheless, 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 into the dirt,
specifically to get meals and a nice 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 free of the
small fissure, the young boy successfully freed himself from his
compromising position, 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 spiky-haired young lad, the admittedly forgotten
Munenori Minoe had also been freed from the hole in wall care of
Yahiko's effort, but was currently in a state of panic and distress
because of the fact that their sudden escape had caused the home of
their little bat friends some considerable damage.

"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 because 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-TAN!" Led by 'Kitsune-tan', the flying mammals swarmed the eye-
patched man'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 have no business in hearing, but still--Hmmm. I seem
to have forgotten the point I was making," Gan continued to obliviously
rant, unaware of the charging Yahiko in front of him.

"Shut up, shut up, SHUT UP!" Yahiko groused as he quickly unsheathed his
reversed-edge 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 the 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
Yahiko, 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
aaand, 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 Tokyo Samurai Descendant couldn't help but
laugh at what he saw; Gan's arm from the elbow down was now helplessly
stuck on the rocky earth, as though wedged in a fox hole. "HA! 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 Great 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 then made a grand show of sheathing his mostly
blunted blade back to 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." 

"Ha! 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 being 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 floor, and crossed his arms in open, double-dog-
dare challenge.

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

That was an understatement. Usually, earthquakes were simple waves
rolling through the surface of the world, spreading from a focal point.
This was different. This was the ground itself actually shaking, as a
whole, not as a reaction to some other force.

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 apparently buried in a
shallow grave of sorts. Because of the large man's violent exertions,
the ground burst out, sending dozens of rocks and hundreds of sharp
small shards everywhere. Yahiko watched in horror as the barrage
threatened to break every bone in Gan's body... but didn't, the debris
harmlessly pelting the recently retrieved covered weapon which the thug
whirled in front of him like a windmill amidst a monsoon gale. 

"...." was Yahiko's witty quip-retort-comeback-catchphrase-snappy-reply
to Gan's amazing feat.

"That was so cool, Gan-tan!" Minoe appraised with a flourish, finally
free of batty nuisances care of the multipurpose fish that Gan stole
and used to ambush Yahiko with. "Three cheers for the Great Gan!" the
eye-patched man-boy shouted, hopping up and down in his garish purple
and black costume and waving the fish and a confused bat around for
good measure. "Give me a G! Give me an A! Give me an N! Give me an A!
Give me an N! What does it spell? Um... er... GANAN! GANAN! If he can't
do it, no one can! GOOOOOO TEAM!! YAAAAY!"

...And everybody just STARED.

"What?" Minoe asked, pursing his lips cutely.

"...." was Yahiko's witty quip-retort-comeback-catchphrase-snappy-reply
to Minoe's presentation. What he _meant_ to say was, 'Oh gods, I'm stuck
with a couple of psychotic dunderheads that almost make psycho-kid seem
like a nice, happy, and well-adjusted human being... and that's saying a
LOT,' but was too flabbergasted to do so. And who could blame him?

"BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA! I like you, patches! You're all right," Gan hollered
boisterously, grabbing Minoe's ditzy head and petting him like a stray
puppy. "Ours were quite the wonderful performances... Weren't they,
Yoshi-boy?"

Not bothering to 'hear' out Yahiko's predictable four-dotted rejoinder,
Gan did an idle follow-through twirl with his weapon that ended with a
rather loud thunk on the crater it helped create. Unwrapping the dusty, 
torn, and withered tarp, he revealed the mystery object to be a sizeable
metal stick twice as long and ten times as thick as Yahiko's sakabatou. 

"Mine's bigger than yours," Gan sneered at the boggling little samurai.
"And guess what? I've given your little offer some thought, and I've
decided that I'll just kick your ass from here to Sunday anyway and pay
my food tab when I feel like it. 'Coz, y'see, I came here to kick ass
and eat meat buns, and I'm all out of meat buns."

"Quit acting like it's a spur of the moment decision! You were going to
do that anyway!" Yahiko screamed incredulously. He also gulped, but
smirked to cover up his hesitation and keep up his confident facade.
'First psycho-kid, and now this delusional food bandit. It just never
ends.'

Minoe looked adorably troubled for a moment, put the fish and the bat
away, then struck his palm with a closed fist of enlightenment. "Oh
yeah. Meat buns. That was why I was chasing these two... I forgot."

And so, a few metallic clangs, testosterone-filled pose-downs, and
lengthy jeers later, the fight finally started.

After getting an initial feel of Gan's rhythm and attack pattern, Yahiko
attacked his languid opponent with Advanced Kamiya Kasshin Ryu Forms
Twenty-Four, Fifty, Twelve, and Eighty-Eight with unnerving precision.
He landed a chain of unerring combinations that served as both offensive
and defensive strikes that took advantage of Gan's sloppy form and
lackadaisical approach in combat. In regards to pure sword-fighting
skill, Yahiko had the inelegant brute beat.

"You sure you're good enough for this match? We can stop before it
becomes humiliating," Yahiko heckled, his confidence slowly rising
despite his recent psycho-kid-related wounds.

The slightly battered Gan chuckled, balled a fist up, and struck his
face outright. Straightening his bleeding nose and blowing on it loudly,
he drawled, "Now, _that_ hurt. Those little mosquito bites of yours, on
the other hand, didn't. You should've sharpened your sword first, boy;
it's as blunt as a rock. Maybe if you hit me seven more times with your
strongest strikes, then I might start to feel it." Afterwards, in true
smash-mouth fashion, Gan smashed Yahiko's mouth.

Then the real fight started. 

Gan weathered the storm of Yahiko's effective counterstrikes and bull-
rushed the boy with his whirling dervish of a huge metal stick... and,
looking at it up close, it was indeed one of the strangest weapons the
hapless young man ever saw. It had controllable range depending on where
Gan slipped his hand and the ability to switch from a quick yet fairly
tolerable blunt strikes to a ponderous yet skull-crushing blow in a mere
moment.

'It's annoying, that's what it is,' Yahiko complained in his head as the
bulky hooligan kept his attack patterns circular and narrow; even though
the Tokyo Samurai Descendant was on the defensive, he still didn't have
the opportunity to use the Judo-like Kamiya Kasshin Ryu Defensive Ougi,
and doubted he would even have a chance. The downward strike needed to
activate the move just wasn't happening. 'Yet.'

Yahiko immediately rectified the situation by striking hard with a
calculated Ryu Sho Sen strike that started somewhere near his ankles
and exploded on Gan's hefty jaw. The ruffian reacted as expected,
retaliating with a cumbersome yet irresistible finishing blow aimed at
the boy's head.

Yahiko crossed his wrists as the metal bat approached his kabuto-covered
cranium. "Defensive Ougi--HADOME!" 

Gan countered by slipping the metal staff a few notches from his grip
and missing Yahiko's head and wrists by mere inches. Consequently, he
struck the ground in between the both of them and roared words of
rumbling thunder: "HAPPA!"

"Oh bother," Yahiko murmured as he saw the resulting mushroom cloud of
utter destruction form in front of him. A few moments later, he found
himself sprawled on a pile of rubble and debris from the wall where he
had his head stuck into just a minute ago; deja vu and all that.

Had Yahiko not just fought with Soujiro Seta last night and procured a
variety of semi-healed injuries, and had Gan not just took out a big
metal stick which Yahiko couldn't exactly apply his sword-snatching or
sword-breaking expertise to, he _might_ just have a fighting chance.
Hell, he could barely keep up with the fat, brawny man during their
impromptu marathon around Shinshu. 'No excuses. A fight's a fight, and
I've got to fight smart.'

Yahiko did a quick kip-up, sprinted towards Gan, and when he was just
about to crash into the big lug, used his momentum to execute the Kendo
version of the Kuzu Ryu Sen, striking the hulking man down with a Men
strike to the top of the head, a Sayu-Men and Yoko-Men to the left and
right side of the head, a right Kote to the wrist when Gan struck back,
a mocking left Kote when Gan reverted to his guarded position, and a
feinted Tsuki thrust to the neck within two eye blinks. 

As Gan promised, once Yahiko hit him seven more times, he sure did feel
it; he fell onto one knee, feeling a bit winded and headachy by the
unexpected assault. "Ouch."

Wincing through the pain and agony that chose to make their presence
known in that particular exertion, Yahiko fell back and slipped on his
heels in sheer exhaustion. He cursed under his breath. 'I should have
sat this one out and made Kaoru Number Two handle this moronic lug,
dammit.'

The two combatants shook their heads off of their remaining cobwebs,
but alas, Gan recovered his senses first. "I said it before, and I'll
say it again, Yoshi-boy; I will _not_ let you take away my BABY! Not
EVER!" He raised his steel staff once more over Yahiko's head, this
time with the intention of not missing its the proper target due to a
feint.

Yahiko's metaphorical Sword of Damocles had reappeared, hanging over the
his head like a specter of death. 'His baby?' Yahiko thought through the
haze of pain, 'Does he mean the big metal stick?'

Minoe had seen enough. "You can't do that to Yahiko-tan, Gan-tan! You
still have your meat-bun tab to pay to ME!" the effeminate boy whined as
he gracelessly hit Gan with the overused and cliche large fish, said
edible water-dweller exploding upon impact. "Huh. I don't know my own
strength."
 
"Ick," Gan blubbered after wiping his face and spewing fish entrails out
of his mouth. "Jeez. Honestly, Jubei-chan! Get out of my way, 'coz I
need to conk this latest debtor of mine out cold and call it a day!" the
thug waxed poetic as he unceremoniously took Minoe by the scruff of his
gi and heaved him away like an errant house pet.

As Minoe went flying, he pondered aloud, "Hmmm. On the other hand, the
fact that Gan-tan can make Yahiko-tan's head cave-in has nothing to do
with the meat-bun tab. I saved Yahiko-tan for nothing." He sighed and
shrugged in midair. "Oh well." Tragically, due to the fact that he just
destroyed his 'Bat-Swatting Fish of Doom', the--"THEY'RE BACK! AHHH! THE
BATS ARE ALL BACK! OW!" as he flew into the afternoon sky.

With half-lidded eyes, Gan cleared his throat. "Now where were we? Ah,
yes... Sorry, Yoshi-boy. Life can be such a bitch, y'know?" the muscle-
bound goon apologized as he hefted his mighty metal club once more and
let it fall down towards the chicken perched on top of Yahiko's kabuto-
covered head with all the inevitability of a falling star.

Wait a second. Something wasn't right.

Gan backpedaled HARD as he used every muscle in his arms to stop the
forward momentum of his metal club, exploiting every possible loophole
on all known laws of physics and gravity by his sheer willpower alone.
With that done, physics and gravity retaliated with a vengeance by
bouncing back all the energy the ruffian used to stop the club's descent
and made his arms hyper-contract. The man bit his lip through the
blinding pain. "That was close... Ow. Ow. So worth it, but ow."

Yahiko... blinked. And blinked. There was some strange human reaction to 
surprise that demanded him to blink many times to clear his eyes and
assure his brain that, "Yes, you did just see the muscle-head stop his
own club from turning your head into a second kabuto." It also gave him
something to do other than hold rock still, which was dramatically
uninteresting. "Um... What's up, Gan?"

Bird poop fell on Yahiko's nose. The boy crossed his eyes towards the
brim of his hat and saw even more drippings and an upside-down chicken
head staring right back him. A funny-looking chicken, at that. 

"My BABY! Oh, please don't hurt my BABY!" Gan begged with completely
inapt and disturbing motherly tones, "I'll do anything... ANYTHING... to
get him back! I'll... I'll even sell you this big metal stick for scrap
metal! Actually, this technically _is_ scrap metal, but a blacksmith
doesn't care about those details! Metal is metal! I'm sure it's good
enough to pay at least half of my food tab!"

"W-Wait. The chicken is your baby? I thought that stupid metal stick was
your baby!" Yahiko bemusedly remarked as he wiped the bird doody on his
gi's sleeve.

"Oh, this hunk of junk? I love it just a little more than a cheap four-
by-four plank, and only because it doesn't chafe my palms and splinter
on impact," Gan admitted. "I also buried it here to guard my precious
treasure better. But, back to our discussion... Come on! PLEASE give me
the chicken back? I'll be your best friend!"

Yahiko exhaled loudly and caaaarefully slackened his body to give the
mindless poultry on his head a false sense of security before he caught
it and used it as Gan-bait. Still, the boy couldn't but help feel a bit
out of the loop. "So let me get this straight: You made us run the
entire length of Shinsusen, hit me with a fish to the face--"

"It was actually for the chicken," Gan elucidated.

"...had my head stuck to a rock wall, talked to my butt, and nearly
killed me with your metal version of a four-by-four because of a...
chicken?" With amazing dexterity, Yahiko suddenly grabbed hold of his
one leverage against the elusive Gan by its legs. It struggled and
squawked. He finally held it by both wings and it stood still. "Are you
really that hard up on drumsticks, sunny-side ups, and chicken wings?"

"Don't be silly, Yoshi-sama," the Humbled Gan soothingly cooed, amiably
addressing the young man by adding a special suffix to the name he gave
him but still missing the part which annoyed Yahiko the most, which was
the name itself. "He's a rooster, so he can't lay any eggs. Also, he's
not here to be eaten, or else he'd be long gone--"

"Tell me about it," Yahiko idly interjected.

"--But, BUT, his true purpose is far more, shall we say, rewarding." 
Gan put his little whacking club away, hunched forward, and wrung his
hands in a show of good will, unaware that his body language was giving
his true intentions away quite as easily as a pencil-thin moustache, a
maniacal laugh, and a buxom beauty tied to the rails of an oncoming
train would.

"I was half-expecting you to say 'sinister' instead of 'rewarding',"
Yahiko accentuated the unsaid suspicions.

"ANYWAY, since you look like a good, intelligent, handsome young man
who'd sooner give me my precious baby back than add to my troubles," Gan
said the complete opposite of what he thought, even though he hoped the
last parts of his lie were true, "I'll tell you the story of how I
caught that little moneymaker--erhm, baby of mine."

Yahiko crooked his mouth to a disbelieving half-frown, closed his eyes,
then nodded for Gan to go ahead with his story. 

"Thank you. Y'see, I was just around the neighborhood of Suwa, minding
my own business, when I heard the rapid flapping of wings. I turned in
the direction of the sound and saw these two chickens fighting the far
end of the field. Beak against beak, claw against claw; it was a
spectacular fight to the death in a whirlwind of feathers and dust! This
rooster--the one you're holding now, anyway--won the fight with a
spectacular finish, which had me thinking, 'Why, if I caught a rooster
like that, I could get rich in the cockpit.' So I caught it and planned
to use it in the local cockfighting circuit. What? Don't look at me like
that, that's the whole story, I swear!"

So, going back, Shinshushin... 'Shinshu', in short... wasn't just well-
known for its Shinshu Soba and Silk-Weaving. The unmentionable things it
wasn't known for--some questionable, some mundane, some innocuous, some 
controversial, and some even outright illegal--well, one of them was
cockfighting. Or, as the Spaniards called it, 'The Poor Man's Bullfight'
but only imagine it in Spanish: 'Toreo del Hombre Pobre' or something.
Of course, such a title could only be used metaphorically, for it was
quite the popular gambling blood sport.

The quick and dirty facts: A cockfight was a blood sport between two
specially trained roosters held in a ring called a cockpit. The
combatants, known as gamecocks or cocks, were specially bred birds,
conditioned for increased stamina and strength. The comb and wattle were
usually cut off in order to facilitate the placement of a hood over the
birds' heads to keep them calm prior to the beginning of a fight and to
decrease the potential for wounds and bleeding in these fleshy areas.
Cocks possessed congenital aggression toward all males of the same
species, which was amplified through training and conditioning. Wagers 
were often made on the outcome of the match. While not all fights were
to the death, they often might result in the death of both birds.

The Origin of Cockfighting in Japan was a bit unclear, but cockfighting
in general was a murky, shady business to begin with. Nevertheless, it
was known for a fact that the 'Shamo' or the 'Ou (King) Shamo'--a
specifically bred and prized species of gamecock most associated with
Japan, along with the 'Shokoku' and 'Satsumadori'--was introduced into
the country from Thailand way back during the heydays of the Edo period
two to three centuries earlier. So seeing that cockfighting should have
been around even before that, the blood sport was indeed a very old
tradition rooted into the very heart of Japanese (Underground) Culture.
            
"Typical. How very typical, you gambling-addicted thug... using a stolen
chicken to aid to your addiction," Yahiko drolly commented as he took a
closer look at the fowl in question. He blinked, tilted his head to the
side, and chortled. "Heh. I'm afraid lady luck isn't smiling upon you at
all, Gan. I doubt she's even in speaking terms with you. Karma has
struck again! You can't use this chicken to get into the cockpit, 'coz
this chick's a chick! It's a hen, you moron."

"Bu-wahaaat? What's the matter with you?" Gan asked in disbelief, nearly
slapping the boy for making such ridiculous claims. "Is the heat making
you sick and confused?"

"No. If anything, your smell should be making me sick and the bumps on
my head should be making me confused. Still, listen to reason. I mean,
look at its head: It has no comb or wattles," Yahiko pointed out. "I'm
no expert in chickens, but I've never heard of a rooster that doesn't
have a comb or wattles."

"Well, you're right about one thing; you're no expert in chickens," Gan
retorted as he attempted to requisition his stolen bird from Yahiko, but
the boy still saw it fit to move the prized possession just out of the
hoodlum's reach. "No comb or wattles! HA! Who cares about its comb or
wattles? You're just saying that 'coz you didn't see it fight! Besides,
who's to say this wasn't an escaped professional gamecock whose combs
and wattles were already cut off prior to us finding it?"

"Okay, fine," Yahiko said in the most condescending, disparaging tone he
could muster; intonations he usually reserved to get Kaoru/Sanosuke/
Yutaro/probably Chizuru, since he'd already met her/Misao/some random,
irritable stranger all riled up. "Let's presume, for the sake of
argument, that this hen kicked another chicken's behind. Fine. I'm all
for that. Girl power. I've seen ferocious moms that are scarier than
thugs like you, so I still say that it doesn't prove anything and this
chicken is still a hen."

"A hen! Did you ever see a hen with spurs like that? Or a hen with a
tail like that?" the ticked-off Gan enumerated for Yahiko, now more
interested in proving that the big snag in his harebrained moneymaking
scheme was all in his skeptical debt collector's cynical, untrusting,
and generally mean imagination than getting his prized hen/rooster/ren/
hooster back. 

"Okay. Keep your pants on. We'll talk about the chicken's sex on our way
to the Sakaguchi's. If you can convince me that this chicken is a
rooster, then maaaaaybe I'll let you get it into the cockpit so that you
can win back the money you owe my friends. If I prove that this chicken
is a hen, then it's either we barter it for something more profitable,
sell it to a chicken breeder, or have it for breakfast just before you
work your soba debt off by washing dishes at the Sakaguchi's Soba Shop.
Understand?" came Yahiko's ultimatum.

After a few minutes of harried pacing, nail biting, and contemplative
brooding, Gan eventually assented, "Fine! FINE. But if this is a trick
to somehow make me lose my baby bird, then you're in for a world of
hurt, bandage boy."

Yahiko kept his cool, and his machismo, in check, remembering the near-
loss (or was it 'loss'?) he had against his fight with the Blustering
Gan and absently rolling down his shirtsleeves to hide the aforesaid
bandages.

'If I weren't so busted up because of psycho-kid, I would've made mince
meat out of you, you two-bit hoodlum,' he griped. Aloud, he scoffed,
"Whatever, dude. Pick up your metal stick, wrap it up, and let's get a
move on." 


***


A short while later, on the same debris-ridden outcrop of wasteland
that used to be a safe haven for bats and birds alike...

"Helloooo? Gan-tan? Yahiko-tan?" the scratch-marked, bite-marked, and
generally marked Munenori Minoe whispered carefully, earnestly,
DESPERATELY at... no one in particular, apparently, as he crawled on
his belly, hid behind bushes, and checked out the quiet graveyard.
Catacombs. Surroundings. Same difference, if you asked him.

It was early afternoon, and the sun remained up, but because of a
wayward bunch of uninvited clouds and the accursed shadiness of trees,
Minoe's immediate environs soon gave the young-looking man-pirate the
impression of a chilling, ominous menace.

"Are you two still out here? 'Coz I still need to get the payment for
all the meat buns you ate, Gan-tan. Cash-on-delivery would be
preferable, but miscellaneous goods and services that are ready for
bartering are okay too."

He heard a startling rustle in the distance. "Gan-tan? Yahiko-tan?" He
gulped. "Mister Myoujin? Mister... Gan? Mister Mojo Risin? Mister
Anybody? Please?" He raised his eye patch to get a better look.

Ten thousand pairs of glowing eyes curiously looked back at him. His
dearest friends were back, and none of them were either Gan or Yahiko.

And so Minoe did scream like a little girl amidst hundreds of similarly
hypersonic screeches and leathery wing-flaps... though he did run away
like a stampeding horse hooked on heroin in contrast to his far more
emasculating reactions.


***


Back inside the Sakaguchi Soba Shop...

"Welcome to the Sakaguchi Soba...? Ah, Sakaguchi-san! What the hell are
you doing here?!" Chizuru exclaimed before covering her mouth in shame,
muttering a mellifluous, halfhearted apology to the visitor that had
just arrived at the door in regards to her apparent brashness. "Welcome
back, Mister Sakaguchi."

Kyoko Sakaguchi's face brightened like a halogen lamp as she set aside 
the empty ceramic bowl she was holding. "Daddy!" she greeted giddily as
she ran towards the rough-shaven man in police garb and gave him a warm
embrace. "What are you doing here? I thought you were still stationed
over there in Yokohama!"

"I still kind of am, honey, but as soon as I heard that Akahori-san's
police escorts for his special Daijokan meeting in Shinsu were a bit
shorthanded, I volunteered immediately," Satoru Sakaguchi grinningly
explained to his diffident daughter as he hobbled towards her with his
cane and patted her head. "I'm sorry I haven't been able to visit you
and your mother earlier. Things have been hectic in and around Yokohoma,
what with politicians getting their noses in our business and all.
Still, the good news is that the Kaishinto Conservatives has finally
toppled that silly Jiyuto Liberal Party--I'm boring you with all this
talk about politics, aren't I?"

Kyoko playfully frowned, but couldn't keep it up as it quickly melted
into a delighted smile... a shy, tentative, yet happy one that said,
"Even though there weren't many police volunteers in Akahori's meeting
because of the very real danger of an announced assassination attempt
right here in our sleepy little town, and you're in danger too for
volunteering, I'm just glad you're home." She snuggled closer to her
father. "How long are you going to stay here, chichi-ue?" 

Kyoko's father scratched the back of his ear and looked at the ceiling;
just like his daughter, he wasn't very good at keeping up pretenses, so
his open-book discomfiture earned him a not-so-playful and heartbreaking
scowl of daughterly disappointment. "The restaurant business is doing
well, I hope," Satoru hastily changed the subject as he reluctantly let
go of his sweet and precious child--their reunion could have indeed gone
better.

"It'd probably fare better if Nonoko-san were just a teensy little bit
more practical with the way she handles customers. She's a patient wife
and devoted mother, Sakaguchi-san, but those things have little to no
bearing with the food industry," the granddaughter of their old family
friend, Chizuru Raikouji, nonchalantly related (more like tattled) to
the Sakaguchi Patriarch in typical roundabout Japanese fashion.

Usually, Chizuru was above such notions of coy backtalk, double
entendres, and guerilla conversations. In fact, several times she had
been accused of being a pushy, candid, half-Japanese, half-Gaijin demon
spawn with the sheer amount of brazenness, insolence, and moxie she
usually brought to the table, as seen with how she dealt with the fake
Battousai Group's terrorist activities. 

However, she felt that her erudite un-Japanese-ness was only applicable
on a case-to-case basis; she didn't think that either of the two elder
Sakaguchis would take her seriously with her usual uncouth approach.
Raising a big stink, confronting Nonoko's husband in regards to his
wife's culturally ingrained doormat submissiveness, and demanding
immediate change and action would only make things worse, burn bridges,
and reinforce her bad reputation of being a pushy and rude girl. 

There were times when even an independent woman like herself had to
learn to adapt to the kind of culture she was born in, even if it went
against everything she believed to be true in her heart. When in Rome,
they always said; play by other people's rules and learn to respect and
value their opinion as much as you would want others to respect yours
and all that jazz. 'Sorry, Kyoko-chan; I can barely stand hearing myself
talk like this, but a girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do. This is
for Nonoko-san's and the restaurant's sakes, not mine.'

"Still, I'm slightly worried about all these unpaid tabs, customers
gambling over food, and unsightly characters inside a family restaurant.
It's very surprising, to say the least," Chizuru eventually let out,
hating every last calm, prying, politically correct, and hypocritical
word she spewed out of her mouth.

"Oh, really? I see," Satoru idly commented as he lifted his cane to his
armpit and gently sat down on a nearby bench, making his words as
undecipherable and indistinct as possible lest he was within his wife's
earshot and he inadvertently made a negative remark about her, or
betrayed any sort of ill-will or pandering to the concerned/busybody
granddaughter of their old family friend. Keeping the peaceful status
quo during these very sensitive discussions was the way to go.

Kyoko pouted a moue of consternation, narrowing her eyes ever-so-subtly
at Chizuru and her brownnosing but not saying a word about it. Two could
play this game. "Actually, daddy, Chizuru-san just met a young boy
yesterday. He's a bit younger than her... by about seven years... but he
has already come of age. I do hope I'm not being too brash at all, but
in just eight years, if Chizuru-san were to fail in landing a husband,
she'd be in an unmarriable age." The statement was unabashedly non-
sequitur and insultingly ad hominem, but it'd do.

A vein popped up on Chizuru's forehead as her face reddened to a slight
pinkish color; truly, the sweet smile that was currently plastered on
her face would have done Soujiro Seta proud. Kyoko grinned at the much
older woman in kind, knowing full well that she'd just hit a nerve.

The Raikouji Heiress refuted, "Speaking of May-December romances, how is
Minakata Kinta anyway?" She tossed her luxurious black hair and smirked.
"That's a wonderful theory you got there, Kyoko-chan, but Yahiko just
isn't my type, I'm afraid. Oh, by the way, didn't you help bring Yahiko
back here to us after that incident with the Battousai Group? The same
Yahiko you've suddenly brought up for no particular reason? You two
looked so cute back then!"

Chizuru meant, 'Butt-off, Kyoko. I'm only doing this because Nonoko-san
literally just had her inventory emptied by a mooching, two-ton brute,
and she's doing diddly squat about it. Well, if she won't, then I will,
and I'm sure 'daddy dearest' wants to hear more about it.'

The young soba waitress giggled gently and responded, "I'm sure that
Kinta-sama is doing fine, as is Yuki-nee, grandfather, and all the rest
of our friends back in Kanagawa. Yahiko-san has his own rugged charm, I
admit, but if you insist that you don't see him as anything other than
a friend, then it's all right. You probably have the same attitude
towards him as you do to Seta Soujiro-kun anyway. Always the cold
shoulder, the insults, the tirades: No man seems ever good enough for
you. I guess you were really smitten by that 'vagabond' Battousai you
always kept telling everybody about." 

Kyoko meant, 'At least _I_ actually have prospects. What do you have,
Chizuru-obaasan? Besides, mom knows what she's doing. Unlike cynical,
bitter, and untrusting _you_, mother actually has faith in other
people. Besides, until she allowed Gan-san his little wager, we've
never had that many customers. True, most of them weren't paying
customers, but... You'll never get married, so nya!' 

All the same, taking into consideration both literal and symbolic
meanings of Kyoko's statement, Chizuru now looked like a human kettle
that was just about ready to burst and let steam out of her ears.

"Oh yes. I've met that boy during my last visit here. He and his boss
had been up and about the whole Kanto and Chubu regions all month long,
as though they were on a long campaign trail or something. Akahori-san's
been a very busy bee," Satoru nervously added to the rather strange,
tense dialogue, inwardly cringing at all the hidden female hostilities.
"Anyway, from the few times I've talked to him, Seta-kun seems like a
nice, happy young man, though he usually keeps to himself."

"Speaking of the Seta boy," Chizuru 'innocently' interrupted, ignoring
Kyoko's wide-eyed glare of warning, "he's a swordsman and a bodyguard to
that Akahori person, isn't he? Well, I heard he was actually involved
with the sudden demise of an entire troupe of gangsters that claimed to
be the notorious Battousai Group. Not that he actually did it per se;
the remaining Shinshushin police who bothered to do an investigation
stated that Keisuke, the fake Battousai Group's Leader, was killed in a
slightly different manner than all the rest of his deceased comrades.
And, knowing how close your wife was to Seta-kun, she might have
mentioned to him what happened between Keisuke and your daughter."

Chizuru meant, 'Damn girl, you're better at this than I am, but I won't
give up just yet. So yeah... I went there. I tattled on psycho-kid.' The
Kaoru look-alike watched Kyoko's reaction, expecting yet another round
of sweetly acerbic doubletalk, but one look at the eighteen-year-old
girl's eyes told her that she had indeed said too much.

Kyoko waxed nostalgic, melancholic, remembering both Keisuke's last
words, her own questions, and Soujiro's regret-filled response.

"Red-hair... cross-shaped scar... Please, get him away from... m-me...
H-help me..." the near-dead Keisuke had said, visibly shaking in mortal
fright before his head dropped down on the ground just inches away
from Yahiko's feet.

"Keisuke-san... was the only one who survived the Battousai's attack,"
Kyoko had stated at the end of Yahiko and Soujiro's momentous fight,
unable to look the former Ten Ken in the eye. "Were you the one who...
finished him off?" It was more of a statement than a question.

Soujiro's expression, despite the smile, was completely unreadable.
"Like I said before... I'm not clean enough for redemption. Contrary to
what your mother believes, I am no angel."

The youngest Sakaguchi's thoughts were suddenly derailed by her father
as he stood up and moved towards her and Chizuru.

"Girls, girls," Satoru declared with all seriousness, putting his heavy,
sword-calloused hands on their shoulders, leaving all pretenses of
blissful, willful conformist tolerance, and replacing it with a more
universal, fatherly worry. "What's this I hear about some boy, a fake
Battousai Group, Seta-kun, that bastard Keisuke, and a food bandit?"


***


It was already in the middle of the afternoon when Gan and Yahiko got
back to the town of Nojiri, but they still couldn't agree on what
determined the gender of a chicken. 

If the animal in question had been a cow, it would've been simple. All
they would have to do was to look at  the cow--or even look under the
cow, to be completely sure. They would have wasted no time at examining
its tail, hooves, or horns. They would simply have looked at the animal
straight in the face, and if that wasn't enough (or if they were blind
and stupid), then they could check if it had a brass on its nose the cow
would undoubtedly be a bull. But chickens were not like cows. So the
argument went on in the semi-bustling streets of the 'village that was
previously under siege' the whole time.

When they passed the marketplace--with Gan carefully avoiding the stall
of the merchant whom he stole fish from--Yahiko bought a tether with the
money he just made during Gan's last gambling spree. He was planning to
tie the fowl on a peg when they got back into the Sakaguchi's residence.
Of course Gan wasn't feeling too keen about the idea; not the tethering
part, of course, but the going back-to-the-Sakaguchi's-residence part.

"Wouldn't they be a bit angry to see their food thief come back to the
scene of the crime?" Gan ventured, airing out the source of his
trepidation. Both Yahiko and the chicken gave him a blank look.

The bulky man made a resigned hissing sound with his clenched teeth and
exhaled. He clenched his hands together with a loud clap and rambled,
"Shoot, okay! Okay! I get it. If I don't go with you, I don't get my
rooster--"

"Hen."

"--back. Fine. I'm going. I just ain't gonna be happy about it." And so
they did just that, arriving soon after on the front porch of the
Sakaguchi Soba Shop. Yahiko slid the door leading into the restaurant,
entering with a cowed Gan and the tied-up chicken in tow. "We're back. I
got your soba thief right here, Chizuru, and he's got us a chicken."

"Hello everybody!" Gan immediately greeted, immediately recovering from 
his initial glumness and wiggling in fingers around in jolly salutation.
He was afterwards welcomed in return by a swift kick to the crotch. "H-
Hello to you too! Chizuru, isn't it? Yeah, I remember you..." the thug
said as he slowly slumped down to his knees, his voice going up a pitch
or two higher than before.

Chizuru put her hands on her hips and gave Yahiko a raised eyebrow of
begrudged appreciation. "I'll give you this, little boy; you can at
least get the job done. It took you long enough, though." 

Yahiko tipped Takae's kabuto over his eyes and snorted. 

Chizuru afterwards took the kneeling, bandanna-wearing ruffian by the
scruff of his neck, gave him a 'Well, well, well. Look at what we have
here,' type of smile, and then loudly inquired, "Oi, Nonoko-san! The
damn food thief that cost us a bundle of money has come back with a
chicken! He still owes us quite a lot, but would you like some chicken
broth mixed with porridge anyway? We still have ginger in the kitchen!"

She blinked after she heard no response. "Oh, that's right. She went
out for some groceries. Guess I'll just have to kill, pluck, chop, and
boil the chicken myself with or without permission."

"HEY! Don't I get a say in all this?" squeaked Gan, still feeling the
full effects of Chizuru's attack on his manhood. As a consequence,
Yahiko warily slinked away from the two, knowing the rich girl's
personality well enough to know when to back down, even though they'd
just met for a short period of time.

Chizuru easily invaded Gan's personal space in a decisively threatening
manner, her predatory grin appearing as if it had a second row of sharp
fangs behind it. "Okay then. If you want the chicken to live, then how
about I kill, chop, and boil _you_ instead?"

"Er, thanks but no thanks?" Gan hazarded a reply as round globules of
cold sweat dampened his taut head bandanna.

Satoru released a tired sigh at the Raikouji daughter's antics; even
though she meant well most of the time and was indeed one of the
Sakaguchis' closest family friends, she had an indubitable tendency for
overkill. "Stop scaring the food bandit, Chizuru-kun. Besides, you've
never actually killed livestock before."

"Hey, no fair, Mister Sakaguchi! _He_ didn't know that!" Chizuru
pouted sullenly, then whispered to Gan's ear, "Well, there's always a
first time for everything, so don't even _think_ you're off the hook,
pal." The robust man's face consequently paled.

The Head of the Sakaguchi Household cleared his throat with finality and
motioned to all present to take a seat and gather around him. They
quickly obeyed; though he didn't look the part, Satoru Sakaguchi had an
air of unmistakable authority surrounding him.

Once everyone had settled down, Satoru clasped his hands together,
smiled congenially at each familiar and unfamiliar face, and declared,
"So let's go from the top, shall we?" He turned towards the nearest
person. "Who are you?"

Yahiko blinked, stared about him, and then pointed towards himself in
askance. After Satoru confirmed that it was indeed him he was talking
to, the boy hesitantly introduced himself as, "Y-Yahiko. Myoujin Yahiko.
A descendant of Tokyo Samurai. I've actually started journeying Japan to
further my training and--" 'Don't say 'stuff'! Don't say 'stuff'! They
won't take you seriously if you talk like that!' he mentally berated
himself before lamely adding, "...To widen my horizons. Yeah," taking
off his kabuto in a decisively browbeaten and embarrassed manner. 

"Oh, OH! Oh yes, I know you! Chizuru-kun and Kyoko-chan has been talking
about you! So you're the one who kept my daughter from attacking her
stalker and his gang, as well as stopping her duel with her friend! That
Yahiko! It's so nice to meet you!" Satoru beamed, grasping and shaking
the Tokyo Samurai Descendant's hands vigorously. Before Yahoko could
even utter a response, the older man effortlessly segued, "And you?
What's your name, Mister Food Bandit?"

"Er... Gan. Just call me Gan, I mean. It's spelled with the character
that looks like a broken, funny-looking chair instead of the one that
looks like a crown balanced on a flat tray that's wedged on a wooden
box."


***


After a nice, long chat concerning the last two day's events--and very
careful repetition of certain unbelievable details--Satoru was still
left confused and perplexed at the complexity of the seeming tall tale's
happenings. And who could blame him? It was hard to wrap his mind around
all these stories concerning his hometown of Nojiri being held under
siege by a group of pretender terrorists led by his daughter's very
attacker, Keisuke. It was like his own nightmare come to life! God
couldn't possibly be this cruel, could he?

Furthermore, just why and how in the world did the so-called fake
Battousai Group get away with their ill-advised naming scheme? It was
also rather peculiar that a group of men named as such would gather in
the very place where actual members of their more dangerous namesakes
were reportedly on the prowl for an assassination mission; for the
fakes, doing so was equivalent to suicide. Or perhaps the whole thing
smelled more of a setup than a simple bout of stupidity. What a curious
debacle; if Tetsuo Akahori weren't shaking in his boots before, he
should be now. 

Satoru shook his head to help it sort out his priorities better. In the
end, fatherly worry won out against political intrigue; after all, his
dear sweet daughter had just risked her life and innocence to stop
Keisuke's mad ambitions, as though the trauma he put her though all
those years ago wasn't quite enough to satisfy him, that damn perverted
bastard! "Honey, I'm so sorry... If I'd known, I would've made that trip
back here in Shinshu months ago!"

"...." Gan interjected.

"You couldn't have known, daddy. That's why Keisuke took advantage of
that--and the fact that all our local law enforcement has been asked to
report to that cowardly politician's mansion--to terrorize our town,"
Kyoko reassured as she gingerly patted her father's gloved hands. "I'm
so sorry for making you worry unnecessarily."

"Then again, you should have known better than to take your grandpa's
sword and go off on your own to exact justice upon some hooligans and
whatnot," Chizuru berated Kyoko in a bossy tone usually accompanied by
finger-wagging and intense ladle-whapping. Also, just to add to the list
of people she'd so far affronted, she put her elbow over Gan's shoulder
just as she delivered the 'hooligans and whatnot' portion of her
admonition. "If Yahiko hadn't shown up and stopped you, you would've
committed a big, no, _huge_ mistake."

"...." both Kyoko and Gan retorted.

Yahiko raised an eyebrow upon hearing Chizuru's sentiments. "If I hadn't
shown up? More like if that mysterious, cross-scarred redhead hadn't
shown up and killed off the entire troupe of Keisuke's goons before
psycho-kid finished their head honcho himself, then Kyoko-san here
would've been in a serious dilemma."

Kyoko furtively glanced at the younger man's direction, reddened like a
lamp on New Years Day, looked down on the wooden floorboards near her
socked feet, and nodded somberly. "If you put it that way, then yes,
maybe I should be thanking Seta-kun and that stranger, in a manner of
speaking."

Yahiko put his hands up defensively at Kyoko and her melancholic mood
as though he were under arrest by the police or something. The very
reason he even contended Chizuru's insensitive comments was to spare
the mousy girl from delving further into her guilty feelings over
Soujiro Seta's actions. The fact that she was acting so very much like a
certain Tokyo girl he knew with short hair and teeny-tiny voice didn't
help matters either; cue the obligatory sneeze from faraway, if you
would. 

But then Satoru turned towards the Tokyo Samurai son and grilled, "This
redhead... What do you think of him, Myoujin-kun? Between you and me, I
get the feeling he's part of the _real_ Battousai Group. I mean, sure
it's a bit presumptuous of me to claim such a thing, but it'd make a lot
of sense that such a notorious band of terrorists would send one of
their representatives--a particularly obsessed Battousai look-alike fan,
even--to finish off their pesky doppelgangers. This act of aggression
can also be interpreted as a warning sign to Akahori Tetsuo-san, their
intended target."

"I-It's just like you said, sir, but to tell you the truth, outside of
that and, um, other circumstantial evidence, I don't really know much of
anything about this red-haired guy or Battousai Group," Yahiko admitted
warily, alarmed at Satoru's sudden outburst of inapt enthusiasm, feeling
as though the policeman was more interested in the Battousai Group's
activities than the trauma his daughter just went through simply because
it had something to do with his job protecting the aforesaid Ishinshishi
politician's life. Then again, Yahiko was _supposed_ to gather more
information about the massacring, cross-scarred redhead.... 

Unbeknownst to the spiky-haired boy, the squeamish Kyoko gave her father
a shy but grateful smile for his earnest attempt at changing a very
awkward and delicate subject: the dark side of the enigmatic Soujiro
Seta. To discover such a murderous aspect from someone so familiar was
unnerving to the young girl; the fact that he evidently killed Keisuke
for her sake made her feel even more bewildered.

Kyoko sighed. The enigmatic Soujiro had always kept his distance from
her and the Sakaguchis since day one (regardless of his usual facade of
amiability), maintaining an air of secrecy behind his mask of bliss. In
truth, the Seta boy himself had insisted on being called 'Seta-kun' and
'Seta-kun' only, which explained the rather weird situation of Kyoko
calling Yahiko by his first name and Soujiro by his last name, despite
the fact that she had met Soujiro longer. 

Satoru nodded to Yahiko's bemusement whilst distracting him from his
daughter's own distress before declaring, "Well, what's done is done. 
There's nothing more that we can do about it. The Battousai Group is on
the move and have announced that they're about to strike two days later;
it's out of our hands." Yahiko flinched accordingly to that part of the 
announcement. "I'm truly glad that everyone is safe, but now's the time
we discussed our _other_ agendas. So let's talk about that chicken of
yours, Food Bandit-san."

As if on cue, the tethered chicken, which Yahiko tied to a peg near a
tree at the back of the Sakaguchi Restaurant in the middle of Satoru's
grilling for information, suddenly flapped his wings and crowed to
announce the dawn of the afternoon sunset.


***


Next: The Rooster or the Hen?

Credit for most of the framework of the story goes to a, er, local
'bard' this time; hearty thanks and salutations to Alejandro R.
Roces for providing most of the material on which this chapter was
based on; "My Brother's Peculiar Chicken" is a fascinating and
funny story I've read in my childhood.

That's Chapter Eight! Do you have any comments or suggestions? Oh,
and people, please e-mail me too! Fans do make writing fanfics
worthwhile!

A note of dedication goes to MadamHydra for inspiring me to make 
this fic. Her own "That Which Lingers" is somewhat an influence in
this endeavor of mine. 

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

Send instant messages to your online friends http://uk.messenger.yahoo.com