From: Jan-Yun Lou Hello all! Here is the second part of Chapter One of Hate and Honour: HATE AND HONOUR CHAPTER ONE - PART TWO ************************ Kenshin slumped to the ground in exhaustion and defeat. He leaned his head against the wooden wall behind him and sighed. For the last hour he had been asking various people about the Ishin Shishi and each time they gave him the same answer - a quick denial followed by a rapid trail of dust. It was not meant to be this way. He had expected the streets to be lined with supporters of the Revolution, all eager to reform a corrupt and oppressive government. Instead he had found an atmosphere of almost palatable fear. Obviously, the Ishin were in hiding from the despotic forces of the Bakufu. This Kenshin could understand. After all, the Ishin were seen by the Shogunate as enemies and thus would naturally be prosecuted by those forces loyal to the Shogun. What Kenshin didn't understand was the indifference or even hatred that he could sense underneath the fear. Why would the ordinary people not care about or even hate the Ishin Shishi? In adventure stories in the end the oppressive lord or demon would always be defeated by the good samurai. But no matter how evil the lord was, the fighter's code of honour meant that it always came down to single armed combat between the bad lord and the good samurai in a ring following the rules of combat in which no innocents were ever hurt. The important thing was that everyone always loved the good guy and hated the bad guy. The Shogunate were the bad guys and the Ishin were the good guys so why this undercurrent of indifference and hatred...? Kenshin's fourteen year old brain started to hurt. Almost out of reflex his right hand shot out and grabbed that of the young pickpocket beside him. ********************************************************************* In his absent-mindedness, Kenshin jerked at the slight figure harder than he expected causing him to stumble, his loose fitting cap falling easily off his head to the ground, revealing the he-thief to be a very pretty female one. The long braid she had coiled underneath the ragged cap fell down her back. Obeying the training that his Master had spent many years beating (literally!) into him he secured his prisoner by wrapping the long braid around his right wrist. All this was done with an almost automated impersonal efficiency. At last Kenshin looked up from his personal misery. His warm violet eyes widened as he got his first real look at his prisoner. Kenshin knew that his colouring was strange. However it had never really bothered him until he had got to Kyoto as for as long as he could remember, his only companion had been his Master and it was hard to feel inferior because of physical differences when there was only two people around. (Actually Hiko was having too much fun teasing his student about looking like a girl to comment about his strange colouring). It had only been when he had started encountering large groups of people did he realize how different he was. However his training with Hiko stood him in good stead as after years of trying to evade Hiko in his "training trips" in the dense forest surrounding their shack meant that he now almost intuitively tried to conceal his presence from the minds of those around him. While Kenshin's hair and eyes were all warmth and fire, this girl's colouring was glacial ice. The braid wrapped around his wrist was like a silken rope of white gold. Astonishingly for a street-kid her skin was extremely fair which only made the pink of her lips and her cheeks stand out. In stark contrast to her snow-white hair, her eyes which were framed by very dark lashes and brows indicating that she wasn't born with that strange hair, were almost jet black. Also unusual was that she was extremely clean. Though her fair skin was covered with dirt and her clothes were ragged she lacked that stench that seemed to emanate from the street-people Kenshin had already encountered. A stench that came from going months without a bath except when it rained. Normally Kenshin would have found this very suspicious except that at this particular moment in time he was too entranced to think about any thing else. He fingers almost unconciously stroked the silken strands of moonlight he held about his wrist while his violet eyes captured and held her jet black ones. A pink flush started to spread slowly across her cheeks. The two teenagers' mutual trance was broken as someone jostled Kenshin on the shoulder. As the girl came to her senses she started struggling against Kenshin's firm hold on her hair. "Hey you baka, let me go! Hey wait!" she whispered savagely as the annoying red-head stole the money that she had already rightfully stolen. "What do you think you're doing you - " Kenshin shrugged. "I'm taking back the money you stole." "Hmm." the girl harrumphed as she finally gave up on her efforts to escape the red-headed boy's firm grasp. "I suppose that you're going to hand me in to the police?" Kenshin smiled and shook his head. "Well then I suppose you're going to lecture me on how its wrong to steal." Kenshin sighed and let go of her hair. He pressed a few copper coins into her hand. The strange girl stared at her nemesis for a moment as if he was another form of life. "Look this is all I have. I know that you can't buy much with it but well - it is all I have. Take it." The girl drew back in shock for a moment. Suddenly inspiration struck. "Hey I get it! You want to take all that money yourself! Look I'm sure we can come up with a deal." Kenshin turned around and smiled gently at the little thief. "I'm taking it back to its owner." The girl started to look annoyed. "What are you, the Goddess of Mercy or something?" Kenshin stopped smiling at that. "Is this because I look like a girl?" he asked suspiciously. The little thief looked taken aback. "No! What on Earth are you talking - actually now that you've mentioned it, you do look like a girl. *Are* you a girl?" "No!" She shrugged. "Hey you brought the subject up. What I meant was - you're not serious about taking that money back?" "Yes I am." "But you don't even know who I took it from!" she almost wailed. "Well I'm sure he'll come back - " "THIEF!" Relief flooded through Kenshin. He hadn't actually thought about how to get the money back to its rightful owner. He just knew that it was the right thing to do. That last line was something he made up at the last moment to stop himself from looking stupid. Inwardly he sighed. His Master always told him that his worst trait was his impatience which led him to rush headlong into things without thinking and once again he had proved Hiko right. Also according to Hiko his second worst trait was his stubborness which was once again in full force as while all these thoughts were going on in his subconscious, his conscious mind refused to admit that he had once again rushed into things. "Sir, here is your - " "STOP YOU RED-HEADED THIEF!" "ORO!!!" The fat red-faced merchant ploughing his way to them through the thick market crowd was followed by what looked like to be some very dangerous, very angry thugs, probably his personal body-guards who would naturally be annoyed at the supposed thief because it was very likely that they would lost their jobs for allowing their master to be pickpocketed. The little girl thief took all this in in a moment's glance (well she did have a lot of experience on irate victims to work on) while Kenshin just stood there looking shocked. She flipped one of the coins that he had given her. 'Hmmm heads. Oh well too bad red-head. If it had been tails I would have saved you. Oh damn it!' With an exasperrated snort she grabbed the stunned boy by his ponytail and started dragging him off at full speed. "Orororororororo......!" The pain brought Kenshin back to his senses. Regaining his sense of balance he started running besides his earstwhile saviour. They took so many twists and turns that soon even Kenshin, with his fine-tuned sense of his immediate environment was lost. Eventually the two teenagers stopped running. The both collapsed gasping to the ground. "Where- are -we?" Kenshin asked between breaths. The girl sniffed the air delicately and pressed the side of her face against the wooden wall she was leaning on. "I believe we are behind a brothel." "What on earth makes you say that?!!" "Well, can't you smell the perfume?" "Well yes, but that doesn't mean that we're behind a whorehouse!" The girl beckoned Kenshin towards her. "Press your ear against this wall." Kenshin obeyed her. His face started to turn as red as his hair and he scooted away from the wall as if it was on fire. "Well....." "Err. I think you're right." The girl chuckled at Kenshin's red face. "You are so naive." At Kenshin's wounded expression she hurredly added. "Not that that isn't very endearing of course." "Huumph." He turned his face away from her. However his glorious moment of wounded pride was ruined by the growling of his stomach. The girl reached inside her tunic and pulled out two buns, one of which she threw to Kenshin. Kenshin looked suspiciously at the food for a moment. "This isn't stolen is it?" The girl raised a delicate eyebrow. "And what if it is?" Kenshin sighed. He looked longingly at the food. His stomach growled again. He started handing the bun back to her. She pushed his hand away. "Look. I promise you it *isn't* stolen." At his suspicious look she put on what she thought was a masterful look of wounded pride. "Geez. There's no trust now-adays. None-at-all." Kenshin looked down guiltily. "I'm sorry." "And so you should be. Now just eat your bun." As Kenshin ripped into the bun with all the enthusiasm of a starving man (actually he *was* a starving man) the white-haired girl looked down at her own food. 'Oh well, what he doesn't know won't hurt him.' As they munched in mutual companionship Kenshin tried to strike a conversation with the strange girl. "So, um, what's your name if you don't mind me asking." "Its Akane." It wasn't unusual for poor people to have only one name so Kenshin let this pass. She glanced sideways at him with her pupiless dark eyes. "What's yours." "Oh its Himura, Himura Kenshin." "Nice to meet you Kenshin." "Thanks." Kenshin laughed. "Though I suppose it could have been under better circumstances." "You mean better than you catching me robbing a rich merchant only to have him accuse you of the crime and then being chased through the mean streets of Kyoto by his thugs?" "Really? I've always thought that running madcap through the streets, getting hopelessly lost and ending outside of a brothel was the perfect way to spend the evening with a pretty girl. Oops." Kenshin's face started burning again as he suddenly realized the possible interpretation of the last part of his statement. He smiled nervously. "Um sorry." To his relief Akane started laughing softly. "You silly baka." Their combined laughter echoed along the dark dirty alleyway. ********************************************************************* PART THREE: The girl without a conscience - What is Akane's hidden agenda? The Battousai awakens. Bye! Pearl Louis __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? 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