The Rise of the Ronin

Kai's identity

He can't help but look at her out of the corner of his eye, her strange and particular hair, her profile, her little button nose. And, though he's not used to having women around him, he likes her. He likes her quite a bit, actually. Despite being so different from him, so friendly and helpful, he must admit that after two days of knowing her he likes her, quite a bit... quite a lot. He likes her so much that he has begun to resent the walk to the market to buy a map for her.

What will happen to her being alone? The ideas that come to his mind are so terrible that without much thought he understands why she was wearing a girdle when he found her. What would happen if a lowlife found her on the road? He would probably do whatever he wanted with her and she doesn't seem to have the physical strength to resist. They will rob her, rape her, kill her. All these ideas don't leave him alone as he rides his tired old horse with her at his side. He looks at her constantly out of the corner of his eye as atrocious ideas come and go in his mind and, at the same time, he wonders why the fuck he should care what happens with a stranger.

She, on the other hand, doesn't seem too concerned. She goes smiling and hopeful that she will see her brothers again soon. In fact, she spent the whole morning telling him so much about them that even without having seen their faces, he feels like he knows them. Kokichi now knows everything from their worst habits to their virtues.

"I haven't traveled much; it'll be interesting to see a new city. I've only traveled from my hometown to Yokohama and then to my mentor's hometown, Kusakabe-san."

"Mentor?" Kasumi nods.

"He's a shaman," she replies, her head held high as if full of pride. He's a bit of a slacker, though... I don't even know why he's in the teaching anyway. He's lazy and quite fond of smoking, he used to stay asleep until noon, and he doesn't like to cook. He would make me wake him up in the morning, but would scold me when I did. I spent most of my time cleaning his house and preparing food for him. But I had to do it to pay for my stay and his classes. He recruited me when I was little, on one of his trips."

"Are you a shaman?" He asks in surprise, almost ignoring the rest of Kasumi's story.

"Yes... though I've only exorcised small curses. Kusakabe-san said I wasn't ready for something bigger yet, he taught me a defensive technique for the weak... to protect myself if I encountered a higher-level curse. But he told me that I was forbidden to teach it to anyone else. He said it was a technique only taught to followers of Sadatsuna Ashiya."

"And why did he teach it to you?"

Kasumi shrugs her shoulders.

"I don't know, I never asked him. I can show it to you when we get back, though I've never used it in real combat..." she says, beginning to drag out her last words as if she's not entirely sure of what she's said.

Kokichi nods, then falls silent, though he would like, for some reason, to have a topic of conversation to share with her for the rest of the trip. He doesn't know what to say to her, or how to act, so he feels strangely uncomfortable and with a newfound need to fill the silences with words.

He has never been much of a talker because he has never really been interested in what others had to say, but with Kasumi it is different, now he just wants to know a little more about her and on more than one occasion he opens his mouth before thinking of something to say, but there is nothing. He can't find something interesting enough to tell her, and the few stories he has up his sleeve he has no idea how to bring them up. Suddenly he feels that his life is so uninteresting that he's a little embarrassed.

"I-It's a nice day... isn't it?" He says and then regrets it, but she nods enthusiastically.

"I like autumn, the best mushrooms grow this time of year. It's not so cloudy so the sun is quite bright, but it's not as warm as in summer thanks to the cool breeze."