Chapter Five ~ Confrontation

AUTHORESS NOTES: I'm going to...er...get off the Enishi/Yumiko subject right now and introduce some new characters. Don't worry, though, the main characters will appear at the end ^_^.

WARNINGWARNINGWARNINGWARNING!!!! This is an entire chapter that is based on the Jet Li movie Fong Sai Yuk (...er...forgot the English name ^_^) and the usual disclaimers do apply. Just warnin' ya, ya know?

"Kenshin! Kenshin!"

At the call of his name, the red-haired rurouni raised his head. Yahiko came running in the Kamiya Dojo as fast as he could, out of breath and afraid.

"Oro? What's wrong, Yahiko?" he asked.

Before the boy could answer, Kaoru entered, just finished with her lesson with the other students of the newly revitalized Kamiya Kasshin school.

"Yahiko, what are you doing here so early from work?" she asked.

"It's...it's..." Yahiko tried to say.

"Don't say everything all at once, Yahiko-chan," Sanosuke interrupted, just coming in from the side gate.

For once, Yahiko didn't care if he was called "-chan". There were more important matters on hand.

"Can't you guys even let me speak for once?!?" he shouted. When silence was his answer, Yahiko continued. "It's pretty busy at the Akabeko nowadays, so Tae asked me to get some help. She has a friend living in the Rakinunmura," at the name, Kenshin slightly flinched, "so I went to go get her."

"Just get to the point, Yahiko," Sanosuke pressed on. His stomach was growling and he needed some food, fast.

"Well, I did find Yumiko-san, Tae's friend," Yahiko said slowly. "And...I saw him with her!"

"Who's this 'him', de gozaru?" Kenshin asked.

"Enishi! Yukishiro Enishi!! He's back in Tokyo!"

<downtown Tokyo ~ near Akabeko>

A woman in her mid-forties stared out of the door of her shop sullenly. Her hair was a dark brown, her eyes sea green. It was mid afternoon, the worst part of the day for her fabric business. Everyone was either out eating for lunch or visiting friends or family, which meant no customers for her. She had not a single soul around her to talk to. Her son had mysteriously run off somewhere, leaving the young man that her daughter had brought along with her utterly stuck on reciting poems. Soujiro was his name, she remembered. Her daughter had also left, but it was an errand for the business.

Some grand opening and return, the woman thought.

Foreigners were beginning to pass by now, and some had caught the woman's attention. There was a young girl wearing a rather ridiculous outfit (and she thought kimonos were bad), her hair in a ring of curls and had sunglasses.

That girl's hair is so beautiful; I wish I had hair like that, she thought as she took out a pair of glasses and began to paint them with an ink brush nearby. How in the world can they see through those things?

Although back in Japan, the woman was still very fascinated with foreign item (with the exception of the women's clothing, of course). She put on her "sunglasses" and sat down again, bored out of her mind.

Maybe if I'd just sleep for a while, the day would go by faster...

In no more than a ten minute nap, the woman was soon awakened by a hard tapping on the shoulder. She stirred, looked up, and cursed herself for the glasses that she wore. She couldn't see a thing.

"Excuse me, miss, but I would like to buy some fabric," came a horrible English accent speaking Japanese.

The woman was used to accents like that, especially since China's invasion of the foreigners a few years ago.

"Yes, yes, pick what you like," the woman replied as she was being led by the foreigner to the area where she would be able to assist upon.

Although temporarily blinded, the woman could tell from the rough texture of the foreigner's hand that her customer was male. He had left her side for a moment and the woman's hand felt the familiar feeling of silk. Out of instinct, she held up the roll of silk for the foreigner to see.

"This one?" she asked.

"Hai, hai, that one," the man answered anxiously.

"How long?" She already began to measure the silk with her hands.

"Uh..." With one movement, her customer guided the woman's hands to the length of the silk desired. "About that long, miss."

Wait a second, the woman thought as she felt the length of the silk again. It only felt around an inch long.

"You're not going to make anything this long, sir," she stated. "This is only about an inch or so."

"Uh...it's-it's for a belt!" the foreigner replied far away.

"Tadaima!" another voice said. "Oi, where do you think you're going with that, thief?"

"Akito, where in the WORLD have you been?!?" the woman exclaimed, grabbing a sheathed tanto as she walked towards the direction of the scuffling.

"O-okaachan, I can explain!" Akito begged as he began to back away from his mother.

"Explain?!?" She whipped out her weapon. Akito barely managed to avoid getting hit. "What can you explain about leaving your poor mother and your studies like that?" Whap. Another miss. "Do you know how long poor Soujiro sat there??"

Akito tried to plead his case. "Taka and Hiro asked me to go out to the festival, remember?" Whap. He ducked another swing. "So, I went with them to see what was going on over there!" He ducked again, making the last stand as he was trapped in the corner. "I-didn't-ask-Soujiro-to-stay-there-just-told-him-to-impersonate-me-for-a-bit-when-you-came-to-check-in-and-I-was-in-a-tournament-which-I-won-because-well-there-was-this-girl-who-was-being-threatened-by-these-guys---really snobby ones, ya know?---so-I-went-to-save-her-and-she-introduced-me-to-her-parents-and-all...."

His mother was about to strike, but she stopped about inches away from his face. Akito slowly opened his eyes to stare right back into his mother's. Her hand remained where it was before she decided to tap him lightly on the head.

"Baka, why didn't you tell me that you met a nice girl?" she sighed. Then she turned around, grabbed an umbrella, and hooked the foreigner by the neck who was trying to sneak out with a roll of silk during the scene.

The man staggered backwards, almost choking.

"Now, just where do you think you're going, young man?" she asked.

The foreigner looked back at the woman in surprise. "You mean, you're not blind?"

The woman tipped down her "sunglasses" and looked at the man with a "DUH!" look on her face. "Ahou, do I look like I'm blind?"

The foreigner tried to get away, but with the hook of the umbrella still around his neck, the woman pulled him back and flipped over. She kicked him square in the stomach, sending him flying into the opposite wall. Akito calmly slid out of the way, taking another bite of his apple. His mother took the apple from his hand and flung it towards the foreigner. He caught the apple in his mouth, still trying to regain balance. Akito's mother then gracefully flipped onto the table behind her, unsheathing her tanto in the process, and flung her weapon towards the man, hitting the apple straight through the middle. Both Akito and the foreigner stood frozen in fear.

<outside>

Yumiko, Enishi, and the twins stood in front of a store. Yumiko stood there, hesitant to enter, before Enishi squeezed her hand and smiled at her. Yumiko smiled back a bit nervously before the family entered the shop.

<inside>

Enishi stepped back to let a very frightened foreigner out of the shop. What the...?

"Okaachan, what are you trying to do, KILL your customers?!?" he heard a young man's voice say.

He turned his head to find a young man around sixteen with midnight black hair and eyes similar to Yumiko's holding an apple with a...knife stuck in it?

"Well, it was his fault trying to steal in the first place!" a woman's voice exclaimed.

Enishi turned again to find a middle-aged woman with dark brown hair and sea green eyes holding the sheath of a weapon. He guessed ti was she who threw the tanto.

"But to throw a knife at him that cut through the apple TWELVE centimeters into his mouth??"

"Well, he's lucky that he has a long throat."

"What in the world is going on?" Yumiko finally interrupted.

The speakers turned their heads. Enishi heard the woman gasp.

"Is that you, Yumiko-chan?"

AUTHORESS NOTES: Okay...a bit strange, right?? Well, this just sorta popped into my head one day, and I just had to write it! I just wanted everyone to see what Yumiko's family is like...and by just looking at how Ayeka was, you can tell that they are a bit strange. I say that Yumiko is the most "normal" of the family ^_^. I know that they probably didn't have sunglasses and apples during that time in Japan, but I'm not being historically correct anyway, right? Anyhoo, hope you enjoyed this chapter and R&R!