The Hinomoto Rebellion (13 page)

Next to the Shogun, to the left of the doors that led out to the veranda, was a small wet bar with several glass bottles of various liquors on the top. An ice bucket, half full with ice still, sat on top of it, along with several empty crystal glasses.

“What do you mean?” Shinrai asked, swirling the glass he held in his hand as he looked at his long-time friend with concern.

The Shogun sighed. “When I was younger, I would have stood up to him. But... he keeps threatening them and...” he averted his eyes to the floor.

“You would willingly endanger yourself, but you can’t condemn your family, right?” the Daimyo stood up and walked toward the window to stand next to Kunota. Kunota turned his head away but nodded slowly as he closed his eyes.

The black haired man chuckled a little and put a hand on the Shogun’s shoulder. “Look at us, old friend,” he said with a warm smile, “Two decades ago we were law students willing to do anything to get to the top and make a difference. Now we’re just fat-cat politicians too afraid to fight back against the injustices of the world.” He smiled and laughed. “I still remember when you walked up to that judge and started arguing the case we had just watched! Man, who would’ve thought we’d ever lose our courage to fight back, when all we wanted to do was fight to the top from law school.”

“Yasakuto also will do anything to get his own way to the top.” said Kunota quietly. “No, I take it back– he’s
already
on top, and will do anything to stay there.”

“Yasakuto is a megalomaniac,” Shinrai said as he headed to the wet bar. “You aren’t,” he continued as he started to refill his glass. “That doesn’t make any difference!” Kunota turned, a look of anger on his face.

A warm smile crossed the other politician’s face as he turned to face the Shogun. “Sure it does. You want power to help others. He wants power because he thinks the world owes it to him. That’s why you,” he pointed at his friend, “are doing the right thing.”

Kunota stopped and thought about his words, then smiled wanly. “You really think so, Shinrai?”

 

“You know I do.”

 

The next morning the people of Hinomoto went about their normal Friday morning routines, unaware of the rebellion brewing in their country.

Inside the dilapidated temple, the air was stale and searing. Dust fluttered about in the rays that came through the windows, doors, and holes in the ancient walls. And yet, somehow, Andrea had not yet escaped the grip of sleep. Uncomfortable as the heat was, she was still deep in the clutches of what seemed to be a nightmare. Sweat rolled off her skin as she tossed about on the cot, muttering under her breath in protest. Occasionally she reached out, as though protecting herself from some unseen assailant.

“NO!” she bolted upright, her eyes wide. As quickly as the outburst had escaped her lips, she put her hand up to cover her mouth, embarrassed by the outcry. Her pupils darted about for a moment, making sure that the terrors from the dream had not followed her in waking.

After a moment she laid back down. “They’re never going to stop.” She said to herself, closing her eyes again. She planned to go back to sleep, and as soon as she rolled over to face the door, Roni peeked into the room.

“Andrea? Are you awake?”

 

Andrea responded with a groan and a grunt. “Good!” Roni exclaimed. “Come to the dining room, please!”

 

Andrea opened one eye and glared at the young teenager. “What the hell for?” she muttered.

 

“You’ll see!” nodded Roni. “Just come as soon as you can!” Roni ran off down the hallway, leaving Andrea alone.

“ Oh great... what horrible task do they want me to do for them now?” She stood up and grabbed her belt, tucking in her tank top. “Maybe now I get to go slay a dragon and rescue a princess.” Andrea remarked, rolling her eyes. “Stupid goody-two-shoes Martial artist wanna-bes.”

When she arrived at the dining area, the Aka Ryuu were kneeling at the table, looking over their map. A plate of food was set up, a trap for Andrea to sit there. She sighed and took the bait, settling down and gobbling up the food.

No one acknowledged her presence until the last bite of her breakfast was gone. Then Kanjou looked at her and said, “Andrea, we want you to teach us.”

Andrea raised an eyebrow in surprise. “I don’t like where this is going. I told Phoenix Girl over there,” she pointed to Fushicho, “that I don’t want to teach anyone anything.”

Kanjou ignored the remark, hoping that his next statement would pander enough to Andrea’s ego to make her reconsider. “As you are obviously the most skilled out of all of us, we would like to learn some of your techniques. You have an impressive knowledge of fighting styles and weapons, and so we’d like you to share some of your skills with us.”

Andrea laughed. “Okay, not only do I not really want to teach a class, but you do realize that we only have a few weeks until this press conference, right? That’s nowhere near enough time to train you all properly. I might be able to stuff something into those empty heads of yours, but not enough to make you as good as I am!”

Kanjou continued while 26 grabbed Fushi’s shoulder to keep the red-head from going after Andrea. “We’re not asking you to make us all as strong as you. We’re just asking for some training. If we’re going to win, we all need to be at the very top of our forms, and you’re the only one who can get us there.” He gave a playful wink. “After all, you can take down men twice your size and destroy training equipment without hurting yourself. That has to count for something.”

Andrea ignored the wink as she gave a sigh of agitation. “I don’t think there’s any way you guys are going to take no for an answer, is there?”

 

Roni grinned. “Nope!”

The silver-haired fighter groaned. “Great... it’s either teach you all or have an audience every time I do training anyway... Alright, fine. I’ll do it, if only to keep you all off my back.” An evil smirk crossed her face.

A little while later they were all in the training area. Andrea lined them up on the mat and had all of them bow. Then she turned to them, grinning. “Alright, I’m not going to allow any backtalk, okay? We’re going to do this the way I was taught, which means total and complete obedience to the instructor. Remember to control yourselves at all times and to not hurt each other!

“We’ll start with the basics, then go from there! Be prepared, I won’t go easy on any of you.”

 

Five hours later, the Aka Ryuu were still going strong. After warm-ups and some basic forms, Andrea had split them off into groups to practice some simple stick-fighting techniques using the broom and mop handles. Aki and D had been paired up, much to Aki’s increasing dismay. D had no skill with a bo and kept fumbling the forms. It was getting on Aki’s nerves and she was getting to the point where she was having a hard time not screaming at him.

“ No, no,
no
! D!” Andrea came storming over. “Geeze, this isn’t that hard! Aki, start over from the beginning and go slow.” She stood behind D and put her hands over his, her arms around his shoulders. “Now, just move with me and concentrate. We’ll go slow this time,” she said in his ear, her mouth next to his ear and her breath tickling his skin.

D’s face turned bright red. He felt his body temperature rise and a shiver ran up his spine as Andrea’s hands tightened over his. He could feel her steady breath stirring the hair right next to his ear as she pressed against him. They started going over the technique, moving slowly. D glanced over quickly, seeing that Andrea’s eyes were narrowed, staring straight forward and concentrating on nothing but the form she was teaching.
She really isn’t interested in anything but fighting...
he thought, almost disappointed.

The feeling of her firm, muscular body against his back was continuing to make D’s face red. They moved together through the form, Andrea physically moving D like a puppet so that he could get the motions right. They went through it once, then twice, very slowly. With Andrea’s body pressed against his he was afraid that he wasn’t paying much more attention to the form than he had been before and he hoped it wasn’t showing.

Unfortunately for D, Andrea was already well aware of his distraction. His body was betraying his mind, and it was making Andrea angrier by the moment.
I can’t believe this jerk! I’m trying to teach these fools things that could save their lives, and he’s not paying attention!
As soon as she could, she let go of D and backed away from him. “On your own from now on.” She said, turning and walking away to help the others.

On her way over to Kanjou and 26, Andrea almost let herself blush. She had never been that close to anyone she wasn’t in the process of pounding in to the ground, so the entire duration of her contact with D had been a struggle to keep from gripping his hands too tight and breaking them, or kicking his legs out from under him simply out of spite.

Andrea watched 26 and Kanjou for a moment, then stepped over to them and waved for them to halt. She scowled up at the brunet in disappointment. “Kanjou, you’re not doing any good by holding back. I know I said to not hurt each other, but at least try to make some effort to get through 26’s defenses.”

Kanjou blinked at her, then nodded. “Yeah, sure.”

 

Something in his tone set Andrea off. “Hey! You guys wanted me to do this, so you’re going to listen to me, like it or not!”

“ Whoa, hey, calm down Andrea. I didn’t mean any disrespect,” he said, taking a small step back away from her. Kanjou knew that, at best, Andrea’s temper was as volatile as a flask of nitroglycerin, and he didn’t want to get into a confrontation with her.

“ Well then do as I say or I’ll have stop this whole training thing right now!” snarled Andrea. “Your biggest problem is that you can’t take the risks involved in being a fighter!”

That seemed to hit a nerve with Kanjou, because he looked at her and immediately retorted, “You know what your problem is?
You’re
so angry at everything that no one ever bothered to try to teach you to control your emotions. That’s why you have to beat everyone in one hit. You can’t take extended battles because your energy is so far off-center that one day you’re going to kill yourself by doing a ki attack.” He hadn’t raised his voice, and he didn’t appear to be getting anywhere near as angry as Andrea was at him, but his sudden burst of character analysis did nothing to quell Andrea’s anger.

“ What the hell do you even know about it, huh?” She jabbed him in the chest, standing on her tip-toes to get eye level with him. “I could take you on any day of the week, with or without my ki!”

Kanjou suppressed a sigh. “Look, I didn’t mean anything by it, okay? Can we just get back to training?”

Andrea shook her head. “No way, buddy boy. You think I’m going to let you tell me what I can and can’t do? I know my limits much better than you do.” Her eyes were narrowed.

“ I really don’t think you do, Andrea. If you did, you’d try to stop being so angry all the time. It does nothing for your balance or your stamina and it just makes you burn out faster.”

“ You shut up! You don’t know anything about ki attacks! How many ki attacks can you do, huh, Kanjou? I haven’t even seen any real evidence that you can fight at all, much less be qualified to lecture me!”

“Hey! Don’t talk to Kanjou like that!” Fushi said, stepping forward even as Kanjou put an arm out to stop her.

“ Look, if you want to fight me or something, fine. But if I win, you have to let me train you to control your anger.” he said, not sure if she was going to agree to it. At least if she didn’t, then there wouldn’t be a fight It was risky, but if he could start teaching her other outlets to quench her constant rage he thought he might be able to reach her on a few more levels. Kanjou saw too much of his younger self in Andrea- the raw, unharnessed emotion with no control valve, and too much deadly force and power behind it. Although if she did decide to fight him all he’d have to do was keep her from hitting him and she’d wear herself out.

Well, this is a little unorthodox and dangerous, but at least it’s a help.
he thought, waiting for Andrea to attack him right then and there. At the short distance she was from him, he’d have no chance of dodging one of her ki attacks.