The Hinomoto Rebellion (23 page)

Andrea spent the night on a rooftop, laying between a stack of wood and chicken wire and a pile of cardboard boxes that smelled slightly like rotting fish. On any other occasion, if she found herself with nowhere to go she would have simply spend a night drinking in a bar and passed out on the floor. Her reputation would have been enough to protect her in that case. But now the rumors being spread about her were enough to condemn her if she stepped foot in any bar.

She had never cared about something so trivial as what others thought of her before. It seemed odd as she was curled on the hard concrete with nothing but a folded tank top between her head and the cement underneath her to start caring now.

Tony, you can stop laughing at me. I’ll never admit you were right out loud.
She thought as she closed her eyes and tried to get comfortable. The rotted wood of the dilapidated temple’s roof had been more comfortable than this, she realized.

Finally she managed to fall asleep. Below her in the streets,
ronin
fought their nightly battles, police patrolled the asphalt labyrinth, and the citizens of Hinomoto tried to make it through the insanity of their crumbling world. The silver-haired outcast on the roof dreamed of pain, of terror, of flames, and of violet eyes full of tears. When she bolted upright out of her sleep just before daybreak, she was covered in sweat and left trying to decode a haunting nightmare full of strange images and accusing screams.

D stared up at the ceiling as it gradually grew lighter outside. Hazy light came through the windows and lit up patches of the expanse of rotting wood above his head. His rest had come only in small doses and most of the nighttime hours had been spent staring at the shadows on the ceiling.

Now the sun was coming up outside, and he felt like he had been run over by a bus.

He finally rose from the futon on the floor when he heard others stirring around the temple. The door out to the courtyard was open when he walked past. D stopped and backed up, doing a double-take.

Roni was out in the middle of the courtyard, holding one of the broomsticks from the training room and using one of the ancient trees as a target. D stepped outside, barefoot, and came up behind the little girl.

“Morning,” he said.

Roni spun around, nearly hitting D in the knees with the wooden stick. He leaped back a foot out of impulse and was spared a set of bruised knees; but only just barely. “Oh! I’m so sorry!” cried Roni.

D chuckled. “It’s alright,” he paused, “Up training this early?” The pig-tailed girl smiled up at Densetsu. “Yup! I’m going to do my best so Daimyo Shinrai will be proud of us!”

A grin broke across D’s face. He admired the girl’s courage in the face of Andrea’s abandonment. He had been up all night thinking about the mean-spirited, cold fighter with the eyes like ice, and here the little girl who practically worshiped the ground Andrea walked on was bouncing back from the rejection as though it were just some new training exercise.

Children are so incredibly resilient,
D mused.

 

“Hey! D! Roni! Breakfast is ready!” called 26 from inside the temple.

 

Roni grinned devilishly at D. “Race ya!” she exclaimed. D returned the smile.. “Last one there is a rotten egg!” he replied, and the two took off running toward the door.

 

D let Roni win by a meter.

 

Andrea grimaced at the store she was standing in front of, looking as though she were trying to decide between entering it and picking a fight with a wild animal. Her worldly possessions were slung over her shoulder, and she looked worse for wear. Her eyes were slightly sunken in from the especially bad nightmares she’d had the night before, and her clothes were stained and ripped from sleeping on the rooftop.

That rooftop might be preferable to this, though...
she thought, her expression growing more grim than ever.

Finally, Andrea tightened her grip on her bag and strode toward the entry of the store, crossing the sidewalk in two steps and ripping the door open so fast she nearly tore it from the hinges. A set of chimes announced her presence in the store, and Andrea glared up at the gleefully tinkling bells as though they were her mortal enemy.

“Welcome,” called a voice from the back of the store.

Andrea took another step inside and looked around. The place was still the same as she remembered it. The same layout, the same inventory, and the same god-awful smell that made her stomach do flip-flops. She fought back a gag of disgust at the stench.

A casual citizen on the street walking past this store would see only an Ancient Remedies shop full of strange herbs, animal parts, and mystic talismans. To Andrea and countless others though, the shop was a front for an underground training dojo. She had begun her training beneath this very place, though coming back to it made her feel ill. She’d always hated the smell here, and some of the hardest times of her life had been spent there. Some of her worst memories were of the dojo, along with some of her best memories of success as a fighter. She wasn’t sure why she was there since her old sensei had died a long while ago, and the dojo had been closed down by his wife. But she supposed she could at least ask for a place to stay considering there was nowhere else for her to go.

Andrea walked past rows of jars filled with liquid and unidentifiable animal bits and bins full of dry leaves and herbs that smelled like sour sweat. Her shoes kicked some dust bunnies up off the floor, turning the hem of her white pants legs gray. She tried to keep from touching anything. When she was younger she’d always been afraid of knocking something over in the shop and being covered in it. The thought of one liquid-filled jar falling onto her and covering her in formaldehyde and dead animal made her shudder in disgust.

The
ronin
walked up to a particle board counter that was scratched, dented, and bowing in the center. A cash register coated in a layer of dust occupied part of the counter to Andrea’s right, and she eyed it almost suspiciously. A rustling noise came from the back room of the shop, behind the counter. Andrea turned her eyes toward the gloomy doorway and leaned forward some. “Hello?” she called.

A stooped woman with white hair came shuffling out of the back room toward Andrea. The Tiger frowned as the wrinkled figure moved toward her. Momentarily, the
ronin
considered turning around and running out of the place, but she kept her feet rooted to where she was and waited for the old woman to come to the counter.

The shopkeeper hefted herself onto a stool and inclined her head toward Andrea. The
ronin
’s ice blue eyes looked over the weathered face, spotted and creased with age. She had put on a few pounds since Andrea had last seen her, and her once-young skin looked like leather now. She was wearing a faded lilac dress with small peach flowers printed on it.

“What can I help you with?” the old woman asked. Her voice was thick, as though it were trying to work its way up past layers of phlegm.

“I need a place to stay, Tomo-san. I was a student of your husband’s, years ago.” Andrea shifted her bag anxiously.

 

The old woman tilted her head, her rheumy, pale eyes staring past the martial artist. “You sound familiar, child. Who are you?”

Rather than answer verbally, Andrea reached out and grabbed the old woman’s hand. She leaned over the counter and put her forehead to the woman’s fingers, allowing them to trace over the skin.

Tomo-san made a small noise of surprise and recognition, then moved her hand to the back of Andrea’s neck to feel the skin there. Her faded, blind eyes seemed almost to brighten some. “Ah, Tony’s little girl. What is it they’re calling you now? The Tiger, I think?”

“I don’t need much,” Andrea said, ignoring the question and pulling herself away from the old woman’s fingers. “I just didn’t know where else to go. You won’t even know I’m here.”

The elderly woman grinned, which seemed quite a feat to move the folds of skin on her face. “You are always welcome here. I trust you remember how to get downstairs. No one’s been down there for five years or so, but feel free to stay as long as you like.”

Andrea turned and headed for the side wall of the shop without saying another word.

 

“Andrea.”

 

The silver-haired girl turned to look over her shoulder at the aged woman sitting on the stool.

 

“Tony and my husband were always very proud of you.” stated Tomo-san.

Andrea stood there for a moment, her expression unwavering. “I know,” she responded, then turned back to the side wall and finished walking toward it.

She found the familiar latch hidden behind a shelf of twisted things that looked as though they may have been animal skin at one time. She had to fight with the lever since half a decade had not been kind to the metal. When Andrea finally got it to move, her hand was covered in black grime and bright red rust. She brushed her palm off on her pants, making a black and red streak across the fabric as the wall of the shop moved backwards from her.

A four foot section of the wooden shop wall slid away. It used to slide smoothly, back when the dojo was in full swing, but disrepair had rusted the tracks that the hidden mechanisms moved along. The secret entrance moved jerkily and made a few shrill grinding noises during its travel.

Andrea found herself almost smiling. Like the door to her former home, this had also been made by Tony many years ago. It was how he had known her old sensei, and the reason he’d taken her to train under him.

A short hallway had been uncovered when the wall had shifted aside. At the end of the hall was a hole with the top of a ladder sticking out of it. Andrea walked down the hall and threw her bag down the hole. She heard it hit with a soft “thud” about 6 meters down as she swung herself down onto a metal ladder inside the hole. On the fourth rung down, she moved the lever that shut the wall above her and continued down the ladder until her feet reached the bottom rung. A short meter drop put her feet back on cement. After all these years she could still find the switch that turned on the lights even though the underground dojo was as dark as pitch.

Bare light bulbs flickered on over Andrea’s head. She noted with disgust that most of them were burned out, and that the rest were coated in dust that was blocking most of their output. She made a mental note to try and do something about that later, once she had a better look around.

The dojo was much larger than the store above it, dug underneath the foundations of surrounding stores. The entire thing was made of cement, which probably made it more suitable for a bomb shelter than a Martial Arts school. Still, it was cool in summer and relatively warm in the winter. Bare fluorescent tubes stretched back along the length of the dojo and were covered in spider webs, dust, and grime. At the front of the space, facing the ladder, was a counter and a glass case that had held weaponry once-upon-a-time. Andrea walked over to the case and ran her hand across the dust-coated glass, hoping that maybe something was still left there. She was surprisingly disappointed to see that the box was empty.

Beyond the counter and glass case in the middle of the floor was an expanse of foam mats that attached together like puzzle pieces. They were also covered in dust and grime, and some had been experimentally chewed on by rodents. Around three sides of the foam mats were benches, one of which had completely fallen apart in the past five years.