Blade Of The Immortal Fan Fiction ❯ Abstinence Education ❯ Part Two ( Chapter 2 )
[ Y - Young Adult: Not suitable for readers under 16 ]
By: Madame Manga 
Don't run away too fast, or you'll crash straight into the obstacle you meant to avoid...
Anime/Manga: Blade Of The Immortal Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Hentai / Drama / Samurai | Type: Continuation | Uploaded On: 09.23.2005 | Updated On: 02.28.2007 | Pages: 4 | Words: 5.3K | Visits: 1.1K | Status: Completed
Don't run away too fast, or you'll crash straight into the obstacle you meant to avoid...
Anime/Manga: Blade Of The Immortal Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Hentai / Drama / Samurai | Type: Continuation | Uploaded On: 09.23.2005 | Updated On: 02.28.2007 | Pages: 4 | Words: 5.3K | Visits: 1.1K | Status: Completed
[Revised 2-12-07]
All feedback is welcome! Please let me know how it strikes you; I love to hear from readers no matter what.
Characters and universe are copyrighted by Hiroaki Samura and do not belong to me. Not one sen will come into my hands in consequence of this story. No, I don’t wish I owned Manji in the usual ficcer’s fashion. But I like the rough-edged S.O.B. anyway just for knowing where his priorities ought to lie.
Summary (SPOILERS through English issue #98 and collection #14, “Last Blood”):
After the return from Kaga, Rin and Manji lived for a quiet month or so in his hut on the outskirts of Edo. Manji worked on training Rin in swordwork, but he hadn't killed anyone in weeks and was getting restless. :) One day Rin trained alone while Manji was napping, and after realizing she had surpassed her previous mediocre standard of swordsmanship, she kissed Manji on the mouth while he was still asleep. But at the same time, she told herself that "I can't go back there", because "someday I'll have to leave this man behind." So what was that all about? Here's a speculation.
Squick warnings: Sex in various forms, including quasi-incestuous themes and a 16-year-old female paired with an adult male. Violence will come in later; hey, you gotta separate at least one body part from its owner in any BOTI story.
Note: Rin’s father’s name is given early on in the manga as “Kurose”, and later as “Takayoshi”.
Abstinence Education
by Madame Manga
Part Two
“What the hell were you doing in town without me?” Manji got up from the porch as Rin approached and thrust both his swords through his obi. She had risen before dawn and left without awakening him. “I thought I told you not to go into the marketplace by yourself in case you ran into any Itto-ryu guys.” He pointed straight at her nose when she stopped in front of him. “Not to mention those scumbags who lurk in the bushes along the road just waiting to grab girls to sell! Do you even hear what I’m saying, or am I just breaking wind?”
“I brought my sword along.” She glanced down at the long Chinese blade she carried slung through the straps of her shoulder bag. “I could have used it.”
He lowered his finger and gave an exasperated sigh. “If there was only one of ‘em coming at you, maybe you could scare him off if you bawled loud enough. But they work in pairs, see? Not a chance.”
“I’ve been training a whole lot!” Rin frowned and brushed past Manji to find the remains of breakfast. He had left her two ears of corn laid out on the green husks. “You taught me how to handle two attacks at once, anyway. Don’t you think I’ve learned anything yet?”
“After practicing blocks for a whole week? Gimme a break. You ain’t half ready to take on a real bandit.” Manji followed her back to the porch, leaned against a post with arms folded and watched her eat.
Rin took several mouthfuls and licked her fingers before replying. “Anyway, I didn’t go to the marketplace, I went to a kimono merchant’s. I had to sell something.”
Manji raised a brow. “Didn’t know you had any spare duds to get rid of.”
“Um… a couple of my mother’s fancy uchikake robes. I went to the house to look through the things I have stored there.” She kept her eyes on the corncob in her hands.
“What?” His forehead creased; he straightened and looked a little alarmed. “By yourself? You haven’t gone back there since you and me...”
“Manji, I lived there alone for two years! What could be different now?”
“Well... nothing, I guess.” He grimaced and scratched his scalp. “Too many ghosts in that place.”
“I know.” It took an effort to smile. “I made some offerings to my parents’ spirits at a shrine, but there was plenty of money left over. Here.” Rin reached into her shoulder bag and took out a heavy little package. She set it on the porch between them: ten gold koban, done up in paper with the value written on the outside. “This is for you.”
“Hah?” Manji picked up the package and weighed it in his hand. “What for?”
“Your salary.”
“My salary? You don’t owe me this much.” He fingered the strokes of the writing with an air of confused annoyance. “Anyhow, we never arranged it like this. You just paid for the inns and gave me some drinking money. What’s with the big payoff?”
“Well… that’s more or less what it is. Your payoff.”
He shot a look at her, his brows going down.
“I’m giving you severance pay. I’m not employing you as my yojimbo any more.”
The package dropped and broke open, spilling the big oval coins in the dirt. “What?” Manji seemed nearly panicked; his face changed color and his eye glared wide.
“You need to live your own life. You’re a man… with a man’s needs. I know you’ve been pretty, um, bored lately just training me. You don’t want to have to babysit any longer. We can go our separate ways, and you can do whatever you want.” Rin smiled, her heart pounding, and looked at the line of forest beyond the rice paddies to avoid seeing Manji’s expression.
“You can’t fire me!”
“Why not? If I could hire you, then I – ”
“Because… because that ain’t how it goes, that’s why! I’m not leavin’ you on yer own, kid – you’d be dead in a week.”
“I can take care of myself – ”
“The hell you can!” Manji seized her by the shoulders and shook her hard; the half-eaten corn flew out of her hand. “You little idiot! If the Itto-ryu hears you don’t have a bodyguard, they’ll deliver your head to Anotsu in a market bag!”
“The Itto-ryu’s concerned with more than just me! I think Anotsu’s in some kind of trouble with the bakufu – ”
“So what? Kid, come on – ”
“So Anotsu probably doesn’t have me on his mind at all, and even if he did, he wouldn’t do anything about it!”
“Oh, you’re so sure about that?”
“Actually, I am. Remember, I was with him for days. I saw how he thinks – Manji-san, it’s strange to say it, I know, but he’s got a sense of honor. Maybe… too much of one. Plotting to kill someone like me just isn’t the way he operates.”
“Maybe so.” Manji’s chest gave a heave and he released her. His mouth twitched in a fleeting, unsettled grimace. “I guess that makes some kind of sense.”
“Thank you. You know, I have to start building my life too, not just go after revenge.”
“Build your life? Like how?”
Rin straightened her collar, took a deep breath and fingered one braid ring. “I’ll go live at my family’s dojo again. I have some acquaintances in the neighborhood… I need to visit them and re-introduce myself. I haven’t been a part of the local society in years, but I am Asano Takayoshi’s daughter.” She raised her chin and looked Manji straight in the face. “I can make a place for myself with some effort. And that’s what I’m going to do.”
Manji’s expression struck her oddly; he let out a short hard breath and went a little pale. “OK, I got you.” His teeth gritted. “You don’t want me getting in your way.”
“Manji-san?”
“I’m an outlaw.” He pointed to his chest. “You’d scandalize your nice neighbors if you brought along a low-life like me on visiting rounds. Ol’ Manji would just be a turd in yer rice bowl!”
Her mouth dropped open. “No… that’s not what I…”
“But that’s what it adds up to, don’t it?” He turned his back and stalked a few paces away. “Fine, the hell with it. I ain’t too hot with proper social etiquette anyhow.”
“You forgot your money!”
“Can’t go forgetting about money, can I?” Manji stooped and picked up the scattered coins. “Guess I can buy all the whores I want now, huh?”
“If you like. It’s your business.”
Still squatting on his haunches, he glared up at her. “What if buying whores and getting drunk wasn’t what I had in mind for spending the rest of my life, which if you recall is likely to be a damn long one?”
“You’d rather be fighting, I guess.”
“Sure I would. In the right cause.”
“You can find one. My vendetta isn’t the only way to kill evil men.”
“You think that’s why I’ve been doing this?” He straightened and thrust the coins into the breast of his black and white kosode. “Month after month, and it’s only about killing evil men on behalf of little Rin’s vendetta?”
“Isn’t that why you agreed to do it in the first place?”
“In the first place, yeah.” Manji looked at her, his brows creasing. “Gotta admit it’s been kinda... interesting.”
“Well, it could be a long time before I have to go look up Anotsu again. I can live quietly and train, and keep an eye on things. There wouldn’t be anything for you to do anyway.” She spread her hands and tried to look confidently mature, though she had to suppress her trembles. Manji’s reaction had been the only thing she truly feared, far more than the Itto-ryu; perhaps he would accept this if her determination didn’t falter. “You’d still be bored hanging around. Probably it will be years before I know for sure what I need to do. By then I hope I’ll be able to face him by myself.”
“Not without me you won’t.”
“It’s not your business any more. I just… laid you off, remember?”
His face twitched, the white scars standing out against his flushed skin. “No freakin’ way.”
“I’m leaving now.” She shouldered her bag and straightened the sword. “Please don’t follow me.”
“Yeah, that would look kinda pathetic, wouldn’t it? Big bad samurai trailing after a little girl, begging to get cut up on her behalf. Shit!” He spat on the ground.
Rin flinched at the gesture and at the sheer anger in his voice. “Manji-san, please don’t be mad…”
“Why the hell wouldn’t I be mad? I just got told to take a hike!”
“I’m only trying to do what’s best for both of us. I… I thought you’d be relieved.”
“Huh? Relieved to get shot of you? You ain’t making sense, kid.”
“Well… uh, I’ve been noticing…” She hid her face in her hands for a moment, quivering with embarrassment. “You… maybe it’s just my imagination, but I thought you might be getting, um, kind of uneasy around me…”
“Uneasy?” He put his fists on his hips and squinted his one eye at her. “Like… nervous? Why the hell would you make me nervous?”
At that moment she had no idea why. Apparently she had miscalculated that factor, but there were other considerations as well. Weren’t there? On the way into town she had worked out everything in detail and decided exactly what to say and what subjects to skirt around, but all logic and calm threatened to desert her now. Speaking these things to his face was vastly dissimilar from having an ideal conversation with the air…
“What’s with you? Uneasy? Relieved? You’re talking like I was – ” He stopped short. Rin looked up, still quivering, and saw the realization flash across his face. “Oh, crap.”
“I’m sorry, Manji-san! I wasn’t sure – it was just – I’m sorry!”
“You think I want to get you in my futon? Is that it?” His upper lip contracted to show his teeth, but he seemed less angry than stunned, or even hurt. “You think I’m going to do something to you?”
“N-no! No, that’s not what I meant!” She clamped a hand to her mouth and tried to hold back tears. This was going all wrong – this was ten times worse than she’d imagined.
“Shit! First she tells me to blow off because I’m such a disreputable character, then she calls me a pervert!” He seized the hilt of his katana and shook it. “I dedicate my sword to her, kill dozens of guys to keep her safe, and this is the goddamn thanks I get. What’s the freakin’ use?”
Rin burst out crying and threw her arms around him. “M-Manji-san… no… oh, God…”
He drew a deep exasperated breath, but said nothing, and didn’t move away from her embrace.
Rin clutched him and buried her head against his chest, her sobs gradually subsiding. How odd – that she should first have insulted him and then begged him for his comfort. But of course since her parents’ deaths he was the only person she had to hold any more. What was she doing by trying to push him away, as if a little sister could fire her big brother? She squeezed her streaming eyes shut and listened to Manji’s heartbeat until his hand descended on her head and he patted her hair.
“There, there, kid… it’s OK. I guess you didn’t mean it like that after all.” He stepped back half a pace. “You’re getting me all wet, you know.”
“S-sorry…” She dried her face on her sleeve and sniffled herself into a slightly calmer state. Manji waited with arms folded and an expression of barely restrained impatience.
“I’m sorry,” she said again. “I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings.”
“My feelings?” He narrowed his eye. “What the hell does that have to do with the price of rice in China?”
“I only wanted to make you feel better. Let you be with… other people.”
“You honestly think you’re doing this for me? Like I can’t stand giving up a few opportunities to get laid? Look, kid – ask before you start making big assumptions like that.”
“I… I thought I had.”
“You did? Like when?”
“Well, last night.” She flushed and hung her head. “I asked you if you needed a woman.”
“And I said it was no big deal, didn’t I? What’s the matter, you don’t believe me?”
“Err…”
“Did I do something to make you think I’m lying? Don’t think so.” He took her chin and raised her face, examining her with a probing air. “Rin… spit it out. What’s eating you?”
“It’s all my fault, Manji – I’m sorry…”
“What the hell’s that supposed to mean?” His face went blank and he dropped his hand. “You’re kiddin’ me.”
Rin clasped both hands over her heart, which threatened to pound its way out of her chest, and looked tearfully at Manji. She could say nothing, but didn’t need to, because Manji stared into her eyes and took a step backwards.
“No, you don’t. You’re fooling yourself, girl. Me? And you? It ain’t for real!”
“It’s as real a feeling as I know.” She gulped. “M-Manji… I…”
“Give me a break!” He started laughing. Full-throated, rough and heartless. “Haw, haw! What the hell put that in your little head? I thought we cleared that up a long time ago.”
Rin pressed her trembling lips together and raised her chin, holding his gaze. Manji’s laughter grew a little uncertain. “Heh… aw, go on, call me a jerk and bop me on the noggin. You’ll feel better.” He shrugged a sheathed short sword out of his sleeve and offered it to her.
“I’m not joking.”
“What? Forget about it. It’ll be a cold day in hell – ”
“You wanted to know, didn’t you? Well, now you do. Don’t you think I would have forgotten about it if I could?” She swung and knocked the sword to the ground; Manji looked startled with his empty hand still extended. “You ARE a jerk! You’re horrible! I know perfectly well you’ll never understand how I feel! And I still dream about – ”
“That’s it. You don’t need to fire me – I just resigned.” He grabbed up the sword and thrust it back into his sleeve.
“No! Please, I didn’t mean to fire you. I want you to stay!”
“No freakin’ way!” He said it with as much emphasis as when he had told her he would never leave her, and turned around as if to go.
“Please, Manji! Won’t you even think about it?” Abandoning all restraint, she tried to embrace him from behind. He shrugged her off and shot her a fearsome glare; Rin flinched, wondering for a moment if he meant to strike her. He’d done that before: the first time she had volunteered herself for his bed. But he didn’t seem to want to touch her now even to backhand her across the face. “Wouldn’t you… like it at all?”
Veins bulged on Manji’s forehead. “You crazy little fool! You don’t go saying that kind of thing to a guy!” He backed away as she approached.
“Why?”
“Because… because some of ‘em might take you up on it. Even though you’re just a kid!”
“What if I wanted you to?”
“You IDIOT! You’ve got no idea what you’re talking about!” He tried to keep retreating, but his back hit the wall of the hut and he could go no further. Rin reached up to put her arms around his neck; Manji jerked and flung her off. “Hey! Keep yer hands to yourself!”
“I do so know what I’m talking about! I can see it’s been on your mind too – you can’t fool me. What’s so awful? What could it hurt?”
“Listen to this kid! What could it HURT?” Sweat ran down his temples. “If you knew a damn thing about how a man feels when – girl, this ain’t a game!”
“If there’s something I need to know about men, I can learn! Go ahead, show me.”
“Go ahead and show you what? That a man thinks with his little head?” Manji gave another sarcastic laugh. “Yeah, that wouldn’t be too hard to prove. Suppose I were to grab you and – ”
“All right.” Rin laid her hands on his chest and took a deep breath. “Kiss me.”
“Haah? KISS you?” His face darkened and his eye dilated. “On the… on the mouth?”
“On the cheek, of course!” She blushed fiercely; a kiss on the mouth would practically invite him right to her pillow. Had he really thought she wanted to go that far? Something had apparently gotten through to him; he was tense and apprehensive now rather than loud and scornful. “Just a little… I want you to show me what you mean.”
Manji stared at her, his expression deeply unsettled. “That ain’t a real good idea, kid. I promised to protect you… from guys like me, among other things.”
“But you’re not my bodyguard any more – you quit. So there’s no conflict of interest now, is there?” She shrugged and smiled at him, fingering the collar of his kosode. Somehow the spasmodic twitching of his nose encouraged her. It wasn’t often that her tough, plainspoken Manji seemed so completely taken aback…
His chest rose and fell under her hands. “Will you leave me alone if I do?” His voice sounded hoarse. “Just one kiss, and we’ll consider it proved.”
“Whatever you want.”
Manji slowly put one arm around her waist, then tilted her chin to the side with his free hand. His breath heated her face as he rubbed his nose over her cheekbone. Rin shuddered, her eyes closing. Manji nudged her slim body between his thighs and nuzzled her ear, then straightened and withdrew. She watched him swallow hard; he looked over her head with an unfocused eye. In his heavy-lidded gaze she glimpsed thoughts she could not read.
“Manji-san?”
“Still want me to do it? Kiss you?”
“Y-yes… please.”
“OK, whatever.” He grunted and leaned down. “Your funeral.”
His mouth felt firm and warm on her cheek and temple, the bristles on his unshaven chin sharp against her tender skin. With the tip of his tongue between his barely parted lips he traced a dotted line along her jaw. Rin closed her eyes again and sighed. Manji didn’t pull back; he continued his caresses, breathing harder. Would he let her return the favor? Gingerly she kissed his rough cheek; he let out a quick gasp that didn’t seem discouraging. She tried to find a less stubbly part of his face with her eyes shut, and their lips accidentally brushed.
Manji started and jerked his head back for a moment. Obviously this was a surprise. But almost immediately he pulled her to him and touched his lips to hers. Rin reared up in his arms, stiff with astonishment, and tried to avert her face. Manji’s strong fingers along her jaw prevented her from turning her head. He kissed her yet again, mouth to mouth. Closed-mouthed, barely damp; the light contacts reverberated in her body like the thunderous beats of a huge taiko.
Then he adjusted the position of her chin, took a deep breath and dove in. Rin clung to Manji’s shoulders for support, her fists contracting in the folds of his clothing. One of his hands pressed the small of her back, the other cradled her head, and he captured her mouth in earnest. Not holding back in the least, it seemed to her – maybe to prove something? Maybe because he couldn’t help himself? Stinging from the pressure of his, Rin’s lips yielded, opened. Insistently the moist blade of his tongue invaded and dueled with hers.
Was this what she had dreamed about, or more than she had ever been able to imagine? Rin abandoned herself to the strange intoxication that heated her body, her brain whirling in a disorienting spiral although they barely moved except to embrace each other more tightly. Manji’s warm tongue ravaged her mouth, pushing deep into its recesses; their saliva freely mingled, which struck her as shockingly intimate. Her heart pounded in her throat so hard she felt as if she were choking. Although she could not keep her knees from shaking, she responded as best she could, mimicking the voracious way he kissed her and giving it right back to him. Manji groaned. His hand explored the down-slope of her haunches, his mouth sealed to hers and his whole body vibrating. Something was tickling her in the lower belly, both inside and out…
Manji suddenly withdrew his embrace and shoved her away, panting. His face was flushed, his eye wide and staring. “No. Stop it!”
“M-Manji?” Rin couldn’t quite tell whom he was addressing, her or himself. She put an arm against the wall for support, since her legs didn’t feel steady. Manji did the same at the other corner of the hut, slumping with a palm cupped partway over his mouth. Both of them breathed heavily for several moments. Manji snapped his head around to look at Rin with an incredulous expression.
“You’d do it, wouldn’t you? If I asked you to pillow with me now, you’d say yes!”
“Are… are you asking me?” Rin’s heartbeat accelerated even further, though that scarcely seemed possible. Spots danced in front of her eyes.
“Hell no, I’m not!” Manji shrugged his shoulders upright and gave a contemptuous snort. “Got yer proof?”
“What? Oh…” She sagged and clamped fingertips to her mouth. He had faked that kiss? And she’d fallen for it so easily!
“Yeah, let that be a lesson to you.” Manji adjusted the loosened overlap of his kosode. “Never trust a man on that score. Not even me!”
She trembled in humiliation and tears started in her eyes. “Fine. I won’t.”
“Aw, kid… don’t take it so hard. You asked for it, sure… but I guess I carried it a little far.” He wiped his lips and raked a hand through his hair, then chuckled thinly. “Didn’t think it’d be quite that… dangerous.”
“What?” Rin looked up. He shrugged and looked annoyed, as if regretting that he had spoken. She blinked the tears away and stared at him. “You mean it… really made you feel that way?”
His face flushed and his mouth opened for a moment. Then it closed firmly and he grimaced. “Don’t get your hopes up – men are all pigs. Which is my whole point, see?”
Rin’s heart gave a bold thump. “But if I’m enough of a woman to make you, um… react like a man… then maybe I’m enough of a woman to handle any danger there might be.” She drew herself up straight and tried to look as womanly as possible.
Manji stared at her in naked disbelief. When she bravely held his gaze with her shaking chin pulled into her chest, he laughed with an edge of despair and sat down hard on the porch, head in his hands. “Nope. Not a chance.”
“Girls my age get married all the time.”
“Married? Yeah, and they have babies too. Or didn’t you know that it leads to babies?”
“Uh… I guess so… but not always, right? Especially when you’re young.”
“I wouldn’t count on that, kid!” He suddenly raised his head and made a question mark at her with one brow. “Nice respectable samurai family with only one little girl-child? Exactly how much DO you know about pillowing?”
“Well… I’ve seen dogs mating in the street… and it must be something like that, except that people usually do it indoors.” She blushed and shrugged. “I guess men have something like, um, that thing… that gets bigger… and then they put it, uh, between a woman’s legs… and it’s what husbands and wives do, and my mother’s friends used to gossip about it and say that men get more out of it than a woman does, which is maybe why they like to pay for it in a brothel so they can do it more often, but I also heard that it makes a woman like a man more when she’s done it with him. And that a woman can reach the Clouds and Rain the way a man does if he knows how to do it well, or if his, um, thing is the right size for her, and especially if she likes him.”
Manji listened to this speech with growing incredulity, pressing his lips together as if manfully holding back a laugh. “If she… if she likes him? Holy… shit.”
“Uh… is that not true?”
He got up and slapped his thighs. “I’m going into town, and I’m going to visit a bookseller’s. You can come with me if you like – yeah, better tag along. We can pick out one or two that seem to be around your level.”
“One or two what?”
“Shunpon. Pillow books. Like what your parents would’ve given you for a wedding present. Basic operating instructions, you got it?” At the look on her face he burst out in a hearty guffaw. “I have a feeling that seeing actual pictures of people getting it on is going to give you second thoughts like nothing else. And all the better too. Come on, I’ll buy you some noodles for lunch.” Still laughing, he strode off.
Continued...
Note on kissing: It’s a common belief among Westerners and Japanese alike that kissing is a Western practice that was introduced into Japan by Europeans. Even a quick study of antique Japanese erotic prints will show that is not the case. However, the context of a kiss was specifically related to sex in traditional Japanese culture, and in the historical time period of Blade of the Immortal it was considered disgustingly obscene to kiss in public. Kisses were censored from Hollywood movies imported into Japan up to 1945. Until the post-war era, if a Japanese woman were to allow a man to kiss her on the lips (or in conservative rural areas, even to let him hold her hand) she would have been understood to have given consent to intercourse.
However, there are scenes of kissing in BotI that are clearly meant in the romantic rather than purely sexual sense. Again, the manga incorporates a mixture of tradition and modern Japanese customs and should probably be interpreted without strict reference to either.
All feedback is welcome! Please let me know how it strikes you; I love to hear from readers no matter what.
Characters and universe are copyrighted by Hiroaki Samura and do not belong to me. Not one sen will come into my hands in consequence of this story. No, I don’t wish I owned Manji in the usual ficcer’s fashion. But I like the rough-edged S.O.B. anyway just for knowing where his priorities ought to lie.
Summary (SPOILERS through English issue #98 and collection #14, “Last Blood”):
After the return from Kaga, Rin and Manji lived for a quiet month or so in his hut on the outskirts of Edo. Manji worked on training Rin in swordwork, but he hadn't killed anyone in weeks and was getting restless. :) One day Rin trained alone while Manji was napping, and after realizing she had surpassed her previous mediocre standard of swordsmanship, she kissed Manji on the mouth while he was still asleep. But at the same time, she told herself that "I can't go back there", because "someday I'll have to leave this man behind." So what was that all about? Here's a speculation.
Squick warnings: Sex in various forms, including quasi-incestuous themes and a 16-year-old female paired with an adult male. Violence will come in later; hey, you gotta separate at least one body part from its owner in any BOTI story.
Note: Rin’s father’s name is given early on in the manga as “Kurose”, and later as “Takayoshi”.
Abstinence Education
by Madame Manga
Part Two
“What the hell were you doing in town without me?” Manji got up from the porch as Rin approached and thrust both his swords through his obi. She had risen before dawn and left without awakening him. “I thought I told you not to go into the marketplace by yourself in case you ran into any Itto-ryu guys.” He pointed straight at her nose when she stopped in front of him. “Not to mention those scumbags who lurk in the bushes along the road just waiting to grab girls to sell! Do you even hear what I’m saying, or am I just breaking wind?”
“I brought my sword along.” She glanced down at the long Chinese blade she carried slung through the straps of her shoulder bag. “I could have used it.”
He lowered his finger and gave an exasperated sigh. “If there was only one of ‘em coming at you, maybe you could scare him off if you bawled loud enough. But they work in pairs, see? Not a chance.”
“I’ve been training a whole lot!” Rin frowned and brushed past Manji to find the remains of breakfast. He had left her two ears of corn laid out on the green husks. “You taught me how to handle two attacks at once, anyway. Don’t you think I’ve learned anything yet?”
“After practicing blocks for a whole week? Gimme a break. You ain’t half ready to take on a real bandit.” Manji followed her back to the porch, leaned against a post with arms folded and watched her eat.
Rin took several mouthfuls and licked her fingers before replying. “Anyway, I didn’t go to the marketplace, I went to a kimono merchant’s. I had to sell something.”
Manji raised a brow. “Didn’t know you had any spare duds to get rid of.”
“Um… a couple of my mother’s fancy uchikake robes. I went to the house to look through the things I have stored there.” She kept her eyes on the corncob in her hands.
“What?” His forehead creased; he straightened and looked a little alarmed. “By yourself? You haven’t gone back there since you and me...”
“Manji, I lived there alone for two years! What could be different now?”
“Well... nothing, I guess.” He grimaced and scratched his scalp. “Too many ghosts in that place.”
“I know.” It took an effort to smile. “I made some offerings to my parents’ spirits at a shrine, but there was plenty of money left over. Here.” Rin reached into her shoulder bag and took out a heavy little package. She set it on the porch between them: ten gold koban, done up in paper with the value written on the outside. “This is for you.”
“Hah?” Manji picked up the package and weighed it in his hand. “What for?”
“Your salary.”
“My salary? You don’t owe me this much.” He fingered the strokes of the writing with an air of confused annoyance. “Anyhow, we never arranged it like this. You just paid for the inns and gave me some drinking money. What’s with the big payoff?”
“Well… that’s more or less what it is. Your payoff.”
He shot a look at her, his brows going down.
“I’m giving you severance pay. I’m not employing you as my yojimbo any more.”
The package dropped and broke open, spilling the big oval coins in the dirt. “What?” Manji seemed nearly panicked; his face changed color and his eye glared wide.
“You need to live your own life. You’re a man… with a man’s needs. I know you’ve been pretty, um, bored lately just training me. You don’t want to have to babysit any longer. We can go our separate ways, and you can do whatever you want.” Rin smiled, her heart pounding, and looked at the line of forest beyond the rice paddies to avoid seeing Manji’s expression.
“You can’t fire me!”
“Why not? If I could hire you, then I – ”
“Because… because that ain’t how it goes, that’s why! I’m not leavin’ you on yer own, kid – you’d be dead in a week.”
“I can take care of myself – ”
“The hell you can!” Manji seized her by the shoulders and shook her hard; the half-eaten corn flew out of her hand. “You little idiot! If the Itto-ryu hears you don’t have a bodyguard, they’ll deliver your head to Anotsu in a market bag!”
“The Itto-ryu’s concerned with more than just me! I think Anotsu’s in some kind of trouble with the bakufu – ”
“So what? Kid, come on – ”
“So Anotsu probably doesn’t have me on his mind at all, and even if he did, he wouldn’t do anything about it!”
“Oh, you’re so sure about that?”
“Actually, I am. Remember, I was with him for days. I saw how he thinks – Manji-san, it’s strange to say it, I know, but he’s got a sense of honor. Maybe… too much of one. Plotting to kill someone like me just isn’t the way he operates.”
“Maybe so.” Manji’s chest gave a heave and he released her. His mouth twitched in a fleeting, unsettled grimace. “I guess that makes some kind of sense.”
“Thank you. You know, I have to start building my life too, not just go after revenge.”
“Build your life? Like how?”
Rin straightened her collar, took a deep breath and fingered one braid ring. “I’ll go live at my family’s dojo again. I have some acquaintances in the neighborhood… I need to visit them and re-introduce myself. I haven’t been a part of the local society in years, but I am Asano Takayoshi’s daughter.” She raised her chin and looked Manji straight in the face. “I can make a place for myself with some effort. And that’s what I’m going to do.”
Manji’s expression struck her oddly; he let out a short hard breath and went a little pale. “OK, I got you.” His teeth gritted. “You don’t want me getting in your way.”
“Manji-san?”
“I’m an outlaw.” He pointed to his chest. “You’d scandalize your nice neighbors if you brought along a low-life like me on visiting rounds. Ol’ Manji would just be a turd in yer rice bowl!”
Her mouth dropped open. “No… that’s not what I…”
“But that’s what it adds up to, don’t it?” He turned his back and stalked a few paces away. “Fine, the hell with it. I ain’t too hot with proper social etiquette anyhow.”
“You forgot your money!”
“Can’t go forgetting about money, can I?” Manji stooped and picked up the scattered coins. “Guess I can buy all the whores I want now, huh?”
“If you like. It’s your business.”
Still squatting on his haunches, he glared up at her. “What if buying whores and getting drunk wasn’t what I had in mind for spending the rest of my life, which if you recall is likely to be a damn long one?”
“You’d rather be fighting, I guess.”
“Sure I would. In the right cause.”
“You can find one. My vendetta isn’t the only way to kill evil men.”
“You think that’s why I’ve been doing this?” He straightened and thrust the coins into the breast of his black and white kosode. “Month after month, and it’s only about killing evil men on behalf of little Rin’s vendetta?”
“Isn’t that why you agreed to do it in the first place?”
“In the first place, yeah.” Manji looked at her, his brows creasing. “Gotta admit it’s been kinda... interesting.”
“Well, it could be a long time before I have to go look up Anotsu again. I can live quietly and train, and keep an eye on things. There wouldn’t be anything for you to do anyway.” She spread her hands and tried to look confidently mature, though she had to suppress her trembles. Manji’s reaction had been the only thing she truly feared, far more than the Itto-ryu; perhaps he would accept this if her determination didn’t falter. “You’d still be bored hanging around. Probably it will be years before I know for sure what I need to do. By then I hope I’ll be able to face him by myself.”
“Not without me you won’t.”
“It’s not your business any more. I just… laid you off, remember?”
His face twitched, the white scars standing out against his flushed skin. “No freakin’ way.”
“I’m leaving now.” She shouldered her bag and straightened the sword. “Please don’t follow me.”
“Yeah, that would look kinda pathetic, wouldn’t it? Big bad samurai trailing after a little girl, begging to get cut up on her behalf. Shit!” He spat on the ground.
Rin flinched at the gesture and at the sheer anger in his voice. “Manji-san, please don’t be mad…”
“Why the hell wouldn’t I be mad? I just got told to take a hike!”
“I’m only trying to do what’s best for both of us. I… I thought you’d be relieved.”
“Huh? Relieved to get shot of you? You ain’t making sense, kid.”
“Well… uh, I’ve been noticing…” She hid her face in her hands for a moment, quivering with embarrassment. “You… maybe it’s just my imagination, but I thought you might be getting, um, kind of uneasy around me…”
“Uneasy?” He put his fists on his hips and squinted his one eye at her. “Like… nervous? Why the hell would you make me nervous?”
At that moment she had no idea why. Apparently she had miscalculated that factor, but there were other considerations as well. Weren’t there? On the way into town she had worked out everything in detail and decided exactly what to say and what subjects to skirt around, but all logic and calm threatened to desert her now. Speaking these things to his face was vastly dissimilar from having an ideal conversation with the air…
“What’s with you? Uneasy? Relieved? You’re talking like I was – ” He stopped short. Rin looked up, still quivering, and saw the realization flash across his face. “Oh, crap.”
“I’m sorry, Manji-san! I wasn’t sure – it was just – I’m sorry!”
“You think I want to get you in my futon? Is that it?” His upper lip contracted to show his teeth, but he seemed less angry than stunned, or even hurt. “You think I’m going to do something to you?”
“N-no! No, that’s not what I meant!” She clamped a hand to her mouth and tried to hold back tears. This was going all wrong – this was ten times worse than she’d imagined.
“Shit! First she tells me to blow off because I’m such a disreputable character, then she calls me a pervert!” He seized the hilt of his katana and shook it. “I dedicate my sword to her, kill dozens of guys to keep her safe, and this is the goddamn thanks I get. What’s the freakin’ use?”
Rin burst out crying and threw her arms around him. “M-Manji-san… no… oh, God…”
He drew a deep exasperated breath, but said nothing, and didn’t move away from her embrace.
Rin clutched him and buried her head against his chest, her sobs gradually subsiding. How odd – that she should first have insulted him and then begged him for his comfort. But of course since her parents’ deaths he was the only person she had to hold any more. What was she doing by trying to push him away, as if a little sister could fire her big brother? She squeezed her streaming eyes shut and listened to Manji’s heartbeat until his hand descended on her head and he patted her hair.
“There, there, kid… it’s OK. I guess you didn’t mean it like that after all.” He stepped back half a pace. “You’re getting me all wet, you know.”
“S-sorry…” She dried her face on her sleeve and sniffled herself into a slightly calmer state. Manji waited with arms folded and an expression of barely restrained impatience.
“I’m sorry,” she said again. “I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings.”
“My feelings?” He narrowed his eye. “What the hell does that have to do with the price of rice in China?”
“I only wanted to make you feel better. Let you be with… other people.”
“You honestly think you’re doing this for me? Like I can’t stand giving up a few opportunities to get laid? Look, kid – ask before you start making big assumptions like that.”
“I… I thought I had.”
“You did? Like when?”
“Well, last night.” She flushed and hung her head. “I asked you if you needed a woman.”
“And I said it was no big deal, didn’t I? What’s the matter, you don’t believe me?”
“Err…”
“Did I do something to make you think I’m lying? Don’t think so.” He took her chin and raised her face, examining her with a probing air. “Rin… spit it out. What’s eating you?”
“It’s all my fault, Manji – I’m sorry…”
“What the hell’s that supposed to mean?” His face went blank and he dropped his hand. “You’re kiddin’ me.”
Rin clasped both hands over her heart, which threatened to pound its way out of her chest, and looked tearfully at Manji. She could say nothing, but didn’t need to, because Manji stared into her eyes and took a step backwards.
“No, you don’t. You’re fooling yourself, girl. Me? And you? It ain’t for real!”
“It’s as real a feeling as I know.” She gulped. “M-Manji… I…”
“Give me a break!” He started laughing. Full-throated, rough and heartless. “Haw, haw! What the hell put that in your little head? I thought we cleared that up a long time ago.”
Rin pressed her trembling lips together and raised her chin, holding his gaze. Manji’s laughter grew a little uncertain. “Heh… aw, go on, call me a jerk and bop me on the noggin. You’ll feel better.” He shrugged a sheathed short sword out of his sleeve and offered it to her.
“I’m not joking.”
“What? Forget about it. It’ll be a cold day in hell – ”
“You wanted to know, didn’t you? Well, now you do. Don’t you think I would have forgotten about it if I could?” She swung and knocked the sword to the ground; Manji looked startled with his empty hand still extended. “You ARE a jerk! You’re horrible! I know perfectly well you’ll never understand how I feel! And I still dream about – ”
“That’s it. You don’t need to fire me – I just resigned.” He grabbed up the sword and thrust it back into his sleeve.
“No! Please, I didn’t mean to fire you. I want you to stay!”
“No freakin’ way!” He said it with as much emphasis as when he had told her he would never leave her, and turned around as if to go.
“Please, Manji! Won’t you even think about it?” Abandoning all restraint, she tried to embrace him from behind. He shrugged her off and shot her a fearsome glare; Rin flinched, wondering for a moment if he meant to strike her. He’d done that before: the first time she had volunteered herself for his bed. But he didn’t seem to want to touch her now even to backhand her across the face. “Wouldn’t you… like it at all?”
Veins bulged on Manji’s forehead. “You crazy little fool! You don’t go saying that kind of thing to a guy!” He backed away as she approached.
“Why?”
“Because… because some of ‘em might take you up on it. Even though you’re just a kid!”
“What if I wanted you to?”
“You IDIOT! You’ve got no idea what you’re talking about!” He tried to keep retreating, but his back hit the wall of the hut and he could go no further. Rin reached up to put her arms around his neck; Manji jerked and flung her off. “Hey! Keep yer hands to yourself!”
“I do so know what I’m talking about! I can see it’s been on your mind too – you can’t fool me. What’s so awful? What could it hurt?”
“Listen to this kid! What could it HURT?” Sweat ran down his temples. “If you knew a damn thing about how a man feels when – girl, this ain’t a game!”
“If there’s something I need to know about men, I can learn! Go ahead, show me.”
“Go ahead and show you what? That a man thinks with his little head?” Manji gave another sarcastic laugh. “Yeah, that wouldn’t be too hard to prove. Suppose I were to grab you and – ”
“All right.” Rin laid her hands on his chest and took a deep breath. “Kiss me.”
“Haah? KISS you?” His face darkened and his eye dilated. “On the… on the mouth?”
“On the cheek, of course!” She blushed fiercely; a kiss on the mouth would practically invite him right to her pillow. Had he really thought she wanted to go that far? Something had apparently gotten through to him; he was tense and apprehensive now rather than loud and scornful. “Just a little… I want you to show me what you mean.”
Manji stared at her, his expression deeply unsettled. “That ain’t a real good idea, kid. I promised to protect you… from guys like me, among other things.”
“But you’re not my bodyguard any more – you quit. So there’s no conflict of interest now, is there?” She shrugged and smiled at him, fingering the collar of his kosode. Somehow the spasmodic twitching of his nose encouraged her. It wasn’t often that her tough, plainspoken Manji seemed so completely taken aback…
His chest rose and fell under her hands. “Will you leave me alone if I do?” His voice sounded hoarse. “Just one kiss, and we’ll consider it proved.”
“Whatever you want.”
Manji slowly put one arm around her waist, then tilted her chin to the side with his free hand. His breath heated her face as he rubbed his nose over her cheekbone. Rin shuddered, her eyes closing. Manji nudged her slim body between his thighs and nuzzled her ear, then straightened and withdrew. She watched him swallow hard; he looked over her head with an unfocused eye. In his heavy-lidded gaze she glimpsed thoughts she could not read.
“Manji-san?”
“Still want me to do it? Kiss you?”
“Y-yes… please.”
“OK, whatever.” He grunted and leaned down. “Your funeral.”
His mouth felt firm and warm on her cheek and temple, the bristles on his unshaven chin sharp against her tender skin. With the tip of his tongue between his barely parted lips he traced a dotted line along her jaw. Rin closed her eyes again and sighed. Manji didn’t pull back; he continued his caresses, breathing harder. Would he let her return the favor? Gingerly she kissed his rough cheek; he let out a quick gasp that didn’t seem discouraging. She tried to find a less stubbly part of his face with her eyes shut, and their lips accidentally brushed.
Manji started and jerked his head back for a moment. Obviously this was a surprise. But almost immediately he pulled her to him and touched his lips to hers. Rin reared up in his arms, stiff with astonishment, and tried to avert her face. Manji’s strong fingers along her jaw prevented her from turning her head. He kissed her yet again, mouth to mouth. Closed-mouthed, barely damp; the light contacts reverberated in her body like the thunderous beats of a huge taiko.
Then he adjusted the position of her chin, took a deep breath and dove in. Rin clung to Manji’s shoulders for support, her fists contracting in the folds of his clothing. One of his hands pressed the small of her back, the other cradled her head, and he captured her mouth in earnest. Not holding back in the least, it seemed to her – maybe to prove something? Maybe because he couldn’t help himself? Stinging from the pressure of his, Rin’s lips yielded, opened. Insistently the moist blade of his tongue invaded and dueled with hers.
Was this what she had dreamed about, or more than she had ever been able to imagine? Rin abandoned herself to the strange intoxication that heated her body, her brain whirling in a disorienting spiral although they barely moved except to embrace each other more tightly. Manji’s warm tongue ravaged her mouth, pushing deep into its recesses; their saliva freely mingled, which struck her as shockingly intimate. Her heart pounded in her throat so hard she felt as if she were choking. Although she could not keep her knees from shaking, she responded as best she could, mimicking the voracious way he kissed her and giving it right back to him. Manji groaned. His hand explored the down-slope of her haunches, his mouth sealed to hers and his whole body vibrating. Something was tickling her in the lower belly, both inside and out…
Manji suddenly withdrew his embrace and shoved her away, panting. His face was flushed, his eye wide and staring. “No. Stop it!”
“M-Manji?” Rin couldn’t quite tell whom he was addressing, her or himself. She put an arm against the wall for support, since her legs didn’t feel steady. Manji did the same at the other corner of the hut, slumping with a palm cupped partway over his mouth. Both of them breathed heavily for several moments. Manji snapped his head around to look at Rin with an incredulous expression.
“You’d do it, wouldn’t you? If I asked you to pillow with me now, you’d say yes!”
“Are… are you asking me?” Rin’s heartbeat accelerated even further, though that scarcely seemed possible. Spots danced in front of her eyes.
“Hell no, I’m not!” Manji shrugged his shoulders upright and gave a contemptuous snort. “Got yer proof?”
“What? Oh…” She sagged and clamped fingertips to her mouth. He had faked that kiss? And she’d fallen for it so easily!
“Yeah, let that be a lesson to you.” Manji adjusted the loosened overlap of his kosode. “Never trust a man on that score. Not even me!”
She trembled in humiliation and tears started in her eyes. “Fine. I won’t.”
“Aw, kid… don’t take it so hard. You asked for it, sure… but I guess I carried it a little far.” He wiped his lips and raked a hand through his hair, then chuckled thinly. “Didn’t think it’d be quite that… dangerous.”
“What?” Rin looked up. He shrugged and looked annoyed, as if regretting that he had spoken. She blinked the tears away and stared at him. “You mean it… really made you feel that way?”
His face flushed and his mouth opened for a moment. Then it closed firmly and he grimaced. “Don’t get your hopes up – men are all pigs. Which is my whole point, see?”
Rin’s heart gave a bold thump. “But if I’m enough of a woman to make you, um… react like a man… then maybe I’m enough of a woman to handle any danger there might be.” She drew herself up straight and tried to look as womanly as possible.
Manji stared at her in naked disbelief. When she bravely held his gaze with her shaking chin pulled into her chest, he laughed with an edge of despair and sat down hard on the porch, head in his hands. “Nope. Not a chance.”
“Girls my age get married all the time.”
“Married? Yeah, and they have babies too. Or didn’t you know that it leads to babies?”
“Uh… I guess so… but not always, right? Especially when you’re young.”
“I wouldn’t count on that, kid!” He suddenly raised his head and made a question mark at her with one brow. “Nice respectable samurai family with only one little girl-child? Exactly how much DO you know about pillowing?”
“Well… I’ve seen dogs mating in the street… and it must be something like that, except that people usually do it indoors.” She blushed and shrugged. “I guess men have something like, um, that thing… that gets bigger… and then they put it, uh, between a woman’s legs… and it’s what husbands and wives do, and my mother’s friends used to gossip about it and say that men get more out of it than a woman does, which is maybe why they like to pay for it in a brothel so they can do it more often, but I also heard that it makes a woman like a man more when she’s done it with him. And that a woman can reach the Clouds and Rain the way a man does if he knows how to do it well, or if his, um, thing is the right size for her, and especially if she likes him.”
Manji listened to this speech with growing incredulity, pressing his lips together as if manfully holding back a laugh. “If she… if she likes him? Holy… shit.”
“Uh… is that not true?”
He got up and slapped his thighs. “I’m going into town, and I’m going to visit a bookseller’s. You can come with me if you like – yeah, better tag along. We can pick out one or two that seem to be around your level.”
“One or two what?”
“Shunpon. Pillow books. Like what your parents would’ve given you for a wedding present. Basic operating instructions, you got it?” At the look on her face he burst out in a hearty guffaw. “I have a feeling that seeing actual pictures of people getting it on is going to give you second thoughts like nothing else. And all the better too. Come on, I’ll buy you some noodles for lunch.” Still laughing, he strode off.
Continued...
Note on kissing: It’s a common belief among Westerners and Japanese alike that kissing is a Western practice that was introduced into Japan by Europeans. Even a quick study of antique Japanese erotic prints will show that is not the case. However, the context of a kiss was specifically related to sex in traditional Japanese culture, and in the historical time period of Blade of the Immortal it was considered disgustingly obscene to kiss in public. Kisses were censored from Hollywood movies imported into Japan up to 1945. Until the post-war era, if a Japanese woman were to allow a man to kiss her on the lips (or in conservative rural areas, even to let him hold her hand) she would have been understood to have given consent to intercourse.
However, there are scenes of kissing in BotI that are clearly meant in the romantic rather than purely sexual sense. Again, the manga incorporates a mixture of tradition and modern Japanese customs and should probably be interpreted without strict reference to either.