Rurouni Kenshin Fan Fiction ❯ Oiran no Gaijin - "The Foreign Courtesan" ❯ Topaz Eyes ( Chapter 1 )

[ Y - Young Adult: Not suitable for readers under 16 ]

Nicole hadn't even had time to blink as the water had surrounded her in less than half a millisecond. But as far as she knew, nothing else had changed. She could still see the people standing around, helping each other up. A giggle escaped her lips as she saw how good some of the boys looked in wet shirts. That was when she noticed that something was amiss: if she was still there, why weren't they all rushing forward to do who-knew-what to her? Wasn't she in trouble? Didn't the students want to keep throwing things at her? She looked around her through the clear, glass-like surface of the bubble-thing that had now formed around her. People looked frightened and puzzled, but that was to be expected.

Confused, she reached out one hand and touched the clear surface. It was like feeling water in a water bed - she could tell there was water there, but her hand was not getting wet. She pushed on the surface again and it sprung back like gelatin as she pulled her hand away. All right, now this was turning way too weird, even for Nicole. She turned around on the spot where she stood - yep, there was a bubble completely surrounding her. She looked out at the people again and wondered why they all looked like they had seen a ghost or something. Some of the students were beginning to talk and point at her.

That's funny, thought Nicole.

She couldn't hear them speaking, couldn't even hear their voices. Granted, she wasn't sure if she wanted to, but all the same, it was too odd for her to be surrounded by silence. Frustrated, Nicole bashed a fist against the gelatin-like wall, which sprung back at her again, this time shimmering annoyingly. She looked at her hand and thought, Of course! Why hadn't she thought of it before!? She had the longest natural fingernails of anyone she knew, so it should be only too easy for her to just go... Pop! Gearing up for a spear-finger attack, just as she had learned in tae kwon do, she let out a loud cry and jabbed her hand forward with all her might. She might as well have been jabbing a brick wall for all the good it did her. Her fingernails did sink in the jelly-ish stuff, but then they bounced right off.

Okay, that was one of my loudest war cries ever, she thought. Why didn't they react? People can always hear me yelling a mile away!

Now only a few people were looking at her, but their expressions made it seem like they were looking at something that was behind her. What was wrong with them? It wasn't like they could see through her... Could they? Keith was standing there with his hands in his pockets and a sort of contemplative frown on his face. A few members of the Japanese Culture club were standing around too. A couple of them were crying. What was wrong? Nicole banged on the surface of the bubble again, trying to get their attention, but her fists bounced off. Then she got a look at Ashley.

Ashley was standing there, staring at... Nicole's feet? Nicole looked down and all she saw was that she was up to her knees in thick mud. Oh well, she hated those pants anyway and after a stunt like this she was pretty much guaranteed to be expelled, so the dress code no longer mattered to her. But she turned her attention away from her pants and back to her best friend's face. Ashley was still staring at the mudhole where Nicole had been standing. What kind of an explosion was that? It just... blew her away. The almost-brunette girl's brown eyes were wide and her face was pale. She looked like she was probably in shock. Nicole couldn't blame her, what with the giant water ball and the explosion...

Wait... Nicole thought suddenly, a revelation dawning on her. The explosion...

"Ashley!" she screamed urgently, pounding on the bubble's bouncy surface with ineffectual but frantic fists. "Ashley, what's wrong!? Can't you..."

No...

Nobody could see her anymore! That was why they weren't responding to her and why the few who remained seemed to be looking straight through her. They were... Tears stung Nicole's eyes, but she forced them to stay back. Gritting her teeth, she put her shoulder down and rammed as hard as she could against the bubble. Her left leg was still sunk in the mud, so other than her knee popping loudly, nothing happened. She pulled it up with a sickening squelch-y noise and popped her knee back into place, leaning down to give it another go. With a cry of pure desperation and rage, she launched herself at the bubble's glistening surface.

The bubble vibrated as it laughed silently at her, knocking her to the muddy ground.

"DAMN IT ASHLEY, CAN'T YOU HEAR ME!?" she roared desperately. "KEITH! RACHAEL! HANNAH! ELLEN! LOOK AT ME, NOT THROUGH ME! I'M STANDING RIGHT HERE! GET ME OUT OF THIS BUBBLE, DAMMIT!"

There were mud flecks on the fronts of her glasses lenses, spattered on so thickly that she could hardly see her friends' faces anymore. She could see the outlines of other people approaching, though. One of them she recognized as the head of the computer department. He was talking to her friends from the Japanese Culture club. Another was the dean of students, talking to Keith - both of them had such serious expressions on their faces... The president of the school was approaching Ashley slowly. She put her arm around Ashley's shoulders and tried to get her to turn away.

"THAT'S IT, ASHLEY! YOU KNOW I'M HERE!" yelled Nicole. "TELL THEM I'M HERE! TELL THEM!"

The computer teacher was herding the Japanese Culture club's remnants back to join the rest of the students in the fire-drill areas. Keith was following the dean of students in the same direction, his hands still deep in his pockets. He looked back and Nicole tried her best to catch his eye. She had no luck, but she thought she had one last hope. Ashley was quietly refusing to leave the spot she seemed rooted to. Her brown eyes would not make tears - she was just too shocked to cry. Swallowing hard, she continued to stare at the place where Nicole had been, shaking her head at the president of the school. Ms. Kirkpatrick said something firmly and placed one hand on Ashley's left shoulder. With her lower lip trembling, Ashley finally turned her body away, continuing to stare at the mud hole.

"Come on," Ms. Kirkpatrick urged gently but firmly.

Ashley took one long last look at the last place she had seen her best friend ---

"ASHLEY! NO! DON'T LEAVE ME HERE!" screamed Nicole, her voice cracking and sounding strangled. "DON'T LET THEM BREAK US APART! YOU'RE MY BEST FRIEND!"

--- finally turned her head away, breaking her gaze at last.

"ASHLEY! COME BACK!" wailed Nicole, not caring if she sounded like a child. "DON'T GO! I KNOW YOU KNOW I'M HERE! WE'RE BEST FRIENDS, REMEMBER!?"

She watched her best friend allowing herself to be led away, Ashley not permitting herself to take even one backwards look.

"NOOOOOOO!" Nicole's voice tore itself from her throat and she slumped over, defeated.

No longer bothering to force them back, she allowed her tears to set themselves free. However, as soon as they were produced by her tear ducts, the little drops were pulled into the surface of the bubble. It stung and she tried to close her eyes, but it was no use. When her tear ducts were finally sucked dry, they began to bleed. As one drop of blood touched the bubble's surface, Nicole felt somethinng unusual and unwelcome. Water was beginning to well up around her, soaking her clothes even more than they already were. With wide, frightened eyes, she scrambled to her feet.

The cold, clear water was already up to her ankles and it was rising higher and higher with each moment that dragged itself by. Nicole was screaming herself hoarse, knowing full well that nobody could hear her. She kicked at the water uselessly, her abused tear ducts now spurting blood. Her blood seemed to be making the bubble go crazy... It had started vibrating when it stole her tears... The spell had specifically said clear water - maybe the salt of her tears got it started and the blood was just the kick it needed to go off the deep end.

By then, the water was up to her knees and the bubble was filling faster. It was still pulling blood from her tear ducts - Nicole wondered if she would be blind after this experience was over. A horrible question, though, was nagging at the back of her mind: Would the experience ever end? Or was she...?

No... she thought, her screams silencing. I can't be dead... I just can't!

Her dress-code khaki pants clung to her legs uncomfortably, restrictively, as the water rose up over her hips. The bottom of her shirt was already soaked and her cape was floating up around her. She flailed her arms wildly, uselessly, as the water touched the bottoms of her breasts. Frantic, she was trying to push the water away, obviously to no avail. The water kept rising and soon it was at the tops of her shoulders. Nicole was screaming again now, dancing about on her toes in an attempt to keep her head above the still-rising water line. Finally, she felt the bubble lift off the ground, sending her sprawling as her feet struggled for traction on the curved surface. She managed to catch a last breath before the water closed over her head, filling the bubble completely.

Nicole wasn't going to give up. She was going to fight to the very end! If there was some way she could punch, kick, bite, poke, or claw her way out of that bubble, she was going to find it. And if there wasn't... A chill trailed up her spine and she pulled one flap of her cape away from her face. There was no room for thinking like that - there just absolutely wasn't! She was going to get out of this mess and she was going to put everything right again. First and foremost, she was going to burn that horrid book, the one that had started all the trouble in the first place. A quiet voice nagged at the back of her mind in the silence of the water.

Did the book make you perform that spell? it asked slyly.

Nicole told her inner voices to shut up, but she could hear them laughing at her. However, the brain elves took a back seat to a more pressing need: She was rapidly growing lightheaded and she couldn't see. Thankfully, one of the little devils poked her brain with a q-tip and she opened her eyes. The water was just like air - she could see through it perfectly and it didn't sting at all. In fact, it was quite soothing to her dried-up, bleeding tear ducts. That thought was quickly pushed away as Nicole began to thrash, fighting with everything she had to get herself out of that bubble. She was drowning - she could feel it.

No! I can't give up now! I have to get out of here! she thought, screaming inside her head. I have so much to live for!

Finally, her lungs clenched and she breathed in reflexively. Nicole wanted to scream as water rushed up her nose and down her throat. It burned so painfully going down. She tried to cough it up, but wound up gasping and drawing in more water instead. Yes, she was drowning, her pain-hazed mind thought lethargically. It wouldn't be too long now... She wondered blearily, wasn't she supposed to see her life flashing before her? Her lungs clenched again in an attempt to expel the water, but it was useless. Releasing one last tear of blood, her hazel eyes fell closed and her mind went blank.

However, Nicole Barrington was not dead - far from it. She was actually in a kind of suspended animation, cryogenically frozen in the center of her bubble prison. The bubble started to spin on an invisible axis, like a globe being spun by a child at play. Then it started a motion like a gyroscope, around and around this way and that, as if following the path of a single strand of yarn wound into a ball. Nicole stayed frozen, motionless in the center as the clear surface started to turn different colors. First it became a lovely aqua blue-green, then it turned the color of the water in the Caribbean. A few turns later and it was a pinkish-purple color, with pink being the dominant hue.

Back on the school's campus, the odd combination of day and night had turned back into the dreary grey day with the usual clouds in the sky. The only difference was that the campus sported a brand new gooshy mud hole in the very center of the courtyard. The bubble's surroundings had changed quite a bit. Forming what looked like a hamster tube around it was a red metal tunnel. It was for the most part dark in the tunnel, but the red walls seemed to produce a sort of low light of their own. Then the tube started to slant down, like a slide. The bubble, still spinning away, rolled down the slide with Nicole still frozen and cushioned by the water inside the bubble. Occasionally, when the bubble came to an abrupt change in direction, her hair fluttered a bit in the water, eerily reminiscient of the scenes of dead people in "Titanic".

Still skittering down the slide, the bubble began to vibrate and shimmer all over. It was now producing its own brilliant lavender light. Nicole herself was glowing silver all over - her skin, her hair, and her clothes looked like they were made of liquid metal and glowed softly in comparison to the lavender light produced by the bubble. The metallic substance hardened quickly, forming a sort of protective casing around Nicole. However, it sealed in some of the water that was keeping her frozen and keeping her alive. Nicole had maybe an inch of water between her and the outer casing and it had turned into the same gelatinous substance that the bubble itself was made of, cushioning her against the metal.

Finally, the bubble came to a stop in one certain place, right in front of a hole just big enough for that particular bubble to fit into perfectly. Shaking violently and glowing brighter than ever, it started to spin faster and faster, hard enough to bounce Nicole around inside of it. Had she been conscious, she would have been thankful for the gel cushioning her and the metal casing protecting her. No, actually, if she had been conscious she would have still been thinking about how she wanted to get the hell out of there, sooner rather than later. But at that moment, she wasn't wanting or thinking anything - her mind was as frozen as her body was. Of course, for her mind to be frozen like that was nothing new...

The bubble came to a sudden stop, making Nicole go pinging around inside of it like a human pinball, just as fast and just as hard. But she felt nothing due to being frozen and would suffer no ill effects due to the gel and the casing - she was so serene at that moment, floating in the nothingness of time and space. The bubble rolled forward gently, rocking Nicole like a child with the motion. It was as if it were contemplating the hole in front of it. Then it did another forward roll and fitted itself into the hole snugly, settling Nicole in its center as she had been at first.

Then the Bubble exploded.

Nicole, still frozen and completely unconscious, was flung bodily down a narrow corridor of time with an open door at its far end. A powerful wind was pulling her towards that door and all she could do in her condition was free fall through time and space and let whatever gods there might be watch over her. The metal casing began to crack and fall away, getting lost forever in the vaccuum of time and space. Only left was the gel coating and the little bit of freezing water sealed in around her nose and mouth. The gel began to thin out a little bit at a time, starting with her feet and working its way up her curled-up legs and up her back. At the end of the time corridor, the door was getting closer - she was almost there. The gel had been eaten away by time except for that seal over her nose and mouth and thin bars of it keeping her eyes shut.

As soon as her hand was pulled by the wind across the threshold of that brilliant white door, the seal over her nose and mouth was broken and her eyes flew open. The moment her eyes opened, everything stopped. Then she dropped through the door and fell like a stone. She plummeted to the earth - her first conscious thought was "Oh my God, I'm going to die." But what seemed to be a convenient wind caught hold of her, holding her like a lover. Slowly, gently, it lowered her to the sweet-smelling earth of a forest floor, still curled up in a fetal position.

She smiled as she slipped into a dreamless sleep and the night wove a blanket of stars and mist around her.

~~ The next morning ~~

Nicole Barrington, age 18, woke up cold and stiff in the joints.

What the hell happened last night? she wondered. I know I haven't been drinking... I never do that. And I don't smoke either, so what in the freaking hell is going on!?

She opened her bleary eyes and realized that she had slept in her glasses. Wondering why she couldn't see out of them, she took them off and examined the lenses. There she saw the remnants of mud spatters on the frames and, more disturbingly, the lenses were encrusted with dried blood. She looked down and saw that she was still in her school clothes, her shoes and socks, and her cape. Well, at least she had her nice warm black Polarfleece cape. She spat on her glasses and wiped them on her shirt, not particularly caring about getting mud or blood on it. The dress code could go to hell and back for all she cared, she thought. Then she looked down at her khakis and was shocked - they were stiff up to the knees with dried mud and her shoes and socks were encrusted as well.

So it was real, she thought numbly. It was all real... I drowned. I have to be dead... Where am I?

Nicole looked around at her new environment with wide, deadened eyes, taking it all in. There was bamboo growing around her, along with trees that looked like they belonged in the art from Princess Mononoke. She was lying on bare, though somewhat soft earth. Cracking her neck and knuckles loudly, she sat up and started trying to chip the mud off her pants. That was her way - when in doubt, pick at something. She remembered that time when she and Ashley had the sunburns of their lives. Their skin had peeled off like bark off a birch tree... Then she laughed and shook her head.

Please stop picking your skin! It's starting to make me ill! Ashley's aunt had said after observing the two girls picking at each other's backs and shoulders like monkeys.

Forgetting about her pants entirely while focusing on the memory, Nicole dragged her mind back to the present moment and shook her head. This wasn't the time to be thinking about skin-picking or monkeys - it was time to be serious and analyze the situation. Well, she certainly wasn't in Kansas anymore. Or Georgia or wherever the hell she was from. Right now it didn't matter where she had come from - it mattered where she was going and how she was going to get there. She pushed herself uneasily to her feet and leaned against a tree for several minutes before regaining her balance.

"Fuck," she said under her breath. "It's like I've forgotten how to walk or something."

Shaking the dirt and leaves off her cape, she shook her head, stuffed her hands in her pockets, picked a direction, and randomly started walking. Bamboo, huh? Well that meant she was either somewhere in the Orient or in somebody's overgrown back yard or in somebody's overgrown back yard somewhere in the Orient. It wasn't like there were signs out in the middle of the woods that said "You are here, now go this way." Nicole shook her head at her own stupidity - she couldn't stand idiots and she was certainly acting like one now. She decided to walk until she found something that looked like it meant people. So she kept going in her current direction.

~~ 1 hour later ~~

"WAH! I'm tired!" Nicole whined at nobody in particular - it wasn't like anyone could hear her anyway. "When am I gonna find some people?"

It was quite ironic, that it was - normally Nicole wanted to avoid everyone but her friends at all costs, at least in the afternoons after school. Shaking that useless and irrelevant thought away, she turned left and set to walking in that direction until whimsy struck her to turn somewhere else. Whimsy - that was a funny word, she thought. It was like how there were pretty words like "tranquility" and "serenity" and then there were ugly words like "cracker". Crackers... She wondered how everybody was doing after their experience yesterday. Vaguely, she wondered if an event like that would make the newspapers. Probably not, she reasoned, as no one had been able to get a picture of the water ball. Maybe the news people would have to make a story of it if enough people reported it...

Then Nicole walked into a tree.

"FUCK!" she hollered, rousting the birds from the trees.

She grumbled to herself and turned to the right this time, away from the offending tree, which she had kicked just for good measure. Cursing under her breath, she kept walking, kicking sticks once in a while for variety, occasionally picking one up and hitting things with it. She found a really nice fallen bamboo stick that made a perfect imaginary Firebolt and soon she was zooming around the forest making whoosh-y noises and playing Quidditch by herself. Who ever said an overactive imagination was a bad thing? She was about to catch the Snitch when, shock of shocks, she ran headlong into another tree and knocked herself out cold.

"Is someone there?" called male voice Nicole had never heard before but couldn't hear anyway.

The young man had heard Nicole's crash, heard the bamboo crack against the tree, and heard Nicole land in a heap on the forest floor, which was thick with rotting leaves and dried-up fallen bamboo sticks. He pushed his way through a particularly stubborn bamboo patch and carefully kicked a thorny vine out of the way. Tilting his head quizzically as he looked around, he wondered if he had just imagined the whole thing. His mind pulled him back to the present moment and he remembered he was supposed to be hunting. There was just no meat to be found in his village. A deer or even a rabbit would make his mother and sisters happy. But something told him to look over his right shoulder just as he was turning to move on.

There was a girl lying on the forest floor, with a stick of cracked bamboo beside her! She was dressed in strange clothes and as he got a closer look, he noticed that she had a long mane of wavy auburn hair fanning out around her. Was she one of the gaijin, the foreigners he had heard so much about? She had to be... Then again, if she weren't dressed so strangely, one might think she was a relative of Himura Battousai, what with the similarities in their hair. The young man shivered at the thought of Battousai, but thought, At least he's on our side.

Looking around, the young man determined that there were no other people with this girl. Then another question popped up, somewhat belatedly, in his mind. Why was she lying on the forest floor not moving? Was she...? No, he reasoned, there was color in her cheeks, so she had to be alive. Taking in the cracked bamboo stick and the large wart-like lump on her forehead, he deduced brilliantly that she had run into the tree. He shook his head and stepped forward to further investigate the situation. All right, number one, there was a gaijin girl alone in the forest. Number two, she was dressed in such strange clothes that he couldn't tell what country she might be from. Number three, she couldn't possibly have been very intelligent if she was running around alone in the woods playing with sticks.

He took a deep breath, slung his bow across his back, and sidled over to the girl's prone, unmoving form. The aforementioned large wart-like lump was going down steadily and leaving a large red mark behind. Yes, she would have that bruise for quite a long while. The young man knelt beside the girl and poked her shoulder. She didn't move. Carefully, he eased one arm under her shoulders, trying to help her sit up. Something slimy brushed against his hand and he drew it back at once, removing a snail from her hair. He pulled a disgusted face and dropped the golf-ball-sized gastropod behind a nearby rock, leaving it to continue on its way as he wiped his hand on his hakama.

With the snail slime out of the way, he slid his other arm under the girl's knees and, as gently as he could, hefted the small girl up closer to him. It was with some difficulty that he got to his feet, narrowly missing walking into the same tree that had caused the problem in the first place. She was quite petite, but balancing out 108 pounds of dead weight wasn't exactly a walk in the park. But eventually, he got her settled rather comfortably in his arms. The only problem left was her black cape - it just made her sort of difficult to hold. He shifted it just a bit and adjusted his arm around her shoulders. Her head lolled to the side, resting in the curve of his own shoulder. The young man smiled and turned around to head back to his village.

Then a brick hit him in the head. Or that was what it felt like as realization dawned painfully upon him that he still had no meat to bring home to his family. He would just have to get the girl to a safe place and get his hunting done, then find her and take her back home with him. Shifting her weight again, he turned back down his hunting path and started for a cave attached to a clearing he had spent many nights in. It was a good safe place and there was a fresh water spring there in the cave. He knew he had firewood and a deerskin blanket there, so that was where he went, thinking all the while about what might happen when the girl woke up.

He had another shocking revelation and almost dropped her - what in the hell did he think he was he going to do when she woke up!? She was a gaijin, so he could almost count on her speaking very little Japanese or none at all... How was he going to communicate with her? She would be waking up to find herself alone with a strange man and no matter where one came from, that typically didn't mean anything good. How was he supposed to tell her that no one had taken advantage of her or anything like that!? Trying to slow his breathing down and relax, he pushed his questions to the back of his mind and concentrated on getting the girl to where she would be safe.

It wasn't too terribly long before he was laying her down on the soft leaf bed that he had carefully piled up in the back of the cave, a little ways away from the spring. He slipped his arms out from under her knees and shoulders gently and pulled the deerskin blanket up to cover her. Her clothes, except for her cape, were probably beyond salvaging, but it simply wouldn't be proper for him to undress her. Sure, had her life been in immediate danger, propriety would have certainly taken a back seat to saving her, but it wasn't, so propriety ruled. He picked a leaf out of her hair and smoothed the mass of auburn waves back off her face, then got up, re-strung his bow, and walked determinedly out of the cave.

~~ Several hours later ~~

The young man had gotten back to the cave some time ago and he had been quite busy since his arrival. He had cleaned and butchered the deer, then respectfully burned what was left of the carcass. The meat had been set to smoke over a fire at the mouth of the cave and the hide had been stretched on the wall to dry. It would make a nice deer leather blanket once he could work with it... But in the midst of all of this, Nicole had gone from being totally unconscious to being very deeply asleep. Now, she was fully rested and started to shift on the leaf bed, making it produce soft whispering noises with her motions.

"Oh, she's waking up," the young man said to himself, pushing himself off the ground where he had been sitting and watching the meat smoke. "May as well get this over with..."

With a long-suffering sigh, he approached the leaf bed cautiously. The girl was still mostly asleep, shifting again every once in a while and talking in her sleep. Most of the sounds she made were so garbled that he couldn't tell if they were actually words, but then the communication issue came up again. Sighing once more, the young man carefully reached out one strong, callused hand to the girl's blanket-, cape-, and shirt-covered shoulder. Instead of shaking her, he moved his hand back and forth gently, stroking her shoulder and easing her back to reality. The girl's eyes fluttered and finally opened, looking up at him sleepily. The first thing she saw was a pair of eyes the color of topaz.

"Daijoubu ka?" asked a concerned male voice.

She knew what it meant and automatically responded "Hai... I think so..."

Surprised that she knew a little Japanese, the young man tried again.

"Onamae wa nan desu ka?" he asked, his voice soft and gentle.

"Nicole," she answered, her voice hoarse from all the screaming she had done. "Nicole Barrington."

"Nikooru-san ne?" the man with the topaz eyes asked. He wasn't even going to attempt pronouncing her surname.

"Hai!" Nicole croaked happily. Then her face turned serious. "Eigo ga dekimasu ka?"

So she speaks English, the young man thought, cursing inwardly at all the good that little tidbit of information would do him - none, since he spoke nothing but Japanese.

"Iie," he said apologetically, shaking his head. "Nihongo ga dekimasu ka?"

Nicole wasn't sure of the right way to say "A little," and froze.

"Erm... Chibi!" she squeaked awkwardly, making a hand gesture for little. "Chibi chibi!"

The young man's eye twitched. So the only word for "little" she knew was chibi...

"Hasegawa Miku desu," he said, pointing at himself.

"Miku-oniichan ne?" Nicole asked with wide eyes.

This girl certainly was a trusting one, Miku thought... All he had done was look into her eyes and already she was calling him "brother".

"Hai, hai, Nikooru-chan," he replied. "Whatever you want."

(Author's note: If someone is speaking Japanese, the words will be italicized and in quotation marks. If they're speaking Japanese and I write it in English, don't flame. I'm not fluent in Japanese.)

"Arigato gozaimasu..." whispered Nicole, reaching for Miku's hand. "Miku-oniichan!"

She smiled brilliantly at him and tried to sit up, bashing her head yet again on the stone wall of the cave. For a change, she didn't knock herself out. Miku slid one hand between her head and the wall of the cave and wrapped the other one around her shoulders, helping her sit up. Shaking his head and smiling at her, he removed his arm from her shoulders and she promptly fell over again. A frown furrowed Miku's brow and he looked Nicole over carefully as he helped her to sit up again, this time keeping his arm behind her shoulders for her to lean on. She was holding her hands up in front of her and they were shaking badly. He thought of how hoarse her voice had sounded and mentally smacked himself. She needed water, of course! Gently, he laid her back down.

"Matte, ne?" he said, telling her to wait there on the leaf bed for him. "I'll be right back."

He got up and went to get the water bucket, finding it empty. He swore under his breath and headed for the spring to re-fill it. The sound of water splashing softly into the bucket was soothing and very soon, the bucket was almost overflowing because he had been spacing out. He jumped a little as cold water on his hand jolted him back to reality and the present moment. Shaking his head at himself, he busied himself with bringing the water bucket over to Nicole, forgetting the dipper and going back to get it. When he got back, he saw Nicole smiling at him contentedly, as though she would like nothing better than to just stay in that cave with him.

"Water?" he asked, gesturing to the bucket and using the dipper to point.

"Hai, onegai," replied Nicole, trying to sit up once more and once again falling and almost hitting her head on the stone wall behind her. "Tasukete, ne?"

She reached up to him like a child and a smile curved his lips as he knelt beside her and eased his arm once more under her shoulders, helping her sit up. He dipped the water dipper into the bucket and withdrew it slowly, full to the brim. Carefully, trying not to drip cold water on her, he raised the dipper to Nicole's lips. She closed her eyes and drank slowly, enjoying the feel of cold, clear water running down her throat, water that was not trying to choke her to death. Her throat was raw and the water was quite soothing. Finally, she stopped sipping long enough to breathe.

"Arigato gozaimasu, Miku-oniichan," she said softly, her voice not so much a croak as it was a hoarse whisper.

"Dou itashimashite," Miku replied, withdrawing the dipper as soon as she let him know she was finished.

For a while, they just sat there, him with his arm around her shoulders, supporting her, and her leaning gratefully into his gentle hold. When she felt like she could move, Nicole raised her hand to her eye level again and her face fell with disappointment when she saw that it was shaking just as violently as it had been before. Tilting his head and frowning in concern, Miku took her hand in his own free one and guided it back to her side. He was wondering if she was still dehydrated when... Grrrrumble! Nicole's stomach growled loudly and both she and Miku immediately developed identical "twitchy marks" on their foreheads.

Nicole cringed and grinned at Miku in embarrassment. He just looked at her for a while, then he laughed out loud and gave her hand a squeeze when he had quieted down. So she was hungry, he thought, shaking his head and chuckling at her red-faced expression. Well, there wasn't much he could offer her, but smoked venison was better than nothing. He smiled at her, laid her down again and gently touched her stomach as he pointed at the smoking meat. She giggled and squirmed at his touch, as though he had tried to tickle her. Miku laughed again and got up to get her some food.

Rolling on her side, Nicole propped her head on her hand and watched him curiously. Miku cut a few thick strips of meat from one of the larger pieces and wrapped them around a stalk of green bamboo. The bamboo stalk, with meat wrapped around it, now looked like a funny sort of swizzle stick. He stuck the stalk right over the fire. Nicole wasn't quite sure what the official term for that kind of cooking was, but it sure smelled good! She could hear the fat dropping off the meat and making popping sounds in the fire. It made her think of when she was in Girl Scouts, making beef and tomato kebabs at Amicalola Falls, up in North Georgia.

Will I ever be able to go back there again? she thought sadly. I miss my friends... What about Ashley? This is going to absolutely kill her! And everybody else back home... They probably all think I'm dead.

Salty, salty tears stung Nicole's abused tear ducts painfully, so she tried to force them back. She thought of being happy, of the nights she and Ashley had stayed up until the early hours of the morning watching Kenshin. The tears came faster and Nicole bit her lip to keep herself quiet. Little crystalline droplets fell - ptt, ptt - onto the leaves that made up the bed on which she was lying. She bowed her head, trying to keep Miku from being able to tell that she was crying. Of course, just then, Miku slid the strips of venison onto a small bamboo mat that was about the size of a plate and got up from his place by the fire.

"Nikooru-chan?" he asked, making her name into a question as he knelt beside her again.

"I want to go home!" Nicole burst out, breaking down into sobs and crying into her cape.

"Nani? Nihongo kudasai," Miku said softly, looking at her through his almost-black bangs.

His topaz eyes glittered with concern.

"I want to go home!" Nicole begged again, not knowing the Japanese phrase for it and not particularly caring. "I miss my friends! I want my mom!"

Miku's brow furrowed in both concern and frustration. He had no way of knowing what was bothering her or what she wanted. Tilting his head at her, he offered her a piece of meat, but she shook her head 'no'. He knew she was hungry, so why was she refusing food? Still frustrated, he asked her again, "Nani? Nihongo kudasai, ne?" But Nicole shook her head and continued to sob miserably. Setting the bamboo plate-mat aside, Miku gathered her into his arms like he did for his little sisters when they were upset. Nicole's arms found their way around his neck and she hid her face in his gi as she continued to cry as if her heart was broken.

"Daijoubu, Nikooru-chan," the topaz-eyed man said softly, holding the girl tightly in his arms. "Mou nakanaide, ne?"

But she continued to cry until she had no more tears.






























"Daijoubu ka?" - "Are you all right?"

"Hai" - "Yes"

"Onamae wa nan desu ka?" - "What is your name?"

"Nikooru-san ne?" - "Miss Nicole, right?"

"Eigo ga dekimasu ka?" - "Do you speak English?"

"Nihongo ga dekimasu ka?" - "Do you speak Japanese."

"Matte, ne?" - "Wait, okay?"

"Tasukete, ne?" - "Help me, huh?" (She adds the "ne" mainly to be cute.)

"Dou itashimashite" - "You're welcome."

"Nani? Nihongo kudasai." - "What? Speak Japanese, please."

"Mou nakanaide, ne?" - "Don't cry anymore, ok?"