Chapter 180: Confession (Beginning)

The ninth day. One more day until the day of the battle. In these past eight days Enishi has shown no sign of making a surprise attack. Amid tension and unease, daily life goes on-- (Yahiko, soaked in sweat, is doing the exercise in the dojo.)

Yahiko: Fifty thousand!

Kaoru (hardly paying attention): Good. Now do five thousand more.

Yahiko: That's enough!! How long are you going to make me wave my arms around?! The fight is tomorrow!

Kaoru: Quit complaining. Trying to learn a succession technique in just ten days at all is pretty foolish. Now concentrate on the basics! Forget tomorrow and focus on right now!

(Kenshin is standing in the doorway.)

Yahiko: I know that!

Kaoru: All right, then I'll teach you a special form. First I'll show you directly. Attack me!

(Kenshin silently steps out.)

(Yahiko charges her, death in his eyes.)

Kaoru: You're pretty vicious. (You mad at me?)

(Yahiko brings the shinai down on her head. Kaoru crosses her wrists in the exercise movement and traps the sword between the backs of her hands.)

Kaoru: Kamiya Kasshin school succession technique Hawatari!

(She twists her wrists, pulling the shinai out of Yahiko's grip and throwing him to the ground.)

Kaoru: Unlike the usual way of blocking with your hands, you do it with your sword still in your grip. Restraining your opponent's sword is the main point of this form, Defense succession technique Hadome. Then, you move to the second form, Attack succession technique. The faster you move, the more of your opponent's strength can be used against him! It's an extreme sword technique. If you misjudge the situation, it's certain death, but...

Yahiko (thinking): If it's perfected, it's an instant kill!

Kaoru: Well, you've got that, so now you try it.

Yahiko: Right!

(Kaoru comes in to attack. Yahiko raises his hands, ready to catch her sword.)

Kaoru: You're open!

(She smashes him across the stomach.)

Kaoru: I told you. Misjudge the situation and you're dead. It's a difficult technique. Even your adjunct master has never used it successfully in a match, let alone a real fight. Never forget that! Until you can be sure it'll work, never use it in a real--

(She turns and notices Kenshin is gone.)

Kaoru: Huh? When did he leave? Yahiko, I'm going to go look for him. Practice this on your own!

(She leaves.)

Yahiko: Damn ... she got me right in the pit of the stomach. (A little lower and I'd have been dead.) (thinking) But I definitely crossed my fists before she could hit me. The 50,000 have paid off!

(He gets to his feet.)

Yahiko: All right! More practice! (By myself it's all I can do... )

(Kaoru goes to the Oguni clinic, where she runs into Sanosuke.)

Sanosuke: Kenshin?

Kaoru: He disappeared from the dojo. I looked all through the house but he's not there.

Sanosuke: He was just here on a visit.

Kaoru: A visit?

Sanosuke: To mustache-glasses.

Kaoru: Mustache--oh!

(They go to see Chief Uramura. His daughter is in the room as well.)

Uramura: I heard all about it from Himura.

Kaoru: I'm very sorry about all this.

Uramura: Don't apologize. My family was minor samurai, and I've seen action in the Boshin and Seinan wars, so what's a little injury or two. Tell Himura it may not be much, but the police will do all they can for him. And please don't worry about my daughter. She'll understand, one day.