The Hinomoto Rebellion (16 page)
Andrea headed back to the dining room, trying to work herself into a bad mood as she went. As she looked at the crumbling tapestries that lined the halls, she realized that her anger was like a shield that she picked up every day to protect her from harm. She’d lived with it for so long that it was terrifying to put it away, even for a moment. The thought caused her to stop in her tracks for a moment, blinking at a tapestry with a faded depiction of a tiger on it.
My god... she thought, What’s happening to me? Before I know it I’ll be acting like Roni. She shuddered at the thought. I’ll kill myself first.
The blue eyed fighter leaned against the wall for a moment, her hand clutched over her chest as she tried to regain her composure. It was as though something had found its way through her emotional armor and was working toward injuring her. Andrea beat back the intrusion, telling herself it was a weakness that she couldn’t afford if she was going to survive in this world. After a few minutes she had her emotions back under control, turning her thoughts to the condition of the temple in order to get her defenses back up before she continued along to the dining room.
No one looked at Andrea as she took her place at the low table. D was to her right with Nikko between the two of them. To her left was Roni, who looked like she was about to explode if she didn’t start firing questions at Andrea. Even after she settled into her spot though, no one moved.
That was all it took to get the food moving around the table. It wasn’t much, cheap breakfast items that could be fixed easily. The meal was spent in relative silence, except for Andrea and D arguing over whether or not Nikko should be at the table. According to her, the dog was begging for food, but D insisted that he was just lying there. Aki also seemed like she was in a bad mood and didn’t say much, but Fushi, Roni, and 26 would ask training questions every now and then. Andrea vaguely noted that Kanjou picked at his food a little, ate a few bites, and then pushed his plate away as he made a comment that his stomach wasn’t feeling well.
By early afternoon they were all gathered in the training room again, with Andrea barking out orders and giving demonstrations. A short while in to training Andrea’s pride seemed healed, as she got her characteristic sharp tongue back and started yelling at anyone she could. The others seemed used to it by now, or they had decided to ignore her and see if she’d stop trying to get rises out of them.
As the sun began to set behind the trees around the Temple, Andrea called the class to an end and everyone went to clean up. 26 said something about starting dinner soon while Aki retreated to her room. Roni, Fushi, D, and Kanjou went to the dining hall to discuss things and keep 26 company.
The silver-haired
ronin
decided to spend some time looking around the grounds some more. Since she’d already seen the courtyard and the forest in the front, Andrea went out the back of the temple. As she slid open the double-doors in the hall that their bedrooms were in, she was greeted by beauty that even she could stop and appreciate, especially since no one else was around.
“ Wow..” she couldn’t help gasping as she stepped out onto the dirt path directly beyond the doors. To her right was a large lake with a slightly curved bridge stretching over it. A path led from the bridge back toward the temple, and Andrea guessed it ended in a side entrance to the dining hall. On the other side of the lake the path continued for about twenty feet before disappearing into the trees.
Andrea decided to follow the path and check out the building on the other side of the lake. Puffs of dust rose under her shoes as she walked, examining the stone lanterns that were on each side of the walkway every few meters. They were pitted and cracked, and some had been completely covered by soft green moss.
She stepped carefully on to the bridge, walking slowly just in case the wood gave way underneath of her. She wasn’t sure how old the footbridge was, but it didn’t look nearly as bad as the temple did, so Andrea assumed that it and the building she was heading toward were both newer than the main temple. On the other side of the lake she jumped off on to the grass and strolled over to the small building, heading up the three short steps and across the narrow porch to the door.
The
ronin
seized the door and tugged, but it didn’t budge. As she looked down she noticed there was a rusty lock on the door. Andrea pulled her arm back, her fingers curling in to a fist as she narrowed her eyes at the door. She struck the lock as hard as she could, hearing a loud cracking noise from the wood that the weakened, rusty metal was holding on to. When she yanked on the door again there was a groaning noise and then some snapping as the last of the lock gave way and the door jerked open. She gave herself a minute to let her eyes adjust from the harsh sunlight of a summer day, then took a full step into the building.
Every wall was covered in shelves from top to bottom. Running down the center of the building were free-standing cases, about eight of them in total with shelves on both sides of them. Andrea gasped as she noticed that none of the shelves were empty: dusty, cobweb-covered books sat neatly on each shelf, their leather spines faded by age. The inside smelled stale and dusty, but also had the scent of old paper and leather hiding among the old air.
“ Holy shit,” Andrea breathed as she walked forward, stirring up dust as she moved across the creaky floor. She went down the aisle directly in front of her and stopped at the first shelf to look at the titles on the books’ spines. Some had no names on them, their gold lettering had been worn off by the passage of time. Some still had titles printed on the spines or embossed into the leather. Andrea reached out and gently picked one up, expecting it to fall apart in her hands. She blew the dust off of it and opened it to the first page.
Most people who grew up in the underground were illiterate but Tony had taught Andrea how to at least read and write. She’d never had any real schooling aside from fighting, though, and the only book she’d ever seen was the ratty Bible that Tony owned. Seeing so many at once was truly a rare treat.
She read aloud from the title page, sounding out each word carefully. “Japan in the Twentieth Century by Toshiaki Minako. Copyright Dokusho Publishing, 2175.”
Andrea stopped and did the math slowly in her head. It took her a minute, but she figured it was over 350 years old. She closed the book she was holding and grabbed the one next to it, flipping to its title page.
Andrea spun, nearly dropping the ancient book to the floor. Standing in the doorway was Aki, her form haloed by the garish light outside. The black-haired girl walked in to the library and strolled over to Andrea, grabbing a tome from the shelf directly opposite the one Andrea had been looking at. She flipped it open a little more harshly than Andrea had done with the two she’d looked at. “Hmm, 300 years old.” she said. “We could make some serious money off of these things.”
Aki smirked at her. “Wow, touchy, aren’t you? I just meant that you don’t seem like the type that would want to curl up with a book in front of the fire or something. As for selling these, I was just saying what I thought you’d be thinking. Need money to live, right? After all, you don’t care about the past, right? Can’t change it, so why bother worrying about it? Reading about the past won’t help anything anyway, so we’d be better off to sell the things and buy food, right?” Aki pulled another book and looked at the page, raising her eyebrows at the title page as though she was impressed. “We’d have to find someone who’d want all these though. Would take a lot of time to find a collector, too.” She turned and walked away from Andrea, pausing to toss her the book she held. Aki disappeared out into the bright light and headed back toward the temple.
Andrea watched the doorway for a long time after Aki left, frowning. Finally, she put the tome she was holding down and examined the rest of the shelves, reading whatever titles she could. Some of the books were too high to see, but there was no ladder available to reach them. The entire time she couldn’t help but think about Aki’s earlier comments. Something was nagging at the back of her mind. There was some importance to the words that she had failed to pick up on but she couldn’t figure out what it was.
Andrea realized that dinner would probably be soon, so she grabbed one of the smaller books about the history of Hinomoto and headed back to the main building, sliding the door to the library closed tightly behind her. She put the book in her room, washed the dust off her face and hands, and joined the rest of the group for the evening meal.
Shogun Kunota rested his forehead in his palm and sighed. He was hunched over with a pile of papers resting in front of him on his expansive office desk. He’d been trying since early afternoon to read the sizable stack of spiral-bound proposals, but every time he tried to concentrate the words he was reading would leave his head as soon as his eyes passed over them.
The Shogun sighed again and rubbed the bridge of his nose, pulling his glasses off his face and tossing them on top of the stack. It was going to be another late night of reading proposals on everything from government funded scientific research to raising or lowering taxes.
Better call Shinsetsu and let her know I won’t be home for dinner... again,
he thought, muttering a curse. Just as he was reaching across the desk for his phone, the door to his office opened. He turned his chair, ready to strongly suggest to his secretary that she not disturb him right now, but stopped short.
Kunota suddenly found two children in his lap, one a girl with a long dark braid hanging down her back and the other a boy wearing a visor. The Shogun couldn’t help but laugh out loud. “Kids!”
Ayaka was his twelve year old daughter, who was just over a meter tall and had no traces of “baby fat” anywhere on her because of her athletic pursuits. She jumped from one interest to another regularly, and Kunota seemed to recall that right now she was doing dance lessons, swimming, gymnastics, and track and field. She kept her black hair back in a braid or long ponytail that reached her waist and kept it out of her light brown eyes, and her favorite color to wear was pink this year.
His son’s name was Kohaku, and he was ten years old. He wasn’t much shorter than his older sister, and still had a little of his childlike curves. He wore a pair of loose shorts and a tank top with the name of his favorite sports team on it and a number on the back. His short hair was spiked out in the middle of the black visor he was wearing. He and Shindai started talking at the same time.
Kunota was barely hearing them as he looked up at his wife, who was walking into his office carrying their thirteen month old daughter. Shinsetsu was tall and lean, like a supermodel. In heels she was taller than Kunota, which had brought on more than one joke in the news and at parties. She had a dark complexion and dark eyes that he always felt were sucking him in to them and trying to drown him. Despite having three children she was still fit and trim, and always dressed tastefully and elegantly. She smiled at him, her warm eyes trying to hide her fatigue. Kunota smiled back at her almost sheepishly.
Kunota looked down at Kohaku, who was waving a red plastic lizard in the air at him. “Ayaka says it’s creepy, but I think it’s cool!” Kohaku announced proudly.
“ It
is
creepy! Lizards are weird!” exclaimed Ayaka, her hands on her hips. She put her nose up in the air with a “Harumph!”, causing her long braid to flip over her shoulder.
Shogun Kunota reached out for the plastic lizard toy. “Let me see this thing...” he said, pretending to examine it. The toy reptile was comical, at best. Its eyes were too big and it seemed as though something had bent the teeth on it out at all angles somewhere between the factory and his son’s hands. A row of out of proportion spikes went down its back, ending in two larger spikes on its tail. Overall, it looked like a wide-eyed, buck-toothed reptilian hedgehog, and Kunota had to bite his tongue to keep from laughing at the toy. “Oh goodness..” he said, his eyes widening.
“ Yes way! See, it’s just... like... this!” at the last word he grabbed both of them and scooped them into the air, getting up from his chair and swinging them around while they shrieked and laughed in delight.
The Shogun’s wife smiled as her husband twirled their children around. She took over Kunota’s desk chair as Rekai cooed in her arms. Shinsetsu kissed the girl’s forehead. She watched for a few more minutes as Kunota spun haphazardly around his office, spinning his children and making them howl with laughter. Finally, the Shogun flopped the two breathless children down on the couch and turned to his wife.