The Hinomoto Rebellion (8 page)
“Hey, Roni actually has a good sense about people,” said Fushi, glaring at Andrea. “If she says that someone’s okay, they usually are. Even if they’re a short-tempered, rude, ill-mannered-”
“Fushi, that’s enough,” interrupted Kanjou. He looked at Andrea. “She’s right about Roni, she really does have a kind of a sixth sense about people. If she wants D to stay, then he can stay. So long as he wants to.”
“I don’t know... I guess,” said D, “I’m staying around you,” he emphasized the word as he pointed at Andrea, “and I don’t care if you don’t like it. You can deal.” He turned back to Kanjou. “And I guess you can tell me what’s going on around her and let me decide if I want to help?”
“Yeah, great, we can throw him in a pot later and make some soup.” Andrea mumbled, just loud enough for everyone to hear. She pushed to her feet and headed out.
D scoffed, disgusted with Andrea’s behavior. “Wow. Is she always that cheerful?” He asked after the silver-haired fighter had disappeared around the corner.
Roni looked up from petting the big white wolf-dog that was sitting loyally next to D. “Oh, it’s okay, Mr. D! Andrea means well, I’m sure; she just doesn’t know how to express it. I’m convinced she’s a good person inside!” She grinned innocently, which made D’s expression soften a little.
“Well, I hope you’re right. From what you’ve told me, she’s important to your mission. Plus I need to stay around her if Ryoku attacks her.” He thought for another second, then added. “And, as I said, you can just call me D. No need to be so formal about it.”
Roni nodded. “Okay then! D it is!”
Andrea looked around the falling apart room that had been converted into a crude but well-stocked training area. “It’ll have to do, I guess.” she mumbled.
The equipment consisted of a few dirty, musty smelling mats, two sets of rather old and disgusting sparring gloves, some cracked and dented wooden swords, broom handles that appeared to be substitutes for staves, and a Wing Chun dummy. A few other odds and ends lay around the room as well, ranging from splintering shinai to make-shift nunchaku. “Something for everyone, I guess,” mused Andrea as she ambled toward the Wing Chun dummy.
She lay her left hand on one of the poles protruding from the large center post. The center was about one foot in diameter, with the extra pieces being about two inches across near the center and tapering to about one inch. The wooden training dummy was used to improve speed and to condition arms to take and give hits without being hurt.
“It’s been a long, long time since I’ve used one of these,” She ran her hand down the smooth wood as her eyes got a distant look in them.
“What’s this for?” a young Andrea asked, running her small hand down the protruding dowel of a training dummy. Her skin was splotched with yellow and green patches- bruises that hadn’t healed just yet. About half an inch from her hairline and across her forehead, a huge ugly gash marred her skin. She had no bangs, and patches of her hair were silver while the rest were dark brown.
Andrea looked across the room, which was a rather small place lit by harsh fluorescent lights. Puzzle pieces shaped mats in differing colors were lined up along most of the floor, forming a practice mat for the students. A small and wrinkled, yet still tough and spry man came across the room toward them. Andrea bowed slightly, her hair moving to show rough, jagged cuts along the back of her neck. “Good morning, sensei. Thank you for teaching me!”
The old man glared at Tony and coughed a little. Tony bit his lower lip, then bent down and gently put his hands on Andrea’s small shoulders. “I have to go now, but I’ll be back this evening to get you, okay? Be good and do what your sensei tells you to, alright?”
Andrea’s eyes refocused on the wood beneath her hand. She’d half-expected the bruises to still be there, and was grateful when she noticed they weren’t. For a moment, she stared down at her fingers. Then her eyes narrowed and she raised her fist, breathing a soft exhalation as she focused.
A sound like rapid gunfire reverberated through the abandoned temple, causing the entire company of Aka Ryuu to nearly jump out of their skins. “What is that!?” exclaimed Fushicho, poking her head out from behind where she’d dived for safety. After the initial shock was over, they went running to see what could be causing the noise.
They all piled through the doorway to the training room to see Andrea beating on the wooden dummy. Her face was contorted with a look of determination that bordered on madness, and she was moving with such blinding speed that the sound of each individual hit blended together to form an almost continuous sound of flesh hitting wood. Finally Andrea let out a loud cry, and in a blinding flurry reminiscent of a buzz saw, all of the protruding poles snapped off. One more swift motion from Andrea made the center pole snap clean in half down the height of it, causing it to fall over and clunk along the floor.
Andrea turned, looking crazed. She raced over and grabbed a
bokuto
and began to swing it, moving backwards and forward in haste. To an untrained eye, she seemed to be swinging randomly, but she was actually going through many complicated techniques with seething speed. She was drenched in sweat, her eyes narrowed to minuscule slits. She hit the wall with the wooden sword, sending splinters of wood flying across the room. Her anger still not satisfied, she spun and grabbed one of the broom handles.
The Aka Ryuu stared in amazement. “I… I didn’t know anyone even studied
naginata
fighting anymore.” Kanjou said, his voice filled with awe.
The art of spear fighting had been considered dead even among the underground for a long time-- it had been a dying art even when martial arts was still legal. To find anyone who knew it enough to teach another was rare if not impossible. And yet Andrea’s forms seemed nearly perfect to those watching.
Just then, Andrea let out a scream and smashed the broomstick into the wall. Splinters of dry-rotted wood flew everywhere. The silver-haired girl’s rampage stopped as suddenly as it had begun and she turned to face the crowd that was watching her.
“Every thing’s fine. I need to be in top form to save your skins when the time comes. From what I can tell about all of you, you need to get to work. With winged freaks flying around pulling bows and arrows out of nowhere, this just got a lot harder.” She grinned and threw the pieces of broomstick she was still holding onto the floor in front of them. “Happy training.” she walked away, leaving the room through another door.
Silence followed for a few moments. D rolled his eyes and looked indignant as he muttered, “Uhm... right. Does anybody else get the distinct impression that she’s completely insane?”
26 laughed. “That’s Roni for you, always making excuses for people.” Her face changed to a serious expression. “Are you all sure we can really trust her? She’s so.... erratic. Seems like she could turn on us any moment.”
“Yeah, but if she’s unpredictable enough to break three pieces of our training equipment in less than a minute, we either need to get her to calm down or we need more equipment! I mean... she broke the best piece we had.” Roni looked at the obliterated conditioning dummy.
Kanjou walked over and started picking up the pieces. “Then we either have to make do with what’s left, find more, or make sure she doesn’t do it again. I don’t know how to do the second two options, really, but we’ve always made do with what we can get, and I know we can continue that. It’ll be alright- we recruited her for a reason, and I know she’s going to be a big help so long as we can figure out a way to channel that rage of hers.”
Chapter Three
Contact
Andrea lay in her room, her arms behind her head as she stared up at the ceiling. For about an hour she’d been watching a spider crawling overhead, making an elaborate web from the boards in the ceiling to a light fixture that was covered in dust and threatening to succumb to gravity’s pull any day now. The hard summer light that came in to the room highlighted the silken strands and the jet black body of the spider, making the arachnid look like a droplet of mobile black blood on filaments of silver hair.
Andrea was chilled to the bone by that thought and tore her eyes away from the busy insect. She looked out of the hole in the wall, noting that the sun was about to begin slipping below the horizon. Once more, she pushed thoughts of the bar out of her mind.
The past is done with, and there’s nothing you can do to change it, Andrea,
she told herself, putting a hand under her bangs and running a finger across her forehead.
Stop worrying about yesterday, set your sights on today and tomorrow.
She allowed herself a small smile that didn’t reach her eyes. Tony had told her that every day since she was seven years old. She’d never tried to listen to his advice, and now here she was finally trying to live up to what he wanted her to be.
Just then she heard someone cough behind her. Andrea turned quickly, the smile disappearing from her face. 26 stood in the doorway, her slowly swishing tail kicking up clouds of dust from the rotting floorboards. “We were just about to sit down to dinner.” said the furred being.
“Hey, Andrea?” began 26. Andrea stared at her, waiting for something to respond to. “If you need someone to talk to... about anything, I mean... I’m a great listener.”
“Whatever,” Andrea pushed past her and walked down the hall, her silver hair glinting in the fiery light of the coming sunset that was shining through the windows.
26 sighed as she shook her head, and followed. She didn’t know what she had expected from her offer but she figured that trying to be friendly to the cold and distant woman was better then treating her like an outsider. 26 hadn’t lied about being a great listener. Despite the tests done on her by the government she hadn’t become hard and cynical like Andrea. 26 saw herself as she might have been had she not met Roni and Kanjou when she looked at Andrea.
As she walked a few paces behind the white and blue clad female warrior, 26 tried to think of something they could do to gain her trust. It was three weeks until the press conference, which would be a long time to live with someone who was as volatile as an active volcano. 26 unconsciously wondered what horrors Andrea must have seen in the Underground to make her so hard– so cold in her heart that she could not even smile or laugh.
thought 26 hopefully as the two entered the dining hall.