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At Kamikaze’s words Kanako replaces his sword in its lacquered scabbard, but doesn't yet offer the katana back. “I am acceptable to you then, Mr Samurai?” she asks.
Said samurai grins, flipping his toothpick from one side of his mouth to the other. “More than acceptable, sweetheart. The next time you waft mysteriously through my doors we'll begin your training proper. In the meantime I have to consider what style of swordsmanship would most suit you.”
“Oh my god, Master is drawing this out…” mutters Iaian under his breath, causing his comrades to erupt into high pitched and gruff giggles.
Kamikaze's moment of dominance is ruthlessly cut from under him when the geisha hugs his sword to her chest like it's a puppy, annihilating the saliva in its owner’s mouth so that he is unable to speak.
“I like her,” Okamaitachi says simply. “But if you really have a problem, Iai, bring up her age and Master Atomic’s. There’s a teensy bit of a gap, hehe. At least twenty years I’d say.”
“He won’t care.”
“You sure about that?”
Atomic continues to preen and prance before the girl he has designs on until it's time for her to be about her business. As an aside, as she's leaving, she airily offers something, flicking her amber eyes at him in a way that brings back that frisson of horror he felt when he realised what she was.
“Mr Samurai-”
But since when has horror put an end to desire? In fact he leans closer to her after a chill runs down his spine. “Call me Atomic, or Kamikaze.”
Kanako flips her fan open, causing her admirer to want to grab her delicate wrist and begin kissing it. “Mr Samurai, dear Mr Samurai, I have been given a lead role in the upcoming Spring Dance. I'd love to see you amongst the audience.”
“Would you, dumpling?”
“I would.”
“Then I'll be there.”
Only when the geisha has minced away does Kamikaze realise he has no idea where or when the Spring Dance is. No matter, as out of concern for him his best student (currently) attempts to put a gigantic damper on his ardour, approaching him as he stands at the gate of his dojo, looking wistfully down the street, the tinkling of silver bells still audible.
“Master, there is something not right about that girl.”
If Iaian expected to be barked at for his impertinence, then that doesn't happen, although the continued distraction of his sensei is worse in his eyes.
“Yeah, Iai, I know. It's not right how beautiful she is.” Kamikaze sighs.
“That's not what I meant, sir.”
“Then what did you mean?”
Since he only has vague disquiet and nameless suspicions to go on, Iaian finds himself at a dead end.
“She's too perfect. And she's playing you.” he eventually risks.
“Yup.” Kamikaze nods, feral grin making a reappearance as all trace of Kanako disappears and he turns away from the gate.
“Huh? You agree?”
“Yup. She's too perfect and she's playing me like a fiddle. Playing my heart.” Kamikaze blushes violently, but now that he's made up his mind and had a glimpse of her soul, he no longer feels that he has to hide what is going on from those closest to him.
“Mas-”
But Kamikaze strides past in a flurry of fabric. “Iai, don't worry about me. I know what I'm doing.”
🌟🌸🌟
Part of knowing what he's doing includes spying on his newest apprentice. In a way he does this innocently. If someone had told him that watching someone, especially a woman, in her bedroom is creepy and perverted, he would not be able to comprehend the issue. The okiya roof is dangerous, tiled and slanted and slick with moisture, but Kamikaze is Kamikaze. As he's looking for a way up and over, he passes a dresser entering by the door. Dressers of geisha, how he'd love to be one right now. Geisha require men and men's strength to tie and arrange their obscene lengths of silk.
From the roof he drops into a chestnut tree overlooking a little walled courtyard. Yellow light falls through shoji onto mossy earth. Music, incongruous rock music, filters through too, furrowing Kamikaze's brow. Surely it's not his dear Kanako who is listening to this atrocious, highly untraditional noise?! No, definitely not.
Some minutes later, the door slides open, a girl in a fluffy pink and black skull decorated dressing gown stepping out and faffing with a fake yet still incredibly sick looking potted plant. Her back is to the Peeping Tom, but it's obvious to him that she’s not the geisha he seeks. For one, her hair is pastel pink. Secondly, she wears no makeup, and he can't imagine Kanako without her mask of white. She hums along to the awful nothing of a tune and wiggles back and forth. Growing bored, Kamikaze is about to leave her to her ineffectual gardening, when she half turns, a slice of cheek grabbing him by the soul and making him gasp. That magnificent curve, it can only belong to his beloved maiko, but Kanako has black hair…wait, could this be a wig? Or did she go mad and dye it after she left his dojo?
His gasp was loud. Loud enough to make the girl spin and look up at the old tree. The instant her eyes, her furious blue eyes, lock with Kamikaze’s black ones, absolute agony assails him, like he’s been stabbed through the eye sockets with twin knives. A blinding, whirling chaos of white light fills his skull and several blows daze him further. The world suddenly grows extremely hot, his skin sending alarm signals that go disregarded below the rest of the river of pain. Brutalised by something unknown, he nonetheless manages to climb to his feet and stumble down the narrow alleyway between okiya, unaware that the chestnut tree is an inferno and he himself is steaming, smoke trailing behind him all the way home.