To defeat the immortal Kunzite we had to sneak into his tower and destroy his Pledge Talisman.  At the last moment, we figured out the Talisman was the bandage over Usui’s eyes.  So we were able to defeat Kunzite.  And what did we get?  Nothing!  I guess that’s what you’d call a wasted effort…

“Hurry up, guys!” yelled Misao, darting ahead.

“Sheesh, look at the weasel girl,” sighed Yahiko.  “So energetic.”

“Who are you calling a weasel?” Misao demanded.  “Keicho kick!”  Yahiko sprawled in the path, rubbing his jaw.

Kenshin blinked.  “Misao-dono, isn’t Okina-dono worried about you back in Seyruun?”

“It’s all right, I sent him a letter from Atlas City,” the princess replied.  “Anyway, it’s a lot more fun traveling with you guys.  And if we keep on this road we’ll reach the hot springs before dark.”

“Hot springs?” asked Yahiko.  “It’d be a real shame to miss that.”

“Hot springs?” Kaoru perked up immediately.  “Hot springs?  What a great idea!”

“We don’t have time for diversions,” Aoshi objected.  “I told you I’m trying to get to Seyruun as quickly as possible.”

“There’s no harm in taking a side trip.”  Gorou Fujita stepped out from behind a tree.  “Seyruun isn’t going anywhere.”

“And why are you here?” the chimaera demanded.

“I also have business in Seyruun,” the policeman replied.

“What sort of business?” Aoshi pressed him.

“That’s a secret, ahou.”

“I suppose it has to do with looking for the Claire Bible manuscript,” Kaoru offered.

“Anyway, until we meet again.”  Fujita tipped his cap and stepped to the other side of the tree.

“Hold it!”  Aoshi raced after him.  But on the other side of the tree there was no Fujita, only a forest creature with long floppy ears and a little scut of a tail, gazing at him with intelligent, cat-slitted golden eyes.

“Miyaa?”

“That’s it for me,” moaned a very stuffed Yahiko.  “Man, I ate way too much.”

“You’ve got to splurge a little bit every so often,” agreed Misao.

“The food here’s the best!” Kaoru enthused.  “I hope the baths are as nice.”

“Excuse me,” the proprietor bowed, “but are you people all right with the bill?  After all, this is our best room and you did eat a great deal…”

“It’s all right,” Misao spoke up.  “I’ve got a letter of… oh no!”

“What’s wrong de gozaru ka?”

“My letter of credit from Jiyaa!” she cried.  “It’s… it must have been ruined when the spider dragged me into that pool!”  The precious document was a smeared, illegible mess.

Kaoru sweatdropped.  “And we didn’t get anything from those two old idiots in Atlas City either.”

“Then all of you are penniless?” demanded the innkeeper.

“Gomen nasai!”  Everyone bowed.

A man wearing the uniform of one of the inn’s servants bustled in.  “Omyou!” he wailed.  “Omyou has disappeared!”

“What am I going to do?” the innkeeper demanded.  “That’s the third maid who’s run off in half a month!  How am I going to stay in business without anyone to take care of the customers?  Things weren’t this bad when the old landlord was alive!”

“But aren’t you going to look for her?” the servant cried.  “Omyou!”

“How am I supposed to do that?  Do I look like the police?  If the stupid irresponsible bitch decides to run off, I’m not going to throw good money after bad chasing her!”

Kenshin stood up.  “Innkeeper-dono, I will work to pay for our room de gozaru yo!”

“We’ll work too!” agreed Kaoru.

“And we won’t run off!” Misao added.

“Just leave the heavy stuff to me!” Yahiko bragged.

“Excuse me,” called Misao from out in the corridor.  “Your meal is ready.”  She slid open the shoji.

“I already ate…” the occupant began, then stopped.  Holding his hands up to form a square like a frame, he peered at Misao this way and that.  “Excellent!  Excellent!”

Misao stared.  The room’s occupant was a little man with white hair under a pillbox cap.  His smock was smeared with brilliant colors.  And he kept on staring at her in that strange way.  “What’s going on?” she demanded.

“Oh, you’re excellent, truly excellent!” the little man repeated.  “You’re beautiful!”

Misao stopped dead.  “What did you say, Ojisan?”

“There’s no need to be shy, young lady.  I said you were beautiful.”

“Really?  Do you really think so?”  Misao’s eyes turned starry.

“I do indeed.”

“Oh, you are an honest guy!  For a minute I thought you were a pervert!  But… did you want something?”

The little man rubbed the back of his head, smearing paint into his hair.  “I almost forgot.  My name is Tonto Sharakusai.”

“I’m Misao Makimachi.  Are you a fortuneteller or something?”

“No, I am an artist.”

“An artist?” she repeated.  “The kind that paints stuff like this and this and this?”  She pointed at a rack displaying portraits of Seyruun’s loveliest and most expensive courtesans.  Another rack held more beauties, a well-known actor in one of his more popular swashbuckling roles, and a street scene of Seyruun’s theater district.

“Well, yes, that’s right.”

“Really?” Misao cried.  “That’s incredible!  So what does a master painter like you want with someone like me?”

The artist peered at her again.  “The moment I saw you I was stunned by your beauty.  My restless heart, forever seeking art, screams that it wants to paint you.  So I’d like you to pose for a picture.  Of course you need not worry about the finished product!  I’ll concentrate all my attention on the painting.  So what do you think?  Would you do it?”

“Of course I’ll do it!” Misao cried.  “Let’s do it right now!”

Sharakusai rubbed the back of his head.  “Well, I can’t begin right now.  Unfortunately I have to work on a series of advertisements for the inn so I can pay for my room.  But tomorrow we can begin.”

Kaoru peered into the mirror, examining her naked reflection.  She cupped her hands around her small, firm breasts.  Have they grown a little?

“Hurry up, Kaoru-san!” called Misao.  “The bath’s huge and the water feels really good!”

Kaoru stopped her self-examination and went outside.  She sat down on a stool and started to rinse herself off.  Misao got out of the pool to scrub her friend’s back.  “Even after all the camping out we do, you still have such clear skin, Kaoru-san.”

“And your hair’s so shiny and pretty, Misao,” Kaoru returned the compliment.  “Wow, this water feels so good!  I’m glad Kenshin had the idea to work here.”

“Speaking of Himura, how are things going between you two?” Misao asked with a sly wink.

“What?” Kaoru waved flustered hands.  “There’s nothing going on between Kenshin and me!”

“That’s what I thought,” the younger girl smirked.  “He’s not very sharp about things like that.  I wonder what he does think of you, Kaoru-san.”  She paused.  “I don’t think he prefers guys… he doesn’t really seem like Uncle Kamatari.  Maybe he’s in love with somebody from his past?”

Kaoru thought of Megumi Takani, back in Sairaag, and scowled.

“Maybe he can’t see you as a woman because you’re so much younger than he is,” Misao went on.  “Or maybe… maybe you just don’t look feminine enough.”

“What about you?” Kaoru demanded in fury.  “Does Aoshi see you as a woman?”

Misao bowed her head.  “I’m all right.”  She blushed.  “No matter what Aoshi-sama thinks of me, my feelings for him will never change.”  She stopped, looking around.  “Who’s there?” she demanded.  With reflexes that would have done credit to a trained ninja, she picked up a rinse tub and threw it at the fork of a tree.  There was a yelp and a thud.  “Got him!”

The peeping tom was dressed in a gray smock smeared with bright colors.  A small pillbox cap perched atop his white hair.

“Pervert!” yelled Kaoru.

On the other side of the wall, Kenshin, Aoshi and Yahiko heard the commotion. 

“Kaoru-dono!”

“Kaoru!”

”Misao!”

They leaped over the barrier separating the women’s from the men’s baths – and stopped short as they realized what they had done.

“Don’t look!  Get away!”  A barrage of bath stools and rinse tubs drove the intruding males back to their own side of the wall.

“Excuse us de gozaru yo!” called Kenshin.

“Well, Kaoru-san,” Misao grinned, “at least Himura got a good look at you.  He can’t not see you as a woman now!”

There remained only to deal with the peeper.  Now discreetly dressed in the inn’s yukata, Kaoru and Misao went over to look at him.  Misao gasped.  “Sharakusai-san!”

Kaoru blinked.  “You know him?”

“He’s an artist.  He said I was beautiful and he wanted to paint my portrait.”

The little artist opened his eyes.  He stared a moment, then brought his hands up with his fingers in a square.  He peered at Kaoru through the frame.  “Excellent!  Oh, excellent!”

She glared at him.

“I’m not anyone suspicious,” the painter said in haste.  “Misao-san here can tell you.  I am a painter and my name is Tonto Sharakusai.  For many years I have been on a quest to discover and paint the ultimate beauty.  The moment I saw you, I was stunned.  My restless heart, forever seeking art, screams that it wants to paint you.  Would you please model for me?  I will paint you with every last bit of my talent and spirit, and create a masterpiece to go down in history.”

“Hold it, sensei!” Misao exploded.  “You said the same thing to me!  You said you’d paint me!”

“Don’t worry,” Sharakusai reassured her.  “I’ll paint you as promised, just as soon as I’ve finished with your friend here.”

“Why does she get to go first?” whined Misao.

“Because an artist is only human.  It’s only human to prefer to paint a beauty.”

“Hey, I thought you said I was beautiful!”

“Hmm… yes.  About that… it really is a delicate problem, but I think there has been a misunderstanding.  I’m sure I never said a word about you being a model for a beauty portrait.”

“What!!?”

“I’m painting a series of physiognomic studies of young women.  I’ve finished most of them, but I very much wanted an easy-going expression.  You can’t imagine how hard it is to find such a face.  I’d nearly given up when I met you.  Now it’s good, it’s good!”

“It is not good!”  Misao stamped her foot.  “You called me beautiful, remember?”

The artist rubbed the back of his head.  “Well, that’s my habit.  But what I really wanted you to model was the easy-going face.” 

Kaoru stood over them, bokken in hand.  “There’s still the matter of you peeping at us!”

Misao gasped.  “That’s right!  He needs to be punished!”

Fireball!
Burst Rondo!

Tonto Sharakusai was transformed into a crispy critter.

“Ultimate beauty?” Aoshi asked.

“It seems strange de gozaru yo,” opined Kenshin.

Yahiko burst out laughing.  “Ultimate beauty?” he guffawed.  “Busu?”

Kaoru didn’t even bother drawing her bokken.  She smashed Yahiko to the floor with her bare fist.

The ultimate beauty, Kaoru thought as she sat motionless while Sharakusai painted.  No man has ever said anything like that to me.  I mean, Kenshin never pays me any compliments at all!  Doesn’t he have any eye for beauty, or is he just clueless?  Damn him!

“Kaoru-san,” the artist protested as his subject’s sweet, dreamy expression was replaced by an angry scowl.

“Here you are,” sniffed the cook as he handed Yahiko a stack of trays for the Chrysanthemum Room.

“Oi, don’t cry so much,” Yahiko told him.  “You’re makin’ the food soggy.”

“Omyou!” the man sobbed.

“Che,” the boy sniffed.  “Lotta girls get lost around here.”

Aoshi, who had overheard the exchange, glanced up.  It was odd that three serving-women, all married to inn staff members, should suddenly disappear all at once.  Unless…

Kenshin had taken over the chore of doing the inn’s laundry.  He was heading to the river with a washtub full of used linens when… “Kenkaku-san!  Kenkaku-san, please help me!”  A woman burst out of a clump of bushes and flung herself at Kenshin’s feet.  “Please, kenkaku-san, I beg you!”

Kenshin blinked.  “Oro?” 

“Hold it, bitch!”  A trio of ruffians crashed out of the woods.  “Not you, miss,” the leader said to Kenshin.  “Sorry to disturb you.  It’ll be over soon.  Get your ass back over here, you!” he barked to the cowering woman.

“No!” the woman sobbed.  “Kenkaku-san, I beg you, please help me!”

“You…” the leader snarled.  He stepped forward – only to find that Kenshin had placed himself between him and his quarry.

“Sessha will not let you harm her,” Kenshin murmured.  “Those who do not wish to be injured should leave quietly de gozaru yo.”

“Listen, no bimbo’s gonna…”  He stopped.  Kenshin had set down the washtub and now faced him with a gleaming blade in his hand.  “You’re not…”

“Sessha is a man,” Kenshin replied with a slight smile.

“Then we won’t hold back!” the ruffian retorted.  “Get him!”  There was a brief flash of light on steel, and the four toughs lay in a heap on the ground.

The woman ran forward.  “Thank you so much for saving me!” she cried.  “My name is Omyou.  Can I trouble you for yours?”

“Sessha is… oro?”  Kenshin blinked.  “Omyou-dono?”

“Omyou?!” the sobbing cook cried.  “I missed you so much!  I thought I’d never see you again!”

“Gosaku!” she ran to embrace her husband.

“Omyou, why did you run away?”

“I didn’t!” the woman protested.  “I’ve been locked in the inn’s storehouse all this time!  The other women are also being held there – I was desperate to get away so I could tell someone!”

“Where in the name of Cephied is Sharakusai anyway?” Misao wondered.  “Did he tell me to go to the wrong place on purpose so he could paint Kaoru-san first?  Oh well, if I run into somebody I can ask directions. I’m not stupid like a guy…”  She heard men’s voices, laughing.

“I never imagined it would go this well,” said a man with a bald head.

“Hey, the finishing touch still remains,” added his topknotted companion.  “I trust you haven’t left anything out?”

“Don’t worry, everything’s going smoothly.”

“And our guests?”

“All first class.  They got excited when we showed them the pictures.  We gather the customers with the sample paintings of women, and they make bids accordingly.  Brother, when you came up with this scheme I thought you were crazy, but you never cease to amaze me.  The inn’s been the perfect cover.”

“When we finish the bidding we’ll move on,” the older brother went on.  “We won’t stick around once we get what we came for.”

“That little painter works really well for the tiny amount we pay him,” Topknot answered.  “He doesn’t know the real fortune he’s pulling in for us.  Too bad we’ll have to dispose of him once we’re done here.”

“Oh, you can find painters lazing about everywhere,” Baldy retorted.  “Hey, did you hear something?”  They opened the door.  “Hey, it’s a rat!”

“How dare you insult the beautiful champion of Justice?!” Misao snapped.

Diem…

A fist like a piledriver interrupted her incantation.

“Hello?  Are you awake?  Oneesan?”

Misao opened her eyes.  Fuzzy vision quickly cleared enough to let her recognize a concerned feminine face.  “Huh?  What happened?”

“This is the inn’s storehouse,” the girl explained.  “You were brought here unconscious.”

The princess struggled to sit up.  Her efforts were somewhat hampered by the fact that her hands were locked in wooden handcuffs.  “I remember – I don’t have time for this!”

“You should take it easy,” another girl urged.  “You have an enormous lump on your head.”

“This is no time for worry about such trifles!” Misao exclaimed.  “I have to come up with a way out of here.”

“Hey, what are you doing that for?!” Kaoru demanded.  Sharakusai produced a knife and methodically slashed his just-completed portrait of her to bits.

“It’s no good!” the artist protested.  “This is not Kaoru-san – this is just an empty shell, it does not show the real Kaoru-san!  Your heart… your heart isn’t here!”

“Too bad it’s not their hearts we pay you to paint,” said a newcomer.  A villainous-looking man, his hair pulled into a samurai’s chonmage, lounged in the doorway.  “But no matter.  We can offer the girl as a special lot – and we don’t need you any more.”  He drew his sword.

Kaoru snatched up her bokken.  “I don’t know who you are,” she snapped, “but if you hurt the artist who’s immortalizing my beauty I won’t forgive you!”

“Oh yeah, right!” sneered the boss.  “Like you can hurt me with that wooden toy!”

Flare Arrow!

She blasted him out into the courtyard.  “Now let’s get back to – Sharakusai-san?”

The little artist was trembling, knocking his head against the floor in abject contrition.  “Forgive me, Kamiya-san!” he said over and over.

“You’d better tell me just what’s going on around here.”

Kaoru and Sharakusai cautiously poked their heads out the doorway.  “Be careful, Kamiya-san,” the artist urged.  “His older brother’s the real boss.  He’s strong and smart and has a gang of tough guys working for him.”

“Kaoru-dono!”

“Kaoru!”

“Kenshin!  Yahiko!” Kaoru cried.  “Listen, guys, there’s a bunch of girls being held prisoner in the storehouse, we’ve got to get them out!”

“We know,” Kenshin replied.

“Yeah, this inn’s a total fake,” Yahiko added.  “There’s gonna be an auction; those guys’re gonna sell the girls to rich creeps from Seyruun and Atlas City!”

“And now that you know our secret, I’ll have to kill you!”  A big, bald man came around the corner, flanked by a gang of toughs.

“‘Kill you’ is not a nice thing to say de gozaru yo,” Kenshin murmured, and thumbed his sakabatou loose.  His eyes gleamed like pale amethyst ice.

“That’s right!” Kaoru added.  “Scum like you who feed off the weak are the worst!  I won’t forgive you!”

“On behalf of Justice, Misao Makimachi will right wrongs and triumph over evil – and that means you!”  Misao led half a dozen young women carrying garden rakes, laundry poles, and assorted other gear that had been in the storehouse.

“Let us punish them!” squealed the girls, and fell on the toughs.

“I can see you are going to be difficult,” the bald man murmured.

Source of all power,
Crimson flame burning bright…

Aoshi stepped out from behind a tree and gestured.

Bogardic Elm

A bog opened at the gangster’s feet and he sank into it, unable to finish his incantation.

“Just wait there quietly until the authorities arrive,” Aoshi murmured.  “Struggling will only make you sink deeper.”

Unfortunately, the bog wasn’t so wide that the women with the drying poles couldn’t reach him.

“So did Sharakusai-san ever finish his painting of you?” Misao asked as they set out once more on the road to Seyruun.

“Yeah, Busu, what’ve you got in that bundle?” Yahiko added.  “If that’s the painting, why don’t you let us see it?”

“Oh, all right.”  Kaoru giggled.  “He said it was called ‘The Smile of a Goddess.’”  Do you think it looks like me?”  She unwrapped the painting and held it out so her companions could look at it.

They stared for a moment.  Yahiko scratched the back of his head.  “Umm… guys… I think we’d better get goin.’”  He raced down the road, followed closely by Misao, Kenshin, and even Aoshi.

“Mou!” Kaoru exclaimed.  “What’s wrong with you guys?”  Then she looked at the painting.  “What’s this?!”

“This” was an arrangement of distorted geometric shapes that bore no resemblance to any known being, human, animal or even mazoku.  If it indeed represented a smiling goddess, the goddess must have been the Lord of Nightmares.

“Smile of a Goddess?” Yahiko hooted – from a safe distance.  “Must mean smile of a Dragon Spooker!”

“Yahiko, that is rude to Kaoru-dono de gozaru yo,” Kenshin reproved – but he could barely suppress his laughter.

“Himura, you’re laughing too!” Misao pointed out.  “My stomach hurts, I’m laughing so hard!”

“He really caught Busu’s character!” Yahiko agreed.

“You don’t have to laugh so much about it!” Kaoru screeched.  “WAIT UP!!”

She raced after them, toward Seyruun.

NOTES, EXPLANATIONS ETC.

I’ve been saying all along that this was going to start deviating from Slayers canon.  Martina’s absence leaves plot holes that need to be filled.  Since the next chapter took place at a hot spring resort, I decided to use the third-season Kenshin episode where the gang had to work off their bill at a hot spring – and ran into a strange artist.  The artist reminded me of an episode of Kazemakase Tsukikage Ran, so I used that too.  This isn’t just patchwork, it’s turning into a crazy quilt!

The artist is the one from Tsukikage Ran, not the one from Kenshin.  I thought there were more jokes in his character – though I probably missed at least half of them.  To begin with, his name, Sharakusai, echoes that of Sharaku – a mysterious artist who produced brilliant and distinctive actor portraits for a few months, then vanished.  His superb technique makes some scholars think that Sharaku might be a pseudonym for some established artist who for one reason or another was trying something different, but his style is too unique to be anybody else’s.  The joke in the Tsukikage Ran episode comes when you look at Sharakusai’s work.  The pictures are all prints by well-known artists.  Most are Utamaro – I recognized a famous one of a girl blowing on a glass toy called a popple – but there are a few full-figure bijinga (pictures of beautiful women) that might be Kunisada, and even a Hiroshige cityscape, and I have no clue who did the actor portraits; even I can tell they’re definitely not by Sharaku.  And I’m no kind of expert on woodblock prints – just what I’ve picked up collecting images for my links section.

I’m not sure just what spell our bad guy of the month was going to cast, but a lot of Fire spells begin with the same line, so I used it.  I got Bogardic Elm from QP/Diana’s resource page on Slayers spells; Zelgadis uses a lot of magic from the Earth group anyway.

For the rest, it’s a diversion, a little filler to pass the time until we get to Seyruun and the real trouble starts.  Don’t ask me what the cabbit is doing in it; she doesn’t have any business here at all but she just showed up.  Cabbits are like that…