Tarou followed the line of his cousin Yusaku’s eyes. The younger boy’s quarry was a tall, slender woman who threaded her way through the crowd with quick, precise steps.
“And wow, she’s got a medicine case! That could bring us some real money – maybe she’s even got opium in it! You were right, Tokyo’s a great place!”
“BAKA YAROU!” Tarou replied with an open-handed blow that caught his cousin off guard and sent him sprawling into the street.
“Hey, whaddya do that for?” Yusaku sputtered.
“Asshole! You tryin’ to get us both killed or something?!”
“What did I do? Hot babe, easy money… business and pleasure at once…?”
“Che, no wonder Oyaji said I should keep an eye on you. You do not mess with Takani-sensei! Got that?”
“So who died and made her fuckin’ Kannon? She’s just a woman. ’Sides, even if she is a yabu-isha they’re all the same. Won’t give you the time of day ’less you’re rich or shizoku, and if they do they just give you some foul stuff that’ll kill you quicker’n if you’d left it alone.”
“Takani-sensei ain’t like that!” objected Tarou. “She’s good! She fixed up Gon when he got shot, and there’s all kindsa folks around here she takes care of and doesn’t charge for it – old folks, and moms with sick babies and stuff. And the people she treats – they mostly get well ’less they’re too old or stuff like that. You get beat up or sliced – and you will, if you keep goin’ around bein’ a moron – she’s who you go see. But that ain’t the only reason you don’t mess with her. Take a look around.”
Yusaku looked. He saw nothing that looked dangerous to him, just ordinary citizens going about their errands, and a big man in white lounging against a wall, seemingly half asleep as he gnawed on a fishbone. As the doctor passed, he moved out into the crowd, one more idler sauntering along with his hands stuck down his hakama slits – though he moved like he could probably handle himself pretty well in a fight. Then he noticed the man’s eyes. They were alert, watching the doctor. “Huh,” he remarked to his cousin. “Pretty tough-lookin’ boyfriend for such a class babe.”
“You don’t know half,” Tarou scoffed. “That’s Zanza. Toughest fighter in Tokyo. Takani-sensei’s his woman. Mess with her, and they most likely find what’s left of you in the river. Idiot like you prob’ly deserves it, but Oyaji’d take it outta my hide.”
“Anyway,” Yusaku muttered. “There’s plenty of other pickings around here. Lookit that redhead buyin’ tofu, bet a girly-lookin’ wuss like him’s good for some fun. Oi, whaddya do that for?” he demanded as his cousin whacked him across the back of the head and sent him sprawling.
“’Cuz you’re bein’ a dipshit again. Look, this ain’t Osaka. We got ways here, and there’s folks you don’t touch. Take another look at the wuss, and use your brain this time.”
“Aw, he’s got a sword. Ain’t that cute. Che, I thought those were illegal now.”
“So how come he’s carryin’ it? In full view of a cop?”
“Yeah, right. You’re gonna tell me he’s Hitokiri Battousai or somethin’ – right?”
Tarou said nothing.
“No way! Battousai ain’t nothin’ but a legend anyway!”
“Tell ya a little story,” Tarou drawled, shoving his hands down his hakama slits. “Back around last New Year there was some trouble around here. Guy showed up, claimed to be Battousai, went around pickin’ fights and killin’ folks. Even got a couple of cops. Then one day him and his whole gang get dumped in front of the police station, tied up – and beat up but good. They said – they said, mind you, that it was the real Battousai did for ’em. And guess who the only new face in the neighborhood was?”
“Him?” Yusaku jerked his head toward the small redhaired man.
“Pin-pon! See the amazing transformation – from moron to genius in a heartbeat!”
“But Battousai’s supposed to be ten shaku tall and shoot fire outta his eyes!”
“Hey. You get beat by somebody and live to tell about it, are you gonna say a girly-lookin’ shrimp got the best of you? Mind, I don’t say that guy is Battousai… but I saw him in action once, and he’s so fast you can’t hardly see him move. Oh, and by the way, him and Zanza’s dachi, so that’s another reason to steer clear of him.”
Yusaku shrugged. “Okay. Anybody else it ain’t safe to mess with?”
“The redhead’s woman. She runs a little dojo, got a few students – one’s a cop, so watch yourself. And the gyuu-nabe place. That’s another one where you’re better off bein’ nice to ’em too. Tae, the lady runs it, is usually good for a sob story if you don’t do it too often, so if you really get in trouble you got a place to eat.”
“I guess that’s always good to know,” Yusaku admitted. “Anybody else on the don’t-touch list?”
Tarou thought. “Well, there’s Katsu.”
“Who’s that?”
“Tsukioka-san. He puts out a little newspaper, mostly ’bout how the government’s screwin’ us. But he’s cool, he useta be an artist and knew all the actors and tayuu and drew their pictures and stuff. Him and Zanza’s dachi too, so if you mess with him – or with the brats he’s got sellin’ his paper – you’ll get the whole wasps’ nest down on ya.”
“Che,” the older boy grumbled. “Might as well work in a shop! Ain’t there any fun around here?”
Tarou grinned. “Plenty of fun, but not here. Like Oyaji says, ya don’t shit where ya eat. The real pickin’s ain’t here anyway. Ya see all these fancy buildings they got goin’ up, the foreigners teachin’ people how to build brick stuff that goes way up high – gonna fall down come an earthquake but that just means more to put up. Tokyo’s full of men come to find work, puttin’ up the buildings and workin’ in the shipyards and stuff. So, they want a good time, who do they come to?”
“I get it,” Yusaku grinned back.
“C’mon. I’ll show ya.” He led his cousin northeast, around the Yoshiwara and into a neighborhood of longhouses, most of them in poor repair. Men lounged in some of the doorways or squatted in little groups in the courtyards. Many wore only fundoshi and sported tattoos. “We pretty much got the place to ourselves,” he explained. “Cops only show up in squads, and only when there’s big trouble – so we make sure there ain’t none.” He walked up to a burly man wearing nothing but a fundoshi, a hachimaki and a magnificent specimen of the tattooist’s art. “Oi. This here’s my cousin Yusaku from Osaka. He’s here to learn his way around.”
NOTES, EXPLANATIONS ETC.
This was actually one of my first ideas for a Kenshin fic – I originally got the idea from Yumi’s “Equal Frustration,” but it turned into a look at Sano’s and Kenshin’s reputations through the eyes of a pair of young punks. And it’s another chance to have fun with the Battousai legend. Kenshin’s reputation seems to have grown like the Fish That Got Away. I started it long before the manga ended, so Sano is still here.
In the anime, one scene in Katsu’s abode shows a wall covered with pictures he’s done. A fair number look like bijin-ga, pictures of beauties. He wouldn’t be the first artist to earn his rice by advertising the Yoshiwara belles, and the theater always needed promotional art.
The neighborhood that Tarou takes Yusaku to is today known as San’ya. It’s still a place where day laborers and other men on society’s margins live in cheap rooming houses and pick up work on a day-to-day basis. Most of the entertainment and even some of the labor recruiting is, or was, run by the yakuza. And yes, its origins do lie in Meiji, when men who came to the city to find work or other opportunities gravitated to its inexpensive tenements, much like Sano.
Language notes:
Baka yarou – do I really need to translate this?
A yabu or yabu-isha is a doctor-in-the-thicket, or quack.
Shizoku – what samurai were called after the samurai class was officially abolished.
Dachi – friend, buddy, partner