Rurouni Familiar

Chapter One

"Not all who wander are lost."
-Tolkien

It was, Soujiro decided, a good day. Most days were, but if anything that made them even better. The sky was clear, he had food to eat–an increasingly rare experience–and twenty armed policemen to keep him company.

"Seta Soujiro, you are under arrest," one of the policemen said. A bit of his ear was sliced off. All twenty of them wore sharp blue uniforms. "If you resist, we will take you by force."

"Do you mind if I finish eating first?" Soujiro asked. "The nice lady at the dango shop gave me some, and I don't want it to go to waste." He bit off a dumpling. "It's really good, actually. You should buy some later." When Soujiro told her that he had no home, food, family, or money, the old woman had given him some anyway, and seemed convinced that he was a "sweet boy," whatever that was.

The lead police officer gripped his sword tightly and hesitated. Apparently, polite conversation wasn't what he was expecting from Mr. Shishio's top swordsman. "No! And I want your hands where I can see them!"

Soujiro smiled and waved.

"Why are we hesitating?" another policeman demanded. "There's twenty of us, one of him, and he doesn't even have a sword."

The last part was true, unfortunately. He'd managed to lose a second sword to Mr. Himura. No one else seemed to have that luck, but Mr. Himura had shredded the edge of his first sword beyond repair and cut his second one in half. The fact that he was unarmed was the only reason the police had dared confront him at all.

"Don't underestimate him," the first police officer said. "He killed the Prime Minister and it took the Battousai himself to take him down."

"I allegedly killed the Prime Minister," Soujiro said. "No one saw me do it." He had heard that the coachman was very surprised when he opened the door. "And losing to Mr. Himura isn't that impressive. Plenty of people have done it. Heck, I've met people who have done it twice."

"That's not important," the police officer snapped. "You are unarmed and surrounded. Will you or will you not surrender?"

Soujiro shook his head. He had heard that most of the rest of Mr. Shishio's men had gotten government jobs in exchange for amnesty, and that didn't sound too bad, but it wasn't for him. "Thanks, but I can't. I have some serious wandering to get done."

"Then you leave me no choice."

"No, I guess not," Soujiro said with a smile. "Sorry about that." Even though he wasn't armed, he wasn't afraid. It had been so long since he'd been afraid, he wasn't sure he remembered how. He still didn't know what to do with them though. Mr. Shishio would have killed them all, but Mr. Himura wouldn't have killed any of them. Maybe he should compromise and kill half of them. He closed his eyes.

And heard the rain.

He opened his eyes, and it was sunny again. The Battousai had left him that. Ever since their second fight, he kept on remembering things he had long since forgotten, digging up the past like an open grave.

"Actually," he said. "Before we get started, could you answer a question for me, Mr. Policeman?"

He frowned. "What?"

"Is it wrong to kill people?" Mr. Himura thought so. That was kind of a hypocritical belief for a manslayer, but it was one that he lived by. Mr. Shishio, on the other hand, was above things like morality. And Soujiro was, well, he was open minded.

"Of course it is," the policeman snapped. "That's why we're arresting you for murder."

"So if I resist, what are you going to do to me?" Soujiro asked. "I know you won't kill me, because that would be wrong."

The policeman glared at him and raised his sword to attack.

That was when the ball of light appeared.

It was six feet wide, bright, and Soujiro couldn't think of any other words to describe it. Other than that it was eating him.

"I have to admit, that was a neat trick," Soujiro said, trying to pull his arm out. It was stuck good. "I did not expect that in the least."

"Step back, men!" the policeman ordered. "We don't know what he's trying!"

"What I'm trying? I'm trying not to get eaten! What are you doing?" Soujiro asked.

"Whatever this is, it's not going to work!"

"But if you're not doing this, and I'm not doing this, then..." He looked around, but he didn't see a third party he recognized. Not that anyone he'd recognize could do this.

"Hey, look, this thing is trying to eat me," he said cheerfully. "I don't suppose one of you would be willing to lend me a hand? No? Is that out of the question?"

The policemen looked at him as though he had grown a second head. Or was being eaten alive. More like the second one.

His arm could go deeper into the globe, but he couldn't pull it out, kind of like that fingertrap Miss Yumi had given him to play with once. And, if the globe worked the same way...

He bit off the last dumpling, just in case he didn't survive. And he jumped in.

Then a lot of things happened that he didn't expect. It was a bit comforting when he found out that no one else expected them either.

WWW

It was not a good day for Louise de La Valliére. When she pulled out her wand and cast the summoning spell, she expected nothing. She'd blow something up, people would laugh at her and remind her of her nickname a few hundred more times, and in a few days they'd forget it in two days after she blew up something else.

Instead she had summoned a commoner. If she had summoned a lousy familiar, that would have been a relative success, but a commoner? It was a joke, the kind that her classmates would remember for the rest of her life. And then the peasant kept the same, stupid smile on his face, even when she ki–sealed the contract.

No, not a good day at all.

After the rest of her class got tired of laughing at her, they left her alone with her familiar. "Well," she said, determined to make the most of a typically bad situation, "I guess I'll have to come up with a name for you. I can't go on forever just calling you peasant."

"You could call me Soujiro," her familiar offered. "That is my name."

"Soujiro?" she repeated. It sounded dumb. "I guess it fits you. My name is Louise Françoise Le Blanc de La Vallière."

"That is a lot of name," he said.

"It's a noblewoman's name!" she snapped. Her familiar wasn't making fun of her, was he? The Founder knew she had enough of that from everyone else.

"Okay, Miss Louise Fran...Françosie Le...Le Vall..."

"Miss Louise will do. Or just Master if you want to keep things disyllabic."

"Sure thing, Master Louise."

"And what are you smiling about, anyway?" It was proper for a peasant to be pleased to serve a noble, honored even, but cheerful? Honestly, she'd prefer him to be a bit apologetic after making her look foolish in front of her entire class.

"Am I smiling? I hadn't noticed."

Fantastic. She stood up and started walking toward the main tower. "Soujiro. Come." She didn't look back, but she heard him walking behind her.

"So, where are we, Miss Louise?"

"Don't you recognize the Tristain Academy? This is where nobles from all over the civilized world come here to learn, well, everything. Though the only commoners who come here are the ones who work here, so I suppose you wouldn't know it by sight."

She glanced back to see his response. He admired the stonework as they ascended the staircase with the same cheerful smile on his face, as though he were mildly pleased at the view instead of properly awed at being at the center of civilization. Well, maybe he just wasn't bright enough to comprehend what was going on. He was, after all, just a peasant, and peasants had simple minds suited for the simple world they lived in, leaving the thinking to their betters.

She opened the door to her bedroom. "And this is my room. You'll be living here for as long as I do. Feel free to get some straw from the stables if the floor is too hard for you."

"You have a bed with stilts!"

"I...what?"

"Your bed," Soujiro said, pointing. "It's on stilts."

Louise looked at her bed. It was just a normal bed. Sure, it wasn't a mattress on the floor, but...had her familiar never seen a bed before? Did peasants just sleep on the floor like animals? She suddenly felt sorry for the boy.

"Oh, you poor, ignorant peasant." She pulled her nightgown from her dresser and changed into it. "As my familiar, there are a few duties I expect of you. I'll tell you what they are as I figure out what I need as well as what, if anything, you're capable of." She handed him a pile of clothes. "You can start off with laundry. I expect my clothes washed and set up to dry before you go to bed."

"Sure thing, Miss Louise," he said. "What's a familiar?"

"Don't you know–no, I suppose you wouldn't." If he didn't even know what a bed was, she couldn't expect him to know anything else. "You're a familiar. Do you remember all the other animals in the field when you came here? Those are familiars too. Mages summon them via the Summon Familiar spell, and they are expected to protect their master if their master is in danger, although mostly they act as a second pair of eyes for the mage who summoned them and fetch spell components when necessary. Understand?"

"Protect?" he repeated, and there was a glint of...something (Interest? Surprise?) in his blue eyes that she couldn't place.

"Technically, but I wouldn't sweat it. No one has tried to kill me in the past sixteen years of my life, and I doubt that they're all magically going to want to try now that you're here."

"That's a relief," he said with a laugh. "I've never protected anyone before. I wouldn't know where to begin."

"Well, you don't look like you could handle much anyway." And he didn't. Louise was the last person to guess someone's age based off of their appearance, but Soujiro was short, skinny, and had the face of a child. Wherever he was from, he clearly had an easy life before this. ut it was getting late. She'd deal with him in the morning.

"Get to work."

WWW

The whole place seemed vaguely Western. Soujiro didn't know much about Western culture except that they had weird clothes and trains. He didn't see any trains yet, but they had weird clothes up the wazoo.

Houji mentioned their beds once after returning from a trip. Apparently the West was full of rats so everyone slept on elevated beds so the rats didn't crawl into bed with you. Personally, Soujiro would be more concerned about rolling over and falling off, but that was him.

As he walked down the stairs with a bundle of clothes in his arms, he saw a girl in a black and white dress carrying a pile of clothes just like he was. "Do you know where I can wash these?"

The girl looked at him, then she looked at him again, then she smiled. "Absolutely. You can come with me. I was just on the way there."

"Thanks," he said. "My name's Soujiro."

"I'm Siesta. Are you new here?"

"It's my first day."

"Then I'd be happy to show you around. Have you washed noble's clothes before?"

"I've washed normal clothes before." But even that was a long time ago. Mr. Shishio always had more important thing for him to do.

"Yeah, well, nobles can be pretty particular about their clothes. It can be pretty complicated at first, but you'll get the hang of it."

"Thanks, Miss Siesta."

She smiled and seemed a bit surprised. "You're welcome, Mr. Soujiro. So what do you think of your first day?"

"So far it seems like the easiest job I've ever had. I mean, laundry? That's what I got to do growing up when all the hard work was done, and my last job was murder. So far I like my last boss better, though, but I don't know the new one that well."

"Really? What was your last boss like?"

"He was...oh boy, he was amazing. Mr. Shishio expected a lot, but he was always teaching me things and he never even got mad when I broke his expensive swords."

"Wow, he seems really nice."

"A lot of people didn't like him, but I thought he was pretty cool." He followed Siesta outside. It was surprising how quickly it had gotten dark. He looked up at the night sky to see how brightly the stars were shining, and for the first time since he faced Mr. Himura, he stopped smiling.

There was a second moon in the sky. He blinked and tried to see through the optical illusion or, or...whatever was going on, but there it was, clear as...night. Siesta looked up to see what he was staring at, but didn't notice anything unordinary.

He started laughing. "What are you laughing at?" she asked, but he couldn't explain. He had gotten free food, was detained by the police, had gotten eaten by a ball of light, and after only two weeks as a rurouni, he had managed to wander right off the planet.

"Nothing," he said finally. "I'm just having a good day."

WWW

A/n Rurouni Kenshin was the first anime that I really liked, and Soujiro (or Sojiro or Soujirõ or whatever) was my favorite character. I already wrote the first four chapters, but never bothered publishing them because I was afraid that someone might read them. If there's anything that I can add to make the plot more coherent or true to the characters, leave a review and let me know.