A Lesson in Etiquette
By Ranma 1517730129

So poor Yahiko is the most underused character in RK fanfiction, and we did say we wanted to do a Yahiko support club...so we've decided to honor him with his very own Omake fic ^_^ Hey it's a start, right? We don't own Kenshin, we don't own Rainbow Bright, and we don't own Folger's crystals...Although that would be really neat. You know, to come up with two shows and own the rights to one of the biggest coffee manufacturers in the United States! Sorry, I promise we'll stay on topic for the fic at least.

A Lesson in Etiquette
An Omake Fiction
By: Calger459 and
Ranma1517730129

Kenshin, Kaoru, and Yahiko sit in the courtyard of the Kamiya Dojo after lunch.

"Ran through a field giggling?" Kaoru arches her eyebrows.

Kenshin puts his hand behind his head and smiles in embarrassment. "Hai Kaoru-dono."

"After the war...What was it? Some sort of mental breakdown?" Yahiko waits patiently as Kenshin rights himself from his facefault.

"Ummmmm. You know the fan-fic writers. They are a strange lot." (Calger and Ranma bop to the Rainbow Bright theme song) "Aren't Calger-dono and Ranma-dono about to do another of those omake things today de gozaru?"

Kaoru pulls out the fanfic schedule that looks startlingly small.

"One page?" Yahiko looks disgustedly at the clipboard. "Don't we usually get more? I mean there are at least four posts on Fanfiction.net per day right? Which means that there are at least two...maybe three hundred out there just this week boiling away in their brains."

Kaoru smiles and pulls the page off and it falls in a hopeless mass of seventy or so pages at her feet.

"My..." Kenshin stares orofied.

"Anime space!" Kaoru smiles. "Gets ya' every time!" She diligently checks the list. "Ah ha! Yes Kenshin right here...It says in the summary: "Yahiko gets a lesson in sword maintenance from Kenshin. Hopeful laughs ensue..." The normal stuff."

Yahiko gets stars in his eyes. "Kenshin is going to TEACH ME SOMETHING!?! SUGOI!!!"

"Now wait a moment. I promised no such thing." Kenshin stammers.

"Oh I think you will." Kaoru smiles. "It says here in your fanfiction contract that you will do everything and anything dictated by the great, omnipotent, and modest fanfiction writers. Besides it will be good for Yahiko-chan's education."

Kenshin watches Yahiko bounce up and down, ignoring Kaoru, making ka-ching motions with his arms. "Aa...So it would seem." Kenshin begins to walk defeatedly toward the dojo, Kaoru and Yahiko skipping happily behind him.

Lesson 1:

"Permission to hold the sword is always requested from the owner first before examining." Kaoru raised her eyebrow. "Didn't you already break that rule in anime episode...eighteen?"

Yahiko twitches uncontrollably. "What episode eighteen? Ranma only believes in the manga continuity when writing fanfiction...There is no episode eighteen!"

"Aa, but Calger uses the fusion method in her writing, and that is one of her favorite anime episodes." Kenshin smiles mildly. "In any event..." He holds out his sword. "You have permission to hold my sakabatou."


Lesson 2:

Kaoru continues the lesson "Upon receiving the sword you bow to it."

Yahiko places the sword on the floor as he lowers himself independently. He places his hands on his knees and delicately places the left hand on the floor followed by the right in the shape of a diamond. Kaoru smiles confidently at her student as he begins to bow...and promptly sweatdrops as Yahiko's head slams against the dojo floor. "Three to six inches Yahiko!!!"

Kenshin begins to laugh. "Maa-maa! Don't worry Yahiko!" Kenshin pats the head still kissing the floorboards. "I made a similarly embarrassing error when I was first learning to bow. I used my sword as a crutch. Shishou sent this baka-deshi out for seven thousand strokes."

Yahiko looks up at Kenshin in horror. "S-s-s-seven...Thousand?"

Lesson 3:

"Anyway!" Kaoru prompts. "You know what comes next."

Yahiko begins to inspect the saya. "Ummmm...How old is this thing?"

Kaoru cracks him over the head with her bokken. "Have I taught you no manners?!? If he wants to hear your opinion he'll ask for it!"

Kenshin sweatdrops. "Ummm, it's technically new. I did have to buy it fourth-hand in Kyoto..."

Kaoru and Yahiko facefault.

"Kenshin! Don't stray from protocol! He won't learn that way!" Kaoru turns away from the scolded rurouni. "What's next Yahiko?"

Lesson 4:

Yahiko turns chibi and watery-eyed cute. "Oh Kenshin...If I could...I mean...Can I? Can I look at your sword?" Yahiko shoots a look at Kaoru. "BETTER?"

"He's hopeless." Kenshin sighs to himself. "Yes Yahiko you may remove the sakaba from the saya."

Yahiko takes a deep breath and grabs the saya in the middle ready to pull the blade.

"Ha up!" Kaoru and Kenshin remind Yahiko.

Yahiko blinks at them. "Which end would that be precisely...Kenshin's sword is backward. His mune is his ha!" *Audience scratches their collective heads...glancing at the ending notes*

"That's rude!" Kaoru's eyes burst into flames, as she thinks about just how bad that actually sounded.

Kenshin considers this. "He does have a point Kaoru-dono. Yahiko feel free to improvise. Although I think it would be best if you did this as if it were a normal sword de gozaru."

Lesson 5:

Yahiko takes another deep breath and pulls the sword.

"What's with all the heavy breathing Yahiko-chan?"

Yahiko turns red through the blue and lets out a rush of air, completely fogging over the blade. "You did that on purpose BUSU!"

Kenshin smiles indulgently. "No need to be so careful with this blade, its shrine days are over I fear." Kenshin glances at the now well-worn blade and sighs. "By the way Yahiko from now on try to be a little more careful with the un-sheathing. Pop it loose with your thumb first. I don't want you to cause yourself or anyone else injury."

"Hai, I will." Yahiko nods quickly. Yahiko then pulls out a pair of close inspection goggles and slides on a pair of white gloves.

Kenshin falls over in a heap.

"Ummmm Kenshin. I don't mean to badger you...But when was the last time this was cleaned...And look at the fingerprints! The obvious lack of care is embarrassing for a swordsman of your caliber...and look at the little spots of rust, too much oil. I think that if you were to use a better abura-nuguishi, and maybe a different quality uchiko..."

"Ok! I think that's enough of a lesson for today hmmm Yahiko?" Kaoru grabs her student's glasses and quickly grabs the sakabatou away from him and throws it to Kenshin. Kaoru quickly bows out of the dojo, pushing the stuttering Yahiko ahead of her.

Kenshin begins to follow them into the late afternoon light, then pauses to look down at the sword. "Hmmm...a different uchiko..."

OWARI

Hey! Ranma here! Calger had to go home to go beddie-bye : ) Wow! Finally Calger and I finished this! She began her teaching job and I only get to see her on Friday...and sometimes Saturday and Sunday. Not so much on Saturday though, cause Calger's got Wu-Shu on Saturday. Lucky duck! I had to give it up until the end of my pregnancy : ( MOU!!! And not so much on Sunday either because she always does her mysterious teacherly lesson planning on Sunday. Although I secretly think that she replaces her brain with folger's crystals and does weird sacrifices to the god of art teachers! Anyway, I'm just making up excuses. We took forever to write this...Three weeks. That's a lot of time considering the average omake takes only a few hours.

First note: The episode we are talking about. Episode eighteen, is a filler episode in the anime. Yahiko steals Kenshin's sword and I won't spoil the whole episode but it's very WAFFY.

Second note: Yahiko says, "His mune is his ha." Ok short short version. The ha is the sharp part and it's usually the cutting edge, but on Kenshin's sakabatou the ha is blunt and the mune is sharp. Thus the confusion.

Third note: The actual procedure for sword bowing and examination is correct. Believe it or not. We did all that painstaking research that you've come to expect from us two omake crazy women of evil. I am going to go ahead and give you the web sites so that you can bask in the glory of cool information about kenjutsu, budo, and weapons. Most of the actual commands given directly to Yahiko from Kaoru are shamelessly taken word for quotie word off of the KENJUTSU website. I learned all sorts of really neat stuff off of this website, so that I may now spout new useless nouns that no one would ever really use in normal Japanese conversation. I am going to go ahead and give you a few of the terms that we used any way so that you can continue to be a potato if you absolutely can't find it in your heart to read these wonderful, neat, informative, and overly cool websites about kenjutsu.

The Websites:
http://ksr.façade.com/aboutksr.html
http://www.usjujitsu.net/articles/kenjutsu.htm
http://www.mawn.net/his_kenjutsu.htm

The Terms:
Abura: The oil that Yahiko is talking about at the end of the fic. It prevents rust. Or in this case creates it! Wow, I never knew it was so hard to maintain a sword.

Abura-nugishi: The paper used to spread cleaning oil. Flannel is apparently a recognized substitute if you don't have the real stuff.

-dono: Ok, I know what everyone is thinking. I already know what this means. I am going to tell you anyway just in case. I take for granted that people don't just know all of this information before hand. Poor Calger-chan had no idea that this wasn't a part of colloquial Japanese speech now or during the Meji. Ok for a quick example. Hot guy walks up to a woman (Just for the sake of argument, if you happen to be a woman, you.). Hot guy says: "Thou art a really sexy chick." Being called sexy is always cool, but the "Thou art" kinda' throws you off a little. You know what it means, but he's a couple hundred years too late. Dono is the same. Kenshin refers to people as Kaoru-dono, Megumi-dono...You get the point, however in the Meji this kind of overly polite speech is outdated by three hundred years or so. Some people argue that this is because Kenshin came from the sticks, I think it's because he is taking great pains to be as far removed from the Battousai as possible. How much farther do you get than three hundred years ne? Sorry about that, I'm done. I swear. Oh yeah...They translate this in the anime as... "Miss" ugh.

De gozaru: In the English anime they translate this as "That it is." This is another one of Kenshin's outdated terms that no one would actually use in the Meji. I don't know why they bother tacking it on in the English though, since it isn't actually meant to be "That it is." but is meant to give a tone of subservience. It also makes it easier to tell the difference in voice patterns when changing from rurouni to Battousai.

Ha: Cutting Edge

Mune: Blade back

Owari: End

Rurouni: Wandering swordsman. Not a real word. That Watsuke...What a genius! *sigh*

Saya: Scabbard

Sakabatou: Kenshin's reverse blade sword. This word also does not exist in real life! Watsuke-sensei made it up all on his lonesome.

Uchiko: Claystone powder used for cleaning. First the powder is wrapped into a hand-made paper, then re-wrapped in cotton or silk cloth. The powder comes through when patted on the blade surface. (If you've ever seen the Highlander III movie, this is what Nekano is using when he's testing the sound resonance on the sword for imperfections and it makes that beautiful bell-like sound.)