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Baiken was a lot of things. Anji wasn’t sure that ‘animal lover’ was one of them. At least, not to the point where one following her home would be normal.
“Baiken!” Maybe he should have expected something weird. After all, Baiken had vanished rather abruptly, at least it was good that the only oddity was her being inexplicably followed by a crane. But it still confused him. They were in South Africa, how had she found a red-crowned crane…?
Well, that could be one of the many questions for him to ask while they caught up. Anji rushed out to greet her. “It’s good to see you! Leaving like that, you had us all worried! Where have you been?”
Though she opened her mouth to say something, Baiken was cut off by a burst of light and a flurry of feathers. Anji skidded to a stop and shielded his eyes. When it subsided, and he lowered his arm away, the crane had vanished. In its place was an…egregiously underclothed woman, wearing what he could only assume was some simulacrum of a maid’s outfit, if one took away enough of it for it to thinly skirt the line of a public nudity violation.
(Then again, maybe he wasn’t one to talk…)
“Uh…Baiken?” He glanced between the two.
“Mito.” Baiken greeted in turn, sounding more curt than usual. She gestured to the strange woman. “This is my…uh…”
“Wife!” The woman said, smiling brightly. “I’m Master Baiken’s betrothed!”
“...Iroha, this is Iroha.”
Anji found himself fumbling, still trying to process the shapeshifting crane and only having more bizarre information heaped on top of that. “Wh- you’re- what?” Baiken strode past him, with the woman following close by. “Baiken, where the hell have you been? What happened?”
“It’s a long story that makes no good goddamn sense, and if it weren’t for this,” she gestured to Iroha again, “I’d be convinced it was all a drunk dream.”
Baiken was one of the few people who could render him speechless, and while he typically found that endearing, now he just felt horribly confused. All he could manage was watching the two of them head off into the array of ramshackle buildings.
“Baiken-neechan!” He heard Chipp’s voice echo against the tent. “Why’d you bring home a stripper?”
Regardless of the fact that nobody really asked her to, Iroha immediately and happily assigned herself tasks around the village. She had a knack for- well, more of a proclivity, really, for domestic work, keeping things cleaned and organized. It felt like a bad act at first, some kind of overt schmoozing, but Iroha genuinely seemed happy doing the most minute and menial work…as long as it was for Baiken. Likewise, Anji hadn’t taken the ‘betrothed’ bit with any real seriousness, until he realized that Iroha’s interests seemed to start and stop with Baiken.
“Why are you so attached to Baiken?” He had asked, leaning back against the outside sink while Iroha scrubbed away at dishes. “I mean, she’s amazing, and talented, and beautiful, but- but why?”
Iroha kept her eternally-sunny smile on. “I told you, I’m betrothed to Master Baiken! I owe her my life as debt.”
“Why, though?”
“She rescued me,” she replied. “I was trapped as a bird, and had been caught in a net. Master Baiken found me and set me free. My life is now hers. I am forever indebted to her kind soul.”
‘Kind soul,’ that had to be some kind of exaggeration. Anji quirked an eyebrow. “Did Baiken tell you that you have to do all this housekeeping stuff?”
“Oh, no, not at all. But I want nothing more than my master to be adored and provided for. My only wish is my master’s happiness!”
The more he learned about Iroha, the more unreal she seemed. A shapeshifting half-naked crane-maid obsessed with waiting hand and foot on its self-proclaimed master, what part of that didn’t sound like some horny idiot’s fantasy? Maybe Iroha had gotten lucky that Baiken was uninterested in taking advantage of that. Baiken might not have been ‘nice,’ but she was still better than a lot of the alternatives that may have cut her loose.
Before he could ask another question, she suddenly dropped her cleaning rag and twisted her head around.
“Master Baiken needs help!” She announced, sprinting off just as quickly. Anji couldn’t think of anything else to do but chase after her across the village. Was that really something she could tell? Iroha was already plenty strange, so it didn’t feel completely impossible, but if it weren’t for her utter seriousness, he would have found that harder to buy.
‘Needs help’ hadn’t automatically equated to ‘in trouble’ in his mind, so the sight of bandits took him off-guard. Baiken had already thrown herself into fighting them off. Doing quite well, actually, so much so that Anji considered if Baiken needed his help at all, or if it would just be inconveniencing her.
A familiar burst of light told him that Iroha absolutely did not agree. In the form of a crane once more, she let out a shriek and launched herself into the fray.
For someone so demure, Iroha was absolutely vicious, making full use of her talons to tear up anything of the invaders that she could get within grasp. It was enough that Baiken actually stopped and stared at the carnage.
“...Wow.”
Anji would have smiled and nodded in agreement, if not for the odd, fond glimmer he spotted in his old friend’s eye.
++++++
“I’ve finished dinner, Master Baiken!” Iroha entered the room with a tray covered in bowls, the largest of which was placed in front of Baiken herself. “Loach soup! I hope it’s everything you could have wanted.”
“Uh, thanks.” The samurai seemed more resigned to Iroha’s constant presence than anything else, but upon taking a spoonful of the soup, she visibly perked up. “Shit, this is really good.”
“It is? I’m so pleased you find it satisfying!”
They’d set out another seat at the dinner table for the rapidly-growing group that Chipp hosted. Nagoriyuki’s still felt practically new before Iroha’s was added nearby. Anji couldn’t help thinking about the two of them in particular, having Nago stay with them was something he had found exciting and refreshing, so why didn’t he feel the same about their newest guest?
And no, Anji wasn’t jealous. Why would he be? Sure, Iroha was all polite, and pretty, and hardworking, and good at fighting…and dutiful…
He put his head down and took a spoonful of soup. And good at cooking, of course.
“So…a crane, Miss Iroha?” Nagoriyuki said, perched on his knees as she placed the last bowl in front of him. “Are you some sort of demihuman? Are there others of your ilk?”
“I don’t know. I’ve never met anyone else like me.” Iroha tucked the tray under her arm and found a place to sit at Baiken’s side. From his place across the table, Anji tried not to let his envy show. “I don’t think I know what a ‘demihuman’ is. All I know is that I must be at my master’s side!”
The rest of the night was relatively understated, Iroha’s phenomenal cooking aside. Even Nagoriyuki and Chipp seemed perfectly fine with her, so what was his issue? She was friendly and eager to be helpful, shouldn’t that have been endearing? Yet still, he found his jaw clenching between spoonfuls of loach soup.
As soon as everyone’s bowls were empty, the woman hopped out of her seat. “I’m so happy everyone enjoyed dinner! Give me your dishes, I’ll start cleaning."
“Don’t.” Said Baiken, grabbing her by one of the back-ribbons and pulling Iroha down onto her seat. She jerked a thumb towards Chipp. “You’re not gonna do all the housework. It’s his turn to do the dishes.”
“But- but really, I don’t mind!”
“And if she wants to do it, I won’t stop her!” Chipp tried for an innocent smile.
“The hell you will.” She snapped. “Chipp, man up and do the goddamn dishes.”
“Fiiine…” He gathered up the plates and sulked off.
Despite being flustered at first, Iroha was blushing after she settled back down. “You’re so wonderful, Master Baiken. You’re so kind to me…”
Anji watched the way her slender fingers held onto Baiken’s sleeve. He saw the way that Baiken didn’t pull away. And he found himself pushing away from the table, tossing back the tent flap that led back outside.
“Thanks for dinner.”
He didn’t have any sort of goal in mind. Walking off had just been instinct. Anji let himself wander aimlessly as the last of the orange light faded across the horizon, and the lamps lining the dirt path flickered to life. Vague echoes of other conversations sounded in the distance, but those were the only sounds to accompany him.
And for as much as he wished it, the fresh air gave him no sense of clarity. He couldn’t bring himself to think about any of the things that had been bothering him, to dissect and sift through and work them out. Some part of him just refused. Or maybe it just was the cold. Anji sulked back off towards his tent, reassured, at least, by the mental image of warm blankets to wrap himself in.
There was a smear of pink in his peripheral vision as he moved to open the canvas door. Baiken sat on a nearby bench, taking a long drag from her lit pipe.
“What are you doing here?”
“Figured you’d come by eventually. You’re acting weird again, so spill it.”
“I- I’m not sure what you’re talking about?”
“Oh, spare me.” She rolled her eye. “That works on Chipp. I’ve been around your ass long enough to notice when you’re being weird.” Baiken thumped the seat beside her with the heel of her hand. “Siddown.”
Reluctantly, he complied. Anji tried for an awkward chuckle. “Nice night, isn’t it?”
Baiken only responded with a scowl that bored into him. He folded his hands in his lap.”It’s Iroha.”
“What about ‘er?”
He shrugged. “Well…I guess, everything. She- she’s wonderful, don’t get me wrong. She’s really wonderful. Like, I can totally get why you spend so much time with her-”
“-so as soon as I spend time with anyone else, you take it as a personal attack.”
“No! Maybe…maybe a little…” It sounded much stupider when she said it out loud. “I just…”
“Just…?”
He sighed. “Yeah. It’s stupid, and I’m being petty. It’s just that we’ve been traveling together for so long, I was so used to it just being the two of us. And I know it took forever for you to get used to me, so having some random girl show up and automatically be all buddy-buddy with you, and you let her…I dunno, it kind of feels like I’m being replaced.”
“Ain’t you the one that wanted to come out here in the first place? To stop doing the whole ‘two-man-nomad’ thing?”
“Well- well yeah, but Chipp and Answer are different. They’re like co-workers. My relationship with them and my relationship with you is totally different. It’s not like I call them ‘Master’ or- ow, shit!”
A dense thunk echoed in his skull. Baiken kept her hand in a fist as Anji turned to look at her, rubbing the spot she had struck.
“What the hell was that for?” He said, hurt.
“For being a dumbass.” Replied Baiken. She settled back in her seat and took another inhale of smoke. “Don’t go thinking that just because I don’t shank anyone that smiles at me that it means I ‘like them better.’ Part of the reason I stopped being such a miserable piece of shit was because of you, remember?”
“W-wait, really?”
She snickered. “Fuckin’ hell, wasn’t being perceptive supposed to be your whole deal? I never asked her to do any of this shit, it’s not like I want to be spoiled like a damn princess, I just literally cannot get her to stop.”
Anji lowered his head, cheeks reddening. “I’m sorry. I should know better than this.”
“Yeah, you should. But I should also stop getting pissed off at stupid stuff so much. Ain’t that the whole point of us sticking together? Like I was saying, I can always go back to being that jackass that thinks everyone looking at me needs a good disemboweling.”
He didn’t know whether to laugh or recoil in horror. “Maybe don’t do that?”
“If you say so.” The samurai almost smiled. “You’re still my favorite idiot. Don’t fuckin’ forget that. Iroha doesn’t change anything about it, even if you’re gonna mope.”
Baiken had a good point. They had very different ways of seeing the world, even now, and part of their relationship was keeping the other in check. He was usually Baiken’s voice of reason, but he supposed he didn’t mind it being the other way around this time.
“Heh, startin’ to look like yourself again. Good. So sack up and get some self-esteem. It’s a good way to make new friends.” Baiken dragged her knuckles across his head, in a way that still stung but was much more playful than before.
“Right. You’re right.” He nodded. “Iroha doesn’t change anything. I’m still happy being around you, even if you’re married.”
“What?” Baiken tilted her head. “Anji, I’m not married to her.”
“Oh. Well, okay, I mean I wouldn’t have minded sharing-”
“Anji.”
“Sorry.”