A Return to Nature [Krim]

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For a moment Saizomaru remained in his semi-trance state. He was brought back to reality, however, as soon as he saw another face in the water’s reflection. His head jerked back a little, turning slightly to the person who was standing beside him, eyes glancing through the curtain of hair that framed his pale face.

The girl was young-looking, no older than late teens to early adulthood. The only exotic feature of her was her pointed ears—a tell-tale trait of Konatsians, to which the android was not familiar with aside from being an alien race from a far-off world. The rest of her was unassuming; her outfit was that of standard casualwear that one could pick up from B.K. Max or DropShop for an affordable price, yet fashionable. Not that he knew much about fashion in the slightest.

His eyes trailed the young woman as she sat down on the bench beside him, though leaving a foot-wide gap between the two of them. After a pause, he reclined back with her, arm slung along the top of the backrest. She spoke, her voice soft and soothing. It was like a breath of fresh air for Saizomaru. It made him feel a little more at ease.

”Yeah, guess so,” he replied, his voice crescendoing from a low mutter to a more clear, cheerful tone. He gave a small smile as his fingers tapped on the armrest. ”Feels like it’s been a long winter. It’ll be good to finally get into the spring season.”

He paused for a moment, then asked, ”You’re a Konatsian, right? Not seen that many of you around these parts.” It was a half-truth. He had one or two Konatsians marked when he was in the army—kill targets included. It made Saizomaru feel uneasy for a moment to ask her. At least she seemed like a nice person, much different from the others he had confronted.

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It felt rather nice to be able to get to know someone fairly quickly and easily, Saizomaru thought to himself. The girl was open about her ancestry, something that wasn’t normally learned until they became familiar. It was a surprise to him that a stranger would be readily willing to share it.

”Ah, half-breed, huh? Seems to be a lot of you around the place. S’good to see different races mingling with one-another. Another step towards galactic peace, I guess… or something like that.” He shifted his eyes to her again, seeing her touching her ears. He couldn’t help himself; his hand on the back of the bench shifted forward a little and lightly flicked the tip of her ear with his finger. ”Nothing wrong with being different. When you live long enough, get to see many people, many places, you realize that everyone is different in one way or another. No such thing as ‘normal’, really.”

Saizomaru felt it more than possibly anyone else. He was human, once. Now, he was a machine. It was still him underneath it all—his change was skin-deep, so to say. But as soon as he said those words, he had begun to feel a little better about himself.

His eyes shifted down to her hand, seeing it outstretched as though to offer a handshake. She was polite enough to introduce herself first. If only everyone was as polite as her, Saizomaru thought to himself. With a smile, he met her hand with his and held it gently, not wanting to risk crushing it under his improved, artificial strength. ”Name’s Saizomaru. Friends call me Sai. So, you can call me Sai from now on, yeah?”

Giving her hand a gentle, single shake, he took his hand away and placed in back a top of the bench rest. ”University student, huh? Whatchya studying? Wait, no, let me guess—animal care? Maybe fashion design? Oh! Maybe hairdressing!”

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Saizomaru gave a nod. ”Oh, yeah, loads of half-breeds,” he replied. ”Half-saiyans, half konatsians, half… whatever else there is. Hell, even humans and zoanthropes have had successful couplings. But, y’know, that’s none of my business, really. I’m not here to judge.”

Even he himself was a half-breed. Saizomaru knew all about his ancestry dating to the first-born of the family nearly two-hundred years ago. His greatest ancestor was half-saiyan, half-heran. It wasn’t until the last few generations that human genes made their way into the family’s genealogy. Not that he really bothered to mention it to anyone. For the most part he was human.

As Krim spoke, the android glanced absently up and outwards towards the buildings in the distance. ”Ehhh… I guess you could say so, yeah.” He reached into his robe’s inside pocket for a moment. When he pulled his hand out, between his fingers he held a medal, gold-gilt and lined with silver cherry blossom petals fastened to a red ribbon. Those who knew about military awards would recognize it as a Medal of Honour; this one specifically for risking one’s life to save others. ”Did a lot of touring around the world when I was in the army. Got to visit a whole buncha places but never really got to ‘see’ any of it. Y’know what I mean?”

He turned the medal in his hand and glanced down at the face of it. He remembered how he felt when he had received it. He remembered more so how his parents celebrated when he came home to show them. He had saved many people during his years of active service. Now, it made him feel empty. He had earned his stripes at the cost of his humanity.

Without a word he put the medal away. ”But, y’know, that’s all behind me now. Now I get to see the world as a civilian and not as a soldier.”

But it wasn’t about him. He doubted the girl was as interested to know about his career as he was to know about her future. With a smile he turned on his seat to look directly at her. ”Performing arts sounds awesome. First, we’ll see you on TV. Next, we’ll get to see you on the big screen.”

Then, something else piqued his interest more than anything else. ”Oh? Kenjutsu, huh? Didn’t think someone like you would be proficient in the sword.”

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Saizomaru gave a shrug of his shoulders. ”Don’t really need any appreciation or thanks or some stiff-upper-lip, pencil-pushing ceremony,” he replied with a half-smile on his face. ”I’m not hero. I’m just a man doing what he was trained to do, that’s all. Keeping the world safe is the only reward I need.”

But it was more than that. For nearly two decades he had serves in the military, five of those years he had led his own special forces unit, ‘Goblin Six’. He had seen many people die in that time—too many people—and even more disfigured and crippled for life. He had to sit through so many eulogies and burials that he became immune to death itself—an unfeeling heart to go with his unfeeling body. After all that had happened, he had only a handshake and a lump of metal to immiscibly congratulate and comfort him.

Still, it hadn’t been all bad. ”Where haven’t I been?” he said with a humourless chuckle. ”There’s a lot of hidden and inconspicuous bases and outposts all over the world. Depending on where our next mission was, we would be stationed at a nearby base. Mount Paozu, Diablo Desert, Kaiju Jungle, Yahhoy Port—our tours took us to every single environment and biome you could think of. When we weren’t on active duty of held on standby, we’d go and visit the cities and villages nearby, though more often than not we’d be stuck at camp going through training drills or mission briefings.”

It was something he had planned to do for the rest of his life. He didn’t think for a second that he would become so dissatisfied and disenfranchised would military life. Unlike Krim, he didn’t have the foresight to come up with a plan B but maybe that just allowed him to live day by day and be surprised by all the new things he could see in the world through the eyes of a normal person and not as a soldier. ”Well, if things don’t work out, you always have other talents.”

Of course, he was referring to her sword-fighting background. She didn’t look the type but Saizomaru could see that she had an inkling of a fighter’s spirit in her eyes. ”Kenjutsu is kenjutsu,” he said adamantly. ”Just a word for sword fighting, really. I’m interested in how konatsian swordplay differs from Earth techniques, though. I’d look forward to testing my Mushou-Ryuu against it.”

Then, it came to him like a flash of light. ”Y’know, the movie industry pays a lot for personal trainers for their actors, right?” he leaned forward slightly. ”If the acting biz doesn’t do it for you, then you could teach martial arts and action choreography. That could be your Plan B.”

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The android had to pause and think about it for the moment. ”Well… I guess my favourite place would be the cities,” he answered. He hummed as he leaned back against the bench again. ”Lotsa places to see and go to, especially the parks. Nature’s always been my go-to place, especially for some self-reflection. That… and it’s where the most people need saving. I guess helping others is just second nature to me now. ‘You can pull the man from service, but you can’t pull the service from the man’, or something like that.”

There was more to it than that. His whole family lineage had been dedicated to protecting the Earth right from the founding father to the youngest son—to him. He’d not share much information about his family’s history and purpose but it was what lead him to joining the army in the first place.

He wasn’t as secretive when it came to explaining the art of Mushou-Ryuu though, even though he should be—it was far more secretive than his family’s ancestry. ”I guess you can put it that way. Mushou-Ryuu is a martial art that’s been passed through the family, from father to son exclusively; teaching it outside of the family is forbidden. But not every style of it is the same; every practitioner adds something new to it or styles it around themselves. My father added the use of the sword to his style and I guess I wanted to do the same.”

Even near his forties, Saizomaru still looked up to his father as his beacon of inspiration and purpose. He had learned so much from them, not only about martial arts and the path of Mushou-Ryuu but also about life in general. It was his father that helped him come to terms with who and what he had become.

Perhaps that’s what Krim needed; some self-confidence and assurance in her own strength. ”There’s more to be learned from defeat than in victory. Losing’s all a part of growing, y’know. Still, if you wanna spar, I wouldn’t say no to it.”

At least she was more confident about her potential job prospects than she was with her own fighting skills. The two were relatively the same anyway. Training students, training actors, both put her in the same position; to practice fighting and to show off one’s skill. The more experienced she was, the better of a trainer she would be. ”Eh, don’t mention it,” he said with a save of his hand. ”What’s important is that you do what you wanna do. Follow your heart or whatever it is they say in those cheesy films and cartoons people watch nowadays.”

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The android gave a smile as he thought about what the girl had just said. ”You’d be surprised just how much of the planet gives the best of both worlds,” he responded as he shifted on his seat, turning to look over his shoulder behind him. ”If this city were a circle, then nearly three-hundred degrees around it is surrounded by coastline. The rest of the city’s perimeter has a nearby forest. Every other city besides Central is near the coast too. Every city and village on this planet has either forests, grasslands or mountains nearby. It’s almost perfect.”

He wasn’t sure of how much Krim travelled, if at all. He wasn’t really good at painting a picture for her even though he had practically every location on this planet memorized; it was one of those looked-over perks of being an android.

He turned back around to the front, crossing one leg over the other as he kept his gaze towards the lake once more. He snickered softly at the girl’s idea. ”Well, why not? Nothing wrong with making your own martial arts. Besides, it might bring you more students, and more students means more money.”

However, Saizomaru was a touch disappointed when she had turned him down for a little practice session. He could see it in her body language that she wasn’t comfortable with testing her skills though he could not pinpoint why exactly. Did she lack confident in her own skills, risking a display of amateurism in comparison to his own skills? Or was it something more? Regardless, he opted to not push it on her anymore. ”A’ight. I won’t force it on you,” he relinquished, voice as calm and assuring as it could be to not make her feel guilty about it.

Still, perhaps he could see her in action some other way. If she had a school, perhaps he could find it himself and sit in on one of their lessons. Another avenue would be if she did end up becoming a personal trainer. She had confidence in that much, at least. ”Well I’ll be rooting for you,” he said with a smile on his pale lips. ”Maybe you’ll get a million subs on BaoTube if you ever go online with it.”