Chapter One

Hello All! I'm back with a new story! This is the third in my ShinKumi series, set after Out of the Ordinary and The Substitute, which you might want to read to understand parts of this story. If not, just shoot me a message and I'll try to help clear up any confusion. =)

Sawada Nanako learned fairly quickly that her family wasn't normal.

The first instance she could remember was when she wanted to bring a katana to school for Show and Tell.

"But whyyyyy?"

Her father sighed. "Because, Nanako, you can't bring a weapon to school."

"But whyyy?"

"Because someone might get hurt."

Nanako gave Shin an offended look. "Grandpa taught me how to hold a 'tana right. I won't get hurt."

Shin bit back a grin. "Grandfather taught you how to hold a katana correctly. And other people might get hurt. Not everyone knows how to be safe around weapons."

"Why?"

"Because not every family has katanas." Shin answered patiently.

Nanako's eyes grew wide. "Some peoples don't have 'tanas?"

"Most people don't have katanas."

She stared at her dad as if he had sprouted horns. "They don't?"

He shook his head. Trying to wrap her head around this earth-shattering information, Nanako checked on all the other things she considered normal.

"Do most peoples have… have… grandpas?"

Shin laughed. "Yes, Nanako, most people have grandpas."

"Do most peoples have ramen?"

"Yes."

"What 'bout aunties?"

Making a face, Shin responded, "Well, not quite like your aunties. They're… special."

"What 'bout morning training?"

"No. Very few people have morning training. Mostly just crazy people." He rotated his shoulder and winced at the heel-sized bruise that was developing.

"Like you and Mama?"

Laughing, Shin scooped Nanako up and rubbed her nose with his. "Yes. Exactly like me and Mama."

…

The next time was when she was trying to complete a project in class.

"Miss Teacher!" She waved frantically.

"Yes, Sawada-chan?"

"I don't have enough room on my paper for everyone."

"Now, Sawada-chan, this is just supposed to be for your immediate family, not everyone you know."

"But this is my medium family!"

"Well, let's just focus on who lives with you. Do you have brothers or sisters?"

Nanako shook her head.

"Okay, so who else lives with you?"

"Mama and Daddy, and Grandpa."

"See, that's not so many. Now, let's write them-"

"And Uncle Minoru and Uncle Tetsu and Uncle Reita and Uncle Wakamatsu and Uncle Makoto and -"

By now most of the class was staring at her.

"How many uncles do you have?" The kid next to her asked in disbelief.

Nanako shrugged. "I dunno. I can only count up to twenty."

…

She also discovered a few nastier ways people had of telling her that her family was different.

"Give it back, Handa!"

The seven year old boy holding her onigiri sneered at her. "Only good guys get lunch, so you don't get any." He stuck his tongue out at a simmering Nanako.

"Just give it back, okay? I'm hungry."

"My dad says your family is a bunch of low-life criminals."

Nanako stood up slowly. "What?"

"That they're just a big bunch of bad guys. And your grandpa's the biggest thug of all."

Her eyes narrowed behind her glasses. "What?"

"Your. Grandpa. Is. A thug." Handa smiled, showing all of his perfect teeth before Nanako punched him in the face and knocked out three of them.

.

"Now, Sawada-chan, we expect more of you. You haven't caused any trouble before, and-"

"Nanako!"

She looked up at her mother's voice, and saw both parents stop at the sight of her. Her pigtails were askew, her glasses bent, and her shirt was covered in dirt and blood.

"What the hell did you do?" Her mother asked before Shin elbowed her and motioned to the shocked principal.

"Oh, uh, sorry about my language. I'm just surprised, is all. What happened?" Yankumi used her usual tactic of pretending her erratic behavior didn't exist and trying to distract any witnesses.

The principal still gave her a look before explaining, "We're not sure. Kento-kun claims that she just attacked him with no warning-"

"She did!" The boy in question shouted, who was sitting as far away from Nanako as possible, then flinched as Nanako glared at him.

"But," The principal continued, shooting Kento-kun an authoritative frown, "we found Sawada-chan's lunch box scattered on the ground, so we think she may have been provoked."

All three adults looked at Nanako, who was staring firmly at her shoes.

After talking to the principal, her parents escorted Nanako outside, where her mother wasted no time trying to figure out the situation.

"What were you thinking? A boy stealing your lunch is no reason to forget everything we taught you about fighting and violence! When you know how to fight, you have a responsibility to know when to fight and when to walk away. Even if he did look like a smug little-"

"Nanako," Shin said softly as he crouched down and peered under his daughter's shield of hair. She slowly looked up to meet his eyes. "What's going on?" He asked gently.

She scuffed her toe against the ground, then asked, "Are we bad guys?"

Her mother stopped mid-rant, then joined Shin at Nanako's eye level. "Is that what he said to you?" Yankumi inquired quietly.

Nanako nodded at the sidewalk.

Yankumi let out a breath and looked at Shin in concern.

"Are we?" Nanako asked again.

Her father met her gaze. "No. We are not."

"He said that Grandpa was a thug."

Without looking, Shin's hand shot out to grab Yankumi's arm before she ran off to give the boy a piece of her mind as well.

"Do you think Grandpa's a thug?" Shin questioned, not releasing his wife's arm.

Nanako shook her head vehemently. "No. But why do other people?"

Yankumi, once again focused on her daughter, sighed, then answered, "Because some other clans are bad people. Some of them hurt people, some of them steal money, and so people think that all clans are like that."

"But we're not? We're good guys?"

"What do you think?" Shin repeated.

Nanako thought back to how people in her neighborhood reacted when her grandfather and parents went into the market. Everyone was happy to see them, and even though he tried to hide it, Nanako could see when her grandfather talked to people, he often gave them money as he congratulated them on a new baby, or nodded sadly at the word of someone's passing.

The same respect expanded to her, as she was regularly given food to take home by people in the marketplace. When she asked the lady who pressed two fresh octopi into her hands why they were giving the food away, the woman simply smiled and said, "Because Kumicho takes care of us."

"I think… I think that we're good guys."

"Because we don't hurt people?" Shin asked in his teacher voice.

"No… well yes, but… because, because we help people. Grandpa, and you, and Mama, and Minoru and Tetsu, you all take care of people. That's what makes us good guys."

Her mother smiled and ruffled her hair vigorously, with tears in her eyes. "You're growing up so fast!"

"Mama!" Nanako shouted, trying to fix her already lopsided pigtails.

Suddenly, the doors behind them burst open to reveal a sour looking man pulling Handa along behind him.

The little boy gasped, and whisper-shouted, "Dad, that's her!"

The man, who was clearly Kento-kun's father, marched up to Shin and Yankumi. "Well, I hope you see what a negative environment you are bringing your child up in. Behavior like this only results from a truly appalling lack of good parenting, which is no more than I expected from a family with such poor role models."

Shin was amused to see identical expressions of anger flash across both his wife's and daughter's faces. Before either of them could escalate the fight from the afternoon, Shin simply responded, "Huh. That was exactly was I was going to say."

Both children and adults stared at him.

"What are you talking about? Your kid is the one who started the fight!" Kento-san replied angrily.

"My daughter was defending her family's honor. If at seven years old, your son knows only how to steal lunches and besmirch the name of others, then it's clear that he is growing up with a truly terrible example of what being an adult looks like."

Kento-san's mouth hung open.

"Yankumi, Nanako, let's go." Shin picked his daughter up, turned around, and walked away without a backwards glance.

By the time they were halfway home, Shin noticed Yankumi kept looking at him out of the corner of her eye.

"Something stuck in your eye?" He said after a while, then saw her eyes shimmering with unshed tears.

"I love you." She told him, then pulled him in for a kiss.

"Ewwww! Mama, Daddy stopppp!"

Her parents turned to look at her and she remembered that she was in trouble. "Oops."

As Shin set her down, Yankumi put her hands on her hips. "Alright, young missy. What is the first rule of fighting?"

Nanako sighed. "Fighting is only to be used as self-defense or to protect someone in danger."

"Was someone in danger today?"

"Handa was in danger of being a jerkface." She muttered, but her mother heard anyway (though she could have sworn she heard Shin stifle a chuckle).

"Nanako!"

She sighed again. "No, no one was in danger. But it was self-defense!"

Yankumi ignored her rebuttal. "Since you fought someone who was weaker than you and there was no one in danger, you will be cleaning the entire back porch until it shines."

"But-"

Shin interrupted. "No buts. You heard your mother. As soon as we get home, you can get Minoru to show you where the rags and bucket are, and then you start on the porch."

Reaching the Oedo residence, Nanako trudged into the house to find where Minoru kept the cleaning solution. She was moving slowly enough that she heard her parents' conversation from behind her.

"Only the porch? You're either getting soft, Yankumi, or going really easy on her."

"Of course I am. She won, didn't she?"

Shin laughed. "I'll go ask Minoru to make some hotpot for tonight."

Suddenly feeling much lighter, Nanako skipped over to the cleaning closet and started filling up the bucket with water.

Sure her family was different, but she wouldn't trade it for the world.