Disclaimer: I own nothing!

Gift fic for a request from emilymai101.

Samurai High School is an excellent Japanese drama series and I highly recommend it!

The wooded clearing was carpeted with a lush expanse of sweet spelling grasses and wildflowers; a brook bubbled cheerily in the woods behind him.

Mochizuki Kotaro was dreaming.

He knew this due to the unreal quality of the landscape that surrounded him - the colours were a touch too vivid, the sounds just a little too muffled - but mostly from the presence of his ancestor sitting in the kneeling 'seiza' position before him.

Approaching the spirit that had cohabited with him in his own body over the last several weeks, Kotaro slumped heavily to a seat opposite the samurai, who looked up at his approach.

It was like sitting in front of a distorted mirror. Their two faces were as identical as their shared name, their physical ages the same. But where the modern Kotaro's hair lay limp and feathered around his head with his bangs falling across wide open eyes, the samurai's was pulled into a high tail, highlighting his sharp features and narrowed, stern, gaze. Where one teen slumped, knees pulled to his chest in a defensive posture, the other knelt with straight posture, hands on knees and brimming with self-assurance.

As the high school student studied his ancestor, he was being studied in turn. The silence stretched between them; not quite awkward, but not comfortable either. After a moment of locking eyes the samurai spoke up with a confident tone, each word said with deliberation and intensity.

"I must thank thee, my descendant. Thanks to your deeds I was able to settle my regrets and experience the future peace of this great nation!"

The samurai lowered his head in a sharp nod of a bow - the movement, like his tone, crisp and controlled.

Reaching up to rub the back of his head sheepishly the modern Kotaro replied in a far more casual and hesitant tone.

"Samurai-san, I suppose I should say thank you as well. I am not very good at looking out for myself, and I am not very smart either. It was nice...to have someone believe in me like Nakamura-kun and Nagasawa-san did - even if it was your actions that made it possible."

He ended this statement with a slightly clumsy bow of his own. Only to be whacked lightly over the head a moment later by the sheathed short sword of his ancestor.

"Kotaro-kun!" the samurai stated with a frown. "You do yourself an injustice. Your friends may have noticed your warrior spirit from my influence, but nothing I have done is not something that you yourself are not capable of or have potential for! Perhaps not with the sword, where my ability lies, but with your own cunning!"

The modern Kotaro rubbed the top of this smarting skull, and winced around his reply.

"Ok, ok. But did you have to hit me? That hurt," he pouted.

The samurai suddenly reached out to cup Kotaro's face in his callused palms. The boy froze at the unexpected contact.

"It is odd," samurai-Kotaro remarked, voice gentle, "to see a face so similar to my own make such an unfamiliar expression."

"It is also odd," high school-Kotaro replied, "to have your face kidnapped by a samurai-ancestor-spirit!"

The samurai dropped his hands with a hearty laugh. "That is indeed true! While reflective objects were not very common in my own time period, I know my own face well enough to be amazed at the strangeness of seeing it on someone else!"

The samurai reached out a second time to grab Kotaro's head, this time dragging the high school student into a rudimentary headlock and ruffling his hair, Kotaro yelping in surprise.

The samurai laughed loudly for a second time. "Perhaps this is what it is like to have a younger sibling!" he stated with a wide smile.

"In that case," modern Kotaro intoned, a sudden mischievous light entering his eyes, "revenge is in order!" And he suddenly squirmed around in the others grip to attack the samurai's side with a series of tickles.

The samurai's deep chuckles took a turn for the hysterical, and the pair flopped in the grass with laughter and giggles in a short war of tickling, and noogies.

After a few moments they sprang apart to lie on the grass acing the sky, panting with exertion and still gasping with laughter.

"I have not had such childish fun in a long time!" the samurai Kotaro exclaimed, still gasping with laughter, topknot askew, the modern Kotaro nodding in an agreement around his own stifled giggles.

"I will miss you, I think," Kotaro said, suddenly somber, "when you move on."

"I am not gone yet," was the rebuking reply. "There are still many parts of this new world I would like to see."

Kotaro smiled.

"And, until you become capable, you will need someone to help you against the 'kanbustu'!"

Kotaro suddenly mock-frowned, knowing he was being teased. "Hey!"

And then he woke up.

*Kanbutsu - Samurai-Kotaro uses this term often in the series and is referring to what he is calling a "cunning man" or "crook" - usually a bully or thug.