Dacheng drifted in and out of consciousness. He remembered falling. But then, he suddenly stopped with a jerk which knocked the air out of his lungs. And then he got pulled up by someone - but then they were complaining about his weight?
When he regained consciousness, a sweet-smelling towel had just been lifted off his eyes. Someone was applying medicine to his wounds and dressing his injuries. Dacheng jerked up in shock.
"You were too careless, foreigner." The young Japanese man applying the medicine said, stressing the word 'foreigner'. "The name's Nijō Rin… I'm a student here. I don't personally approve of it, but Master says you could be a student here too."
"... Yeah, well..." Dacheng briefly paused but quickly shot back. "You're even more careless saying your name to a total stranger - and a foreigner on top of that!"
"Heh." Rin laughed snidely. "Startin' to regret haulin' you up an hour ago."
Rin was a tanned man whose golden dyed hair fell in spiky chin-length bangs that covered his right eye. He looked a little older than Dacheng, probably around university age. And as for his clothes, he was wearing - what was he wearing? A Chinese/Japanese style outfit? Dacheng wasn't sure, and the swimming goggles around his bronze-toned neck didn't help.
"Aren't ya supposed to thank me for savin' your life, foreigner?" Rin asked in a sarcastic tone, again emphasizing the last word.
Dacheng observed that, like water, the man in front of him seemed to have his own hidden undercurrents despite his calm surface.
But before Dacheng could return fire with another snark of his own, Mr. Tendō walked in alongside someone familiar - the ninja from earlier.
"So, you're finally awake, young man!" Mr. Tendō said with a smile.
"...Mr. Tendō?" Dacheng asked.
It dawned on him where he was now - the ryokan!
The ninja next to Mr. Tendō suddenly spoke up. "Oh, it's you again, lad!"
"It's you?!" Dacheng said in surprise.
The ninja removed his face covering to reveal a neatly styled middle-aged man with a broken black pencil mustache, which he began to comb with a finger.
"Lad, my name is Fukuro Ichirōbei!" he said. "I'm glad to make your acquaintance!"
"..." Dacheng didn't know how to react, so he returned the greeting. "So am I. Thank you."
Mr. Tendō suddenly spoke up, "Young man, allow me to introduce my other students."
A young man and woman entered the room.
Dacheng was belatedly shocked.
He couldn't believe it - he was in the presence of an actual ninja master and his students - and he was being considered to be one of them!
Dacheng reminded himself to write this down in his journal once he returned to his room.
Mr. Tendō introduced some of his other students as Fūsen Keitarō and Hanamichi Sakura, whom Dacheng recognized as the girl in the garden.
Keitarō and Sakura were decent youths with almost nothing questionable about how they walked or talked, although Keitarō did all the talking.
What was strange about them, however, was how young they were. Keitarō was thirteen, and Sakura was fifteen. They were around the age of high school students, just like him. But unlike him, they had probably been training in the arts of ninjutsu since they first learned to walk.
Keitarō had spiky black hair that reminded one of a hurricane, with locks of hair that seemed to spin out from a certain point on his head.
And it seemed he was like a hurricane in other ways - he was energetic, spry, and a little fidgety. He had almost talked Dacheng's ears off just introducing him and Sakura, but as he was starting to go off-topic, a cough from Mr. Tendō silenced him.
As for Sakura? She was pretty and average, pretty average if one would. She resembled a cute ghost with her long, dark hair and silent nature.
If Yuhua was a flower that had begun to bloom on a gray mountain, Sakura was a flower closed off from the rest of the world. Even if this flower didn't have thorns like the kunoichi Dark Lily, Dacheng felt awkward around her.
"Oh, by the way- what's your name?" Mr. Tendo asked Dacheng. "I don't want to keep calling you young man!"
"My name is Dacheng. Yun Dacheng," Dacheng answered truthfully.
"Alright, Dacheng!" Mr. Tendō said. "Don't worry about the girl - my other students, Daichi and Nejirō, are looking for Anzen Ritsuko as we speak! It appears the Devil Storm Clan has recaptured her."
Dacheng remembered the suffering Dark Lily would have inflicted upon Ritsuko. A chill ran up his spine.
"Really?!" He stood up and got ready to leave. "I have to go help!! I promised her I'd bring her home!!"
"But real quick," he asked, jogging in place, "how do you guys know English?"
"We ninjas need to learn lots of languages and secret codes," Keitarō confidently explained. "English just happened to be one of them."
"Oh, okay," Dacheng said. He ran off.
Wincing a lot, he checked in with his parents.
"Cheng-er," his mother asked with some concern, "where have you been?"
"I brought the girl home, but now I have to go to the bathroom."
"OK," his father said, "hurry up - we're going on a night market tour tonight."
"Yes, Dad," Dacheng said. He quickly sprinted off.