Kimura Amana
Morning
Toukaidou Highways
The guard nods, accepting your reasoning, though Akaiittou seems to grumble— as much as something like it can grumble, anyway— at no promise of further violence. And with that, you head on your way, back to the roads.
Edo’s not far, now. The forest starts thinning, villages and city outskirts visible on the horizon. Farmers and villagers marvel at you as you pass, and you start to notice now that you’re a bit more blood-soaked than you’d like. Nothing a nice rest at an inn can’t fix, anyway. At this rate, you should arrive at your destination before noon.
But as you make your way through one of the outskirt villages, you come across a strange sight.
Kurogane Kanae
Morning
A Village at Edo Outskirts
You feel leers all about you, as you speak to the clearing. As if on signal, the men start stepping out of their shadows, surrounding you on all sides, faces twisted into malice. You count about twelve of them, but from the looks of it, they were all typical thugs, just like all the rest.
“Ya think we’re just gonna let what ya did to our boys here slide, huh!?”
A man steps forward, with an ugly face and a thuggish accent, wearing a short blade on his side and a cocky expression, sizing you up. His hand is tense, ready to reach for his blade. He looks at you as if he’s not the one shorter than you.
You hear murmurs about the thugs, picking up phrases like ‘Doesn’t look so tough’ or ‘This is who they got beat up by?’, words just as cocky as the leader who stepped forward, save for the fact that none of them seem keen on approaching you themselves. Even the leader keeps a safe distance, about five or six meters. The only ones who don’t seem so cocky among the bunch are some familiar faces— save for a black eye— one of the thugs you beat up at the inn. Only he wears an expression of fear and betrays real wariness, as if he’d love nothing better than just to run.
It’s a pain, a bunch of bullshit you shouldn’t have to deal with, especially when you have something so important to do, except—
You see it in the distance, a short distance away. Horse drawn carts, a carriage carrying something, armed guardsmen— and a woman— and some of them bloody. They came from the highways.
You can feel it, finally. This is what you’ve been looking for. And yet—
“Hey, HEY! Where tha’ hell do ya think you’re looking, HUH!? You deaf or somethin’!?”
You have your hands full with an unpleasant distraction.
Kimura Amana
Morning
A Village at Edo Outskirts
You see a girl being accosted by a bunch of thugs.
You can’t quite pick up their words, but you hear angry yelling, see tattooed men surrounding the girl at the village square, which you and the escort would pass by. The girl herself is tall and armed, as far as you can tell. She doesn’t quite look like a samurai, or a member of the Edo police, nor does she look like a yakuza herself. But she seems to look about herself with irritation at it all, of this whole situation.
Normally, such an incident has nothing to do with you, strictly. If anything, the police could probably handle it, if they make it in time. But that’s not what you’re thinking about.
You feel the presence of a demon.
A bead of sweat rolls down your forehead, and it’s not from the beating sun. Your blood’s heating up, and Akaiittou too seems to be waking up from his slumber, at the promise of imminent bloodshed. You feel a demon in their midst, but can’t quite pinpoint its location.
Someone among that crowd, someone dangerous.