>>5986195>>5986198>>5986212>>5986228>>5986295>>5986358>>5987066>>5991757>>5992151>>5994726>>5999283>Will of Fire spent. You have 2.You’re uneasy. That encounter was weird. Actually, weird might be too light of a word. Ominous fits more. A pervading sensation of threat and doom prickles at the back of your neck, as it has since you slaughtered the bandits at the bridge. It’s growing more intense now, that sense of impending judgment.
It's been several hours since you left the Takoyaki stand, and spirits are high. The civilians are realizing that just because there are bandits in the region doesn’t mean it’s a total war zone. For the vast majority of people living here having a bunch of revolutionary bandits prowling in the woods and setting tolls meant nothing. If you weren’t coming or going and you kept your head down, nothing had even changed. Bolstered by the arrogance of not seeing anything go wrong yet, the civilians in your party are optimistic. Nothing could go wrong.
While you peer obsessively at your sensing water sphere, your sensation of dread hits a peak.
You crane your neck back and forth scanning the trees and the trail, but can’t find a reason. The sensing water sphere is devoid of anything that would sound an alarm.
Paranoia, you suppose.
—
>You are Hotaru Nakagawa.When you’ve been in enough conflicts you get a sense of what an opponent is capable of just by looking at them. A split second of eye contact is all it takes.
Eye contact with Fugetsu revealed a fairly simple message: That he was going to fight. If he were to fight while your kids and the civilians were there, they would die.
Presumably he could read the inverse in your eyes: That you were also going to fight, and if you took losses he would be guaranteed to die.
It’s a temporary impasse. You couldn’t lose anyone, and he couldn’t afford to turn you into someone who had nothing to lose.
So the caravan leaves. It’s a blessing that you had grown accustomed to hiding in the trees, because they fail to recognize your absence while you remain, lurking at the takoyaki stand with this animal in your sights. It was in both of your best interests to wait until they were gone. In the meantime, Fugetsu smugly smokes his cigarette while he slowly meanders into the woods. His motives were unknowable. Perhaps he still had enough lingering integrity from his honorable position as a bodyguard to keep this fight away from bystanders on principle, or perhaps he just valued a fair duel for its own sake.
Regardless, he leads you into a clearing a fifteen minute walk away from anyone else. You can’t hide without him noticing, his perception is too sharp for you to attempt to gain that advantage without triggering a response. You need to make a move, but he’s ready.
Fugetsu comes to stop and turns to face you. You land in the soil of the forest about twenty feet away.
