Tenjo had quite likely spent more time in casual conversation in the past week than she had in the entire rest of her life combined, and her lack of experience showed. At first when she and her traveling companions were explaining how they had ended up together, it was fine, although she was rather lacking as a storyteller.

But once they switched to swapping stories and just chatting in general, it became increasingly clear how little of a life she had outside of the dojo. Jing already knew this, but the full extent was surprising even to him, and she slowly found herself becoming unreasonably embarrassed for the very attribute that was previously her sole source of pride.

Eventually, they had fallen into a silence, every attempt to start a conversation in the past two days lasting only a handful of sentences before they walked. At the moment, they had stopped for a while, having followed the path for several hours since starting out that morning.

Tenjo lifted the branch in her hands, steadily raising it to above her head in the time it took her to breath in deeply, and then slowly lowered it back down as she let the air out. The next time it was slightly faster, each swing continued until she was striking at full speed, although her breathing kept the same steady pace from the first motion.

The entire time, she faced against a tree one pace in front of her, imagining that the stick in her hands was a real sword, and that the unfortunate plant was an opponent, aiming to split it with each strike in order to focus her full power and accuracy into each swing despite hitting only air.

Normally she would use her katana for practicing strikes, but after having mercilessly abused it with constant combat, the blade had nearly a dozen places where it had suffered minor bends, the edge consisted mostly of nicks and places where chips of the steel had broken off, and the wrapping of the handle had started to come apart at the bottom.

In addition, sparring was always done with a wooden sword for obvious reasons, and without a proper replica, she was forced to rely on the best one she could make, even if it didn't have ideal weight and length, meaning that doing practice swings with it would help her adjust to the improvised weapon.

Her warmup finished, she turned away from the tree and back to the small clearing by the side of the road where Kyu-Son and Jing were. The former had also been warming up, while the latter cooking lunch in a small metal pot that he had the foresight to purchase when they first set out.

The other girl had stopped to talk, but she now faced Tenjo, hefting her own improvised arm and pointing with it.

"So you're finally done facing off against that tree, and you're ready to taste defeat instead?" She asked, a smirk forming on her face.

Tenjo answered with a nod, and then took up the middle stance where her sword was held at about waist height, with the tip pointing upwards to where if she advanced it would be pressed against her opponents throat.

It was the stance that allowed for the fastest attack or defense in any situation, with the blade already in front and needing to move the shortest distance to strike or to intercept an oncoming weapon.

Kyu-Son took a stance that was almost the reverse, drawing her sword back with the point aimed behind her, preparing for powerful swing while hiding her exact range and initial attack angle. The moment she finished; she began racing towards her opponent.

As she approached, Tenjo kept the tip of her wooden blade trained to just above the center of her mass, forcing the other woman to deal with it before coming within striking distance. However, Kyu-Son already had a tactic in mind to deal with it.

They had sparred dozens of times since they started travelling, and one thing had become painfully clear to her. Her opponent had a longer reach, and her raw strength and speed were both also noticeably higher.

In addition, the difference between one who had mostly self-trained, and one who had spent every day for years with advanced senior students and a master giving instruction manifested in the blatant gap in footwork and striking technique.

In a direct fight, she had no chance against an uninjured Tenjo. However, she did have one advantage. That ironically came about as a result of her unorthodox and inconsistent training. Training in a set environment with mostly known styles was entirely different from fighting in a place with no shortage of obstacles both all around and underfoot, against an enemy who was willing to improvise all manner of unpredictable attacks.

As she skidded to a stop just out of range, she kicked the ground, using the movement to both halt her own advance and to send chunks of earth flying up into her opponents eyes. This allowed her to follow up with a heavy swing that she put her full body into as she entered striking distance with her follow up step.

Before the dirt had hit her face, Tenjo had already realized there was no way to avoid being blinded for a moment. Instead, she moved forward while cutting down from where Kyu-Son's shoulder should have been, forcing the other girl to block instead of continuing with the devastating attack.

Despite not being able to see, she now knew the location of her opponent's weapon, and with that she could continue to throw out blow after blow, using the chance to let her eyes adapt while striking wherever the opposing blade wasn't defending.

A cut down to the head would be deflected off to the side, and then it would become a horizontal slash across the body, only to morph into an advancing thrust when the new target was moved out of the way.

Kyu-Son wasn't willing to even try to take the unceasing and ever-changing assault head on, giving ground while doing her best to defend against the intensifying blows. Her back hit a tree as she took another step back, and she slid around the trunk to behind it, having planned for this.

Tenjo was forced to pull her attack, and that moment was enough for her opponent to step back, bringing with her another heavy strike. Just like her sword, the wooden weapon was made heavier at the tip, and with her full force behind it, it was nearly impossible to stop directly, even with an advantage in strength.

The trick she would normally use would be to catch it on the guard of her katana instead, but her current weapon lacked one, forcing her to stop it as close to her hands as she dared and to be forced half a step back by the impact as both blades were stopped just short of her body.

Kyu-Son followed up by shoving, putting her whole body into an attempt to topple the other woman from an already unstable position, and strengthening the maneuver even more by pushing off the tree behind her with her feet.

Unable to prevent it, Tenjo’s stance gave out, and her head struck the ground, making her vision flash. She had let go of her sword with one hand, and when her opponent began to bear down on her with both hands, she had no choice but to slowly watch as they locked weapons descended until her opponents rough wooden blade was pressed against her throat.

“It’s your victory,” she said, accepting the hand the was offered to help her up. “You completely fooled me.”

Kyu-Son smiled, still heaving for air before replying. “Trust me, I’m going to take back the lead in wins. Just you wait.”

After eating, they continued on the path. It was a slow and winding one, and every minute it seemed there was another bend. When combined with the relatively narrow shape of it, running down it would be a recipe for disaster if it was even slightly commonly used.

Even so, there had been a handful of incidents regardless, with the person leading, typically Kyu-Son, nearly clashing headfirst against some random traveler unexpectedly around an angle that was a little too sharp, the trees not offering sufficient sight through the rare gaps.

As she now turned to corner a handful of steps in front of them, Kyu-Son came to a stop, with the other two following suit when they spotted what had halted her.

It was a low piece of the road, stretching out straight, at a sharp downward angle. Just walking down it and feeling the pull, it was easy to imagine tipping over and rolling all the way while picking up speed.

But it wasn't the tilt itself that had captivated their gazes, but what lie at the end, when it leveled out. That is to say, nothing.

Well-forested mountains were all that had entirely surrounded them so far, the only breaks being sharp rocky expanses that jutted into the sky and ravines of which the bottoms couldn't be seen. But now at the end of the path, the walls that had steadily been growing higher around them opened up suddenly.

For as far as the eye could see, there was nothing but open fields of crops and cultivated shallow valleys, until they faded away far into the distance into wild grasslands, giving an unimpeded view of the sky and land both.

“There’s a town,” Jing pointed out, as they emerged from the path into the open. “There, to the right.”

“It’s a little unexpected,” Kyu-Son said. “Not a lot of people travel this path, on account of it being too rough for carts, and difficult for horses and donkeys to walk up some of the slopes. I would expect any town to be right on the path, to make sure they can catch all of the limited passersby.”

“It’s only a few minutes away,” Jing countered. “Likely the ground was just better for building over there, and they figured that anyone who would have stopped by would be willing to make the detour anyways.”

It was a small village, one that made even Tenjo's hometown look large by comparison. Something seemed off, a persistent feeling that had no one main cause, but an amalgamation of little things, more instinct than logic.

The way that every single person stopped to look at them, as though they had no other jobs to be doing, yet they also didn't say a word to the strangers, no questions about why they were there, and no attempts to peddle goods or turn a profit.

Kyu-Son nudged her, speaking in a hushed tone. "Look at the buildings,"

"What about them?" She asked.

"They're well-made and maintained," She explained. "It's clear that they had enough money to use good materials, and enough time to build them in various designs and styles. But everything that could be valuable, the charms that should be hung over the doorways, the decorations and other things that would normally sit in the windowsills, they're all gone."

"What does that mean?" Tenjo said.

"I don't know," came the answer, "But nothing good."

The inn was full of patrons, with each one pausing their meal and putting down their drinks when they saw the newcomers enter.

"Will you be having a meal?" The woman at the front asked, a dull yellow curtain of hair bordering a face that seemed to hold perpetual stress.

"Yeah," Jing replied. "Preferably without the main course being staring, but I guess that's a local specialty here."

"My-my apologies," She stammered. "It's a small village, out of the way, and we don't get a lot of visitors, and even less disciples of the blade, so people have a tendency to look a bit more than would be considered polite."

“Surely it can’t be that rare for them to pass through?” Kyu-Son asked. “My own village was about the same size, and we got a decent number of traveling blades.”

The villager elected not to reply. “So, you are just passing through then?”

“Yes,” She replied. “We’re in a bit of a rush, so after eating and buying some provisions for the road we’ll be gone.”

The older woman wiped her brow with a worn handkerchief that looked as though it had once held a design before time and constant usage had caused it to fade.

“That’s rather good to hear, if you will forgive my saying so,” She explained. “I’m afraid due to a recent landslide outside of town; all of our rooms are currently occupied by locals. Please, this way.”

“Well, that explains some of it,” Tenjo said, judging their table far enough away as to not be overheard. “They sold some of their spare possessions, and are on edge due to the landslide.”

“No,” Kyu-Son said. “It’s the opposite. If there had been a landslide that destroyed houses, farmers wouldn’t have to money to live at the inn. Instead, they would be in the houses of family and friends in the area. And other villagers would help with the rebuilding, and send spare food, but they wouldn’t pawn off their valuables for something like this.”

“Additionally, they would have sent to a magistrate or lord for help, asking for a mage or aura enhanced laborers. They should be expecting help, or at least a rejection, not looking fearfully over their shoulders at anyone coming through,” She continued.

Jing narrowed his eyes. “You mean they’re lying to us? Why?”

The conversation was interrupted by a man who stepped into the inn, throwing the door open, with a spear in his hand and a sword at his waist. A few steps in, he stopped and looked around, other armed men filing in behind him.

"I've come for the current tribute," he said, projecting his voice throughout the room.

The moment his gaze fell on the three of them, Tenjo could see a change go over his body. Their eyes met, and without hesitation he hurled his spear at her while drawing his sword.

It was slow, and she had already caught the haft, intercepting the weapon mid-air before swinging the butt into his arm with enough force that it audibly cracked, the blow landing before his blade was even halfway out of its sheath.

The man behind him tried to cut her, a downwards motion of some type of broad-headed saber. Tenjo thrust the blunt end of the spear into his gut, bending him over and sending him back into those behind him, just the leftover force enough to knock all three that he hit off their feet.

As the rest of the bandits struggled to keep up, Kyu-Son was already also on the move, and she didn't have the curtesy to use less than lethal methods. Before many of the villagers in the inn had even processed the starting conflict, it had already been settled, blood seeping into the cracks of the floor and pooling around the living and dead alike.

Outside, one more man stood. A single look at the corpses was more than enough for him to turn tail and run, sending Kyu-Son bounding after him a second later as he made his panicked flight down the street.

On a sudden whim of instinct, Tenjo raced after them. Something was off about that man. If that man was a bandit, then why didn’t he have a weapon, in his hand or in his belt? And why were his clothes worn and the legs stained with mud, as though he just stepped out of the field?

“Wait,” She cried out, seeing her fellow swordsman pin her target to the ground, drawing back her sword with her free hand.

The woman froze, letting the man go free; her dark red eyes filled with a deep and unmistakable shame as she began to stammer apologies.

“I’m so sorry-I thought you-There were-,” She kept cutting herself off, before finally realizing her excuses were futile and falling silent as the newly freed man continued his escape without listening to any of the frantic words that spilled from her mouth.

Kyu-son forced herself back to her feet, and Tenjo could pick up the sound of her teeth grinding in her mouth from across the road, just barely audible.

“If you hadn’t yelled, would I have killed that man?” She asked.

“Would I have cut down some random farmer because I was all riled up with bloodlust and not thinking clearly?” Her fist repeatedly opened and closed as she asked the question, eyes aimed at the dirt while she waited for a response.

“But in the end, you didn't right?” She suggested. “We should go and speak with the villagers, right?”

“Yeah,” The other woman said, a faint quiver still in her voice. “We should probably go tell them that we’ve dealt with all of the bandits that were extorting them, and take care of the rest of them.”

Stepping around the bodies of both the living and dead, Tenjo felt a wave of sickness wash over her, and then forced it back down.

“They didn’t come here to be peaceful and get along with the people of this town,” She thought. “They were experienced in using weapons, but had no formal training. That means they had to have killed before, and if they were still alive, they would likely kill again if given half a chance.”

Even as the justification ran through her mind, she couldn’t help but feel a pang of relief that none of the ones she fought had been strong enough to force her to kill them. As the innkeeper from before walked out in her path, Tenjo stopped and gave a deep bow, doing her best to ignore the blood on the floor and the pervasive scent filling the air.

“I humbly apologize for myself and my companions making a mess. I would be more than happy to clean it and to escort the surviving bandits to a city equipped to punish them, as well as to pay compensation for any damage that occurred during our fight.” She said.

She looked up, and was met with a slap as she rose. The older woman’s blow was weak enough it barely stung, her aura blunting the attack to the point in didn’t even make her head move, and it took Tenjo a second to even realize that it was a strike at all.

“I’m sorry,” She started to say, giving another bow. “I understand that we’ve created a large issue here in this place that you rely on, and I am willing to pay whatever amount is needed to compensate the losses.”

The innkeeper’s face twisted. “This isn’t something that you can pay for with money.”

Her hand came up to deliver another blow before sinking back down as she realized the futility. Instead she just stood there while her next words came, heavy and slow, as if each syllable was a struggle to get out.

“Because of you,” she spat, in a tone laden with sadness and anger, “My children are dead.”