In the early afternoon, two wagons drive along the mountain road, carrying fish and cloth from Toyama, which is a port city, to the surrounding towns and villages. In the case of large boats, the novice fishermen themselves take the fish they couldn't sell in the port and city to other places, hoping to sell all that the sea has given. Both are young and wear short, blue, tattered nagagi kimonos with fundoshis underneath, geta clogs with larger teeth, typical of those who have to walk on the dirty floors of big city markets, and straw hats to protect themselves from the sun.

The donkey carrying the cart stops walking, stubbornly fighting against his owner. He tugs at the reins, trying to control the animal, but it doesn't move.

"Come on! Let's go! Come on, if you don't get to the nearest village by nightfall, those fish will start to stink and no one will buy them! Let's go!"

The owner of the other animal still walking makes him stop, waiting for his partner.

"What's going on there?"

"Come on! Ah! The animal is stuck here, wait and I'll fix it... Let's go! Come on! That's it! Keep going!"

The animal does two gallops forward and stops again.

"You've got to be kidding me, donkey!"

The other man lets out a sigh as if he can't stand to do any more manual labor under the blazing sun.

"Hey... just an idea... how about we stop working with these big boats?"

"Would you rather be free and die of hunger?"

The pessimistic fisherman takes off his straw hat and rubs the sweat from his forehead.

"No, think about it, if what we've been told is true, we can get a good buck out of this job, and..."

"Go on."

"What if we bought our own boat? A small boat, then we could easily fish and sell in the harbor, without worrying about having to sell the rest."

"It's true that these trips are killing me. I mean, we have to go up this road, through villages that nobody has money to buy the fish, to the next town, and if we don't do it fast, the fish spoil... it's quite a haul."

"And to be there and back in two days, before the boat leaves without us, and we can't join the next fishery."

"Yeah, that's too cruel!"

"If we had our own..."

A wooden stick hits the fisherman's head and causes him to fall unconscious.

"Fish, huh?"

Hideo places his foot on the fainted fisherman's back.

"Yuta?! You...! What did you do to him?!"

"I put him out, don't you see? He's alive, calm down."

The fisherman subtly hides his arm behind his torso, holding the handle of a knife at his waist. It is usually used for cleaning fish, but it works well in situations like this as well.

"You bastard, get out of my face!"

"Um... I don't think so. I'm taking all your fish with me."

"Who do you think you are?!"

The fisherman steps forward, propelling himself on Hideo with the knife in hand.

Tobi holds the fisherman by the back of his kimono collar, placing a wakizashi on the front of his throat.

"What's with merchants and hidden knives? Must be fashionable."

Haru appears from behind a tree.

"I said! It's always a knife!"

From the shadows of the forest around the road, from behind trees, from above big branches, from behind bushes, all the mountain thieves reveal themselves. They are relaxed, this time there were only two enemies, and one of them is already unconscious. Now they are fifteen in total. An easy victory. Their numbers have more to do with the fact that the food from the hideout has run out than with some sophisticated tactics. They chose to go all out to defeat the enemy quickly and satisfy their hunger as soon as possible. Even Gori came along this time, even though everyone knows that he is not much help in battle, he is one more person to intimidate the target and has a bow and a quiver of arrows. Bou brings with him a large basket full of weapons because Minamori wanted to prevent a possible new theft in the secret room.

The fisherman is surprised by the number of people that appear around him and drops the knife when Tobi tries to take it from his hand. He throws the knife to Izumi who catches it easily.

"Damn you... You, little thieves, have it coming...You won't get away with this!"

Chapter 8 - Ambush

Hideo replies, with a touch of sarcasm, making fighting gestures in front of the fisherman while Tobi still holds him immobilized.

"Oh yeah, I'm so scared! Have mercy on me, Oh great fisherman!"

All the thieves laugh.

"Will you defeat me with a fish knife?"

A chubby boy in fundoshi and bandana with a Masakari ax, answers:

"Careful Hideo, maybe he'll get you with a fishnet or something!"

"Ahahaha good one Fujiwara!"

The thieves surround the fisherman, taking over a small section of the road. Izumi pokes at the man lying on his stomach to see if he is alive, and is pleased to feel that he still has a pulse. A tall girl with short hair speaks:

"You are too kind Izumi, forget about this fisherman."

"That's not the case, you're the one who's too cruel, Naoki."

The girl rests a Tetsubo stick on her shoulder.

"Only with my enemies."

She winks at Izumi, whose cheeks turn slightly red.

Hideo turns the animals around while facing the merchant, who strangely seems to be tenser now than when a sword was placed in front of him. The leader goes to one of the fish baskets and opens the lid, but there are no fish inside. He casts a piercing glance to the fisherman. His voice changes completely.

"Why are your baskets empty, mister fisherman?"

"NOW! DO IT!"

Haru and a few other thieves immediately assume a defensive posture, a bit more crouching with arms slightly open, and look around, trying to anticipate somehow, if only for a second, a surprise attack.

An arrow cuts through the air and catches in the back of Tobi's left shoulder, who loses his balance and lets the fisherman escape as he ducks quickly and runs off down the road. The tall, dark boy lets out a cry of pain.

"GAAH! AH! Fuck! get him!"

Gori instinctively leaps backward and while in the air, his body fills with adrenaline. His left foot naturally steps backward, as if it knows that there is a tree there. Maybe his unconscious was plotting an escape route the whole time. At the same time, his conscious remains present and adjusts itself to serve in the battle that is about to begin. Unlike what some may think, Gori has never been a coward, but he understands his limitations as a warrior, his role is to inform, and at this moment no one knows from where the enemy is attacking.

He understands all this as he moves away from the situation, slowly hovering in the space of a second. When his foot finally touches the trunk of the tree, it seems to fit perfectly, as if that support was made for him. His concentration is such that he can see the whole road. No enemy in sight, and he concludes:

'I need to see more.'

The next impulse launches him to a much higher branch. This was the biggest jump of Gori's life. How long did it take him to get from the road to this branch? Less than two seconds.

Like an autodidact in the art of climbing this boy, who has spent his whole life in the trees, achieves mastery at this moment. The branches pass him like a shadow, as he simply slithers up the tree like a snake. The time it takes him to climb a fifteen-meter tree: Three seconds.

The fisherman comes face to face with a wall of three thieves, including Bou. A few more arrows fly in their direction.

Gori only time to make a quick alert but his voice can be heard by all. A shout that would save two lives in the next moments:

"More arrows from the south! LOOK OUT!"

Five arrows fly at the three thieves. One grazes Fujiwara's arm, and for the first time, he regrets not wearing armor. Two arrows go towards the back of Bou's head, and Bou turns and breaks them off in the air with his iron helmet, in a nimble headbutt that one would not expect from someone of his size. The other two arrows are aimed at the third thief named Tachibana, who turns quickly, but one arrow enters his skull through the eye and the other pierces the side of his abdomen. He dies before his knees even touch the ground.

"Enemies on both sides of the road, they are in twenty! No... thirty!"

The thieves with more delayed reactions, now realize that Tachibana has died and prepare for combat.

Bou sees his colleague drop dead. When he turns around again, grabs the fisherman by the collar and with uncommon force throws him, causing the poor guy to take off in a great arc that passes over all the thieves, falling on the side of Izumi and Naoki across the road with a loud noise followed by a scream of pain. He has broken some bone.

At the end of the straight section of road they meet, there is a curve and from it emerge three armed men on horses and nine other samurai on foot. They carry the kamon of the Maeda clan on a white banner. At the other end of the road, from a fork, another twenty warriors appear. None of them have horses, but they are very well-armed.

"I would appreciate it if you would return our man in one piece."

Says the captain, wielding his naginata spear from atop his horse.

Haru's heart soars, recognizing the face of the man he has been chasing for years. The eyes that looked with disgust at his father, when unarmed he tried to defend his family in a desperate gesture. That mouth smiled as he killed his mother who crawled on the floor while begging him to run away. He hated everything about him. That black armor disguised the number of bloodstains. The spear that had taken out his right eye. That bloody horse, which he had used to lead his men as he destroyed his village.

"That's him."

Haru says to Hideo, who understands immediately upon seeing the captain armed with a spear.

The fisherman cries out, with pain in his voice.

"You said there would be few thieves, that it would only be children! You Liar!"

"Shut up, fisherman! You will be rewarded, now come here, you have played your part."

Tobi breaks the arrow in his shoulder, letting out a muffled noise of pain. He walks among the thieves to the injured fisherman, with the wakizashi in his hand and darkness in his eyes. Those are the eyes of someone who understands that at this moment it's kill or be killed. In a gesture that makes the battle official, he takes off the fisherman's straw hat, holds him by the hair, and cuts off his neck, quickly releasing his head off his shoulders.

He looks at the captain, quietly, fisherman's head still in his hand. The silence before the storm.

A bird dances through the mountain air and takes a straight swoop, following the road, past the twenty warriors at the fork in the road, flying several meters to Minamori, Bou and Fujiwara, past the donkeys with empty baskets, Hideo, Haru, other thieves six thieves, past Izumi, Naoki, and Tobi, until flying for several meters to the captain on horseback and his eleven samurai. He points at Tobi with his spear and orders:

"Attack!"

Several samurai run toward the thieves. More arrows are shot by the archers at the captain's side. Tobi uses the fisherman's head to stop an arrow. Naoki uses her staff to fend off the arrows and Izumi rolls to avoid them.

One of the faster samurai comes up to Izumi, delivering a horizontal blow. She ducks, sliding under his legs, using two knives to cut the tendons in the heel of the warrior's feet. The previously fast samurai now realizes he has lost his ability to run falling to his knees in shock and suddenly receiving a blow that sinks his face and breaks his neck. Blood drips down Naoki's staff. The scene makes the other samurai a little more cautious in their advance.

Naoki takes advantage of the warriors' hesitation, delivering a powerful vertical blow to another samurai. This one tries to defend with his sword and succeeds, but his hand tingle from the impact of the staff.

'What a heavy blow...!'

Without giving him time to recover, Naoki executes her next blow, a straight punch causing her fist to sink into this samurai's face, causing him to fly and fall on his back, passed out, with a silly expression on his face, broken, bleeding nose and rolled eyes.

The other warriors run over him in their onslaught. Naoki ducks, dodging a sword that tries to decapitate her. She moves forward, still crouching, arching her shoulder into her enemy's belly and standing up, causing him to fly, rotate over her, and fall on his belly to the ground, running out of air for a few moments.

This samurai stands up behind Naoki and sees this giant woman attacking his companions. He tries to get up, thinking of attacking her from behind, but a female voice stops him:

"Don't even think about it, motherfucker!"

Izumi throws kicks at this man's head, causing him to spin in the air again and fall to the ground, unconscious.

"Attack from behind?! What kind of samurai are you?"

"You were also behind him when you kicked him..."

"And we happen to be samurai, Tobi?"

Tobi laughs and throws the decapitated head over the warriors, causing blood to rain down on everyone.

"That's right, no code of honor among thieves!!!"

The head whose trajectory was heading toward the captain is stopped by a large, cleaver-looking Zanbato sword. The side of the blade is large enough to stop the head like a steel board.

"Captain, the giant woman is mine."

"Go ahead, show me that taking you back was not a mistake."

Naoki sees a man a little taller than her coming toward her through the samurai. He shouts, telling the men that she is his opponent, on the captain's orders.

The samurai change their focus, running through her sides, attacking Izumi and Tobi. The giant girl tries to stop a warrior from running past her, grabbing him by the collar of his kimono, however, the Zanbato sword comes down on her. Tobi looks through the samurai at what is about to happen, and shouts:

"NAOKI, NO!!!"

The sword finishes its fierce movement. Blood spurts out everywhere.