Hayato put a hand to his forehead as Anzen paced. "Is that his arm!? Did you kill him??"

I just sat on my knees, staring at the still warm appendage. Blood creeped out of the hastily amputated joint as the fingers slowly grew grey and stiff. "No. He's alive. And the Doctor's already sunk his fangs into the poor bastards cranium."

Anzen finally broke out of his mumbling and shouted. "The damned Shogun still lives and now he's seen our faces! It's only a matter of time until he puts a price on our heads!"

Hayato mumbled to himself. "That Doctor..." But after his moment of contemplation, Hayato kneeled beside me and spoke calmly. "Then we have to keep moving to Mt.Fuji, right Kenshi?"

I nodded, still watching the chubby fingers lose their color. "Right."

Anzen shouted, still furious at our miserably failed attempt. "Right!? We were supposed to be clean and silent. I listened to you Hayato. I bought your entire sermon on making the world better by ridding ourselves of the Shogun. But now our names will be plastered over every wall in Nihon! Do you know how many people have chopped off the Shogun's arm before? None! And I believe I'm correct to assume he won't let us just get away with i-"

Hayato shouted back at Anzen in the hectic mess of a situation we were in. "Shut up!" Anzen stopped in surprise that his brother would lash back. Hayato continued. "You've always insisted to take the lead growing up. And I know that was important to survive, but I know as much as you do! And I know this is right!"

Survival? Something may have been more unusual about Hayato and Anzen than I first thought. Anzen took a deep breath and responded. "This is still a big pile of shit we've got ourselves into, Hayato... But there's no other option than to keep going. I really do hope you know your gut feeling is true."

Hayato looked away from Anzen and back to me with a sigh. "Alright. We better start moving quickly, yeah?"

I dropped the now lifeless arm in the muddy puddle of blood in the grass and stood up. "That's correct. If I know the Shogun, by now he's already made a half baked plot and started trying to catch us."

---

The young boy's eyes glowed with a fiery hue of orange as his hand blindly drifted across a map of Nihon. "I can see them... They're on a hill. Two of them are yelling at each other while the older one is just staring at the Shogun's decapitated hand. I think they're..." The young boy's hand turned into a point and slowly halted next to a village nearby Kamakura. "Right there!" His eyes closed and the glowing subsided, as he opened them again his pupils were back to their regular pigments.

The Shogun grimaced as the old Doctor carefully sewed his bleeding stump together. "I want my best rangers tracking them immediately. Eizo, I want you to go with them."

The shield brawler Eizo nodded and went to deliver the message to the Shogun's greatest rangers and Ember wielders.

The Doctor held back a smile as he continued sewing. "They're obviously going to try to climb Mt.Fuji. I've found Kenshi to be self-pitying, so now that he's failed he'll just leave with his tail tucked between his legs and won't try to finish the job. And we know he has relations with Amaterasu, so that's the most logical place for him to go." The Doctor tied his medical string into a knot and cut it off. "You're finished. Don't strain it and come to me at least once a day so I can inject it..."

The Shogun stared at his now missing left arm. "Inject it with what?"

The Doctor shrugged and casually blew off the question. "Oh, just different medicines... Infections are most times more deadly than the cuts themselves."

The Shogun nodded and brought his attention to the young teenager sitting with his finger still pointed at the map. "Quit it. Go do whatever you do until I call upon you again."

The boy nodded silently and walked out of the room. As the Doctor finished packing his bags, he questioned the Shogun. "What's with the boy? I thought you people so intrigued with the mysticality of the world couldn't get your powers until you were older?"

The Shogun moved his amputated arm back and forth, feeling the new weightlessness on his shoulder. "Eighteen is the standard. I've never seen anyone get an Ember older than that, and I've only seen very few get an Ember at a younger age. The boy you just saw has somewhat of a superiority complex because of his rare stature. But I've beaten him into place enough for him to listen." The Shogun stared at the quick stitching for a moment, then continued. "You know what. Anzen, was it? The one that attacked us and got away with his brother, they actually were one of the young ones. I remember plucking them from the filthy alley I found them in... To think they would turn on me after I gave them such a comfortable position."

The Doctor shrugged. "Some street urchins shy away from organization and put their faith in the individual. The one called Hayato had an outlook like that, from what I've heard. As for Anzen, I don't know, but the other way they tend to lean is to become overly dependent on their sources of income and full stomachs. He may have been what kept Hayato and Kenshi from pulling a stunt like this sooner."

The Doctor picked his bag from the table and started walking past the still uncleaned rubble, but before he could leave, the Shogun spoke. "Wait one minute. What you said earlier, about us people so intrigued by the mystic side of the world, what do you mean? Just before Kenshi and his new dogs barged in, you were speaking at the possible benefits of studying yokai biology and at what power that might bring. How can you act so uninvolved?"

The Doctor smiled the same wrinkled and twisted smile he always would when questioned, then answered. "You see, I'm not interested in gaining powers from the goodwill of some goddess or killing some magical monster, letting all of it's uses go to waste. I am a man of science, and humans are very adaptive things. Let's say instead of fearing these so-called evil monsters, we harness their power, we take it for ourselves. Instead of letting Amaterasu sit atop her golden pedestal and choose who she wants to have power, we take her undeserved godhood and give humanity the power. With the proper scientific research, it's possible. Godhood is possible. Imagine that." The Shogun's eyes widened at the Doctor's sudden turn to the radical, but the they only continued. "Evolution, I call it. Taking these mystic things and stripping away what makes them feel superior. Keeping it for ourselves. The shifting of divine power to our hands. Letting the future of the world be... ours to decide, rather than in the hands of some spectacle from a child's story."

The Shogun stared at the ground in thought. "That's quite an idea... Although most would say trying to make man and otherworldly power bedfellows would be a suicidal thought, not to mention the blasphemy involved with usurping the goddess."

The Doctor rebutted as he walked out of the broken apart doorframe. "Your mind has been altered from the time you spent with Kenshi those years ago, Shogun. We as a species were meant to have this power, but it was wasted. We're only making things right."

---

Hayato stomped along the path as he led our only horse behind him. "And we're doing this the entire way to Mt.Fuji?"

I looked behind me to Hayato and responded. "We don't have the money to buy more horses or any carriage to hold our supplies, and no time to make the money. You better start enjoying cardio, you're going to be very good friends for the next two weeks, and that's if we don't rest for a single day."

Hayato sighed as he tugged on the horses lead, telling it to match our pace. "Two weeks of nonstop walking!? Couldn't we steal a carriage and horses or something?"

My eyes went back to the front of the road as I frowned. "We still have at least an ounce of honor, Hayato. We won't steal or cause harm to anyone that isn't directly under the Shogun's or the Doctor's influence."

Anzen scoffed. "You're high and mighty. You'll see. Sometimes you have to do things rather dishonorable to survive. Make relations with the wrong people to make sure there's food on the table..."

As I opened my mouth to respond, Hayato interrupted the current topic. "Hey, wait. Why don't we just steal a carriage from one of the Shogun's lackeys, then?"

I shrugged. "Well, Hayato. If we ever come across a man who explicitly states that he has complete loyalty to the Shogun and intentions to kill or otherwise capture us, feel free to take his horse."

Hayato laughed between his breaths for air as we walked up another steep hill on our long and windy path. "Ha! Will do."

After seeing Hayato ease up a bit, Anzen took his moment. He slowed down from walking in between Hayato and I to beside Hayato and started to talk to him. I thought it best to pretend I didn't notice. Anzen spoke softly. "Hayato. I'm, eehh... Sorry for losing my temper earlier. I trust you with all my heart, we had just had a bit of a situation beforehand."

I couldn't see what he was doing, but I could only assume Hayato was nodding or showing some other display of understanding. "I get it. I just feel as though my opinion is pushed aside."

Anzen's voice went quieter and spoke with what I guessed to be a hint of guilt. "I know... I really am sorry."

Silence fell over both of them. I knew I couldn't say anything, but I was happy that those two were finally beginning to get along. I had felt like I caused the small hitch in their relationship, which wouldn't be incorrect, in hindsight. I had a history of manipulating people and pushing them too far. And I wouldn't let myself fall into that habit again.

Anzen's footsteps quickened and grew louder, he had to be back where he was before.

Out of the blue, Hayato started the ambient discussion again. "So, worst alcohol experiences?"

Anzen sighed. "This is always your go-to when you have nothing to talk about."

Hayato defended his position. "Hey, it's a good way to see someone's true nature. Come on!"

After a moment of hesitation and a few mumbles, Anzen caved. "Fine. My worst experience was when I was young, around fourteen if I recall correctly. First time I found a bottle of alcohol and I drank it all, the next morning I found myself sleeping in a gutter full of shit. I cleaned myself off and that was about it."

Found a bottle? Hayato had off-handedly stated that he came from very humble beginnings, but now I'm starting to suspect something more on the lines of homelessness. Perhaps that's the reason he knew how to fistfight so well...

I pried a small bit, trying to get an explanation for my curiosities. "Where were your parents in this?"

As I looked behind me, I saw Anzen looking at the ground. He muttered in a reluctant voice. "They died when we were very small. Hayato and I grew up on the streets. I don't like to talk about it."

Really? It made sense, but I never suspected Hayato and Anzen to be orphans. "I see..."

Hayato, still trying to lighten the mood, continued. "My worst experience had to be around eighteen. It was the first time I drank anything strong, and I got too excited. Ended up falling off a dock, a short one. And I haven't touched the stuff since. What about you Kenshi?"

"Hmmm..." I didn't think I had a single good experience with alcohol. I could mention drowning myself in it when I was all alone in my shack, but I didn't think that had as much theatrics as was expected. But I remembered one memory that would fit. "Well, I was with my friend and we drank so much that I ended up thinking he was in trouble and mistook him for his own captors once I caught him peeing behind the bar. We ended up in a fistfight and we both grew so weary we passed out in the snow, only to figure it out the next morning. A very good bonding experience, really." Both of them fell silent as they glared at me, seemingly surprised at the bizarreness of my story. "Oh, I should also mention that we were on-duty Samurai next to Mt.Fuji infested with yokai. I also think there was singing involved somewhere..."

Hayato spoke confusedly. "You know what, forget I asked."

We shared a chuckle. It seemed Hayato had a knack for easing the mood after all.

It was good to laugh while we could, not even knowing that we were already being hunted by the most dangerous men to have seen the face of the earth.

Like cat and mouse.