Her husband was now dead. They'd been shinobi born of the same clan, and he'd died in battle along with the rest of their clan in a skirmish turned slaughter by an unknown clan. She'd escaped by hiding under her dead husband's body, masking her chakra in his faint signature. Two days she waited there, and on the third morning before the dawn she lifted her spouse's corpse from off herself. In the dark she stood with black coagulated blood splattered on her body and covering the whole of her back. A long, dried, and dirt filled cut ran the length of her side and curved up her back. It wasn't deep, but it was long, and she'd lost a lot of blood from it.
Returning to their clan's former camp in the dark she saw ashes in place of tents and saw the corpses of the children, elderly, noncombatants, and surviving combatants who were too impatient to wait for their enemies' scouts to finish waiting for them to return.
She'd had a child with her husband, a boy, but he was likely among the dead. She looked for him but could not find him, and she waited until light. Even then her child was missing. She looked around the camp and searched for her son's and his friends' favorite whereabouts. They were supposed to remain in the tents when their clan did battle, but she looked anyways. He was not there. The corpses of his friends and his cousins, her sister's children, were dead next to their mother; her brother-in law's corpse was absent from the campsite. For the next few days she looked and could not find him. She searched around the perimeter and found no trace of him.
She spent one more night in the area, outside the campsite proper, in its surrounding thick forest. When she rose, she gathered what meagre remnants of supplies she could find, and she stuffed them into some seals and then in a backpack. Armed solely with that she followed after the tracks of her enemies.
They'd made their way through the forest and then on through a large plain with grass large enough to consume any kind of man. Their tracks were hard to follow in it. It took a whole day to traverse the field, and all the while the sun beat down on her, and the humid air endemic to the land of tea drenched her clothes in perspiration. Her green shinobi attire grew heavy on her back. On the other side of the plains she crossed into thick forest again and ran through the trees on their branches. Her opponents were a few days away from her. A deer was running underneath her on the forest floor, and it fell to her kunai knives. She skinned it and stripped the meat off its back and prepped it with salt and put it in a seal all within 30 minutes and again she was on her way. For meals she ate the deer meat, and found vegetables in the trees.
Some dawns later, the forest ended and, on its borders, was a small town. Shinobi guarded it ostensibly. Before she left the forest's boundaries, she got rid of her backpack and most of its contents. She'd tossed the meat and changed her clothes into those of a common peasant. Nothing was left to belie her fake identity as an untrained and combatually ineffective person. She carried a small travel bag with her that contained a wallet with all of her money: a meagre amount. Her clothes were still ragged, and her gash remained untended and had turned black: it had begun to smell.
When she walked up to the town, she left the forest on the main road and she hobbled. She showed the guards her gash and asked if there was a doctor in the town. One of them reached out and touched the gash. She tensed and arched away from the hand, but he was quicker than her and touched it anyways, and she grimaced and let out a breath of pain. In the same swipe he brushed away some of the coagulated and dark blood, so new blood ran from the scar. She fell to her knees and let out a small scream. He reached his hand back and wiped it on his pants.
"Can you pay for a doctor?" He asked.
She nodded on the ground.
"With what?" He asked.
She fumbled and reached into her bag and produced the wallet. The guard snatched it up and looked at its contents. He reached in, grabbed some of it, and split it unevenly in his favour between him and his partner. He handed the wallet back.
"There's a doctor and a bar with one or two rooms for travelers down the street."
She nodded to him and thanked him prodigiously as she got up, and she hobbled quickly down the street.
When she passed, the guard turned to his partner, who was his subordinate and told him to keep an eye on the woman.
"That's a nasty wound," the doctor said. She was a small harridan who had long white hair in a tail that went to the small of her back.
Her patient lay on a medical table on her belly. Her arms stretched above her head and naked torso. She had yet to bathe, so her skin was caked in dried, sweaty blood.
The doctor examined the woman's gash with gloved hands.
"It's infected," she said. The doctor had been sitting in a chair and swiveled away whilst removing her gloves.
"What's that mean?" The patient asked. The doctor stood and grabbed pill bottle from a drawer and removed a pill.
"Stay there," the doctor responded tersely. She left and came back with a cup of water.
"What it means," the doctor said, "is that you need to take this pill, twice a day, for ten days."
"What's that?"
"It's for your cut, now take it."
The woman nodded and sat up laboriously. The doctor handed her the pill and water. She took the pill.
"Also," the doctor said, "I need to give you some stitches. I can do that right now."
"What are those?" The patient asked. The doctor pursed her lips and examined her patient. She had pneumatic look about her, like she didn't know where she was. The doctor scowled quietly.
"You don't know what stitches are?" She asked.
The woman didn't respond and looked off past her shoulder for a moment. She snapped back and looked at the doctor.
"Oh, yeah, sorry. I know, uh, yeah. I know what stitches are. Sorry, I wasn't thinking. I just kinda spoke."
"Alright, now do you want em or not?" The doctor asked.
"Oh, do I need them?"
"Yes."
"Oh, alright, yeah."
"Okay, lay on your belly like you were."
She laid back on her belly like before and put her hands above her head. The doctor began to clean her wound, numb her around the wound, and generally prepare her for the stitches.
"Okay. What's the story behind this gash?"
"Uh, my party"
"Your party? What party?"
"Uhm, my traveling party"
"Speak up girl." The doctor said. The patient paused for a moment, cleared her throat and spoke a little louder.
"We were traders. My husband and I. And, uhm, the rest of our… trading, company. We were attacked on the road through this town. We were headed to the coast, to the port city. Some bandits or… something. I don't know who they were but there were a lot of 'em. They killed my husband." Tears began to well up. "They, uhm." She sniffled. "They killed my husband, and I can't find my son. I can't even find his body." She cried.
The doctor sighed frustratedly to herself and rolled her eyes.
"Hm," she responded.
The woman kept crying, and the doctor had to stop what she was doing because her patient kept heaving. When she seemed to have finally stopped and the doctor started to treat the wound, her patient would let out a refreshed wail. This went on four or five times before she stopped crying.
The doctor sighed again and started to work on her back.
"I'm sorry for your loss. It must be hard." She said robotically.
Her patient nodded and looked at the wall with glazed eyes.
"Yeah," she said.
When she first showed up at the bar asking for a room, she'd struggled over from the doctor's residence and carried an air of weakness and vulnerability. She looked around like everything was new but at the same time seemed disinterested in everything. Her head bobbed like a balloon and she looked like she was in a daze. He gave her a room and she hermited in it for a few days, only seeing her when he delivered some meals. He felt bad for her so he didn't ask for as much as he usually would, but she seemed to catch on because she started paying the regular amount anyways, despite his polite pleas to the contrary. Overall, he thought she was an innocent and helpless young woman, and he did his best to give her what help he could, even if he knew he wouldn't be able to hold her hand through life for a long time.
So, when she came up to the bartender a few nights after her first visit, he was shocked to see her ask about the Subete no Teki.1
"What'd you say?" He asked.
"Do you know anything about the Subete no Teki?" She asked him. She spoke quietly and demurred after speaking, looking down at the bar.
"Yeah," he said. "I know some. Why? Why do you ask?"
"Uhm, I'm going on to the coast, but I heard they rob travelers along these roads... I hoped that if you knew something then I could avoid them better." She spoke slowly and paused often.
"Hmm… Well, they're dangerous people alright. You'd better avoid them as best you can. However, I really don't know how possible that is. It seems like they can get you any which way you go. Whatever you do." He was washing mugs as he spoke to her. And every now and again he would turn to put the one he'd finished away and grab another. His initial shock now dissipated.
"Oh," she said.
"Yeah, I'm telling you, they're a bad bunch. They terrorize this area. You don't wanna know. Even in town you're not safe. We have our guards, our shinobi guards, but the Subete no Teki could come in whenever they want. You hear stories all the time from towns near us who were burnt down and massacred. A lot of people here, well, that doctor, she's one, a lot of people here are uhh, what do you call em."
"Hmm?"
"You know, people who leave places cause violence or something. What's the word?" He asked.
"I don't know." She answered.
"No, it's. It's like when you're displaced. It's righ-"
"Refugees." A man answered while leaning on the bar uncomfortably close to the woman. She tensed and looked away as if looking at the man would burn her corneas. It was the guard who let her in to the village. For the most part, the bar was empty, save for a few old silhouettes in the corner and a few peasants smoking and sipping on sake on the other side of the bar. There was a low hum of conversation from those other customers, but, other than that, only water splashing from the bartender's sink accompanied their voices.
"Yes! That's the one. Refugees." The bartender said, making sure to enunciate every syllable of refugees.
"I'm happy to help," the guard said.
"Glad to have it Cade." The bartender turned around and switched out mugs. "I was just telling this young woman here about the terror of the Subete no teki. They caused a lot of refugees they did."
"Yes they did. Yes they did." Cade looked at the woman even though he spoke to the bartender. The smell of sake wafted from his mouth. "You know that doctor's a refugee from one of the towns they razed over in Gohan."
"I was just saying that." The bartender said.
"How'd that go again? That was before I came here."
"Oh, they just wandered over that hill yonder. Just her and her husband. They were in shambles too. They got here in three days. You know it's a seven day walk from here? They must have booked it, and when they arrived they just about collapsed and slept for who knows how long."
Cade hmphed. There was a lull. Cade looked down at the ground and the bartender switched out his mugs again.
"Cade did I ever introduce you to Sarah?" Cade looked up with a slight grin.
"No, I don't think so. But I met her before. She came in when I was on guard duty. I let her in and told her where the doctor was. She was in bad shape when she come in."
"Know of." Cade said.
"Well, Sarah," the bartender said, "Cade here is a teeeeerrrrrible guy. Definitely not a guy you wanna mess around with." He tone dripped with raillery and sarcasm.
"Oh yeah?" Cade said in a pretend anger. "You're the one who's always causing trouble though?!"
The bartender laughed and switched mugs.
"See what I have to deal with?" He said to Sarah. She smiled slightly and looked at her feet.
"Could you grab me a sake?" Cade asked the bartender, who nodded in acceptance and went to grab the bottle. In the meantime, Cade looked down at Sarah.
"So, Sarah, it looks like you found the doctor."
"Yes," she squeeked.
"You look better. You look good." He said. Then the bartender came over and handed him the drink. He drank it in one go.
"So what's this I hear about the Subete no Teki?" He asked.
"I already told you, we were talking about all the towns they razed an-."
"No, no, I mean what brought it up?" Cade interjected.
"Oh, uh, she was askin' about 'em. She says she's going to keep following the road and wants to avoid em. She wanted to know about 'em."
"Hmm… Well, I don't think we can avoid them, but I can keep you safe from them." Cade said.
She didn't move for a moment, and then she looked up at him.
"We can't avoid them, you say?" She trembled slightly.
"No we can't. But, like I said, I can keep you safe. For the right price, my buddies and I can protect you from these Teki thugs."
"Now hold up," the bartender said. "You can't keep her completely safe."
"But she's safer with me than with anyone else." Cade's jockish business façade had worn off, and he'd become serious.
"What's your price." She asked.
He told her his price and she thought for a moment.
"I would like to leave before light tomorrow. Can you and your envoy leave then also?"
"That we can."
"Then I will see you tomorrow morning at five a clock." She turned and left to her room. Cade poured himself another drink of sake and then left. The bartender scratched his head.
Footnote:
1Literally translated as, Enemy of All.
I apologize for the confusion. I forgot that the lines are removed when I upload it. It took me a while to put them in. Other than that, lemme know what you think!