Part 2- Looking for strong samurai / A kind woman.
Tatsuki, Keigo, and Mizuiro took a few of their things, and, most importantly, a jug filled with rice, and headed for the nearest town. They stayed at the cheapest possible place - a stable with a common room, where other poor people and assorted riff-raff also spent the nights.
The next morning, they started to look for suitable samurai. Many of them were travelling through the town or living there. They all were proud men, openly carrying arms and wearing silk clothing. It took a long time before they had gathered enough courage to ask even one.
Suddenly, the crowd scattered as Keigo rolled on the ground after having been kicked by a spear-carrying samurai. "I may be poor, but I'm no beggar! I am a samurai. I still have my honor!" he said. Proudly spitting on the now-kneeling Keigo and walking away. "Baka!"
"This is hopeless…" Keigo said as Mizuiro helped him up.
They made their way back to their lodgings and sat down together, heads bowed in dismay. "The barley will soon be ripe." Mizuiro said. "We have been away from the village for several days and still we can't find any samurai…"
He sighed "Not to mention that one guy. We gave him so much rice and sake, and then he just left!"
"We are just peasants. We don't know how to gauge samurai." Keigo said.
"So what do you want to do? Go home and negotiate with the bandits?" Tasuki said; obviously angry.
"What else can we do? We haven't found any samurai."
"Well I'm not going back. What will you offer them, your sister? I bet they'd take her, she's pretty enough."
"S-shut up!"
Next morning, Keigo and Mizuiro had packed their things and were headed back to the village. They then noticed a large crowd gathered outside a large mansion with a barn. "What's going on?" Mizuiro asked.
"A bandit was almost caught last night, but he ran into that barn over there."
"But there's a lot of you. Surely you could take him." Keigo pointed out.
"Yes, but he took a child hostage, and says he'll kill him if we try anything. We're powerless!"
"But a samurai is willing to help!" another said.
The crowd had circled a tall, silver-haired woman who was passing her sword to a shorter blonde one, and took a tray with two onigiri into her hands.
"A woman?" Keigo said.
"Yes, weird I know, but she's a great swordswoman."
The crowd followed the woman as she walked toward the barn, all the while keeping their distance from fear of angering the bandit. The samurai approached the barn as a child's crying could be heard from the inside. The bandit screamed "Don't come any closer! I'll kill the kid!"
With a calm voice, the samurai responded, "Don't worry, I'm not going to do anything, I'm just a servant from the house. The master said to bring some food for the child as well as you. Surely you must be hungry. "
"Throw them in!" the man inside commanded.
The samurai approached, opened the door and threw the food inside. However, before the second onigiri had touched the ground, the woman sprinted inside. There was silence, then a scream "Oryaa!" and a loud sound of metal meeting flesh. Seconds later, a man stumbled out, slowly at first, but then stopped. He rolled his eyes back and fell, blood trickling from his mouth.
The child's mother dashed forward and ran into the barn just as the woman and the child came out. The samurai stepped out the door and handed the child to the older woman.
"That was great Onee-san!" the shorter, blonde girl said as she approached the samurai. "I bet there's no one who would have handled that situation better than you!"
"Kiyone, don't make a big deal out of it. Let's just get home Okaa-san is waiting for us." The taller said as the two started to walk into the town.
Keigo and Mizuiro followed them hesitantly.
"Should we ask her?" Mizuiro said. As Keigo seemed to agree, he added "Quickly, before we lose her."
Keigo, arming himself with valor, rushed forward, and kowtowed before the two girls. "Sorry to disturb you! But I have something to ask you Samurai-sama! My name is Asano Keigo and our village is in great danger!"
Mizuiro approached as well and bowed. Then he began to explain the situation.
---
At the lodging Mizuiro and the silver-haired woman, now identified as Kotetsu Isane, were discussing the situation.
"Gotta hand it to you guys" Tatsuki told Keigo ouside, as he cooked some rice for the two samurai. "I didn't expect you to come back."
"Well, we found some samurai; it would be a waste to go home without trying one last time…" he was interrupted, however, by Isane speaking inside.
"No, it's impossible." She said.
"But, Onee-san," Kyione said, "They could make bamboo spears to fight back."
"Yes, I thought about that."
"But Onee-san…"
"This isn't a game," Isane glared at her sister, and started to pace across the room, "Forty bandits. Two or three samurai could not cope with such a number… to plan a defense is harder than an attack… are there hills behind your village?"
"Yes!" Mizuiro confirmed.
"Accesible to horses?"
"Yes!"
Isane became pensive for a while, "Fields in front of the village, so it's wide open, until they are flooded for rice… we'd need four men to guard the approach… and two more in reserve… so you'd need seven samurai, including myself…"
"Seven…" Mizuiro said to himself
"Gisaku told us to get four." Tatsuki mentioned as she walked into the room "I think we could manage three more."
"Great Onee-san!" Kiyone said. "I knew you wouldn't abandon them!"
"Wh-what?" Isane said as she broke out of her reverie. "I-I never said…" but everyone had moved on and was no longer listening to her. "… what did I get myself into…"
---
Note: Now, I know what you're thinking. "But Teh Red Mage, there were no female samurai!" well that's where you're wrong! Admittedly they were pretty rare, but a few women were samurai and not just in name either. They were actual sword-wielding battle hardened warriors! A great example was Tomoe Gozen (.org/wiki/Tomoe_Gozen). So yeah, review.