"The Brotherhood of Bloodspilt Hands?" Han Guan repeated, his voice quivering with fear... Then he went into a full-blown panic. "We are doomed! We are so doomed!" He clutched his head in his paws and started rocking backwards and forwards.
"Who are they?" Reidak asked.
"And who gave them the rights to that name! We're the Brotherhood!" Jin added.
"Not here you're not. The Brotherhood of Bloodspilt Hands are four of the best killers in Japan. There are four of them." Denko held up a wing.
"Chibiki, their leader. Former disciple of the Silver Fang's own Master Masuta. Then went rogue. Cool, calm, calculated and deadly. He's a great, black bear, and weilds a katana and kusarigama in unison. Once one of Japan's greatest generals... Until he went dark for unknown reasons. We call him Kuroi Akuma- the Black Demon
Han Guan took up the count, sounding haunted. "Sutoaraiki. A giant hornet... Used to be a healer before he turned to serial killing. They say he drove six guards to madness before they could arrest him."
"He fights with wooden darts coated in all sorts of toxins and poisons for varrying effects. Then there's Izumi." The raven continued. "Don't let her size or beauty fool you, she's got the highest body count. Trained from birth to be a top notch assassin... Well her trainers should have learnt to be careful for what they wish for. She's mad, and I suspect has an addition to killing."
Han Guan shivered, while the rest felt the cold air creep down their spines.
"Finally Buruto. Not the sharpest knife in the belt, but one of the most mysterious... And strongest."
"And they're trying to rob us?" Lang asked, unimpressed.
"I should try and get Lord Tohru-sama back as soon as possible-and Lord Hoku-sama too. Get the guards and tell them who we're dealing with." Han Guan was shaking like a leaf.
"Are you sure? Because last time it didn't exactly go smoothly." Reidak commented.
"I don't think we need back-up either." Jin added. "I mean, we are THE Brotherhood-some gang of cutthroats... Pshaw we'll stop them in their tracks.
"The palace is too big for five of us to guard alone." Hei Zei commented. "But if we could narrow it down to what they might want, then we can defend it more effectively." All eyes turned to Han.
"Well I'm not exactly allowed to show you..." He said awkwardly, twiddling his thumbs.
Twenty minutes later...
"Ta-da!" It was a barren hall, with a small dragon statuette standing at the end. There wasn't even a door in sight.
"A dragon statue? Is that made out of gold or something?" Jin asked, approaching cautiously, his paws reaching out for the statue. Han Guan smacked the fox's paws.
"It's worth more than your life, Jin-san! No touching!"
"But I wanna." Not even his puppy dog eyes could sway the mustelid.
"But why would anyone want to rob this? There doesn't appear to be much-scratch that anything of value." Reidak remarked.
"Well the vault is somewhere here.. To be honest I don't even know where it is he-he. But that's good right? I mean if the Brotherhood-"
"The other one-" Jin interjected.
"Can't find it, they can't rob it either, can they?" His voice was filled with hope, one which his recruits suspected was a kind of desperation he was clinging onto.
"I suppose that is correct." Hei Zei summarised. "One of us should stay here at all times. We should draw up a shift as well. And we need to move a gong here, that way if this other Brotherhood show up whoever stays here can allert the others."
"Well then... Let's get to work." Lang added.
"What the hell happened to you?" Wing asked as Saras' battered form walked in.
"A lot of things." The fox replied. He held up paw. "First some random raven shows up and electrocutes me for having the plans. Then some bear decides he wants it too and jumps in. Then I get shot in the tail, watch my brother die and then get paralyzed."
"Well, Wan's boyfriend and his friend showed up and his friend tried to kill us and we tried to kill him and then we all sat down and drank tea." Su shrugged. "I suppose we should expect this considering our line of work. Who ended up with the scroll?"
"The raven." The fox answered, seating himself opposite the trio and taking the cup of tea Wan offered him. "And the bear was the guy I got it from in the first place."
"He seems very interested in the Silver Fang." Su concluded. "I swear something strange is going on with that place. It appears the bear is trying to rob it, and the raven too. They're working separately, which means a grand total of three separate parties are trying to rob it. Meanwhile it is being guarded by Wan's boyfriend and his buddies."
The fox raised an eyebrow. "Any chance we could use hi-"
Wan pulled him by the front of his jumper, waving a fist in his face. "DON'T EVEN THINK ABOUT IT!"
"Of course not." The vulpine squeaked.
"Good! And the three of us can't be anywhere near him and his buddies during the break-in. You got that?"
"Yes." He responded, resigned.
"Don't ask." Wing added.
"I wasn't going to." The kit yawned widely. Blood Diamond had it's limits and one such one was the sheer exhaustion it left it's user in. "Well, I'm just going to go sleep. I'm honestly not used to all this stress."
As soon as he was out of earshot Wan turned to the other two. "I told you guys he's going through puberty."
Sutoaraiki watched the fox waddle off, yawning widely. He heard the last comment Wan made and narrowed his eyes. A youngster going through puberty ripped Chibiki's pants? The hornet circled the mansion until he came to an open window. The fox was bandaging his tail, and yawning every half minute. Hid eyelids were drooping dangerously low. Just as the fox lay down to rest a small snore came from him.
Sutoaraiki got to work. He flew into the room, made sure the fox was asleep and then scanned the place. It was bare and empty, save for the bed and the bandages. Hmm, from this he could infer that they were dealing with a professional. He travelled light, and carried only basic first aid equipment. Yet, what kind of proffesional went to bed with an open window that could so easily let in another killer? Well-trained, but unexperienced. Then he proceeded to study the fox.
Indeed the fox most likely was going through some form of growth. He was small, and runty-looking, thin and clearly exhausted.
The hornet wondered whether it would be easier to simply hit the fox with a dart and be done with it. But Chibiki had been in a sore mood and he hadn't felt like pushing the bear off the edge. Still... If it could look like an accident then it was probably the best course.
He was about to take action when the door flew open, and Wing entered, growling. Sutoaraiki flew out the window, and heard the shouting.
"If you want to wake up with that fur still on get OUT of my room."
The fox had clearly been sleeping peacefully and was slow on the uptake. His groggy response of 'Wh-what?", ended with him flying out the door.
Sutoaraiki frowned. The fox was clearly the underling. He wondered if that was better or worse.
Denko decided to take over the night's watch from Han Guan. The wolverine was nodding off, slumped against the wall. Jin and Lang were already snoring, Reidak and Hei Zei were either asleep, or in other thoughts. The raven whistled.
Han Guan pounced into the air, and entered a stance, suddenly wide awake. Then his shoulders slumped and his eyelids drooped.
"Oh, it's just you Denko-san." He sounded relieved and exhausted all at once.
"You need to sleep Han. You're no good protecting the vault if you don't even have the energy to stay awake."
The wolverine's ears drooped. "Just say it. I'm doomed."
"Doomed? You have five incredibly competent fighters protecting this vault. Lord Tohru-sama would be proud if he could see the effort you're making."
The wolverine's ears raised themselves a little. "You think so?"
"I know so. Now go get some sleep. I'll take over from here."
Han Guan grinned. "You have no idea how grateful I am for your help. I am forever indebted to all of-"
"Goodnight."
"Oh, yeah, er... Oyasumi!" And with that the wolverine walked away.
Denko felt a stab of pity. The poor, incompetent fool. He had no idea how deep he was in. Drawing his blade the raven approached the statuette. But one hopeless fool's honor was not worth more than the fate of Japan.
The vision had come in his dreams. A warning, that Japan would descend into chaos. The dream had been vivid and horrible.
A silver fang, shining as brightly as the sun itself, split in half. One fang buried itself into Japan, and flames tore the land apart. Then the bodies had piled up. Vague, faceless bodies. Rotting on riversides, burning in flames, holding blades that stuck out of their skulls.
He shivered at the memory, and turned back to the task at hand. This was the power of the sun, that would destroy Japan. Well, if he destroyed it first it wasn't going to do anyone harm. The walls pulsed a power he could almost feel. He doubted the others could, certainly not Han Guan at least.
His blade crackled with energy, and he plunged it into the dragon's mouth. There was a pause...
And nothing happened.
Footnote: It feels like forever since I wrote some good ole KFP! Damn, I must be loosing my touch.
Anyways I do have a good excuse, it's got twenty-plus books and one word. That's right Redwall. Now my fascination with it is caused due to my luck at finding some very good fanfics. Currently the KFP fandom is swarmed with a lot of Shen stories-like A LOT. I don't have anything against them but it's getting a bit crowded here and I've already read some of them so... Yeah. I'd say I don't have much motivation KFP-wise, and I'll lay the blame on my inability to find some good stuff.
Another thing is that with the Stories of Sara's a lot of things *happen* to characters... But they don't really grow. I mean Saras is still the same fox, despite it all. In fact the largest character growth in an entire +300K words (so far) series is Han Guan's. I think says a lot. This isn't really a complaint it's just it gets a bit of the same after a while, so yeah... I'm rambling but I need to mull things over. Don't worry this series is still going strong! Though, er, Back in the Day is on hiatus until VoreLover can give the green light for something. Black and White is shiny and new, but I won't turn away from this!
Ramble over!