All characters belong to their perspective owners no ownership is claimed or implied for
non-original characters.

Special thanks go to Davner, Cavis, Incantrix, the Total Anime Nut, and Fish_Stomp for
their help on this fic, also thanks to everyone on the #tenchiff for there help with the 17th
century speech... you'll know what I mean when you get there.

A huge thanks to Sethra_Lavode for the editing. This fic is about three times better then
previous chapters thanks to her.

Timing Note: This fic takes place as Sawa is having her own little problem in Sairoon.
Don't worry she will most likely survive.

Twin Perspectives

Chapter 4: Bandits, Fun and Profitable!

By: STRIKESTWICE@hotmail.com

Hi Mom,

Well, we left Sairoon yesterday after a bit of a fiasco. Don't worry, the city is still
in one piece, well most of it. While we were there I met an odd woman claiming to be
from the Fire Dragon King. She told me that you were a dragon, and that I was half
dragon. She definitely had problems, and she was working with a demon, so I doubt
much of anything she said was the truth, but...

***

Senritsuko looked at the paper for a second before crumpling it into a wad and
tossed it onto the ground. Sighing, she leaned back against an old oak tree and wondered
where the twins and Kyoko had gone.

The firelight around the camp wavered and flickered, creating odd patches of
light and shadows on the leaves of the oak tree. Maybe the best idea was to go back
home. This was supposed to be a relaxing trip, away from her mother and the suspicious
eyes of the neighbors. Instead, the trip was turning out to be dangerous and making very
little sense. She did not really want excitement, she just wanted a normal little life,
taking care of a large trading syndicate.

She flopped onto her side and gazed out in the darkness, as something moved. A
pair of eyes, reflecting in the firelight, studied her. Senritsuko scrambled to a standing
position fumbling for her gun. A large bear lumbered out of the darkness, staring at her.
Senritsuko pointed the gun, her hands shaking, at the large monster of a beast, hoping
that it would just go away. Instead, the beast moved towards her. The girl, her normal
dead-on aim fighting against her fear, fired off a round at the beast, grazing it in the
shoulder. The bear roared in anger at the attack raging towards Senritsuko. The girl,
panic stricken, ran out into the forest, the bear giving chase.

She ran for what seemed like hours, the entire time sure that the bear was
breathing on her neck.

Before her a campfire appeared, with loud voices near it echoing into the night.
The girl swerved towards the glow, running through darkness into a very welcome
warmth. Before she knew it, she was in the middle of a circle of people standing around
a fire. Before her, a large man stood over another man. The man on the ground was
bleeding heavily from a gash on the side of his chest. He slowly let out his last breath
and died.

The big man stared at her and then laughed. "So another challenger has dared to
appear. Fool, you forfeit your life." The man slowly approached Senritsuko, swinging
the blooded great ax, dragging the corpse for a second before it shook free of the weapon.
Senritsuko scrambled back away from the large man, only to run into one of the people
surrounding the fire. The person behind her shoved her back towards the center of the
circle. Senritsuko slipped on the loose ground and felt the breeze of the large ax whistle
over her head. She rolled, dodging a kick she never saw and stood back up in a crouch.
Fed up with the whole matter, Senritsuko pointed her revolver at the large man and fired
a warning shot.

The large man laughed at her and swung again, forcing Senritsuko to throw
herself to the left, the ax impacting in dirt. Finally, without any options the girl put a
round in the man's shoulder, the bruiser failed to even slow his advance whipping his ax
above his head for a huge downward strike. Senritsuko didn't even pause as she put a
bullet through the guy's head, and another through his heart. The ax fell from lifeless
hands, as the man collapsed onto the ground. Senritsuko pulled out one of her speed
revolvers, refilling it in the blink of an eye. Then she whirled around and trained the gun
on the people remaining outside the circle.

"All hail the new leader of the Blackberry Bandits..." someone yelled from the
fire before his voice cut off. "Hey she's not a member."

Senritsuko, thinking fast on her feet, and in a bad position, growled, "Want to
make something out of it?" as she pointed her gun at the dark shadow who had spoken.

The shadow paused for a second and then pointed at her "You the boss!"

The girl swung her weapon slowly around the circle. "Anyone else want to say
otherwise?"

The group in the shadows shuffled their feet and shifted waiting for someone else,
to refute the girl's abrupt takeover of their band of brigands. After a minute had passed,
Senritsuko finally put down her gun. "Well if there are no further objections, I'll be on
my way." The girl moved to the edge of the circle only to be blocked by a pair of
lumbering hulks.

"Um, excuse me? I'm in a little bit of a hurry."

"You boss now, you lead us to money." The bigger one on the right said.

"Right, but first I have to take care of a small matter."

"Old boss have plan, you have plan too?" The slightly smaller one, but still over
six and a half feet said, grinning gap toothed at her.

"Hmm... a plan, well why don't we go rob who ever shows up on the road
tomorrow." Senritsuko said thinking as quickly as possible and coming up with a good
plan to run the bandits into the much more evil twins.

"Thy's plan is the plan of a child." A smaller female dressed in leather armor
said stepping out of the darkness.

"You challenging me?" Senritsuko said patting her gun. The woman blanched
and shook her head. Senritsuko just smiled and sat down on a nearby boulder.

***

"...the mana constant is then divided, using the second principle of... " The white
robed priestess paused, listening attentively to the darkness. "Did you two just hear a gun
shot?"

Valeck looked at her oddly, "I didn't hear anything."

"She... he's... s'allin'." Yuki said, glancing at the ground and the large burn mark
they had created over the last hour of random destruction in an attempt to master the
spell of spells, the Dragon Slave.

"It's about time we quit any ways, before Senritsuko comes looking for us."
Kyoko said, turning back towards camp.

"You worr' to mu'h." Yuki looked up from the scorch mark and at the sky. "I
gu'ss you' righ' though it's time to go." Glancing once at her brother, the girl turned
back towards the camp site and started briskly walking, letting everyone else hurry to
catch up to her.

The two shrugged before they hurried to catch up to her. The three created a
ruckus as they moved through the forest, until they finally saw the comforting light of the
campfire.

They arrived to find what looked like a disaster. Their equipment was scattered
around the camp. Large prints imprinted in the ground along with blood, but not in a
large enough concentration to suggest that any one was dead.

"Crap!" Yuki yelled, as she searched the campsite. Valeck grabbed up a burning
brand from the fire and charged off in the direction of the tracks. The two following him
into the darkness.

Two hours later the party stumbled back into at the campsite.

"No one said I could track." Valeck yelled, softly.

"We'll fin' her to'orrow at firs' ligh'." Yuki said, comforting her brother.

"But she could be dying somewhere, a meal for a dragon, or she could be slowly
bleeding to death trapped in a tree as a cougar waits patiently at the base, or she could
have been captured by a band of bandits." Kyoko paused for breath as Yuki snorted.

"Yah, bandits, that could happen." Yuki said sarcastically. "Senritsuko can take
care of herself."

"Sure, it's not like last week." Kyoko said, matching Yuki's tone of voice
perfectly.

"The sun will be up in four hours we'll find her then." Valeck yelled out as they
huddled around the fire waiting.

***

Senritsuko looked down at the ground from her perch, wondering just exactly
how she had ended up like this.


She hadn't slept a wink last night, afraid that one of the bandits would decide that
removing her would be easiest with a quick dagger in the throat. Through bleary eyes
she watched the sun rise slowly in the east, painfully making its way above the
surrounding hills. The leather clad woman, another weirdo with a strange accent, sat
down next to her at the fire as around her the majority of the camp still slept on.

The woman began to heat a pot of mystery food that had been laying forgotten by
the side of the forest. Senritsuko looked inquiringly into the pot the woman was stirring
to see a home-made stew of unrecognizable meat, vegetables, and broth. Possibly a
combination of the previous few days' food, dumped into the broth to create a potential
food source. The woman beside her stirred it again and then took a sip. She grimaced a
little and tossed in a handful of salt.

"I didn't catch your name last night."

The girl turned and glared at her and went back to stirring the goo. Senritsuko
shrugged. "Well, do you have any tea?"

The girl grabbed a nearby, not too clean bowl and dished out a large helping of
the slop, then passed it to Senritsuko. She took the bowl and carefully pushed it to the
side, the smell made her nauseous. "Thanks."

"So I take it you're not a morning person." Senritsuko yawned, and rubbed herself
in an unlady like location. "I can understand that. Someday, I feel like killing everyone
on my block and then burring their bodies in the cellar." The leather-wearing woman
scooted away from her slightly. "You're no fun."

She stood up and wandered over to the still sleeping bandits, giving each one of
them a swift kick, trying to awaken the bunch of thugs, losers, and desperadoes. The
bandits grumbled but awoke, wandering around the camp in a confused collection,
mumbling and groaning. After a few minutes the gang had eaten the stew until nothing
remained, and then looked enquiringly at Senritsuko.

The girl finally had a chance to look at her band of rogues. Last night she could
have sworn that there were at least two dozen of the smelly men in the dark surrounding
her. In the bright sun it turned out to be a total of six. There were the two huge morons,
who had thrust her into leadership last night. A smaller man with a wicked knife and a
nasty grin. The woman in leather who was still ignoring her. And finally two nondescript
bandits whose faces were covered with scars and looked surprisingly disposable in their
bright red shirts.

At a loss for a better plan, Senritsuko sighed and said, "Well let's go watch the
road."


Which was how she'd ended up in that tree in the first place, watching the most
boring road of all time. After the first hour she began wishing that someone would come
down the road to be robbed. By the second hour she was hoping for anything alive. And
by the third hour she was calmly snoring when the woman in leather nudged her awake.

Walking slowly down the road were a priestess, who was being escorted by an
outrageously dressed man in armor, and a small woman fingering a dagger. The three
seemed to be searching the sides of the road for signs of something.

Senritsuko sighed. She motioned to the two big guys to notch their bows, while
she pushed the girl in leather out of the tree. The irritated woman fell a good ten feet
before landing on her rear. She stood up and dusted herself off, sending Senritsuko an
evil glare, as the twins and the priestess stopped walking and gazed at the woman who
had just tumbled out of a tree. The woman in leather waved a fist in Senritsuko's general
direction before planting her feet on the road and yelling, "Halt, thou art surrounded by
the heinous Blackberry Gang. Know that thy life's thread shall continue unsnipp'd only if
thou cooperates."

Above her, Senritsuko put her hands over her mouth trying to stop from laughing.
The "Blackberry Gang," what a completely non-ominous name for a gang. She would
have to change that if she was still in charge of the gang come this evening. Below her
the twins had agreed with her assessment and were breaking out in laughter as well.

"Girl, don't you know who we are?" Valeck said, taking a pose as his sister
sighed. "We're the Gabriev Twins and this young lady is the Priestess Kyoko, master of
the Dragon Slave! Your poorly named band is no match for us."

The girl in leather blinked once in confusion and then looked up to where
Senritsuko stood hidden in the trees. "Ye canst not cause me to fear, our leader is
stronger then ye!" The girl pointed up at Senritsuko, who moved deeper into the greenery.
"Know that thou are surrounded, throw thy valuables on the ground!"

"You hav' got to be kiddin' me." As Yuki grabbed for her dagger, a shot rang
out, missing her ear by an inch, and burying itself in the tree behind.. The girl slowly
moved her hand away from the dagger and smiled politely. "Just who is your leader?"
She asked through clenched teeth.

"It is I, Tomoe, the bandit queen!" Senritsuko yelled as she danced smoothly out
onto the limb of the large tree, exposing herself to the twins for the first time. "Now
hand thy valuables over to the fair lass or be skewered by yon arrows and my bonny gun."

Yuki cursed and then tackled her brother and the priestess throwing them into the
brush before Senritsuko could hope to get a shot off with any accuracy. To her left one
of the bruisers let loose an arrow after them. One of the two girls gave a high-pitched
scream of terror, before it became deathly silent in the forest.

Senritsuko jumped down from the limb and ran across to where the twins and the
priestess had disappeared. Behind her, only a breath away, the leather clad woman
charged. She ducked into the woods and felt a hand reach around her throat dragging her
through the brush. Senritsuko let herself be pulled. Next to her she saw Yuki force the
other woman by dagger point into the darkness with them. Seconds later, the pair of
bruisers and the red shirts ran into the brush and kept on going, failing to notice the fact
that they were no longer in that direction.

The twins finally pulled them into a clearing. Valeck pulled the revolver out of
Senritsuko's holster and jammed it down his pants, dropping her in a heap on the ground
next to the woman in leather.

"Ok, Tome, if that is you' 'eal nam', ho' much of a re'ard is their on your he'd."

"We can drop the act now. What the hell took you guys so long to find me." The
girl said, standing up "Damn it, I thought you two were supposed to be protecting me."

"You shot at me!" Yuki yelled, and grabbed up the girl, lifting her six inches off
the ground. "You shot at me!" Yuki repeated, slowly growling at Senritsuko as she pulled
the "bandit leader" within an inch of her face. The fact that Yuki was four inches taller
and had the body of a well-developed twenty year old, compared to Senritsuko's
appearance of being only a girl at the beginning of puberty, helped her. Senritsuko just
stared into the other girl's eyes until her arms finally grew tired. Yuki dropped Senritsuko
back onto the ground.

Senritsuko paused for a second, and then looked at the leather-clad woman and
then back to the twins and .Kyoko. "Let's get out of here."

"Thou wouldst leave? I knew thou wert not trustworthy," the woman in leather
said, as she pushed away from Valeck and stood up. Kyoko blinked at her in surprise.

"You actually speak like that? I thought it was just a joke," The priestess said,
playing with her long hair.

"So you all mock me. But then what should I expect from ones such as you."

"Hey, wait a minute, you're the bandit." Valeck said. Senritsuko tapped him and
pointed at her revolver. Sheepishly the big man handed it back. She carefully checked
the weapon, then fluidly pushed it back into its holster.

"Let's just go," the dark haired girl said, shifting her holster slightly.

"No, thou cannot leave, thou art the boss, thou must remain!" The woman in
leather latched an arm onto Senritsuko and started to drag her back in the direction they
had come from.

Senritsuko turned and faced the odd woman, irritation plain on her face. "Listen
lady, up till two minutes ago you wouldn't have given me the time of day. Now you want
me to be the boss! What gives?"

"Thou art soo cute."

"Bye." As Senritsuko turned to go, the girl wrapped her in a bear hug, leather
crushing against her back, and held a small knife to her neck.

"Senritsuko," Kyoko screamed, taking a step back in fear.

"Thou shalt all retreat, thy girl is leaving with me!" she yelled, dragging
Senritsuko towards the brush. The gunwoman, having gathered her wits enough to think,
yanked her gun out of its sheath and shot her captor in the foot.

Everyone paused as the echoes of the shot faded. Then the woman started to
scream hysterically, as she fell to the ground and cradled her injured foot. Senritsuko
took the chance to give the woman a kick in her gut.

"Senritsuko! How could you?" Kyoko scolded, the priestess ran over to the
woman and began trying to calm her down. "Shh... now relax so I can treat your wound."

Senritsuko gave the priestess an exasperated look. "Kyoko, she'll survive. Leave
her, we need to get out of here before we're forced to fight the rest of the bandits."

"I can't leave someone who's injured." The priestess replied. The twins exchanged
a glance, then went to opposite sides of the clearing and took cover. The white robed
priestess gently removed the leather-clad woman's boots until the wound was exposed.
Blood slowly oozed from the wound. The damage traveled through the entire foot with
both a small entrance wound and a much larger exit wound.

"Heal," the priestess sang out, her magic knitting tendons and bones. Blood
slowly dissipated from the edges of the wound, her patient's flesh being transformed into
live cells once more. In just a few minutes, the wound and the surrounding blood were
gone, and clean clear skin was all that remained. The priestess sighed and leaned back on
her heels.

The woman beside her hiccuped once and stared around numbly. The pain
disappeared in seconds. She stumbled back, then stood up quickly. Senritsuko fondled
the hilt of her gun with her left hand, nothing overt, since she drew with her right, but
still making sure the other woman knew that she was ready for any attack.

"Thou art a great boss. Lady Senritsuko, please continue to lead us. I apologize for
my hasty actions and the distress I have caused you. My name is Elizabeth El Betan,
Boss. I need your help in a most difficult matter."

Behind her, since no trouble had appeared, and now their battle group was back to
full power, Yuki and Valeck drifted away from the sides of the clearing. Yuki glared a
little at Senritsuko. "You shot her!"

"Well I didn't shoot you," Senrisuko pointed out. The girl left the "yet" said only
in her eyes. Kyoko slowly stood as well, her mind trying to figure out how Senritsuko
could have changed so much in the few years they had been apart. Kyoko turned her eyes
to the girl and gave her the look. The hairs on the back of Senritsuko's neck stood up and
she paused, confused. There was something wrong with her today, wasn't there? Then
she suddenly got angry. Who was this girl who kept telling her what to do? She felt her
right hand itching slowly across her body towards the revolver.

"...ady, I beg you please help me." Help... of course she had to help someone in
need. Senritsuko groaned and grabbed her head, a raging headache suddenly filling her
being. She dropped to her knees, wide-eyed in pain, before falling to the ground face
first.

***

Senritsuko awakened in a dark place. In the center of the room a fire flickered in
time with her heartbeat. To her right sat herself, and to her left sat herself. She paused,
finding it harder to understand why there was more than one of another one of her. For
some reason she and herself made sense in a dream, but three of her, that was odd.

The one on the right swam into focus as the one of the left drifted into darkness.
She stared at herself, as herself stared back. The girl blinked at her a slow lazy blink, and
then smiled politely offering her some tea.

The other one to her left was suddenly in sharp detail. She grinned, lopsidedly
and offered Senritsuko some tea. Senritsuko sat with her one cup of tea, she looked
down into the cup and stared at it watching the gold and black swirl together around the
tea leaf. Black and gold swirling together and then suddenly the mixture of colors were
suddenly divided into two cups. One cup of gold and one cup of black.

***

The black haired girl awoke with redness swimming before her eyes. Night had
settled around her while she was asleep, deep and desultory. She looked up at the full
moon, spots of red drifting in front of it, and wondered what was wrong with her. She
blinked once again and banished the red. She finally realized that this wasn't a dream and
decided to go back to sleep. The ground that she laid on was nice and comfortable and
warm.

"Boss, thou art awake." Senritsuko growled and closed her eyes, hoping the
woman would go away. Or if she was lucky be struck by lightning. No such luck, the girl
began shaking her. Senritsuko finally gave into the inevitable and sat up. The world
swam for a second in front of her eyes before settling down and remaining solid. She
blinked twice, removing the red haze away from her eyes once again.

"Boss, art thou okay?" the odd woman asked as she crouched down next to
Senritsuko. The girl hurriedly fell back, fumbling with her right hand towards her holster,
and came up empty. She backpedaled until she fell onto her rear, then jumped up, and
took a step backwards, only to run into Kyoko.

The priestess steadied Senritsuko. "While you were asleep we agreed to help the
nice woman you shot, so please act civilized." Yuki jumped out of a nearby tree and
nodded her agreement with the priestess.

"Why?! What could have made you agree with something so insane?" the girl
yelled. She forced her voice to calm down. "I would appreciate getting to Sairoon as soon
as possible because..." She paused and then brightly smiled at Yuki, " of personal
reasons."

"Boss the time taken for this endeavor is but a trifle. Thou shalt have no worries
concerning thy time taken from thee."

"Do you even listen to what comes out of your mouth?"

"Senritsuko, be pol'te." Yuki scolded the girl. "This is an ea'y job."

"It's simple. You just pass the cloak of leadership down to Elizabeth, and we
leave," Kyoko told her as she played once again with her long hair. "After all you don't
want be a bandit queen," she tilted her head to the side, "do you?"

Senritsuko groaned. For the hundredth time she wondered who this woman was.
Every so often she felt for just a second like she knew her. The woman obviously seemed
to think that she knew Senritsuko. She swallowed once and walked to the edge of the
clearing. Then she turned on her heel and stared at the twins, a nagging suspicion filling
her mind.

"So what are you getting out of this deal?"

"We get to know that we did a good deed. We help someone accomplish her goal.
We bring a dying man's dream to fruition." Kyoko said, smiling, then paused and blinked
for a second as the twins stared at her. "And we get our pick of the bandits' treasure."

"Treasure, who said anything about treasure? Wait a minute if I'm the boss of the
bandits that means it's my treasure!" Senritsuko eyed the other people in the clearing
suspiciously.

"Boss, then thou shalt help me."

"I didn't say that." Senritsuko said, still suspicious.

"Thou hast a kind heart." Elizabeth told the smaller girl.

"I feel like I just bought a bridge."

***

Senritsuko went back to cleaning her revolver, trying to pay very little attention to
the bandits around her. What type of plan was just to act normal? They were setting her
up, they had to be setting her up, she just didn't know exactly how. To her right Elizabeth
shifted and quaffed down another tankard of ale, as she quickly became smashed. Beside
her, Yuki refilled both their mugs before going into another randy verse of "The Lady
was a Dragon."

The gun woman groaned at the choice of songs for the fourth time and went back
to her final cleaning. The orihalcon almost glowed in the dim light from the light coat of
oil she had applied to it. Senritsuko spun the chamber listening to it slide smoothly, a
near perfect sound, as far as she was concerned. Carefully she loaded the six chambers
and then reaching down and emptied out one of the speed loaders and slid the cold blue
bullet into one of the chambers before securing the speed loader back onto her waist next
to the other one full of normal rounds.

She paused, and then unloaded her weapon again, before disassembling it.
Things had gone too well earlier and she felt on edge. Nothing for the last two weeks of
her life had gone well. Now here she was, giving up leadership of a bandit gang to the
former leader's daughter without a hitch. She saw an imagined spot of dust and cleaned
it.

A week ago Elizabeth's father had been killed, according to the girl. Killed by a
dagger through the heart while he was sleeping. Senritsuko shuddered a little at the
thought, thankful that she hadn't slept last night. Even worse, that meant whoever killed
the last boss would have to kill her tonight, or risk having their target in permanent
absence, leaving them at best second if they killed Elizabeth.

She inspected her weapon again, wishing that it was dirty, then looked at the
ground with a sigh. Senritsuko reassembled her weapon. She knew that she was being
used as a goat stacked out to attract the dragon. A damn decoy and it was all the twins'
fault, and that damned priestess. With a practiced flourish, she pushed the gun back into
its holster and stood up.

Shs slowly walked around the camp, almost tripping over Valeck, who was
passed out. Around her the majority of the bandits slept soundly without a worry. She
gazed at each one, trying to figure out which was the killer. She grumbled again to
herself. This was a personal matter, why was she involved? There had to be someone she
could blame. Behind her Yuki slumped down onto the ground, finally passing out from
the ale and leaving the camp in blessed peace. She suppressed a thought to go over there
and kick the girl, and realized that she wasn't going to sleep a wink all night, again. She
glanced over at Elizabeth, the only person still awake and realized she would rather talk
to the bear. That's whose fault it was, the bear's! She leaped up and took off into the
woods, off to find that damned bear.

About ten minutes later she realized that she was still afraid of bears, and she had
no idea where the hell she was. On the other hand no one was trying to kill her here. She
located a glade enveloped in moonlight and plopped down on a stump to look at the stars.
Above her the Dragon's teeth twinkled faintly in the dark, pointing the direction to the
navigator's star. Where the hell was she supposed to go now? What did it matter as long
as she had a journey. She leaned up against part of the stump and gathered her cloak
around her. In her mind she wandered through a dozen different possible futures and
slowly dozed off.

As the stars slowly spiraled above her, listening inattentively to her breathing, a
shadow left the tree line and slowly walked across the clearing. With careful shuffling
steps, well practiced to create the least sound, it crept towards her sleeping form. Without
a sound he pulled the blade from its oiled sheath, and fell to the ground dead. A young
priest, his eyes closed and carrying a large staff, looked down at the corpse, and opened
his eyes for a second. He stared oddly at the girl sleeping there, confusion on his face. He
finally disappeared in the darkness, as if he had never been.

The next morning, Senritsuko woke up with first light, cold and aching from the
odd position. In the early light as she stretched out her kinks. The road next to the bandit
camp easily visible from where she'd spent the night. The twins waved merrily to her
from the road, already ready to go. The bandit camp sat fifty feet to her left.

Senritsuko turned in the opposite direction, in search of a bear.