Despite Hai-Yong's urging that she should let Kiisan and Carlos see her in the dress, Falina refused to wear it back to the miniature camp outside of Rupanda. "It's not the kind of thing you wear to a battlefield. I don't want it to get dirty," she told her friend.

There was little he could say. The dress was quite a bit nicer than anything any other rebel was wearing around the camp. Even those who did not participate in battle. The wavy-haired man agreed and they went on their way, back to see what progress had been made during their absence. Kiisan welcomed them with a smile, "Hey, you're back!"

"Yep," Falina smiled back, "You look a bit less cheerful, Kiisan. Has the snow got you down?"

"Yeah...I know that it's not much, but...anything that could slow our progress, even just a little bit, isn't very attractive to me at this point." He sighed, "The Imperial Compound it like a turtle's shell. We just can't find a way to get in. Jeiku, Kanna, and Sowari brought out some grappling hooks earlier and tried to scale the walls. Kanna was a little clumsy with it, but Jeiku and Sowari made it about halfway before the Imperials realized what we were doing."

"What happened then?" Hai-Yong inquired curiously. Falina squirmed nervously. She hoped that no one had been injured.

"Well, the guards on the wall caught sight of them and decided to try and cut the ropes," Kiisan continued, "Now, Jeiku had brought hooks with some pretty thick ropes, let me tell you that, so while they were hacking at the ropes, those two are hurrying as fast as they can...however, Jeiku kept going up, while Sowari slid back down to the bottom. Kanna wasn't high, so she just jumped to the ground. Jeiku actually made it up to the top before the rope was cut."

"Wow!" Falina gasped, "He must be a really good climber!"

"He is..." the priest agreed, "I've never seen a human go so fast in all my life.""So...after he got onto the wall?" Hai-Yong prompted his companion.

"He was out of breath and so he tried to fight the soldiers, but wasn't doing so well...All we could do was watch from the ground. He gave them a pretty hard time, but eventually he couldn't take anymore. He waved to us and jumped off the wall..." Kiisan explained.

"Is- is he okay?" Falina asked, her face turning pale.

"He's one tough guy, I'll tell you that..." the young man said with a faint smile on his face, "He broke his arm. That was it. He's pretty much fine, actually."

"Falina! Hai-Yong!" a cheerful voice called to them, "Have you heard about my climbing escapade?"

All three turned to see Jeiku approaching, his splinted arm in a sling, "Hello there!"

Falina and Hai-Yong gaped. "See," Kiisan shrugged, "What did I tell you?"

Murasaki Fuji no Shita ni Kuni

"The Country Under the Purple Wisteria"

Chapter 87- A Long Way From...

Sanada was frustrated about the strength of the palace walls. Lucien had sent up some of kites and used them to drop pebbles and fragments of glass into the compound, but the amounts he could raise that high were very small and so little damage was inflicted. Whenever any kind of plan to storm the walls was concocted, Imperial archers warded off the rebels' attempts. So work had resumed on the catapult Sanada had commissioned before. Tiro was confident in his aunt and older brother's ability to build something that could demolish even the strongest wall. Sanada only hoped that he was right.

"It's practically done already, Lady Sanada," Natchi assured the strategist, "Actually, it's finished. We just need to get some wheels on it so that we can move it here. ...I don't know how we'll get it through the narrow parts of the city, but we'll do it somehow! You didn't hire me and the crew for nothing!"

"Fine, fine," she replied, "I don't care how you do it, just please try and accomplish it as quickly as possible."

"You got, Ma'am!" he saluted eagerly before heading back to Jao-Nyang to assist his crew with the fitting of the wheels.

"You sure know how to hire some effective people," Mio commented, watching Natchi set off.

Sanada shrugged, "It comes with experience."

The orange-haired man smiled and stepped closer to his companion. She put a hand on his shoulder, "But I could never have hired someone like Louis Abdul or Kiisan...I mean, you sure know what idealists to hitch your star to."

"Oh Sanada...," Mio shook his head.

By the time Natchi returned to Jao-Nyang, the catapult was ready to go. Eastlia and August sat on it, the pretty woman brushing off the light dusting of snow it had acquired. Diel leaned against one of the large wheels, gazing pleasantly at his wife and child. As their leader approached, the workers began to grin at each other, waiting to see his look of astonishment at what they had accomplished during his absence. "I hope he doesn't faint," Hasa Ren nudged Hasaki.

"If he faints, then we'll just have to take it to Rupanda without him," the strong man replied.

Finally, Natchi had come close enough for his eyes to widen and his mouth to fall open. He rushed to the catapult and looked it up and down in awe. "It's out of the yard! I'm gone for an hour and you've got this whole thing rolling!" he gaped, then smiled, his eyes shining, "Great work everybody!"

"Well, you told us to get cracking," Hasaki shrugged.

"We follow your instructions to the best of our abilities, Sir," Hasa Ren reminded Natchi.

The white-armored man laughed, "That's true, that's all true! So now we'll have to hitch up some horses to help us move it! We're going back to Rupanda!"

It was fairly dim in the tent. Kiisan sat on an uneven wooden stool and skimmed the pages of a book Sanada had given him. It seemed interesting enough, but he was not really in a reading mood at the moment. He closed it and set it aside. He would have to return to it later.

"Kiisan..." Falina said quietly.

"What is it?" he inquired. They were alone in the tent.

"I want to go somewhere far away," she told her friend.

Kiisan blinked, "Huh? Far away? Like where?"

The dark-haired girl shrugged, "I don't know...Like Anamaria's Tsurae Kingdom, or the Grasslands, or the far south..."

"I think I'm going to stay here for a while...make sure everything's going to be peaceful and harmonious in the new nation...But I'd go with you," he smiled, closing his eyes, "It wouldn't have to be a revolution...It could be an...adventure..."

Falina ran across the tent and flung her arms around Kiisan, "You would? You wouldn't just stay here and become king or something?"

"Falina," he chuckled, "Think about me. Do you honestly think I'd like to a king? ...I have enough trouble trying to be in charge of these people here. I think the strategists do a lot of the real work for me..."

They stayed together like that, Kiisan sitting on the stool and Falina with her arms around him, in the dim silence, for a long while before anyone spoke again, "We're a long way from home, aren't we?"

She sighed, "We sure are are."