"What have you done?" one of the men she had knocked over wheezed as he slowly lifted himself from the floor.
Kia Min stared at the wide-eyed corpse of Yao Hong, blood streaming in rivers from the bamboo lodged in his throat. What had she done? This... this was not like her, this was not her. Yes, she had killed back in Two Rivers, when it was a matter of life or death, when those who had fallen by her staff would have killed innocents, and her friends, if she did not kill them first. But no matter how noble her intention had been, here, now, Kia Min had just murdered another human being, for no other reason than that he had been unwilling to cooperate.
Master Li, Smiling Mountain, and Weapon Master Gujin would not have approved. Wu and Dawn Star would have been horrified. And, oh, what would Ni Joh and Jing Woo have said?
She took in a deep breath and braced Yao Hong against the floor as she pulled her staff from his throat. She turned her attention to the gasping soldier, and to her shock he was not gaping at his fallen master but at her, as though he was her father who couldn't believe the monster she had just become.
Kia Min cleared her throat. "Where did he keep the villagers he was going to sell into slavery?"
"Y-you don't understand," said the man, his voice trembling, "what you have done."
He wasn't listening, so she tried again. "Where are they? I'm here to free them."
"None of us are free! Not anymore!" And then the man fell to the ground, and Kia Min thought she heard a hoarse sob. "We are doomed, we are doomed..."
Kia Min frowned. Yao Hong had either trained his men very well to think like him, or she had truly missed something. "What are you talking about?"
"T-the customer," he said in a harsh whisper, "h-he's on his way. Today. And he will enslave us all."
She knelt down in front of the man and gently placed a hand on his shoulder. "Who is this customer? A minister? A lord? This cannot be legal." She could not fathom the Emperor allowing this, but she remembered what Yao Hong and Wayfarer Wei had said about taxes. Maybe someone with wealth who could masquerade as someone with power?
"Worse," said the man. "He is a... a Lotus Assassin. And when he sees Yao Hong dead, he will take us all. When he sees that you killed him, he will kill you. There will be no one to stop him."
"Lotus Assassin?" Kia Min breathed, and she thought of the sorceror on the beach at Two Rivers. Rumors had spread--and Lin had helped it--that he had been an assassin, and when those black men tore through the town, Wen had called them assassins as well. Now it made sense; Wen had mentioned Lotus Assassins before with a trace of fear in his voice, and those must have been the men who took Master Li and killed many of the students.
She remembered the one she had managed to defeat, the only one to be defeated in Two Rivers that day, and how that man had been careless for only one second. Kia Min had survived on a fluke. She doubted she would be so lucky again.
For the life of her, could the Emperor really be sanctioning the enslavement of his own people? And was this Master Li's fate? But why just him, and not the rest of the town?
Not that she would wish that upon the people of Two Rivers, but at least they would have still been alive, and possible to rescue.
The man laughed sadly and staggered to his feet. "Now you see what you have done. Yao Hong was a good man. He paid us what he could afford. The silks he wore were given to him by the customer so he could maintain an image of power in the village. He did not raise the taxes; the customer imposed them. Yao Hong owes the customer five thousand silver a month, and if he cannot pay it he has to give the customer that amount in resources, and the only resource the customer will accept are slaves."
Kia Min shot a glance at the dead man beside her. "Why couldn't he have just told me?"
"For what purpose? The end result would have been the same."
She closed her eyes. What had she done? She had never been this careless before--had the fall of Two Rivers jaded her this much already? She thought of Wu the Lotus Blossom, and she wondered what the senior student would have done differently, and what would she do now?
But then, Kia Min remembered, she was not Wu, and Wu was not here. All Kia Min knew was that she could not walk away now. This was not as simple as kill Yao Hong and free the villagers. She had one more person to fight, and he would be here soon.
"How much longer until the customer gets here?" she asked.
"Any minute now. He comes by flyer."
"Alone?"
The man sounded shocked when he said, "You mean to fight him. You will die."
Kia Min smiled as she stood to face the man, who had wandered over to his unconscious companion. "You and Yao Hong both made it sound like an inevitability. If that is the case, if I am to die, I would rather die fighting, not running. If I am to die, I would rather die trying to save innocents than trying to preserve my own life. And at least this way, all of you have a chance at freedom."
"No matter how slim?"
"No matter how slim, it's worth fighting for."
They stared at each other, and then the men knelt down to check for the pulse of the other soldier. Kia Min kept her breaths controlled as she watched the man study the state of his companion. His brow creased, and he pursed his lips. She wasn't sure what she was expecting him to say, expecting him to do. All she knew was that no matter what this man did, she could only wait.
Finally, he stood back up, and he tightened his grip on his sword. "Alright," he said. "How can I help?"
Kia Min had seen these structures of wood and metal crash in an explosion of sparks and flames as they darkened the sky over Two Rivers. To see one land, almost delicately, in the field behind the old teahouse, only put her more ill at ease. She never saw the flyer that Master Li had been taken away in land, only fly away, and that was when those dark men--those Lotus Assassins--had finally retreated. The students thought it had been all over, and they had begun taken inventory of their fallen comrades. And then Gao's men came and she hated to remember the rest.
She made a careful effort not to avert her eyes towards the trees lining the field. Somewhere back there, Yao Hong's soldier had slinked off with the captive villagers. This customer may track them down, but at least if she fell here, they had a chance. She only hoped that the soldier could get back to Hehua in time to warn the others.
The flyer door creaked open and calmly walked out a man with dead skin and red-trimmed black robes. His hands were clasped behind him, and he wore a scowl, and Kia Min shivered as she recalled Yao Hong greeting her the same way. Nonetheless, she would be less rash with the customer and more ready for battle. This would not be easy.
"Where is Yao Hong?" the customer demanded. "Where are my slaves? The silver?" Kia Min noted how his last demand sounded more like an afterthought.
"He's dead," she said, "and there are no slaves for you. Or silver."
There was something oddly familiar about this man...
The customer narrowed his eyes, and Kia Min held her breath and carefully eyed his fists, his legs. She could not afford to be surprised by a swift attack. "You fool," he hissed. "If you are responsible, you will die. If you are not, you better start talking, and fast. I have little time and no patience to start a goose chase for measly little peasants."
Kia Min opened her mouth to say the retort she had carefully crafted, but the customer's demeanor changed, then.
"Wait," he said. "I know that uniform." He paused, and then his face darkened. "I knew we shouldn't have left the rest of the town to Gao's men! No matter, I'll finish the job, here and now."
"What?" Kia Min whispered.
And then she remembered, before the casks had hit the school, when she heard yelling all around her and screams from the village, and after Master Li had followed the red-masked man and the white-masked woman into the flyer, this man. He had glanced at the red mask, and he had delivered a final blow to his opponent... his opponent, the boy with the elaborate hairstyle who had come to the school a year after her. The only one besides Dawn Star to have ever gotten close to the senior student, and the one student Kia Min had felt comfortable confiding in...
"You!" She ripped out her staff from its holdings on her back. "You killed him!"
The customer snorted. "I killed lots of men." And then a wicked grin spread across his face. "But I remember the one you speak of. I remember you. Revenge for your lover, is it?"
"Not lover, friend," Kia Min hissed. "And a very important one."
He ignored her. "How much longer did he live after I left? I'm very interested to know. I had no interest in making his death quick and painless; he caused too much trouble for us."
In spite of herself, Kia Min smirked. "Well, he'd be delighted to know that we were that effective."
"Don't flatter yourself," the customer retorted. "You were nuisances like gnats, not wolves and tigers. Only one of ours fell to you pitiful students, and he was a fool. Come to think of it, he died by your hand." He laughed. "You really think you have a chance against me, don't you? Do you plan on hunting each of us down, one by one? You will not even survive this encounter."
"I wasn't here for revenge," said Kia Min. "I wasn't standing before you to right the wrongs in Two Rivers. I was here to right the wrongs in Hehua. Now, I guess I'm here to save this town and avenge the one I came from."
The customer continued to laugh. "You will die."
"So Yao Hong kept telling me," she said. "I'm well prepared for it. Are you?"
"Fool," he spat, "I hope you enjoyed those last words of yours."
Kia Min let him attack first, and she ducked beneath his charging form. As he leaped over her, she somersaulted to gather some distance between them. They spun to face each other, and the customer snickered.
"Not too bad," said he, and a green glow emanated around his hands and he fell into a viper stance. "Have you ever fought with poison?"
"You're that sure of yourself," she said to herself. She hoped that it was not merited, and that he would be much like Gao the Lesser in that respect.
This time when he charged, Kia Min did not dodge. She lunged forward with her staff and she did not allow herself to be surprised when she landed one, and then two, blows upon his torso. He rolled to the side, and she followed suit, and they circled around each other some time more. Back in Two Rivers, she realized, the students who remained standing by the time the dark men disappeared were the ones who fought with staffs, and Jing Woo, though he was barely on his feet when Gao's men raced through the school.
The Lotus Assassins, she realized, did not fight with weapons. She had a longer reach; this was her one advantage. But she had to be careful, because this was always her one advantage against Wu as well. The senior student always knew it and compensated. Kia Min had no reason to expect that the customer would be any different.
He moved quickly and silently, and Kia Min tried her best to keep up. Suddenly, he was gone from her sight, and she barely had time to spin around before she fell forward when a hard slap hit her on the back of her head. She staggered back to her feet and held her head, the trees and teahouse blurring together, and she felt three more blows to her head.
As she fell, she remembered the technique Smiling Mountain had taught her, and she turned so that she would land on her back, her arms widespread. She blinked hard once, her vision clearing in just enough time to roll away from a hand slice from the customer, and she hopped to her feet. That poison was effective. A cheap trick, but effective.
The customer smirked. "Now I see how you survived the attack on your town," he said. "You're smart, witty, and quick. You could almost be a Lotus Assassin yourself, with the right training."
Kia Min scowled. "I did receive the right training," she said, "but not to become a monster like you."
"I like you," said the customer with a laugh. "Too bad you must die. Enough talk, enough play. I'll at least let you die quickly and painlessly." A beat, and a sickening sneer. "Unlike your friend."
It was only later did Kia Min realize that the customer had brought up Jing Woo again to provoke her into making a mistake. But the moment he said that, she had had enough. She barely remembered the fight, only that she took significantly less hits than she gave, and when she heard a loud crack she worried that she had broken her one advantage, her one chance at survival. Then the customer fell, his neck bent unnaturally, and his horrified face unmasking every dark facet within his soul for eternity.
Kia Min glanced at the bamboo staff in her hands, and it was in no worse condition than before the fight. She fought back a grin. Who knew that a weapon used in practice bouts could be so effective?
With the customer dead, and she kicked at him a few times and waved a hand in front of his eyes rapidly to be sure, Kia Min wandered into the woods to find the soldier and the forever safe villagers of Hehua.